The new iMac Pro able to handle 8K files with a breeze?

[adam brennan]

Thoughts on the New iMac Pro and if it will easily handle 8K?

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Many of us got a sneak peek of both FCPX and the new iMac Pro at the Creative Summit back in October. The iMac Pro was shown playing unrendered 8K optimized RED footage quite easily. Of course, that was in FCPX so I don't know about other apps. The photo at the bottom of the page here indicates the resolution.

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/new...curves-colour-controls-and-360-tools-built-in


And, here is more evidence of the 8K timeline playback in FCPX:

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/art...ors-test-new-imac-pros-before-official-launch

Here is a quote from the article listed immediately above:

"Next I decided to push the resolution right up and see how it might handle a ludicrous 8K timeline with footage shot on the Panavision Millennium DXL. With 8K ProRes 4:4:4:4 files, the iMac Pro played the sequence back perfectly. Even after adding a couple of color corrections and a blur to the clips it still didn’t drop a frame. I should add that this was playing back at better quality and without rendering. I’ll repeat that once more. 8K. Color correction. Blur. No Rendering. No “1/4 quality” BS. No frames dropped."

 

[adam brennan]

Terry thank you for taking the time to respond!! I am so tempted to buy but I want to see what the new MacPro will do when it comes out. I need something better than my 2013 MacPro for my 8K footage. Just awesome that there's a Mac out there that can handle 8K!

Many of us got a sneak peek of both FCPX and the new iMac Pro at the Creative Summit back in October. The iMac Pro was shown playing unrendered 8K optimized RED footage quite easily. Of course, that was in FCPX so I don't know about other apps. The photo at the bottom of the page here indicates the resolution.

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/new...curves-colour-controls-and-360-tools-built-in


And, here is more evidence of the 8K timeline playback in FCPX:

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/art...ors-test-new-imac-pros-before-official-launch

Here is a quote from the article listed immediately above:

"Next I decided to push the resolution right up and see how it might handle a ludicrous 8K timeline with footage shot on the Panavision Millennium DXL. With 8K ProRes 4:4:4:4 files, the iMac Pro played the sequence back perfectly. Even after adding a couple of color corrections and a blur to the clips it still didn’t drop a frame. I should add that this was playing back at better quality and without rendering. I’ll repeat that once more. 8K. Color correction. Blur. No Rendering. No “1/4 quality” BS. No frames dropped."

 

[jussi rovanpera]

8k prores files

 

[Terry VerHaar]

8k prores files

Here is what else Thomas Carter (who, btw, is an awesomely fast editor) had to say in first first spin on the iMac Pro:

"Yes, 8K is an impressive number, but I was also interested to see how it might handle a less friendly codec like R3D, a notoriously heavy codec for computers to decode/debayer and playback at full quality. The maximum I managed to test here was 5K Red RAW footage in a 5K timeline. Again, best quality and unrendered. Adding color correction, resizes and titles didn’t cause the machine to drop frames. The sequence played through smoothly, which is nuts."

Full discussion here:

http://postperspective.com/first-impressions-apples-new-imac-pro/

 

[adam brennan]

8k prores files

I didn't think the Epic W did pro res in 8K?

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I didn't think the Epic W did pro res in 8K?

I think you're right but these files were optimized inside FCPX so I assume they are 8K ProRes.

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

Why edit in 8k, or even 4k?

What's the point? Surely it's smarter to do 90% of the work in 2k and then just switch resolution prior to output?

 

[Misha Engel]

Why edit in 8k, or even 4k?

What's the point? Surely it's smarter to do 90% of the work in 2k and then just switch resolution prior to output?

+1

4k is easy on a modern workstation (below $5k)

It only makes sense in Japan for 8k TV at the moment or when you have to deliver really fast.
My TR1950x (4GHz) handles 8k R3D most of the time. To be sure it would handle all sorts (compression) of 8k.R3D I would need an EPYC 7551P.
Really looking forward till someone test the Titan V (or even better the GP100) with Resolve with respect to the higher mem bandwith (Resolve leans heavy on mem bandwith).

 

[adam brennan]

Why edit in 8k, or even 4k?

What's the point? Surely it's smarter to do 90% of the work in 2k and then just switch resolution prior to output?

Stupid question but how do you do that? Edit in 2K when you shoot 8K? Or are you talking about proxy editing?

 

[Scot Yount]

Stupid question but how do you do that? Edit in 2K when you shoot 8K? Or are you talking about proxy editing?

Simple. Just make your project 2K, or 1080, or whatever. I do it all the time. We shoot 8KHD and I edit in a 1080 timeline. If I want more pixels when I export, i just change the settings in the project. And btw, I never transcode, or make proxies. I also leave background rendering off, so nothing is rendered until I finish my project. I just set the machine to "Better Performance" and go. The only time I have any trouble, is when I have like 8 callout graphics in one shot....My edit station is a late 2013 MacPro with 12 cores over Thunderbolt 1 to some old Promise Pegasus R6 drives set to RAID 5.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Why edit in 8k, or even 4k?

What's the point? Surely it's smarter to do 90% of the work in 2k and then just switch resolution prior to output?

It makes exactly zero sense to edit in 8K.

Unless attempting to convince masses to shell out $12K for a computer with zero upgrade options.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I was at one of the iMac Pro demo sessions and we worked with 6K and 8K R3D, ARRI RAW files as well as a variety of ProRes formats and a few others — 2K, 4K HEVC, etc.. they all ran great. The demo machine was a 10-core, 64GB RAM, Vega 64 GPU and 2TB SSD.

That said, I would not expect Premiere to run as well. Apple has obviously done a lot to optimize FCPX for the iMac Pro hardware and Premiere has been lagging way behind in optimizations and updates lately. Their Mercury Engine multi-CPU/GPU playback has evolved very little since it was introduced several years ago.

I would expect performance in Resolve and other apps to fall right in line with other 8, 10, etc.. core workstations many of us are already using. The Vega GPUs are a known quantity now and benchmarks are available. We know that Apple has throttled them back in the iMac Pro from their desktop counterparts. Initial reports seem to indicate that under load they perform about 15% slower than their standard-clocked desktop versions. The Xeon-W CPUs in the iMac Pro are very comparable to the latest i7 and i7 CPUs in terms of options, performance and price.

The 10-core iMac Pro should perform quite well in Resolve with 6K and 8K R3D footage if playback is held at 2K, maybe 4K if you have enough RAM. I would recommend the 128GB anyway. For serious Resolve use, I would recommend the 14 or 18 core CPU, but then again this would not be my recommended system if you primarily use Resolve.

 

[Morgan Ryan]

What would the recommended system be, for serious Resolve users?

For serious Resolve use, I would recommend the 14 or 18 core CPU, but then again this would not be my recommended system if you primarily use Resolve.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

What would the recommended system be, for serious Resolve users?

Something you can put a couple real GPUs into. HP Z8, for example. The iMac Pro is awesome for what it is, but hampered by its single, under-powered GPU. People like to complain about lack of upgrade ability, however it’s a small niche of people who do meaningful upgrades to their computers before replacing them. The iMac is well suited for general editing, CAD, 3D modeling, image processing, design work, software development, etc.. Not so well suited for complex rendering, intense GPU tasks, high resolution video compositing, complex color grading, etc that benefits from lots of GPU computational power.. If you do a lot of simple stuff in resolve, basic grades only 4 or 5 nodes, don’t use NR or a lot of additional power windows or complex effects, only work with 4K and 5K clips, you’ll be fine. A lot of this is subjective so your mileage may vary and all that. The iMac Pro has the bandwidth, has the CPU power, etc.. it lacks GPU compute ability which has become a very important aspect of running Resolve. And there will be plenty who disagree with me... Lots of people are making it work running Resolve on far lesser systems, even notebooks, so like I said your mileage and all that. I’m just saying that if Resolve is your primary tool, there are other systems that will offer a lot more performance in Resolve for the same, or less, money.

 

[Misha Engel]

What would the recommended system be, for serious Resolve users?

What is your budget, do you need 10bit output, etc.. and what is your source material? R3D has different requirements compared to CinemaDNG or ARRIRAW.
There is no such thing as 1 size fits all when your on a budget.

 

[Morgan Ryan]

Thanks for the info Jeff.

What is your budget, do you need 10bit output, etc.. and what is your source material? R3D has different requirements compared to CinemaDNG or ARRIRAW.
There is no such thing as 1 size fits all when your on a budget.

Budget is $8K but can go higher if needed. We shoot 8KHD then in Resolve, color grade 8K HD r3d, with minimum 5 nodes, sometimes 9 nodes or more. We do NR when it's a product shoot.

So, for color grading 8K HD r3d footage (2K timeline, until prior to render), with 10 bit output in resolve, What would be the recommended system for about $8K?

 

[Misha Engel]

Thanks for the info Jeff.



Budget is $8K but can go higher if needed. We shoot 8KHD then in Resolve, color grade 8K HD r3d, with minimum 5 nodes, sometimes 9 nodes or more. We do NR when it's a product shoot.

So, for color grading 8K HD r3d footage (2K timeline, until prior to render), with 10 bit output in resolve, What would be the recommended system for about $8K?

From an other thread

"Quote Originally Posted by Blair S. Paulsen View Post"
Lots of use cases to consider. To me, the iMacPro fits a lot of RedUsers who need enough grunt to work with 8K motion imagery - with all the conveniences of an all in one (AIO) form factor, OSX, etc.

My curiosity is just how big of a performance delta there would be between $7K-ish iMacPro (10c/64GB/Vega64/1TB) and other options near that price. If, as I suspect, it would take at least $5K (sans monitor) to do a custom build capable of significantly better performance in the applications typical RedUsers rely on - I'd take the AIO every time.

Cheers - #19
Let's give it a shot (compared to iMacPro 10c/64GB/1TB)

AMD TR1950x+Asrock Fatal gaming with 10Gbe $ 1.370 (3.4 GHz 16c/32t vs. 3.0 GHz 10c/20t) (25..75% faster in multi thread).
64 GB DDR4 3200 cl14 $ 1.030 (DDR4 3200 cl14 vs. DDR4 2666 cl 19) (20% faster).
2x VEGA FE $ 2.000 (2x higher clocked VEGA 16 GB vs. 1x lower clocked VEGA 16 GB) (upto 100% faster in Resolve).
1x 960 pro 512 GB boot and software 2x 960 pro 512 GB scratch $ 1.000 (seperate scratch drive vs. combined boot and scratch drive) (is faster but don't know how much, pugetsystems made an article about it why to use a separate scratch disk).
1x PSU 1000 Watt titanium $ 300
1x cooler Noctua 12 cm $ 70 (yes you can overclock the TR1950x to 4,0 GHz with this cooler) http://www.guru3d.com/articles_page...tr4_sp3_for_ryzen_threadripper_review,11.html.
1x Case $ 100
1x small material $ 100
1x 5k calibrated display 10 bit (philips, HP, etc.) $ 1.500

Totals around $ 7.500 vs. $ 7.200 for the mac.
I use davinci resolve and fusion for post production and I guess most apple users will use Final cut and Logic.


64 GB is more than enough for Resolve and the 2x512 GB 960 pro's in raid0 is a pretty fast scratch drive.
When you don't need the 10 bits color from the graphics card you can go for a GTX1080ti's with 11 GB

Ad a Declink card and you can do 10 bits color with resolve.

 

[Homer Dulu]

Something you can put a couple real GPUs into. HP Z8, for example. The iMac Pro is awesome for what it is, but hampered by its single, under-powered GPU. People like to complain about lack of upgrade ability, however it’s a small niche of people who do meaningful upgrades to their computers before replacing them. The iMac is well suited for general editing, CAD, 3D modeling, image processing, design work, software development, etc.. Not so well suited for complex rendering, intense GPU tasks, high resolution video compositing, complex color grading, etc that benefits from lots of GPU computational power.. If you do a lot of simple stuff in resolve, basic grades only 4 or 5 nodes, don’t use NR or a lot of additional power windows or complex effects, only work with 4K and 5K clips, you’ll be fine. A lot of this is subjective so your mileage may vary and all that. The iMac Pro has the bandwidth, has the CPU power, etc.. it lacks GPU compute ability which has become a very important aspect of running Resolve. And there will be plenty who disagree with me... Lots of people are making it work running Resolve on far lesser systems, even notebooks, so like I said your mileage and all that. I’m just saying that if Resolve is your primary tool, there are other systems that will offer a lot more performance in Resolve for the same, or less, money.

Jeff, I don't think GPU expandability is a problem with the iMac Pro. Couldn't you use an eGPU over TB3? Right now only AMD is supported, but I imagine nVidia support will be coming soon.

Also, Apple already have an eGPU dev kit for sale.

https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphics/

Most of people's issues stem from lack of upgradeability of the SSD and RAM, and the CPU to some extent, although with most CPU upgrades, you need to buy a new motherboard anyway.

 

[Vincent Larsson]

Something you can put a couple real GPUs into. HP Z8, for example. The iMac Pro is awesome for what it is, but hampered by its single, under-powered GPU. People like to complain about lack of upgrade ability, however it’s a small niche of people who do meaningful upgrades to their computers before replacing them. The iMac is well suited for general editing, CAD, 3D modeling, image processing, design work, software development, etc.. Not so well suited for complex rendering, intense GPU tasks, high resolution video compositing, complex color grading, etc that benefits from lots of GPU computational power.. If you do a lot of simple stuff in resolve, basic grades only 4 or 5 nodes, don’t use NR or a lot of additional power windows or complex effects, only work with 4K and 5K clips, you’ll be fine. A lot of this is subjective so your mileage may vary and all that. The iMac Pro has the bandwidth, has the CPU power, etc.. it lacks GPU compute ability which has become a very important aspect of running Resolve. And there will be plenty who disagree with me... Lots of people are making it work running Resolve on far lesser systems, even notebooks, so like I said your mileage and all that. I’m just saying that if Resolve is your primary tool, there are other systems that will offer a lot more performance in Resolve for the same, or less, money.

Hi Jeff,

So what about an accompanying external GPU?

/V