Poor man's 4k workflow

[Muva Bee]

Lets say I plan to shoot 4k mostly. I was thinking about this workflow..
Mac Air 2014, 4gb RAM i don't plan to upgrade & i have no problems leaving pc in cold air for whole night for final render.

1. shoot & store on 3TB USB 3 drive
2. create 720p or lower res proxies - potential big time loss
3. Edit in Adobe Premiere CC using proxies
4. Export from Premiere to prores 442 or some intermediate codec, maybe downscale to 1080p
5. grade in Resolve
6. final export from Resolve to h264 encoded file

Is this bit overkill? I just started to understand codecs so any opinion about this workflow would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[WetDog]

Do you have access to the Adobe Creative Suite or are you using a standalone version of Premiere? If the former, just stay in Adobe (use Speed Grade, it's fine) and digest the volumes of info out there on using proxy files. Once you set it up, it's pretty seamless.

One advantage of that is using Adobe Encode to automagically create the proxies. Leave your computer on overnight. Unlike the Phantoms, it is a mature device and does not need constant adult supervision.

You forgot your backup strategy. Never, ever do that.....

 

[Muva Bee]

Do you have access to the Adobe Creative Suite or are you using a standalone version of Premiere? If the former, just stay in Adobe (use Speed Grade, it's fine) and digest the volumes of info out there on using proxy files. Once you set it up, it's pretty seamless.

One advantage of that is using Adobe Encode to automagically create the proxies. Leave your computer on overnight. Unlike the Phantoms, it is a mature device and does not need constant adult supervision.

You forgot your backup strategy. Never, ever do that.....

No Creative Suite

 

[BVC]

I found my macbook air struggled just with 2.7k video!

I'm sure you could get yours to work but reality is.. if you can't afford to do the hobby, why invest in it at all? It's like buying a fun sports car only to throw the crappiest tires you can fit because it does what it's intended to do - just not very well at all.


I sold my macbook air to my neighbor for $400 and bought myself a Macbook Pro 13" (about 4 months ago) after having freeze/hesitation issues with 2.7k video.

 

[Reed L]

Honestly, you're making it harder then it is but you're going to need 16g of ram minimum for smooth 4k. I have 8 on my laptop for the movies from my P3A and it works great with Power Director 12. It takes about 15 minutes to produce a 5 minute movie. You should pick up a new laptop at least with 16g of ram, then your problems will be solved. If you're a Mac Man then I can't help; but you are trying too hard to do something that is really easy with the right equipment. I thought about the 4K for a long time but I run everything to YouTube and for a 15 minute movie that would take a few days to upload with my connection...

 

[Noodle]

Downgrade your shoot to 1080p.

 

[m0j0]

I would not downgrade to 1080. A couple of things. What kind of video card are you using. Adobe uses the video card when processing. I'm betting that your video card and RAM are you bottleneck. CPU is important and is most important when rendering out. Prior to rendering video card and ram are huge. More cores and higher number of CUDA is best as ADOBE uses GPU acceleration.

 

[m0j0]

MacBook Pro current version is what you need. Otherwise build it yourself. My computer is 7 years old and can still handle 4K video. I don't output 4K though.

Video card is 3Gb
Running 24 GB Ram
Old Pricessor 920

 

[Jussaguy]

Lets say I plan to shoot 4k mostly. I was thinking about this workflow..
Mac Air 2014, 4gb RAM i don't plan to upgrade & i have no problems leaving pc in cold air for whole night for final render.

1. shoot & store on 3TB USB 3 drive
2. create 720p or lower res proxies - potential big time loss
3. Edit in Adobe Premiere CC using proxies
4. Export from Premiere to prores 442 or some intermediate codec, maybe downscale to 1080p
5. grade in Resolve
6. final export from Resolve to h264 encoded file

Is this bit overkill? I just started to understand codecs so any opinion about this workflow would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

There is nothing wrong per say with this workflow but for example color correcting using BlackMagic Resolve on a h264 native item (and believe me, once it's h264, you can make it ProRes all day but contrary to the argument, you can not increase the quality of the video. It's at its best at h264.

It's analogous to putting a fiat in a Bentley and calling the Fiat better while it sits in the Bentley. When you take it out, it's still a Bentley and h264 native is still h264 color space and all if you put it in a larger wrapper (ProRes). I am sure someone will scream and say I am wrong but trust me, I wish I was but am not.

Anyway, color correct in your editing software or AE if you're bringing it in there.

Also, why proxies? I can run multiple UHD streams in realtime using the latest iMac. My friend is doing the same on 2014 iMac. I have 64gb ram and new skylake chipset but I'm blazing with no proxies.

Most editing software for 4K will only show you one field (two in each frame) when it is doing "realtime" so it's a proxy anyway in reality.

Good luck. Don't overthink it. Your workflow is WAY too complicated.

Edit: just read it again and yeah, the outputting your master as a 422 ProRes (not HQ btw) is the way to do it. But that should be your final move.

Grade it in PP. You DO NOT need to bring it in to Resolve at this point. If you are just learning about codecs, I would keep it simple as there are plenty of excellent color correction controls in PP.

As for your proxies, I don't think you need to. Even in an Apple Air which is admittedly not the strongest machine for video in the world, I think you'll get at least one "realtime" 4K stream, maybe 2.

Let us know.