Can the latest MacBooks Pros playback 8k RED files in say 1/4 res?

[AndreasOberg]

I need a laptop that is quite light weight and can offload media in the field.
Would be nice if it can also review videos when the need arises (this of course uses MUCH more battery).

Looking a bit at Apple MacBook Pro because they have good battery and are well built. Just wondering can it playback 1/4 res of 8k files or is that too much for it?

Problem with the gaming style laptops with Nvidia cards is they usually have horrible battery power.
Thanks,
Andreas

[Bastian Meier]

I just tested my Mac book Pro 2017 - 2.8GHZ i7 16GB Ram - Radeon Pro 555 2GB and it plays 5K Gemini Files with 1/4 res.

I don't have any 8K files on my laptop at the moment to test.
But if you really need the playback redcine-x does buffer, so you can let it preload, and then playback.

[Andrew Reese]

I have the new 2019 MacBook Pro 15" 1TB SSD, 2.4 ghz 8-Core I9, 32gb ram, Radeon Pro Vega 20 4gb and edit with Samsung T5 and the new X5 external SSD's I can playback full-res Gemini 5k files in FCPX with little hiccup.

[Björn Benckert]

Im sure 1/4 and 8bit plays fine with the right discs.

[AndreasOberg]

Hi guys thanks for all the thoughts.

For those that have the newer Macbook Pro. Would it be possible to download an 8k video and test the playback.
I know from using Red Epic 5k files, that 5k files are a LOT easier to playback than 8K. It is not only that the computation needs are higher but there also seem to put a strain on memory transport.

https://www.red.com/sample-r3d-files

Björn, the harddrives are mainly important if you are skimming in the timeline, then the read speed can go up all the way to 2000MB/s. However when you playback it is rarely more than 200MB/s which any SSD can handle.

The benefits I see with Apple is:
- Very well built. This is the biggest problem with all PC laptops, I do not trust the build quality of most of them.
- very reliable
- strong power in USB, this can be a problem with driving 4TB SSD, not all laptops can handle it

Downsides
- no Nvidia GPU so far slower with everything Red.
- I do not like their format on harddrives since we use PC for everything else
- expensive

Cheers!
Andreas

[AndreasOberg]

Anyone tried the Lenovo Thinkpad range?
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops.../p/22WS2WPP102

They have a Quadro T2000 4GB that should be a bit faster than the vega 20 in Apple. I would think the Quadro will be much faster in Redcine as well since it is Nvidia.
The Lenovo range seem to be one of the few PC laptops that are really well built as well.

Andreas

[Bob Gundu]

I have the latest maxed out MacBook and playing back 8K Red files at quarter quality decode doesn't skip a beat using the Screen App.

https://videovillage.co/screen/

[Mark Phelan]

Andreas, I too have the latest maxed out MacBook Pro and in Redcine-X Pro and Red Player, it plays 8K just fine, but at 1/8 rez.

Bob has better toys.

[Marc Wielage]

All I can say is, I tried playing back 8K Raw last year at 1/8th resolution on a music video project, and my poor Trashcan Mac almost caught on fire. Not a wise idea. We were able to finish it, but only with great difficulty... and the render took several hours (for a 3-minute song).

Moving forward, I'd recommend a 4K or 5K workflow using high-quality transcodes. Either that, or many times more CPU power, RAM, and GPU power. I would bet one of the new full-tilt 2019 Mac Pros could do it pretty well, but that's not a laptop.

[Björn Benckert]

All I can say is, I tried playing back 8K Raw last year at 1/8th resolution on a music video project, and my poor Trashcan Mac almost caught on fire. Not a wise idea. We were able to finish it, but only with great difficulty... and the render took several hours (for a 3-minute song).

Moving forward, I'd recommend a 4K or 5K workflow using high-quality transcodes. Either that, or many times more CPU power, RAM, and GPU power. I would bet one of the new full-tilt 2019 Mac Pros could do it pretty well, but that's not a laptop.

Yes trashcan is possibly the worst. But pretty much any machine with a 1080ti plays back half debayer 8k no big needs for ram or CPU.

My hackingtoch machines with only one ti1080, 18core i9 and 128gb ram plays 8k full res no problems.

If not insisting on Mac then the new Oled razor laptop would be my choice. As I see it it has better build quality than MacBooks, a Oled 4k screen which is really nice. And with the 2080ti it does 8k full debayer no problem without even using the GPU. But yes its a PC. I hate PCs :)