Also what program?

I currently have early 2015 xps 13 that was announced for 2015 ces.

Laptop: i5 5th gen / 4gb / 128 ssd
Program: Sony vegas pro 13

I never tried to render anything above 1080p before until I got my Standard. I tried to render 2.7k and hell broke lose.
My laptop started to freeze, I even got green screen on a preview screen with some lighting editing, and rendering 2.7k 10 minute video would take over night. half of the time I wake up and see a crash on sony vegas pro. I cant imagine rendering a 4k video. I can render it just fine with my gaming desktop I built years ago, but I need some laptop suggestions, preferably around 1k. I just spent colossal money on advanced (returning standard) and dont have much budget for a laptop haha

I am trying to figure out what laptop to buy for rendering 2.7k / 4k  and was wondering what you guys are using.

A lot of times its not a problem with processing but hard drive speed. If you don't have a SSD (solid state hard drive) then it is nearly impossible to edit anything over 1080 unless it is highly compressed. Invest in a SSD and you would be surprised at how much it speeds up your computer.

4 gig of ram is not much for rendering big video files you would have a lot of swapping out to the HD going on and 128 gig HD is too small .

For 4k rendering in a laptop you need 8-16gig ram , i7 , 2 x SSD .

I just ordered this today..... Poor old 2011 Mac  with 4GB Ram just , isn't cutting it anymore.. Im still a Mac guy but I just couldn't quite find one with the specs I want...... I insisted on the 32 gigs of Ram and 4K display.  Ill be using this with Agi photo-scan  to process aerial images into 3D models, Thus I wanted the best specs I could get......


XPS 15 (9550)
6th Generation Intel(R) Core (TM) i7-6700HQ Quad Core (6M Cache, up to 3.5 GHz)
Windows 10 Home (64bit) English
32GB Dual Channel DDR4 2133Mhz (16GBx2)
1TB PCIe Solid State Drive NVIDIA GTX960M 2GB DDR5

15.6" 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) InfinityEdge touch, 1 Sliver

Rendering is what desktops are for     If you reeaaallllyyyyyyyy have to edit on an laptop, i7, something with a decent discrete graphics card and flash storage. One of the new Surface Books, with the nVidia GPU would be a good starting point.

Also if you look at major laptop brands business range instead of their consumer  range (which you should be for rendering), there are several options out with the likes of nVidiea Tesla GPU's in them. Look at Toshiba's Tecra and Portege range, or HP's Pro Book range for example.

First problem is you should probably be using Premiere Pro.  It's so cheap now that if you are serious about your photography, I would move to at least a better app.

That said, the other real big problem is the 2.7K.  Vegas probably has an algorithm that is set for 4k, 2k, 1080P, 480P, NTSC, PAL, SECAM, UHD, etc but the reason we have 2.7K is that it gives us some wiggle room but it IS NOT a final deliverable and should not be rendered at 2.7K unless you are planning on a re-process but judging by the fact that you are coming out of Vegas, I am assuming you are done.

Here are your choices with 2.7K video

1) Render it out at its native size and pixel aspect ratio for whatever purpose it will serve. I can render 2.7K with any one of my computers, including a not so strong laptop out of Avid Media Composer, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Smoke, whatever...

2) (and the reason 2.7K is available from DJI) is so that you have a little "wiggle room" to be able to push in a little without image degradation because you are pushing in a 2.7K to 1080P.  2.7K 3840x2160 square progressive pixels where 1080P is 1920x1080.  So you see you can do things like get the blades out of the shot, or whatever other reason you would have.  So why don't they offer a resolution that's higher for the Pro and the Inspire, well because a 5k camera would make the price point WAY too much (at the moment).  Also you can up-res to 4k from 2.7K with less image degradation that you can from 1080P for the obvious reason that it has more info.

3) RAM RAM RAM ... The best way to decrease your render times and believe me, I literally have things that render video at 1 frame a day so I am always looking to increase speed is to MAX out your RAM and use the fastest stuff at every spot you can afford.  Get the best computer with the best chip-set, with SSD boot drive, etc

BUT IF YOU can't afford all that, a decent computer can render anything that is coming out of ANY DJI component.  Even the raw stuff from the X5 is coming out of my Mac Book Air (that's pretty weak actually) just fine.

Your problem I'm almost certain is that you are rendering a non-standard format at 2.7K.  If you are not, defer to all the other things but if you are trying to render 2.7K, then stop and either render 4K or 1080P and I promise that your speeds will increase dramatically.

AlaskanTides Posted at 2016-2-9 20:38
I just ordered this today..... Poor old 2011 Mac  with 4GB Ram just , isn't cutting it anymore.. Im  ...

Sorry for posting twice and I promise I am not a fan boy. I am too old to be a fan boy but I can tell you for sure that the new iMac 27" 5Ks with 64gigs of RAM which it does support with the SkyLake chipset (you can get the ram at macsales.com) because you need 4 16gig SODIMM modules which is hard to find but thats where, plus an SSD boot drive, Thunderbolt 2 external SSDs (striped for performance) and a couple HHD drives for storage dumps and you won't need another computer for many many years.

I spent nearly 5K once it was all said and done but I literally took renders that were taking over an hour (I work in film and video world) and had them down to 8-9 minutes out of AE.  That's 8-9 minutes!!! from over an hour.  I was so excited when I saw that speed and I fell back in love with apples.  My iMac screams faster than my 9k Mac Tower Cylinder from 2012.

I DO NOT want to start a PC vs Apple discussion or fight but I can tell you with assurity that there are macs for the photography and video world that can really squeeze and no video looks better to me than the video coming off of my apple 27" 5K.  It's mesmerizingly  beautiful.  I can't tell you how often I have fallen asleep just looking at footage i shot on my 5k monitor.  Lovely.

GameOfDrones Posted at 2016-2-10 20:41
First problem is you should probably be using Premiere Pro.  It's so cheap now that if you are serio ...

Actually, the RAM in your system is not that important, a good multi core processor and a decent GPU are more important. At least an I7 processor, preferably 6 cores or better. And the GPU board is where you need the RAM, at least 8 GB of it.

MacBook Pro, 17-inch, late 2011, 2.5 i7, 8 GB, AMD 6770M 1GB, 512 SSD + Promise Pegasus R4
Handle Full HD and 2.7 K with easily, still handle 4K no problem but the laptop quite hot

Geebax Posted at 2016-2-10 01:49
Actually, the RAM in your system is not that important, a good multi core processor and a decent G ...

Everyone please feel free not to read this.  This is to the dude that said RAM doesn't matter and anyone else that might stumble on it. I can make my posts a little too long.  Something I'm working on. ;)

http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/14-tips-faster-rendering-effects/

https://modio.tv/how-to-make-after-effects-render-faster/

Ahh, I am not going to do this but the I googled "top ten ways to increase your render speeds in after effects" and every single one mentioned RAM in the top 5 and if it wasn't for the "duh" factor (no offense) it would probably be #1 on all of them.

Here is the reason RAM and the more you have is so important.

When rendering (or doing any massive computation on a computer) you are not being bottle necked by the fastest thing but by the slowest thing so you want the fastest drives, RAM, Bus, CPU, Graphics Card (with its own RAM and CPU and the more the merrier) and it's not just one that makes the speed but all working together.  A bad analogy is a good day at the beach requires sand, sun, water and beer.  Any one of those might be okay by themselves but when they work together perfectly you have a nice day at the beach.

Now with RAM, what it does in specifics to video and other majorly taxing processes that a computer must do, RAM is so important because as the traffic gets heavy (which is exactly what happens when we are rendering).

As the CPU, GPU, drives, are doing their work and the amount of RAM INCREASES the amount of stuff that can be held in resident memory and "worked on", encoded, encrypted, etc as it is being render and the more the computer can hold RAM, THE FASTER it can get done.

I understand that RAM being the thing that will speed you up the most (I mean obviously if we are talking about an Apple IIe or Mac Tower from 2015 it's different).  But RAM does not just give you space to do a preview of your video.  

I didn't know this either and a guy that knows a lot more than me told me to increase to 64 from 48 and when I did, the difference (and there was no other change) was MASSIVE.  It was not negligible, it was the best performance increase I ever saw on a computer and it was because of the 48 to 64.  AND THATS not even a lot but it's exponential.  If I could put 128 it would be sick fast.

So no, what you are saying about RAM is completely untrue.  If you can, max the ram out to what the chipset will allow which is probably 16 or 32 (new iMac users can use 64) and most new chipsets allow 64 and some 128 now.

Was even better than when I put my first SSD drive in my 2009 tower.  A lot better.

You are right about the multi-processor but you HAVE to know how to use it with the program you are running it out of.

For example, DO NOT hyper-thread out of Premiere Pro ever but in After Effects to properly use the multi-core with hyper-threading you have to tell it that you have exactly HALF the amount you have.  

Reason is that if you have 8 cores, hyperthread thinks you have 16 but 8 are virtual and if it's trying to work on a virtual one while rendering, it will slow you down a ton but you actually just lower your chance of that happening by saying you have 8 cores instead of 16.  It will still catch some virtuals but the speed increase will be faster than if you didn't do it.  If you leave it at the 16 which it defaults to, you will actually run about 30% slower.

Here is where you change that:



Dude, I spend half my life looking how to make these things run faster.  Believe me, nobody wants/needs faster like I do. Lol.

GameOfDrones Posted at 2016-2-10 00:47
Sorry for posting twice and I promise I am not a fan boy. I am too old to be a fan boy but I can te ...

No.... I. Pretty much a Mac fanboy, I have been for somtime now. The exact machine you mention is the only one they have @ this time that can edit 4K . This new machine I just bought is more of a work unit and needs to be more compatible with Windows based networks.......you can rest assured that a 27" iMac  Will be on my desk this fall...

MacBook air 8Gb 256Gb SSD, but I prefer to render videos on Desktop. The processor and SSD speed are better.

Currently I am on a Surface Pro with Premiere Pro.  It does the job rather well but It cant compete with a desktop

Juliano Cruz Posted at 2016-2-10 05:53
MacBook air 8Gb 256Gb SSD, but I prefer to render videos on Desktop. The processor and SSD speed are ...

I have the same machine and as a hobbyist it is perfect for most anything.  Light, portable and long battery life.  For the things I place on youtube or the web, it does just fine.

This is not a studio machine, go get a big Mac for that but for the home/hobbyists, these are tough to beat.

I also have a two computers my work provides, both Windows and the Dell with SSD is pretty snappy but heavy.  The Surface Pro 2 is very nice hardware but I find Windows 10 is not very stable.  The Dell with Windows 7 is much better.

Hello,
tried a lot of different setups. Now I use a Macbook Pro i7 4 core and Final Cut Pro.
Most important in my opinion is to create proxy media to work on if your doing 4K

AlaskanTides Posted at 2016-2-10 02:45
No.... I. Pretty much a Mac fanboy, I have been for somtime now. The exact machine you mention is  ...

You think the iMac is the only Mac that can handle 4K?  We just upgraded our bays to the iMacs decked out how I said in my post but I was running (with one realtime and the rest proxies) on Mac Towers that go back to 2009 and some that were retired from 2012.

My iMacs are screaming and are absolutely amazing dollar for dollar but have no doubt about it, the way overpriced cylinder tower (of which I own one) with it's 2.7 12 core (hyprer-thread to 24 cores) w/ 30mb of L3 cache, 64 gigs of RAM (although you can get that on the iMac but they don't advertise it to not cannibalize the cylinder. It has a flash 1TB boot drive, same as the iMac and the graphics card is so much better with the DUAL AMD FirePro D700 GPU with 64gig of GDDR5 VRAM each (now mind you that is 64 gigs of RAM for the video card alone in addition to the 64 gigs of actual computer RAM and the L3 cache on each of the CPUS.

Now the machine I just specced above comes out to about 10k and they will be releasing something new pretty soon which is the ONLY reason I didn't get these instead of the consumer turned prosumer iMac.

Love the iMac but to say that those iMac are the only currently Apple product that can handle 4k is just insanity.  Those cylinders are what we are using for the one place I go where we still do some film scanning, storage and dust busting and we can scan at full 6-10K and even at 6K can play realtime.

I hate being a know-it-all and I would just PM this but on these forums, i feel the need to put the record straight when I am sure of it when something else is out there.

I am not suggesting anyone buy the Cylinder by the way.  If you want to spend 10k on a workstation, wait a few more months.  It's also why they didn't put USB-C on the iMacs but did on the Apple TVs which might be a blessing in disguise as I heard the power of the USB-C ports are doing damage.

Sorry to spit all that but it's the facts.

GameOfDrones Posted at 2016-2-10 05:29
You think the iMac is the only Mac that can handle 4K?  We just upgraded our bays to the iMacs dec ...

... I take no offense.... I was speaking of laptops, not desktops.   Mac makes good stuff, but no 4K laptop monitors yet, that I'm aware of.

AlaskanTides Posted at 2016-2-10 10:23
... I take no offense.... I was speaking of laptops, not desktops.   Mac makes good stuff, but n ...

Ohhhh, you mean actually 4k resolution.  

My bad.

I thought you meant could handle 4K video streams of which the latest Mac Book Pro can in realtime (2 layers actually of uncompressed video but yeah, no 4k lappies.  Can't imagine ever needing that many pixels in my lap thought. ;)

Macbook Pro 15" / mid 2015 / 16Gb / i7 + DaVinci Resolve

GameOfDrones Posted at 2016-2-10 21:09
Everyone please feel free not to read this.  This is to the dude that said RAM doesn't matter and a ...

Ok if you use After Effects, but I don't. Each application makes use of computer resources in different ways, some can use a GPU, others don't even try, it is not consistent across the spectrum. And what works for a Mac is not the same in Windows. Some time ago I increased the RAM on my Windows system from 16GB to 32GB and hardly noticed any difference. I watched the resources during a render and the editor was not using anywhere near the full amount of RAM available.

Morph1 Posted at 2016-2-10 14:14
Ram has nothing to do with rendering, it's your cpu that takes care of that, ram will help you mai ...

Ram has nothing to do with rendering???

Trust me on this one, it does.
Three most important things when rendering and all equally important are RAM, Video Card and dedicated VRAM, and CPU speed and front bus speed and drive speeds factor in after that and you will hit a cieling once you have all of those thnigs maxed out.

Morph1 Posted at 2016-2-11 07:06
Did you read my entire reply,
"But in the end it is the whole package that makes a difference..."
...

I'm at a doctors office with my phone so I can't reply in full like I want to because I am on my phone but I'll state a small amount and the rest to what you wrote later.

For now, the two things that stand out the most here are that you are saying that RAM and bus speeds are 1) sort of ancillary to the whole process when RAM is equal to or greater than CPU.  I am a builder (used to be anyway) until I went Mac and now the software companies try to make their product work for me instead of the other wan around.  Obviously you have to have a modern cpu but if you want to speed up those buckets in 3ds, cinema 4s, after effects of get more realtime streams in avid it doesn't matter if you have a 3.x over 2.x but rather more CPUs with more RAM and more GPU and video RAM.

And 2) bus speed matters so much that for you to say it doesn't matter makes me wonder why I am having this conversation. It's like saying the speed limit doesn't matter. If you have a lambo that goes 200mph, I'll get there in the same amount of time if we follow the speed laws. You can bottle neck everything with a low front bus.

I'm telling you with an educated anecdotal giant dose of evidence that bus speed, and RAM matter SO MUCH that it has seriously decreased my render times in 3DS (to the tune of about 500 percent, actually more) and my CPU cores are actually slower. Yes they are important and I have the i7s but having more of them with the hyper-threading multi-cores and skylake chipset which allows a redonculus front bus that Intel themselves says is one of their biggest developments this decade leads to the faster speeds.

Look, we are generally agreeing here but where we are not seeing eye to eye is how important RAM is. I've been building and using all the software were talking about for a couple decades and I just learned some of this myself. I had no idea that 64 gigs of RAM could make such a difference in speed but it does and when someone smarter about this than myself explained why it made sense.

And to repeat for you to say the front bus speed doesn't matter is just silly and wrong. All of the busses matter. It's the highway of the board and the limitations set by it would be the very first bottle neck.

More cores, more CPUs, more RAM, faster bus, faster storage writing and reading all work together but RAM and bus are absolutely necessary.

If I have a usb2 bus and I buy a thunderbolt or usb-c drive, I will not get its benefits because I will bottle neck at the usb2 speeds which is one direction.

If I have a thunderbolt 2 bus however that drive will fly because TB2 is bi-directional and the busses are many times faster than even usb3 so busses matter! I am only using the bus for usb as an example. The bus on the board matters the most.

Sorry for rambling. Lucky for everyone I was called by the doctor.

ArtistFirst Posted at 2016-2-11 14:21
I'm at a doctors office with my phone so I can't reply in full like I want to because I am on my p ...

One more thing to the person that said they added RAM and didn't see a difference. You were probably already "bottle necking" and could have added all the ram in the world and the difference in speed would be negligible.

Again, without the proper speeds on the board (the bus) and the proper speed to read and write, RAM can only help so much.

But if you have a fully integrated, and fully sped up computer, once you hit its ceiling, you can't increase speed.

real world example:

The Mac I keep referring to has the fastestest i7s and maxed out RAM on intel a newest chipset, skylake and I started with 16 gigs and moved it up to 64 with DRAMATIC effect. I also added speed through other methods like the best video card I could get through Apple on an iMac which is FAR from the best one but it's good and has on board video ram. I also striped ssds for my render drive and I have 8 ssd drives striped for performance.

When rendering anything, you should set up a seperate drive for cache to be sent to that is not the same drive with the assets and I got a striped enclosure for that as well but it gave me a minor boost and that was because I was already pretty maxed out on that computer for speed so in each of our bays I removed the cache stripe and replaced it with a single Thunderbolt ssd drive and saved thousands.

So every situation you have to know what you're looking at and and what's happening to know what's going to happen if you do something, of why it happened.

The above poster (two above) is right that it's also the software that makes use of your hardware or not.