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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Can the latest MacBooks Pros playback 8k RED files in say 1/4 res?

AndreasOberg

AndreasOberg

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I need a laptop that is quite light weight and can offload media in the field.
Would be nice if it can also review videos when the need arises (this of course uses MUCH more battery).

Looking a bit at Apple MacBook Pro because they have good battery and are well built. Just wondering can it playback 1/4 res of 8k files or is that too much for it?

Problem with the gaming style laptops with Nvidia cards is they usually have horrible battery power.
Thanks,
Andreas
 
I just tested my Mac book Pro 2017 - 2.8GHZ i7 16GB Ram - Radeon Pro 555 2GB and it plays 5K Gemini Files with 1/4 res.

I don't have any 8K files on my laptop at the moment to test.
But if you really need the playback redcine-x does buffer, so you can let it preload, and then playback.
 
I have the new 2019 MacBook Pro 15" 1TB SSD, 2.4 ghz 8-Core I9, 32gb ram, Radeon Pro Vega 20 4gb and edit with Samsung T5 and the new X5 external SSD's I can playback full-res Gemini 5k files in FCPX with little hiccup.
 
Hi guys thanks for all the thoughts.

For those that have the newer Macbook Pro. Would it be possible to download an 8k video and test the playback.
I know from using Red Epic 5k files, that 5k files are a LOT easier to playback than 8K. It is not only that the computation needs are higher but there also seem to put a strain on memory transport.

https://www.red.com/sample-r3d-files

Björn, the harddrives are mainly important if you are skimming in the timeline, then the read speed can go up all the way to 2000MB/s. However when you playback it is rarely more than 200MB/s which any SSD can handle.

The benefits I see with Apple is:
- Very well built. This is the biggest problem with all PC laptops, I do not trust the build quality of most of them.
- very reliable
- strong power in USB, this can be a problem with driving 4TB SSD, not all laptops can handle it

Downsides
- no Nvidia GPU so far slower with everything Red.
- I do not like their format on harddrives since we use PC for everything else
- expensive

Cheers!
Andreas
 
Anyone tried the Lenovo Thinkpad range?
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/P1-Gen-2/p/22WS2WPP102

They have a Quadro T2000 4GB that should be a bit faster than the vega 20 in Apple. I would think the Quadro will be much faster in Redcine as well since it is Nvidia.
The Lenovo range seem to be one of the few PC laptops that are really well built as well.

Andreas
 
Andreas, I too have the latest maxed out MacBook Pro and in Redcine-X Pro and Red Player, it plays 8K just fine, but at 1/8 rez.

Bob has better toys.
 
All I can say is, I tried playing back 8K Raw last year at 1/8th resolution on a music video project, and my poor Trashcan Mac almost caught on fire. Not a wise idea. We were able to finish it, but only with great difficulty... and the render took several hours (for a 3-minute song).

Moving forward, I'd recommend a 4K or 5K workflow using high-quality transcodes. Either that, or many times more CPU power, RAM, and GPU power. I would bet one of the new full-tilt 2019 Mac Pros could do it pretty well, but that's not a laptop.
 
Marc Wielage said:
All I can say is, I tried playing back 8K Raw last year at 1/8th resolution on a music video project, and my poor Trashcan Mac almost caught on fire. Not a wise idea. We were able to finish it, but only with great difficulty... and the render took several hours (for a 3-minute song).

Moving forward, I'd recommend a 4K or 5K workflow using high-quality transcodes. Either that, or many times more CPU power, RAM, and GPU power. I would bet one of the new full-tilt 2019 Mac Pros could do it pretty well, but that's not a laptop.
Click to expand...

Yes trashcan is possibly the worst. But pretty much any machine with a 1080ti plays back half debayer 8k no big needs for ram or CPU.

My hackingtoch machines with only one ti1080, 18core i9 and 128gb ram plays 8k full res no problems.

If not insisting on Mac then the new Oled razor laptop would be my choice. As I see it it has better build quality than MacBooks, a Oled 4k screen which is really nice. And with the 2080ti it does 8k full debayer no problem without even using the GPU. But yes its a PC. I hate PCs :)
 
Bob Gundu said:
I have the latest maxed out MacBook and playing back 8K Red files at quarter quality decode doesn't skip a beat using the Screen App.

https://videovillage.co/screen/
Click to expand...
That is interesting Bob. Will check it out. How does it playback in Redcine?

So the limitations will be like this
AMD
CPU is the main limitation
After that the GPU

Nvidia
CPU does not really matter in Redcine
GPU does all the work. 1080 GTX can easily playback half debayer. Almost fullres, I got 20-22fps on 1080 GTX.

I readup about the Sony Lenovo. Quite nice GPUs. T2000. However apperently almost no cooling so the cpu will clock down a LOT after just a few seconds. Poor cooling is always a problem, but then the Macbook Pros will have problems with cooling too.

Cheers
Andreas
 
1/4 in Redcine plays as well without hiccups.


AndreasOberg said:
That is interesting Bob. Will check it out. How does it playback in Redcine?

So the limitations will be like this
AMD
CPU is the main limitation
After that the GPU

Nvidia
CPU does not really matter in Redcine
GPU does all the work. 1080 GTX can easily playback half debayer. Almost fullres, I got 20-22fps on 1080 GTX.

I readup about the Sony Lenovo. Quite nice GPUs. T2000. However apperently almost no cooling so the cpu will clock down a LOT after just a few seconds. Poor cooling is always a problem, but then the Macbook Pros will have problems with cooling too.

Cheers
Andreas
Click to expand...
 
Bob Gundu said:
1/4 in Redcine plays as well without hiccups.
Click to expand...

I'll have to disagree with Bob on this one. On my setup, only 1/8 plays without hiccups. 1/4 eventually catches up and freezes a bit. Tested this last night on my 15", 2.4GHz, 8-Core Intel Core i9 with 32GB 2400MHz DDR4, with Radeon Pro Vega 20 4GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536MB and 4TB SSD.

One caveat might be the compression used. I was using the RED sample file: w8kvv-sth-24fps-4to1redcode_FF and perhaps that was slowing it down more than what he tried. What sort of compression were you using Bob?
 
Mark Phelan said:
I'll have to disagree with Bob on this one. On my setup, only 1/8 plays without hiccups. 1/4 eventually catches up and freezes a bit. Tested this last night on my 15", 2.4GHz, 8-Core Intel Core i9 with 32GB 2400MHz DDR4, with Radeon Pro Vega 20 4GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536MB and 4TB SSD.

One caveat might be the compression used. I was using the RED sample file: w8kvv-sth-24fps-4to1redcode_FF and perhaps that was slowing it down more than what he tried. What sort of compression were you using Bob?
Click to expand...
That is interesting to hear Mark. I think 1/4 is the lowest acceptible for inspecting sharpness. Then you can usually do 1/2 for shorter bursts. Thanks for testing!
Leaning towards a Lenovo with Quadro RTX5000 16GB. 2.5kg heavy
 
Bob Gundu said:
I have the latest maxed out MacBook and playing back 8K Red files at quarter quality decode doesn't skip a beat using the Screen App.

https://videovillage.co/screen/
Click to expand...

Damn, Bob, can you start a "Gundu Recommendations" thread? You find some of the coolest stuff, and I've downloaded/purchased a number of things you've recommended on these forums hah!
 
Mark Phelan said:
I'll have to disagree with Bob on this one. On my setup, only 1/8 plays without hiccups. 1/4 eventually catches up and freezes a bit. Tested this last night on my 15", 2.4GHz, 8-Core Intel Core i9 with 32GB 2400MHz DDR4, with Radeon Pro Vega 20 4GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536MB and 4TB SSD.

One caveat might be the compression used. I was using the RED sample file: w8kvv-sth-24fps-4to1redcode_FF and perhaps that was slowing it down more than what he tried. What sort of compression were you using Bob?
Click to expand...

You are correct Mark. 4:1 compression at 8k is not happening. But it’s not that common to shoot with that low compression at 8k.
 
Bob Gundu said:
You are correct Mark. 4:1 compression at 8k is not happening. But it’s not that common to shoot with that low compression at 8k.
Click to expand...

Good point, Bob. I downloaded a couple other clips from RED to see what worked at 1/4 on the newest Mac. The epicw8k-standard-24fps-7to1redcode_16x9 clip did not work at 1/4, but it was on the cusp. Ran for a few seconds, almost to the end before freezing. However the w8kvv-sth-48fps-10to1redcode_FF.RDC clip DID work at 1/4. So somewhere between 7:1 and 10:1 is the sweet spot for Redcine at 1/4.
 
AndreasOberg said:
That is interesting to hear Mark. I think 1/4 is the lowest acceptible for inspecting sharpness. Then you can usually do 1/2 for shorter bursts. Thanks for testing!
Leaning towards a Lenovo with Quadro RTX5000 16GB. 2.5kg heavy
Click to expand...

If you can handle the weight, the Dell 7740 with RTX5000 will play back 8k full debayer all day and the fans hardly even spin up. 4x m.2 sockets, up to 128 ram, and 2 TB3 ports. I am not familiar with the Lenovo but would image it is similar.
 
Get a Razer or an Aero with RTX. Mac ecosystem and its incompatibility with nVidia is simply not suited to 8k.
 
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