Macbook Pro Retina for RED editing on CS6?

[Brian Lehrer]

Hey everyone,

Can anyone offer a bit of advice? I am stressing and could definitely use some peace of mind, or a firm no.

I like everyone else was looking for a better update to the Mac Pro, but alas...while the current Mac Pro is a beast of sorts, its expensive and lacks Thunderbolt, etc.
I am, however, pretty impressed with the new Retina Macbook Pro, and I have been needing to update my 17" 2009 CoreDuo MBP for awhile now with something better.
So I'm about to pull the trigger on that, BUT:

Thing is, I have a RED music video project to edit (and do some color grading work on, as well as minor AfterFX work), and I need to know whether or not I can manage an edit in RAW with such a machine using Adobe Premiere CS6. Will likely be editing on a 2K or 1080p timeline as I will be delivering for web. We shot on Epic @ 5K, as well as 2K for slow motion. Happy to monitor at 1/2 or 1/4 resolution for playback, as long as final video quality is not affected.

I will be editing off a Thunderbolt RAID, and color - if it doesn't end up being done by a pro colorist on DaVinci - will be done by myself via a Thunderbolt I/O device such as a T-Tap or UltraStudio3D to a broadcast monitor and either through SpeedGrade, Apple Color, or on the timeline with Red Giant Colorista2 and Looks (I have all of these programs).

I am looking at the fully maxed out Retina Macbook Pro 15" (2.7Ghz i7 with Turbo Boost, 16GB RAM, 768 GB SSD, 1GB NVIDIA GPU).

I know I could get a PC desktop and have plenty of power on tap, but I do value my mobility and MacOS (and all the app licenses tied to MacOS) for the time being, and as I very rarely edit projects shot on RED myself, I would rather hold on buying a big heavy and expensive powerhouse PC desktop for a bit longer if I can get away with it. And I don't feel comfortable investing in a MacPro tower without Thunderbolt - if that ever comes out even...

So while I have heard of some people handling basic RED edits without much issue on Premiere on laptops (including a friend of mine), I wanted to seek a more definitive answer as to whether or not this project is feasible, or a fool's errand on such a machine.
Hoping I don't need a Red Rocket in a Thunderbolt enclosure either, as I might as well buy a 12-core desktop for the price.

Please let me know if I can answer any further questions. Thank you so much, I know these types of queries can be annoying, but I really need a helping hand.

Best,

Brian Lehrer

 

[Jaakko Rinne]

For editing it should suffice. I don't see there being any problems running 1/4 res with that setup in CS6. Beyond that, if anyone can chime in on how the GT 650M will fare with CUDA processing, I too would like to know.

 

[Brian Lehrer]

FYI the edit will be using prodigious amounts of speed ramping and Twixtor, as well as scaling - so while that's all in premiere effects, I don't know if that will make things more difficult...

 

[Alexander Thomson]

Consider the speed of the storage. That'll be the major bottleneck if it's anything less than ESATA. I'm really excited to try this setup out! Looks like a great machine.

 

[Brian Lehrer]

Storage will be a RAID 0 or RAID 1 G-RAID on Thunderbolt. Not quite as fast as a Pegasus system but should still be quite speedy...so stoage speed should be good. I'm mostly concerned about the processor and GPU being up to snuff. I hope they are!
Any other opinions?
Thanks everyone for offering help

 

[DJ Meyer]

It will work at 1/8 to 1/4 res but the fans will be running pretty much the whole time. It would be better with a mobile rocket as well. But if you want to edit mobile its your best shot.

 

[Kwan Khan]

T-Tap won't be available anytime soon

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

T-Tap won't be available anytime soon

What makes you say that? Last update I heard said it was still on track for the second half of this month. That said, the T-Tap won't be of any use with Resolve. For proper monitoring out of Resolve, you will need a supported device like the UlstraStudio.

I'm really interested in the new MBP with Retina. I'm going to wait for the initial reviews and play with one myself before I order though... Everything looks great on it, but I wish I could get it with 32GB RAM. Dual TB and USB3 ports along with the screen seem to make it a no-brainer though. I'll probably kick myself for waiting.

As of right now we'll have to modify the GPU list to make the system work with CS6. Looks like Adobe wants to support it officially though -- I saw one of the Adobe guys here, as well as on their Twitter feed, request that people submit a support request for supporting the 650M GPU in CS6. That's probably one way Adobe gauges interest in which features or updates to prioritize. Either way, 650M is reasonably good for CUDA, for a low-power mobile device, that is.. It should do well and fit together capability-wise with the rest of the system... I've been editing a lot with Macbook Pro systems off and on with Adobe Premiere, since R3D native support arrived 3.5 years ago in CS4. As others have pointed out, one of the biggest factors is how fast your storage space is. The number one bottleneck on most mobile systems is storage. After that, it's CPU power, which has significantly increased over the past few years anyway. Just be reasonable about your settings and you'll be fine.

You may want to consider a Thunderbolt expander box with a Rocket card if you will be doing any significant amount of transcoding for workflows that use that approach. For CS6, it's not necessary. 99% of the time I do transcodes, it's for clients. There's always clients who feel they need it or need a workflow that works that way.

 

[Kwan Khan]

What makes you say that?

I'm on the list and availability supposed to be June 15 2012.
Contacted AJA and found... "T-Tap are ready still waiting for Thunderbolt certification (and they have no idea how long it will take).

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

Cause I need an urgent solution, I just discovered that you can get the non retina in 2-3 days. With a 27", this could be a nice setup.

I see no other difference other than the display and the flash memory.

maby someone could give his thougths on flas vs SSD., is it that much faster then ssd?

 

[Johnny Friday]

Well, i just placed my FEATURE REQUEST to Adobe: yes, we really need CUDA support for this card and FAST - NOW

REQUESTS go here: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

I also am unfamiliar with Flash memory vs. SSD -- but i did order the Retina Display version. Just wish there was the new chipset out.....i see it't the same i7 processor i have on my 2010 macbook pro....BUT, all the other goodies got me to bite and need them now....

 

[Brian Lehrer]

Thanks for the informative response Jeff -
I'm not happy to hear that the T-Tap is not supported by Resolve. It's not that big a deal, as I can use other apps to color or port the whole project to a different computer for DaVinci, but I certainly was expecting it to work. I did not know that BlackMagic only supports their own I/O devices for Resolve. What a pain!
As it's back ordered I can still cancel my order on the T Tap and get the Ultra Studio, but I would rather get the Express model ($500) as I don't need all the full model's functionality. Alternatively, they also have a USB3.0 version, which might be a good idea as it will free up my Thunderbolt ports more, which will already have a monitor, a RAID, and in the future, potentially a PCIe enclosure. Thoughts? Any disadvantage to the USB3.0 model or the Thunderbolt Express Model? No hope that the T Tap will be supported by Resolve in the future? The price sounded too good to be true...one extra pain is if I ever wanted to use an HP Dreamcolor, the T Tap apparently would support it with RGB, whereas the Black Magic products require another $500 additional product. However, I will probably use a Flanders as my first owned grading monitor, so whatever.

As to the Macbook Retina - I'm hoping my order pays off - since I already placed it. Really hope I'm not kicking myself and borrowing a friend's tower just to finish my edit down the road.
If all I have to do is modify the GPU list, I've down that before, pretty simple. Obviously official support would be better.

As you say, the number one bottleneck is storage space, but since I'm editing off a RAID via Thunderbolt, that should be pretty darn quick. You say, next is CPU, which is where I'm mostly concerned because no matter how I slice it, the MBP Retina is still a Quad Core. (Geekbench score b/w 12,000-13,000) Hopefully it'll make due. I'm used to rendering for effects and color on the timeline on my current model anyway, hopefully the Retina will just render relatively fast...

I would definitely be down for a Thunderbolt expander if not for the price of the Red Rocket itself. For that extra $5000, I'm already 3/4 of the way to a nice 12-core tower with a Quadro, so it almost seems silly to me, no? Or am I missing something?
Anyone know where to rent Red Rockets in LA and for how much they go for?
I'm not planning on transcoding - trying to edit raw for color purposes and mostly because we are resizing a lot of stuff. Would a Red Rocket really assist in a non-transcode workflow?

Thanks for your super helpful post!

 

[Brian Lehrer]

Cause I need an urgent solution, I just discovered that you can get the non retina in 2-3 days. With a 27", this could be a nice setup.

I see no other difference other than the display and the flash memory.

maby someone could give his thougths on flas vs SSD., is it that much faster then ssd?

I'm pretty sure "Flash" and "SSD" are the same technology, just Flash memory is what Apple calls their "Air" style SSD that has no standard casing. Should be very similar performance wise.

The other Macbooks available now are indeed very similar to the Retina - just the screen and hard drive options are different (you can get a 768GB SSD on the Retina, where as you are limited to 512GB SSD on the non-Retina, though you can get a 750GB HDD) and you can get 16GB RAM on the Retina, where as I believe you are limited to 8GB on non-Retina.
Other than that, the Retina has a 2nd Thunderbolt port, and 2 USB 3.0 ports, but is missing Ethernet, FW800 (though there will be an adapter for both of these), and an Optical Drive.

 

[Brian Lehrer]

It will work at 1/8 to 1/4 res but the fans will be running pretty much the whole time. It would be better with a mobile rocket as well. But if you want to edit mobile its your best shot.

Copy that - hopefully 1/4 will work out since 1/8 is a bit sketchy to watch (I hope my fast storage and i/o help me out here).
Mobile (Thunderbolt) Rocket would be great, but very expensive.
I hope the new "quieter" fans on the Retina model help keep the noise down.

Appreciate the advice!

 

[Tehben Dean]

With my 2011 maxed out MBP I can edit 4k smoothly in PPro off internal 7200rpm drive at 1/4res but 5k is choppy even at 1/8th. Hopefully a raid and the processor and memory boost of the MBPR changes this. And a mobile rocket should def help get 5k playback at 1/2res or beyond I'm guessing...

 

[Tehben Dean]

I should have a mobile setup with the new retina MBP, thunderbolt rocket and thunderbolt raid next month. Someone else will probably beat me to it but I will report findings. I think this is a very promising setup for mobile work or non hardcore post setups and absolutely perfect for data management and onset work.

 

[Brian Lehrer]

With my 2011 maxed out MBP I can edit 4k smoothly in PPro off internal 7200rpm drive at 1/4res but 5k is choppy even at 1/8th. Hopefully a raid and the processor and memory boost of the MBPR changes this. And a mobile rocket should def help get 5k playback at 1/2res or beyond I'm guessing...

That's really encouraging to hear, Tehben. I'll be working with the new Retina (maxed out specs) off external Thunderbolt Raid, so hopefully I'll be able to edit at 1/4 with 5K footage. I'm also editing in a 1080p timeline and scaling everything down and/or reframing my shots since output is for web...does this make editing performance faster or slower? As in I'm not playing back a 4K or 5K timeline, but a 1080p timeline that holds 2K, 4K and 5K footage.

Would love a mobile rocket but can't justify the cost of the card for just a laptop (I'm not a hardcore DIT type).

 

[Brian Lehrer]

What makes you say that? Last update I heard said it was still on track for the second half of this month. That said, the T-Tap won't be of any use with Resolve. For proper monitoring out of Resolve, you will need a supported device like the UlstraStudio.

Thanks for the heads up on the Resolve incompatibility. I've only used Resolve on suite machines that I did not set up myself...so I had no idea that Black Magic only supports their own hardware for Resolve.

I switched out my order for the new Black Magic UltraStudio Express instead. Basically the same thing as the UltraStudio 3D but without 3D ability, 4:2:2 instead of 4:4:4, no 2K just 1080p, etc. But still has SDI and HDMI out and should be more than enough for me to hook up to a broadcast HD monitor or plasma for accurate color at 1080p23.98. (Not on Dreamcolor though as BM products are YUV only I think?). Half the price of the 3D model.

Mostly I want it to hook up to my friends calibrated plasma and Panasonic 25" broadcast monitors. So I should be good either way.

 

[Jaakko Rinne]

I see no other difference other than the display and the flash memory.

With the Retina MBP you don't have to sacrifice a Thunderbolt port or its bandwidth to use an external display, since it has an HDMI out. And the Retina version also has two TB ports while the regular version has just one.

 

[Mark Toia]

Band width is not the problem with Laptops... its the over working of the CPU that's the problem at the moment. You will find that your FAN will turn because the CPU is getting flogged.. and the laptop starts to slow.... and then playback suffers, and then it jam's.... A restart of the program has to take place. It's something Adobe are aware of and I'm sure will fix soon I hope.
I'm keen to get back on it.