Hi All,
I'm having issues with preview playback in Prem Pro when editing imported 4k footage from my X5.

It's very jittery and completely unusable for editing.

Can anyone offer any advice?

I have already tried:

- Upgrading my RAM from 4GB to 16GB (has given my macbook pro super powers but hasnt sorted the above issue).

- Have tried changing memory usage from 'memory' to 'performance' with no luck.

Please help its very frustrating!

Need more details on your Editing rig. Hard drive type and speed.   Seems like your graphics card is the weakest link....especially if it's using the Intel HD.  Give complete specs (model, year, GHZ, i5, i7, nvidia model, etc.)

Ok I'm using mid 2012 macbook pro9,2 running el capitan 10.11.3, 2.5ghz i5, 16gb ram, intel hd graphics 4000 (1536mb vram), 500gb SATA hard drive (5400)

Not sure if its relevant but 4k video plays fine in quicktime...

I don't believe I can upgrade my graphics card from the above....

Yes, your limit is the GPU and also partially the CPU (i7 is ideal for this application). Also, the drive speed will play a factor too.  7200rpm should be minimum or you can replace with a solid state drive (MacSales.com has upgrade kits).   Playback will always be different from editing programs.  Premiere Pro, Final Cut X, and other editors will re-render (RAM render) the footage every time you make a change in parameters of the clip.   It will look and perform better after render, but the editing process will be painful.  You can confirm this is the issue, by pausing randomly and seeing if the picture quality improves soon after pause, then gets grainy while playing...this is common in Final Cut for laptops handling 4K and raw video.