Fellow pilots,

Been reading several posts about people having issues with H265 editing demanding so much from the hardware.
If buying a brand new system for this purpose, would an iPad Pro be a good choice? Why/why not?

The latest iPad Pro 12.9 256 GB cost around $1000 including an Apple Pen and an app like LumaFusion is about $20. A laptop with good enough performance and Adobe Premiere looks closer to twice that?

I know there are rumors for the next iPad Pro to be released in the next few weeks, but would the current do the job well?


Advices and opinions much appreciated.

I have a 12.9 iPad Pro and would NEVER consider it for reasonable editing.  Is very good for viewing, not so good at creating.  Only if you have very simple editing goals it might work.  A MacBook Pro with FCPX is a good choice.

H.265 is a bitch.

I've got a laptop for editing.

4k display
i7 6820hk
32GB DDR4
8GB GTX980
256MB NVM SSD.

It really struggles with H.265 in Premiere, even at 1/4 preview.

I'm either going to need to convert to an edit friendly codec or try different software.
Davinci resolve is my next step.

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I have no clue about Apple machines be it iPads or Laptops. But if you are talking about 4K footage here, be it H.264 or H.265, from my experience on the Windows side much stronger machinery is required. One reason for that is that tablets and Laptops don't have a separate graphics adapter. But the Apple experts here will know better than me I trust.

Wachtberger Posted at 2018-9-1 14:05
I have no clue about Apple machines be it iPads or Laptops. But if you are talking about 4K footage here, be it H.264 or H.265, from my experience on the Windows side much stronger machinery is required. One reason for that is that tablets and Laptops don't have a separate graphics adapter. But the Apple experts here will know better than me I trust.

Recent Macs play H.264 and H.265 just fine; they have hardware acceleration for these formats.  You can edit without any stutter with Final Cut Pro X, but unfortunately not with Premiere Pro unless you have a high end Mac.  There is a solution however; Macs support eGPU acceleration.  There is a nice auxiliary eGPU unit from Black Magic Design that easily plugs into a Mac, and with this a MacBook or iMac runs Premiere Pro or Davinci Resolve.  All this is only for the fairly new Macs.

I have no clue about Apple machines be it iPads or Laptops. But if you are talking about 4K footage here, be it H.264 or H.265, from my experience on the Windows side much stronger machinery is required. One reason for that is that tablets and Laptops don't have a separate graphics adapter. But the Apple experts here will know better than me I trust.

Id never edit on a tablet.  They lack the power, lack the screen size and calibration and lack the software.

I personally always do it on my gaming laptop, and I'll suggest looking for a cheaper gaming laptop tbh as they carry the right punch for media editing. How about an AMD APU? Those come cheaper and seem to carry the right kind of GPU computing to get things done quicker.
Here is also a nice comparison of laptops that i found when selecting my laptop for under $1500, if that helps you https://www.noflufftech.com/best-gaming-laptop-under-1500

Acer Helios 300 is my personal favorite anyway and its retailing under $1400 these days. But if you really are constrained with a $1000 budget then even the Acer Predator Helios 300 will do the job. (Acer Helios 300 and Acer Predator Helios 300 are different)

I would skip MacBook, I know people keep recommending it but its useless with its outdated specs and the price you pay for it. Can get a very decent windows laptop for the same.

El Diablo Posted at 2018-9-10 00:39
No, no and... no.

My iPad Pro 12.9" handles the video renderings much faster (and glitch free) than my i7 gaming rig (3 years old) and my iMac 5K. LumaFusion costs 20$ vs the +350$ for Fianl Cut X. It seems that the software is extremelly well optimized for working on the iOs environment.

Interesting, would've been nice if we could some how get some benchmarks for comparison.
Because I don;t see how in the name of all sanity, a video could render faster on an ipad when compared to a gaming rig...

El Diablo Posted at 2018-9-10 00:39
No, no and... no.

My iPad Pro 12.9" handles the video renderings much faster (and glitch free) than my i7 gaming rig (3 years old) and my iMac 5K. LumaFusion costs 20$ vs the +350$ for Fianl Cut X. It seems that the software is extremelly well optimized for working on the iOs environment.

Your gaming rig is broken then quite simply.
There is absolutely no way it can complete with it.  The benchmarks alone show just how poor the ipad processor is compared to anything desktop wise.

And thats before you deal with a poor resolution screen with a shoddy gamut and colour output and inaccurate rendering.

If you really want a touch screen (and i cant see why anyone would) most laptops will support it.

DroneNinja117 Posted at 2018-9-10 03:13
Interesting, would've been nice if we could some how get some benchmarks for comparison.
Because I don;t see how in the name of all sanity, a video could render faster on an ipad when compared to a gaming rig...

It can't.  Simple as that.

El Diablo Posted at 2018-9-10 00:36
iPad Pro with LumaFusion (20$) here, works like a dream! mind that the final export should be .264 if you plan to watch the content on the iPad itself as iOs cannot play .H265

iOS 11 added support for H265 playback and encoding.

El Diablo Posted at 2018-9-10 04:15
Well mine is updated an cannot play the video as copied from the microSD card... will check again.

It's probably the container type, iOS isn't particular about the encoding but seems to be very hit and miss when it comes to the container type. iOS by default now records it's videos in H265 in the MOV container type. I think I've tried MP4 and that worked but I suspect it wouldn't work with an MKV file for instance.

Also it wouldn't surprise me if iOS is fickle over the H265 level etc.

I can't really wade in on the subject of iPad vs Desktop/Laptop. Personally my experience with the latest generation iPad's for editing always leave me frustrated and going back to my home machine. BUT, what I have found is that even a 3yo machine can find H265 decode/encode very difficult as it's only supported on the latest few generations of CPU (I believe, happy to be corrected).

A desktop with a decent setup should able to wipe the floor with the iPad, but it's all down to personal preference. If you prefer the iPad for video editing then go for it. The possibilities are wider with the desktop/laptop solution but it all depends what your needs are.

It would be interesting to see the differences in benchmarks especially taking the final video bitrate into account. (I have no idea if the iPad apps give you the flexibility to adjust this or not).

Buying a laptop is need a good knowledge because It has many features that work for a different purpose. Take care of your Touchpad when you buy. Get all info at hp touchpad not working

DroneNinja117 Posted at 2018-9-10 03:13
Interesting, would've been nice if we could some how get some benchmarks for comparison.
Because I don;t see how in the name of all sanity, a video could render faster on an ipad when compared to a gaming rig...

Your right it doesn’t, no matter what he says it just doesn’t work.

El Diablo, any chance you could do a test to compare as you have both a powerful desktop and the iPad Pro? A short video from the same source and similar settings and transitions etc and record the time it takes to render etc? Perhaps both H264 and H265? I know much to ask but it would really be very useful.

I am using Ipad 10.5 with lumafusion and with 4k 24fps h.265 MOV as source I saw that the rendering time is 1:1 more or less. 1 second of rendering for 1 second to video output... so it takes 5 min to elaborate 5 min of video

IPad Pro with LumaFusion works incredibly well. Lacking a few features in the software, but regular updates are helping out. Rendering a 9min video with colour grading and edits and effects takes about 9 mins. The real pain is file management. But a cheap iXpand device fixes that.

fanseae6d9ce Posted at 2018-9-21 04:33
IPad Pro with LumaFusion works incredibly well. Lacking a few features in the software, but regular updates are helping out. Rendering a 9min video with colour grading and edits and effects takes about 9 mins. The real pain is file management. But a cheap iXpand device fixes that.

Yes.. same time for rendering also with me. Lens fisheye correction still missing in lumafusion but my hope is for next release.

iPad Pro (2017) can not import D-log 30fps 4k file. I believe because of the high bitrate (100).  We need the ability to set bitrate in Mavic 2 pro to record in 50,60 or 100 for ipad editor.

fanseae6d9ce Posted at 2018-9-21 04:33
IPad Pro with LumaFusion works incredibly well. Lacking a few features in the software, but regular updates are helping out. Rendering a 9min video with colour grading and edits and effects takes about 9 mins. The real pain is file management. But a cheap iXpand device fixes that.

Or try the Documents app. It allows you to setup SMB or simple WiFi sharing of any files. This seems to be the fastest and easiest way.

djiuser_ascbDnraMrD7 Posted at 2018-9-30 15:37
iPad Pro (2017) can not import D-log 30fps 4k file. I believe because of the high bitrate (100).  We need the ability to set bitrate in Mavic 2 pro to record in 50,60 or 100 for ipad editor.

Import directly into the LumaFusion app via Documents and SMB between your computer & iPad.

The best thing I can suggest here is you should go for refurbished laptops just like me. I also went for a refurbished laptop with 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and 4GB RAM at a quite low price. Here's the buying guide: http://tech4fresher.com/refurbished-laptops-buying-guide/

Refurbished Laptop Buying Guide: http://tech4fresher.com/refurbished-laptops-buying-guide/

Razer's new 2019 (and some of the 2018 models) make good editing machines. They have the CPU and GPU power to render H265 4k efficiently.

The latest 15inch Macbook Pro with hexa cores and separate GPU is just about ok too (The 13inch is FAR less powerful).

Anything less will take much longer. A Dell XPS 15 inch will do some rendering but it will take longer.

Ultrabooks do not have the necessary power for fast H265 processing. They will do it but you likely will grow old prematurely doing so.

I use and love my new iPad Pro with LumaFusion. The Retina display and 1TB drive make processing H.265 files as easy or easier than the machine it replaced, a macPro.