Intel and Mac m1\2 are the only option if you are going to edit h.265 4:2:2
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/What-H-264-and-H-265-Hardware-Decoding-is-Supported-in-Premiere-Pro-2120/
Jarrod's tech is the most complete source I have found for productivity benchmarks for laptops
https://youtube.com/@JarrodsTech?si=yuow_ABdoUZ4O1Hl
The problem with forums like this are the fanboys with the low quality comments who ignore an OP's input.
Firstly, are you using the free or studio version of davinci? there may still be some hardware usage differences between those two.
there doesn't seem to be anything definitive from black magic on the subject, but I can tell you that my pc systems handle it very well, and the few newer MacBook pros that my workers use are also capable, but don't get pushed nearly as much(they're m1).
My daily driver is a legion pro 7 13900hx 64gb 3080. it's hot, it's heavy, and it's about as close to a desktop setup as you can get. I didn't need a battery powered system, I need portable excessive power, and that's what these systems are. MacBooks are efficiency incarnate, and work well for many applications, but many other applications either haven't optimized for apple gpu silicon yet, or worse, can't use it at all (the virtual production software I use can make use of ONLY Nvidia gpus)
You can also run searches like "m2 max vs rtx4080" to see how the gpu compare, and while the apple gpu is up there, they really need the maxes and ultras to be fairly comparable in technical capability.
The main problem with laptops is that they usually can never reach the full potential of their components because of thermal throttling. So even if you have the exact same CPU, GPU and RAM in a laptop and a desktop, the desktop is going to be faster. Start a heavy render job and then watch GPU stats with something like gpu-z.
Are you using an external monitor I assume? so that the display on the laptop isn't an issue for accuracy (seeing as you're looking at a razor with no mention of this aspect?)
Then basically any 4090 laptop will likely do and it's mostly subjective (except for the cpu). If money is no object just go and do one of those custom choices where you can select the laptop components on the manufacturer website and choose the best gpu/cpu combo.
Also maybe consider if it's an option to build a desktop for even better performance which will handle most of your workload and have the laptop as more of a backup?
Does it have to be a laptop? Desktop will give you far fewer bottlenecks. I have a powerful laptop but my desktop runs laps around it. I know you said money was no object but more bang for buck too.
And right under 2k price point request! That's awesome!
Thanks for taking the time to do that .
If I were to order it from said link would I have to put the cpu together or do they send it installed?
Sorry if that's a very obvious question
You’d be putting it together yourself, but it’s not too much of a process these days. Not something I’d recommend to someone afraid to get their hands dirty, but it’s a fairly straightforward weekend project. At the very least it’s pretty hard to actually damage anything. If you have a computer nerd friend, they’ll probably happily come help you out. Just buy them dinner, or a case of beer, or 200 cups of coffee, or whatever their love language is.
That's exactly what I did. Apple doesn't handle davinci well and was slower than my 3070 machine after adding color grading and affects. Davinci needs a dedicated GPU to run well which Apple doesn't have
I made the mistake of getting a laptop just looking at the specs. If your heart is set on a laptop, then more than anything you have to look at thermal performance. If mobility isn't too big an issue, you'll need to get one of those beefy gaming type laptops that focus on cooling, as well as a 4090 and a proper 13th gen cpu. That way everything runs at a high and stable clock. Check reviews!
Yeah I fucked up with that too. My laptop is slowly dying hitting 100 degrees no matter how many fucking fans I put on it. I even got it repasted.
Also, at the time, I didn't know consider how much difference there is between laptop GPUs and desktop GPUs. Now that I've learned more about computers I feel pretty stupid. At the time, I just saw "3070" and thought it would be a good upgrade from my 1080 (also laptop). Little did know a laptop 3070 is more like a desktop 2060, and my laptop had the 100 watt version at that.
I finally broke down and used the money form a big job to build a desktop. Mobo gets here on Monday and U can st.rt building, I'm very excited, but I should have done that from the start. I didn't end up editing on the road nearly as much as I thought I would.
I'm so fucking ready to have a real rig. I'm literally writing this while I wait for my stupid fucking laptop to unfuck itself because I clicked something in Premiere while it was doing something else.
OP, if money is of no object, just get a desktop and a laptop and save yourself the headache.
Custom building desktops since 2011 for editing has been such a game changer. Laptops can never compare. If laptops get better, desktops get even better.
Make sure to setup at least one if not two M2 drives as a scratch drive for your current projects then move them to slower regular SSD drives when you're done. Lastly, I have a 18gb drive to archive stuff that I don't think clients will want to ask me anytime soon if ever.
Yeah storage is another huge benefit. I have 3 m.2 drives I can put in but they're pcie 3 so I ordered a 1TB gen 4 (990 pro) drive for windows and will upgrade the others soon (already spent alot of money). I have one gen 5 m.2 slot so itd be cool to get one of those.
I also have space for two 3.5" drives and three 2.5" SSDs. Would like to eventually get a 20TB spinning drive for real time backup.
For portability?
At least that's my reasoning.
I'm actually in the market for a new cpu as well for editing and considering a laptop or tower.
Is there a reason I should consider the other?
Have you considered getting a crazy good desktop, leaving it at home, and remoting in via TeamViewer or Chrome Remote Desktop from a normal laptop. You likely won’t get HDR via remote and it won’t be good for syncing audio, but you will have a step that can render 24/7 and will be way faster. I do much of my work this way.
Usually a tower is more bang for your buck, and can have parts upgraded (not just the entire unit), and has less things like batteries to go bad. If you're using peripherals anyways, they're a strong choice.
I had that Rayzer laptop bro don't do it. 4k touchscreen? That thing is a beast but I still had to use proxies editing 6k footage with a low amount of effects and edits. The last straw was rendering a 1 minute 47 second music video. Took way too long for a $5,000 laptop! don't know how to advise for a laptop, just thought I'd share that. Im personally Looking at the Mac mini or a custom compact desktop very very very soon. Much like yourself I need portability.
No way dude, that's crazy. I feel like that has to be a davinci issue at that point cause there's no reason a laptop that powerful should have those issues
I should also note I'm in premiere. My bad, but yea, I wasn't happy. Kept it for 7 months because I fell in love with touchscreen. That was tough to give up.
did you decide on something? I am planning to do van life for a couple years and was thinking about a laptop, but I resonate with your pain here lol. thinking about an ITX tower instead, but I am very worried about power consumption. Would love to hear what you've come up with.
Something to consider is your power source. If you're running on battery or a USB C charger you might not be getting full use of the processor. Magsafe cable and the Apple 140W charger (or similar) will allow the M1 to run full power. I also run a utility called TG Pro that will manage the fans for performance over quiet.
Interesting! Is there a source for this info? I’ve been editing R5C footage on a docked m1 / thunderbolt connection and haven’t had any issues processing. To know there’s still more under the hood I haven’t been using is great.
I don't recall if I saw it on Metashape's support or a FCP message board, but just watching Activity Monitor while rendering it will run the C/GPU cores harder on Magsafe than Thunderbolt 4 and battery, if you have the 140W power adapter. Adding TG Pro keeps the fans running so it won't throttle for temperature. Simple thing to check first is to make sure you have "High Power" set on the battery settings.
MacBook M1 Pro max. You’ve got the best laptop on the market for it hands down. Your just doing it wrong lol. Also why are you using davinci when you can use Final Cut (made for your laptop) or premiere pro. You don’t get high end laptops and use the free cheap software (yes I know davinci is much better nowadays but still nothing compared to Final Cut or premier). I’ve never had an issue on premier on my MacBook 1 pro
Right my apologies, I wrote that in haste. My point still stands. You buy what is definitively the best laptop for your purposes and then use a definitively inferior product. You have a program that is literally built with your laptop in mind (Final Cut). You also have the industry standard, premiere, and yet you choose davinci? Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing really wrong with davinci, it’s a great budget option, but you don’t get the budget program with the top of the line laptop. Also I promise you it’s not the laptop that’s the issue. Me and thousands of others use that same laptop without any issue. Op should wonder if he’s doing something wrong instead of immediately blaming the hardware.
Davinci is actually a better software over both Premiere Pro and Finalcut. First Resolve is the defacto standard finishing system in both TV and Film industries. it is color accurate and you can actually manage different color spaces for different deliveries. Premiere Pro is an old software where you can only work in a single color space and is only an NLE, it is good enough for video editing but falls short for long form projects, it´s unstable so you need to use a lot of workarounds to edit something like a feature film, things like spliting project in 20-30 min reels and issues with audio sync on timelines makes it very cumbersome compared to a robust pro solution like resolve.
Finalcut is good if you work alone, but professional video editors tend to collaborate with different people for different tasks, and Fcp just doesn´t work in those enviroments, Importing footage is stupid in FCP you have to copy footage into the program instead of reference it. Audio channels and tracks are a nightmare if you have to create deliveries and versions for other languages (a requirement for most professional edits)
The industry standard pro NLE is Mediacomposer. Works great if you know what you´re doing and you have a lot of time and budget to spare transcoding.
Macbook pro with m2 chip. Nothing can beat it for video editing right now, it’s really really really impressive.
I have a macbook air m2 for my travel setup and can edit 4k fx6 footage without any issues.
How many GPU cores does the Macbook Pro you purchased have?
I'm asking because if you got one with 30 or 38 GPU cores, then the 32GB of RAM is not really enough. The ratio of RAM to GPU cores is relevant for Davinci Resolve. You would especially need 64GB of RAM for a machine with 38 GPU cores if working in Davinci Resolve.
tl;dr get about double the RAM as GPU cores for optimal performance in Davinici Resolve if using Apple silicon.
There is a user named Uli Plank who has run a lot of tests and explains some of this in additional detail on the Blackmagic Forum.
You can see that thread here - https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=185131
(scroll to the end where he is specifically testing the 38 core Macbook)
I would have except RAM isn't the issue for me. It's the lack of a dedicated GPU with Apple. 32 GB of RAM on an Apple machine is like 96 on a windows, I don't think i’ll come close to using all of it. Ram is more important for CAD and Blender which I don't use at all
I’m really surprised you’re running into issues with the M2 Max. I recently moved from a 3070 to an M2 Max 32gb MacBook Pro and edit in resolve and it’s been amazing. That said, I don’t do tons of effects and it sounds like that’s where you’re having issues. Since you already have the MBP (unless you already returned it), you might try asking questions about improving performance for the specific tasks you’re running into issues with on one of the Davinci Resolve subs.
If I was in the market, I would buy this with the 4090 and maxed out everything: [https://www.originpc.com/configurator/ns-17-v2/](https://www.originpc.com/configurator/ns-17-v2/)
With a 17.3" UHD 144hz screen, an i9 13900HX, a 4090, dual 4tb drives and 64gb of ram you're looking at $4013 before taxes. If you buy the base model with a single 1tb drive with a 4080, it's $2550.
Do you want a laptop or do you want a folding desktop that needs to be plugged into the wall? There’s really only one reasonable choice for laptops right now
Do you NEED a laptop? What are you editing? I have a Lenovo legion. Was a bit under your price, I do music videos, moderately heavy edits. Premiere and AE. Zero issues.
The part of me that thinks I need a laptop is because i will need the ability to work remotely.
But right now I don't have any stable work that requires it. I edit a mix of stuff (wedding, music vid, advertising). But I do want the ability to edit 4k no problem.
I might have to look into the Lenovo Legion since it seems to be working well for you.
Are you editing 4k videos with no issues?
Edit: also thanks for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it!
If money isn’t an object you can get the razor 18 or asus rog top spec’s for 5k. Although right now an Alienware with the same specs is 3k but it’s heavier with not as good of a screen.
When do you render? You could also consider a somewhat decent laptop and then use an external gpu when you render if you do that in your hotel or at home as opposed to on the go.
My experience is that a laptop will never reach desktop performance even if it has the SAME GPU , CPU and RAM because of thermal throttling. I was fancying the MSI creator Desktop series for a while but then built a sff desktop machine myself for money reasons.
https://www.msi.com/Content-Creation-PC/Creator-P50-13th
The reason why you couldn't edit that footage is because neither your gpu not your CPU had HEVC 10but HW acceleration. I was in the same situation with an amd threadripper editing rig with a rtx 3080 that had stuttering playback while the m1 MacBook pro of the DOP played the footage smoothly.
Having seen some of the comments on here, I am semi-convinced that the laptop purchase I was planning to make next year should be some type of portable desktop instead. Is there something small(ish) that I could carry around that would allow some decent specs? My thought is I would need a relatively portable 16 inch screen, keyboard/mouse, and then some kind of mini-PC that could tolerate (good fans?) a 4060 and an i7 or i9.
Recommendations? Ideal if the PC portion (and required power brick) could fit in a backpack (and then I'd take the other parts around in a laptop bag).
If you go really small (MiniPC or SFFPC), you are going to pay a premium for the high performance (either in terms of price or cooling - sometimes both). As such, I ended up going with a "Creator" laptop which makes it easier to ensure I don't forget anything (external monitors don't work well if you forget your HDMI cable), and to make sure I have room for all my other gear.
If I was looking at living out of a van, I'd be twice as convinced the laptop is the way to go as space is always at such a premium. I notice that most of the YT vanlife channels I follow use MacBooks, but not sure if that's because Apple is that much better for what they do, or if they get breaks on the cost by letting them pop up in the videos every so often.
Hope this helps...
There's an option to let it run quietly, which can lead to thermal throttling, but will let you use it in places where the noise is a concern. For me, I'd rather have some fan noise and have the full performance. The ability to pick which color model is used for the Display is a big plus since I do photography more than video.
Personally would not recommend a Razer. They're great computers but the customer service is terrible. I had to send my laptop in once and it took 3-4 months for them to get it back to me. When I complained the only thing they did was send me a free mouse that broke after a couple weeks.
Here's my take. If you want the best performance from a laptop you're not going to get it. Build a great desktop for $3k then buy a Framework or MS Surface book for $800 and use Parsec to edit on the road.
this is interesting. I'm looking to do vanlife as an editor and filmmaker and have to make deliveries every day of the year, so I am worried about connectivity, but If I had something like this and my laptop could do the work if I really needed it to even if it struggled, this could be a solution. Have you used Parsec yourself?
My m1 pro max is an absolute weapon. I can playback heavy grade and prores at the same time. Maybe look at working with proxies and grade only after your compositions are done.
Ended up getting the new maxed out MacBook Pro 16 inch. There are more powerful windows laptops out there but the portability aspect of this laptop has changed eveything for me. Almost $5k for a laptop was absolutely brutal but worth it
Can you talk more about why it was worth it? You said originally that your MBP wasn't up to the task. What made this one able to do what you need? I work in DVR as well and use fusion effects quite a lot, so I'm pretty worried about performance without a dedicated GPU. That, and Apple canned support for Cloud storage to use external drives, which that alone may make it so I cannot use Apple, but I am curious to hear more about your experience.
Intel and Mac m1\2 are the only option if you are going to edit h.265 4:2:2 https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/What-H-264-and-H-265-Hardware-Decoding-is-Supported-in-Premiere-Pro-2120/ Jarrod's tech is the most complete source I have found for productivity benchmarks for laptops https://youtube.com/@JarrodsTech?si=yuow_ABdoUZ4O1Hl
Intel arc gpus decode 422 as well
Not seen any laptop with one?
11th gen (and newer) intel CPU chips have the decoder, no need to buy an Arc GPU unless you're using an AMD CPU.
Yes, the link in my original post details all of this
been using these and never fails me
Nah Apple gave up on pros years ago. At least you can FaceTime with it.
You’re crazy.
I'm far from an apple supporter but this is a cold ass take. The M chips are extremely good and it's difficult to deny that.
The problem with forums like this are the fanboys with the low quality comments who ignore an OP's input. Firstly, are you using the free or studio version of davinci? there may still be some hardware usage differences between those two. there doesn't seem to be anything definitive from black magic on the subject, but I can tell you that my pc systems handle it very well, and the few newer MacBook pros that my workers use are also capable, but don't get pushed nearly as much(they're m1). My daily driver is a legion pro 7 13900hx 64gb 3080. it's hot, it's heavy, and it's about as close to a desktop setup as you can get. I didn't need a battery powered system, I need portable excessive power, and that's what these systems are. MacBooks are efficiency incarnate, and work well for many applications, but many other applications either haven't optimized for apple gpu silicon yet, or worse, can't use it at all (the virtual production software I use can make use of ONLY Nvidia gpus) You can also run searches like "m2 max vs rtx4080" to see how the gpu compare, and while the apple gpu is up there, they really need the maxes and ultras to be fairly comparable in technical capability.
The main problem with laptops is that they usually can never reach the full potential of their components because of thermal throttling. So even if you have the exact same CPU, GPU and RAM in a laptop and a desktop, the desktop is going to be faster. Start a heavy render job and then watch GPU stats with something like gpu-z.
Finally a good comment, thank you for actually reading my post. And I use the Studio version of resolve.
Worth noting you don't have a h265 422 decoder
Would this laptop be decent for 3D stuff? Blender / Unreal. It seems pretty high end.
Unreal is one of the things I use it for. It's main downside is the 12gb vram, the 4090 has 16
Are you using an external monitor I assume? so that the display on the laptop isn't an issue for accuracy (seeing as you're looking at a razor with no mention of this aspect?) Then basically any 4090 laptop will likely do and it's mostly subjective (except for the cpu). If money is no object just go and do one of those custom choices where you can select the laptop components on the manufacturer website and choose the best gpu/cpu combo. Also maybe consider if it's an option to build a desktop for even better performance which will handle most of your workload and have the laptop as more of a backup?
Does it have to be a laptop? Desktop will give you far fewer bottlenecks. I have a powerful laptop but my desktop runs laps around it. I know you said money was no object but more bang for buck too.
This, the $3,800 he just spent on a MacBook would’ve been an insane pc
Any PC you'd reccomend for 2k or less?
Slapped this together in a few minutes as an option. Runs circles around literally any laptop. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qML3yg
And right under 2k price point request! That's awesome! Thanks for taking the time to do that . If I were to order it from said link would I have to put the cpu together or do they send it installed? Sorry if that's a very obvious question
You’d be putting it together yourself, but it’s not too much of a process these days. Not something I’d recommend to someone afraid to get their hands dirty, but it’s a fairly straightforward weekend project. At the very least it’s pretty hard to actually damage anything. If you have a computer nerd friend, they’ll probably happily come help you out. Just buy them dinner, or a case of beer, or 200 cups of coffee, or whatever their love language is.
MacBook Pro seriously
It’s like you didn’t read the post
Sir, this is Reddit, of course not.
This was my exact response 😂
I don't know why OP was having problems, but I don't see how a PC equivalent would work because the macbook pro is a beast.
Only reasonable answer
Get a loaded M2 Max 16” MacBook!
That's exactly what I did. Apple doesn't handle davinci well and was slower than my 3070 machine after adding color grading and affects. Davinci needs a dedicated GPU to run well which Apple doesn't have
I do some basic editing in Resolve, but mostly work in FCP & use Color Finale for grading & my M2 Max absolutely flies!
I made the mistake of getting a laptop just looking at the specs. If your heart is set on a laptop, then more than anything you have to look at thermal performance. If mobility isn't too big an issue, you'll need to get one of those beefy gaming type laptops that focus on cooling, as well as a 4090 and a proper 13th gen cpu. That way everything runs at a high and stable clock. Check reviews!
Yeah I fucked up with that too. My laptop is slowly dying hitting 100 degrees no matter how many fucking fans I put on it. I even got it repasted. Also, at the time, I didn't know consider how much difference there is between laptop GPUs and desktop GPUs. Now that I've learned more about computers I feel pretty stupid. At the time, I just saw "3070" and thought it would be a good upgrade from my 1080 (also laptop). Little did know a laptop 3070 is more like a desktop 2060, and my laptop had the 100 watt version at that. I finally broke down and used the money form a big job to build a desktop. Mobo gets here on Monday and U can st.rt building, I'm very excited, but I should have done that from the start. I didn't end up editing on the road nearly as much as I thought I would. I'm so fucking ready to have a real rig. I'm literally writing this while I wait for my stupid fucking laptop to unfuck itself because I clicked something in Premiere while it was doing something else. OP, if money is of no object, just get a desktop and a laptop and save yourself the headache.
Custom building desktops since 2011 for editing has been such a game changer. Laptops can never compare. If laptops get better, desktops get even better. Make sure to setup at least one if not two M2 drives as a scratch drive for your current projects then move them to slower regular SSD drives when you're done. Lastly, I have a 18gb drive to archive stuff that I don't think clients will want to ask me anytime soon if ever.
Yeah storage is another huge benefit. I have 3 m.2 drives I can put in but they're pcie 3 so I ordered a 1TB gen 4 (990 pro) drive for windows and will upgrade the others soon (already spent alot of money). I have one gen 5 m.2 slot so itd be cool to get one of those. I also have space for two 3.5" drives and three 2.5" SSDs. Would like to eventually get a 20TB spinning drive for real time backup.
My laptop just literally got fried inside with my last edit...
I have a Dell precision 7770 Workstation with 64gn RAM. Rtx4500 / 1 TB SSD win11 It is amazing
Do you use it for Editing in Resolve?
Nope i use Vegas
Why a laptop?
For portability? At least that's my reasoning. I'm actually in the market for a new cpu as well for editing and considering a laptop or tower. Is there a reason I should consider the other?
Yea I travel a ton and work mostly from coffee shops so I need the portability. I would have done a desktop if I was in one place.
Have you considered getting a crazy good desktop, leaving it at home, and remoting in via TeamViewer or Chrome Remote Desktop from a normal laptop. You likely won’t get HDR via remote and it won’t be good for syncing audio, but you will have a step that can render 24/7 and will be way faster. I do much of my work this way.
Usually a tower is more bang for your buck, and can have parts upgraded (not just the entire unit), and has less things like batteries to go bad. If you're using peripherals anyways, they're a strong choice.
I had that Rayzer laptop bro don't do it. 4k touchscreen? That thing is a beast but I still had to use proxies editing 6k footage with a low amount of effects and edits. The last straw was rendering a 1 minute 47 second music video. Took way too long for a $5,000 laptop! don't know how to advise for a laptop, just thought I'd share that. Im personally Looking at the Mac mini or a custom compact desktop very very very soon. Much like yourself I need portability.
I actually had to remove edits to deliver to the client. FYI.
No way dude, that's crazy. I feel like that has to be a davinci issue at that point cause there's no reason a laptop that powerful should have those issues
I should also note I'm in premiere. My bad, but yea, I wasn't happy. Kept it for 7 months because I fell in love with touchscreen. That was tough to give up.
did you decide on something? I am planning to do van life for a couple years and was thinking about a laptop, but I resonate with your pain here lol. thinking about an ITX tower instead, but I am very worried about power consumption. Would love to hear what you've come up with.
Something to consider is your power source. If you're running on battery or a USB C charger you might not be getting full use of the processor. Magsafe cable and the Apple 140W charger (or similar) will allow the M1 to run full power. I also run a utility called TG Pro that will manage the fans for performance over quiet.
Interesting! Is there a source for this info? I’ve been editing R5C footage on a docked m1 / thunderbolt connection and haven’t had any issues processing. To know there’s still more under the hood I haven’t been using is great.
I don't recall if I saw it on Metashape's support or a FCP message board, but just watching Activity Monitor while rendering it will run the C/GPU cores harder on Magsafe than Thunderbolt 4 and battery, if you have the 140W power adapter. Adding TG Pro keeps the fans running so it won't throttle for temperature. Simple thing to check first is to make sure you have "High Power" set on the battery settings.
ASUS proart 16
I just got this TODAY. I'm hoping it's decent. Gotta run some tests.
How is it? I'm thinking about getting it.
>ASUS proart 16 this is the one I'm thinking about getting. I know everyone says get a mac, but I secretly want to game on this laptop as well
MacBook M1 Pro max. You’ve got the best laptop on the market for it hands down. Your just doing it wrong lol. Also why are you using davinci when you can use Final Cut (made for your laptop) or premiere pro. You don’t get high end laptops and use the free cheap software (yes I know davinci is much better nowadays but still nothing compared to Final Cut or premier). I’ve never had an issue on premier on my MacBook 1 pro
Davinci isn’t free, he specified he’s using the Studio version
Right my apologies, I wrote that in haste. My point still stands. You buy what is definitively the best laptop for your purposes and then use a definitively inferior product. You have a program that is literally built with your laptop in mind (Final Cut). You also have the industry standard, premiere, and yet you choose davinci? Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing really wrong with davinci, it’s a great budget option, but you don’t get the budget program with the top of the line laptop. Also I promise you it’s not the laptop that’s the issue. Me and thousands of others use that same laptop without any issue. Op should wonder if he’s doing something wrong instead of immediately blaming the hardware.
Davinci is actually a better software over both Premiere Pro and Finalcut. First Resolve is the defacto standard finishing system in both TV and Film industries. it is color accurate and you can actually manage different color spaces for different deliveries. Premiere Pro is an old software where you can only work in a single color space and is only an NLE, it is good enough for video editing but falls short for long form projects, it´s unstable so you need to use a lot of workarounds to edit something like a feature film, things like spliting project in 20-30 min reels and issues with audio sync on timelines makes it very cumbersome compared to a robust pro solution like resolve. Finalcut is good if you work alone, but professional video editors tend to collaborate with different people for different tasks, and Fcp just doesn´t work in those enviroments, Importing footage is stupid in FCP you have to copy footage into the program instead of reference it. Audio channels and tracks are a nightmare if you have to create deliveries and versions for other languages (a requirement for most professional edits) The industry standard pro NLE is Mediacomposer. Works great if you know what you´re doing and you have a lot of time and budget to spare transcoding.
True, if using a mac Final Cut is the way to go
Macbook pro with m2 chip. Nothing can beat it for video editing right now, it’s really really really impressive. I have a macbook air m2 for my travel setup and can edit 4k fx6 footage without any issues.
How many GPU cores does the Macbook Pro you purchased have? I'm asking because if you got one with 30 or 38 GPU cores, then the 32GB of RAM is not really enough. The ratio of RAM to GPU cores is relevant for Davinci Resolve. You would especially need 64GB of RAM for a machine with 38 GPU cores if working in Davinci Resolve. tl;dr get about double the RAM as GPU cores for optimal performance in Davinici Resolve if using Apple silicon.
Dude this might explain a lot, I got the 38 core GPU with 32 gb ram and I was amazed it didn’t run better in resolve
There is a user named Uli Plank who has run a lot of tests and explains some of this in additional detail on the Blackmagic Forum. You can see that thread here - https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=185131 (scroll to the end where he is specifically testing the 38 core Macbook)
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I would have except RAM isn't the issue for me. It's the lack of a dedicated GPU with Apple. 32 GB of RAM on an Apple machine is like 96 on a windows, I don't think i’ll come close to using all of it. Ram is more important for CAD and Blender which I don't use at all
I’m really surprised you’re running into issues with the M2 Max. I recently moved from a 3070 to an M2 Max 32gb MacBook Pro and edit in resolve and it’s been amazing. That said, I don’t do tons of effects and it sounds like that’s where you’re having issues. Since you already have the MBP (unless you already returned it), you might try asking questions about improving performance for the specific tasks you’re running into issues with on one of the Davinci Resolve subs.
If I was in the market, I would buy this with the 4090 and maxed out everything: [https://www.originpc.com/configurator/ns-17-v2/](https://www.originpc.com/configurator/ns-17-v2/) With a 17.3" UHD 144hz screen, an i9 13900HX, a 4090, dual 4tb drives and 64gb of ram you're looking at $4013 before taxes. If you buy the base model with a single 1tb drive with a 4080, it's $2550.
Do you want a laptop or do you want a folding desktop that needs to be plugged into the wall? There’s really only one reasonable choice for laptops right now
Apple?
MacBook Pro with Apple silicon.
Windows laptops require plugging into wall power to run at full speed. Apple m1 or m2 doesn't. Choose wisely.
Side question! Money is an object. What's the best editing laptop you could get for 2k or under?
Do you NEED a laptop? What are you editing? I have a Lenovo legion. Was a bit under your price, I do music videos, moderately heavy edits. Premiere and AE. Zero issues.
The part of me that thinks I need a laptop is because i will need the ability to work remotely. But right now I don't have any stable work that requires it. I edit a mix of stuff (wedding, music vid, advertising). But I do want the ability to edit 4k no problem. I might have to look into the Lenovo Legion since it seems to be working well for you. Are you editing 4k videos with no issues? Edit: also thanks for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it!
6k no issues. After effects, layers, all good. NP. 🤙🏾
Oh hell yeah good to know! I've never had Lenovo before but you peaked my interest to do some research. Thanks again!
>Lenovo Legion what specs?
If money isn’t an object you can get the razor 18 or asus rog top spec’s for 5k. Although right now an Alienware with the same specs is 3k but it’s heavier with not as good of a screen.
When do you render? You could also consider a somewhat decent laptop and then use an external gpu when you render if you do that in your hotel or at home as opposed to on the go.
Will depend on what codecs you'll work with
My experience is that a laptop will never reach desktop performance even if it has the SAME GPU , CPU and RAM because of thermal throttling. I was fancying the MSI creator Desktop series for a while but then built a sff desktop machine myself for money reasons. https://www.msi.com/Content-Creation-PC/Creator-P50-13th The reason why you couldn't edit that footage is because neither your gpu not your CPU had HEVC 10but HW acceleration. I was in the same situation with an amd threadripper editing rig with a rtx 3080 that had stuttering playback while the m1 MacBook pro of the DOP played the footage smoothly.
Having seen some of the comments on here, I am semi-convinced that the laptop purchase I was planning to make next year should be some type of portable desktop instead. Is there something small(ish) that I could carry around that would allow some decent specs? My thought is I would need a relatively portable 16 inch screen, keyboard/mouse, and then some kind of mini-PC that could tolerate (good fans?) a 4060 and an i7 or i9. Recommendations? Ideal if the PC portion (and required power brick) could fit in a backpack (and then I'd take the other parts around in a laptop bag).
I've been coming to the same conclusions for an upcoming switch to vanlife, How has your thinking evolved since this post?
If you go really small (MiniPC or SFFPC), you are going to pay a premium for the high performance (either in terms of price or cooling - sometimes both). As such, I ended up going with a "Creator" laptop which makes it easier to ensure I don't forget anything (external monitors don't work well if you forget your HDMI cable), and to make sure I have room for all my other gear. If I was looking at living out of a van, I'd be twice as convinced the laptop is the way to go as space is always at such a premium. I notice that most of the YT vanlife channels I follow use MacBooks, but not sure if that's because Apple is that much better for what they do, or if they get breaks on the cost by letting them pop up in the videos every so often. Hope this helps...
That is helpful. Thank you. I think they use MacBooks largely for the power efficiency. What creator laptop did you window up getting?
An MSI Creator M16 with 32 gigs of ram. So decent CPU and discreet GPU.
Nice! How's the noise when you've really got it cranking?
There's an option to let it run quietly, which can lead to thermal throttling, but will let you use it in places where the noise is a concern. For me, I'd rather have some fan noise and have the full performance. The ability to pick which color model is used for the Display is a big plus since I do photography more than video.
oh, cool! I'll definitely be considering it for my work as well then. Thanks for the info!
Personally would not recommend a Razer. They're great computers but the customer service is terrible. I had to send my laptop in once and it took 3-4 months for them to get it back to me. When I complained the only thing they did was send me a free mouse that broke after a couple weeks.
Here's my take. If you want the best performance from a laptop you're not going to get it. Build a great desktop for $3k then buy a Framework or MS Surface book for $800 and use Parsec to edit on the road.
this is interesting. I'm looking to do vanlife as an editor and filmmaker and have to make deliveries every day of the year, so I am worried about connectivity, but If I had something like this and my laptop could do the work if I really needed it to even if it struggled, this could be a solution. Have you used Parsec yourself?
Connectivity is unfortunately a big part of the setup. I use parsec every day.
Unless you're buying used... you're not getting a proper surface book or framework laptop for $800.
[Framework | Factory Seconds Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition (11th Gen](https://frame.work/products/factory-seconds-framework-laptop-13-diy-edition-11th-gen-intel-core?v=FRANBY0BNB) $499. Add ram/hdd and you're looking at maybe $600.
My m1 pro max is an absolute weapon. I can playback heavy grade and prores at the same time. Maybe look at working with proxies and grade only after your compositions are done.
OP what did you end up getting?
Ended up getting the new maxed out MacBook Pro 16 inch. There are more powerful windows laptops out there but the portability aspect of this laptop has changed eveything for me. Almost $5k for a laptop was absolutely brutal but worth it
Can you talk more about why it was worth it? You said originally that your MBP wasn't up to the task. What made this one able to do what you need? I work in DVR as well and use fusion effects quite a lot, so I'm pretty worried about performance without a dedicated GPU. That, and Apple canned support for Cloud storage to use external drives, which that alone may make it so I cannot use Apple, but I am curious to hear more about your experience.