I just sold my dji phantom 4 which was my first drone. I preordered my mavic pro. I only used the dji 4 for a handfull of flights and never downloaded any of the footage to edit until last week on my macbook pro with 8 gb of ram 750gb hhd and 2.3 processesor. When I started to edit the 4k footage there was major lag and dropping of frames. I had no issues before editing 1080 but now I'm having issues. I'm guessing I need a new macbook. What do I need to upgrade too? The macbooks are still not up to par with the 4k requirements. I hear there is a new 2016 macbook being announced this month sometime. What should I do? Thanks

Is a laptop a requirement for you?

You'll get the most out of your money if you build a desktop.

KLRico Posted at 2016-10-10 10:30
Is a laptop a requirement for you?

You'll get the most out of your money if you build a desktop.

I like mac. I also do a lot of photo editing as a photographer.

jmoya03-sp Posted at 2016-10-10 19:08
I like mac. I also do a lot of photo editing as a photographer.

I love my mac as well but I'm going to be building out a desktop to edit 4k. I'll end up saving a lot of $$$$ and have a workhorse. I'll keep my mac for everything else but my PC and possible hackintosh will be used for photo and video editing.

McG Posted at 2016-10-10 14:50
I love my mac as well but I'm going to be building out a desktop to edit 4k. I'll end up saving a  ...

I use both pc and mac, I'm able to edit 4K on a Early 2013 Mac book Pro (2.4Ghz i7, 16GB, 512GB SSD and Nvidia 650GT). Its not lightning quick but is quite workable as long as you don't do heavy colour or effects work  I tend to only use it for quick edits on the road and will use a PC work Station for serious edit work.

I have a old 2011 Macbook Pro and it wouldn't even play 4k let alone edit. I installed a 500GB SSD and 16GB of RAM and it works now with editing 4k but just barely.

My desktop is a gaming rig, so it is no bother for it when it comes to editing/playing 4k.

Also have a 28 inch 4k monitor on the desk.

In the UK your looking at about £800 for a decent desktop pc for editing 4k, and you can get a good 4k monitor for £400.

jonscott Posted at 2016-10-10 22:29
I use both pc and mac, I'm able to edit 4K on a Early 2013 Mac book Pro (2.4Ghz i7, 16GB, 512GB SS ...

Any new Mac will edit 4k. But you're correct that heavy editing may be an issue especially with color grading. I'm building a PC because I want a beast of a machine without spending $4,000+. Plus I want a RAID 5 setup without getting an external controller.

I wonder if that new intel chip that is coming in the new macbook pro will help with processing. I hear its more geared for gamers. As for now I have all this footage from greece and croatia that needs editing.

jmoya03-sp Posted at 2016-10-11 03:03
I wonder if that new intel chip that is coming in the new macbook pro will help with processing. I h ...

I'm sure anything new coming from Apple will be able to edit 4k.

There is supposedly a new MacBook Pro being launched this year but we were also expecting it in Q2 and Q3 so don't hold your breath. Also the reviews are expecting big leaps in efficiency but not massively in performance, but it's likely to be better.

I bought a 2016 MacBook Pro 13" for £1300 from apple. 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM and Core i5 processor. Despite all that the built in Intel HD graphics couldn't render a fart in 4K. Total disaster on transitions. Now, I could choose to use Proxy editing in Final Cut which I think (I've never done it) will utilise down res files for the edit and then only shifts to 4K when out putting. This I'm told will mean anything as simple as current entry MacBook will work fine for 4K

I also found that final cut creates some huge files, specifically if you use something like the optical flow in your edit. I was getting 80GB files from 2 mins of video.

What I decided to was buy the current £2000 MacBook Pro 15" which comes with a core i7 processor and dedicated graphics card. It works a lot better but still the odd stumble with transitions.

You can also use an iPad Pro and edit 4K in iMovies which I've done without a problem

cjmc Posted at 2016-10-11 04:12
There is supposedly a new MacBook Pro being launched this year but we were also expecting it in Q2 a ...

The 4K files from a DJI copter are not designed to be edited. They're in H.264 and they're full of b-frames and this means they're 100% designed for delivery and playback as-is. If you want to edit with them natively, you either need a lot of compute power on both the CPU and GPU or you need to convert them to an editable intermediate format like ProRes.

Your intermediates can be either full resolution (4K) or they can be 1/4 resolution (1080p) proxies... whatever works best for you. Final Cut Pro's proxy workflow is the gold standard for this (Premiere is just barely catching up to the way FCPX handles proxy workflow).

I've edited entire short films in 4K on a MacBook Pro with just an Intel Iris Pro GPU using Final Cut Pro's proxy system - 4K H.264 in turned into 1080p ProRes proxies can be edited on any MacBook going back several years without issue. You then switch back to the 4K files for final output to get a full resolution finished product. Couldn't be less hassle.

If you're trying to edit DJI 4k files on a MacBook without a discrete GPU, the proxy workflow is your best (and probably only real) approach. I'd even still use a proxy workflow even with a discrete GPU MacBook just because there's no reason to be waiting around for anything.

Hell, I still use a proxy workflow on my multi-core, multi-GPU Mac Pro in my home studio. You're just wasting compute cycles dealing with all the extra pixels when all you're really doing is deciding on cut placement.

Just my $0.02.

McG Posted at 2016-10-10 23:25
Any new Mac will edit 4k. But you're correct that heavy editing may be an issue especially with co ...

I'd be careful with software based RAID solutions (throughly test if you insist on going that route).

RAID5 is also generally regarded as a bad / end of life solution these days, especially with larger SATA disks. On a modern 3TB+ SATA drive the possibility of an unrecoverable read error (URE) when trying to rebuild an array using parity is so high that you're basically just rolling the dice that you'll be able to succesffuly rebuild your array. This eliminates the point of RAID5 in many ways.

Google: "RAID5 URE SATA" for more information.

Good luck!

SimplePanda Posted at 2016-10-10 13:21
The 4K files from a DJI copter are not designed to be edited. They're in H.264 and they're full of  ...

I agree with all of the above 100%.

With Final Cut you do not have to edit 4K footage.  You can edit using 1080P and do your final render at 4K.  Pretty much any MacBook Pro can do this.

SimplePanda Posted at 2016-10-10 13:30
I'd be careful with software based RAID solutions (throughly test if you insist on going that route ...

Yes absolutely a RAID card but at least it won't be another thing sitting on my desk like a mac would stick me with. I'm not worried about the URE issue. I'll keep my working files on RAID1 and RAID5 will be used for long term local storage. I also use offsite backup so if things totally crap out I still have that.

This is why I'm quite happy with 1080p vids

Everyone who looks at my P3 footage goes "Wow, it's so clear!", so I don't feel any need for more really.