Choppy Playback with4k all-i 400 Mbps

Does anyone know why I would be getting choppy playback from footage that was shot with a GH5 at 4k 400 Mbps 23.98 .
I thought once it was rendered , it would be fine, but that is not the case, the choppyness is still there. Even when I change to "better performance"
I am editing on a IMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015).
The timeline settings do seem to matter, if I edit on a 1080 timeline after rendering the choppyness is gone.
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

In general 4k All-Intra is easier to edit than 4k Long GOP but this varies between codecs. They are all internally different and handled differently by each combination of NLE and hardware. If you can upload a short camera clip to a share point I will examine that with several different NLEs and various Mac hardware.

If it is slow when rendered this implies a possible hard disk or I/O limitation. If the timeline is rendered, all the compute-intensive work is done. The render files are ProRes 422 so it's just a matter of pulling them off the disk and displaying them in the NLE.

Thank you for the help
however I just installed 10.4.7 and now it is playing back much better,
I should have done that 1st
Thanks again.

Are you using a SSD?

If it's GH5/GH5s, this was discussed elsewhere. It seems that contrary to theory, this is not more edit-friendly in FCPX. Optimize.

Or better yet: don't record in all-i. According to many tests performed by others, there is not only no advantage in terms of playback, it's also not superior in quality over Long-GOP.

Axel wrote: If it's GH5/GH5s, this was discussed elsewhere. It seems that contrary to theory, this is not more edit-friendly in FCPX. Optimize.

Or better yet: don't record in all-i. According to many tests performed by others, there is not only no advantage in terms of playback, it's also not superior in quality over Long-GOP.

I don't have the GH5 but I know FCPX can make use of Intel's Quick Sync. Some video codecs will playback and render better than others depending on the NLE. Blackmagic RAW seems to playback easier in DaVinci Resolve than Premiere Pro. I don't doubt the Apple Pro Res codecs playback better using FCPX than Premiere Pro.

Davinci and FCPX both have better performance overall thant PPro due to the optimization of the coding. PPro is not known for its performance.

Premiere has historically had poor H.264 playback and encode performance, especially seen on 4k material on Macs. One factor was not using Quick Sync.

However recent versions have been improved, initially for encode (export), then later for decode (ie playback). Resolve and FCPX are still generally faster, especially on playback. However there were some narrow edge cases where recent versions of Premiere were faster at encoding to H.264 than FCPX 10.4.6 on certain hardware. I haven't re-tested on 10.4.7, but that has some significant performance upgrades, esp. for built-in effects but also for H.264 encoding on certain platforms.

The last time I tested it, Premiere was much faster than FCPX for 10-bit HEVC encoding on both iMac Pro and 2017 iMac 27, but that's a single case.

The OP reported 10.4.7 made an improvement for 4k GH5 400 mbps All-Intra material, and that was on a 2015 iMac, not the 2017 and later that have improved Quick Sync hardware. That is something to keep in mind if anyone is using that codec.

FCPX.guru wrote: Davinci and FCPX both have better performance overall thant PPro due to the optimization of the coding. PPro is not known for its performance.

It depends on the video codec and computer. FCXP has an advantage over Premiere Pro when using H.264 on a computer without a dedicated GPU. On an inexpensive laptop FCPX has an advantage but not so much on a desktop computer. I can playback multiple layers of any 4K video codec using Premiere Pro at full resolution with High Quality Enabled. High Quality and full resolution are not the same thing. If I dropped down to 1/4 restitution I could probably playback 25 layers of any 4K video codec. What more could you expect?

Joema,

It sounds like you have used Premiere Pro. I think you and many others will find my video link below very informative. I can playback multiple layers of 4K Pro Res, H.264 and even R3D files at full resolution with high quality playback enabled. FCPX does not have a high quality playback option like Premiere Pro. Full resolution and high quality playback are not the same thing. High quality playback can clean up the image but it takes a real toll on the GPU. For some reason when using the Blackmagic RAW video codec it takes a toll on CPU as well as the Mercury Transmit playback. I don't doubt an iMac with FCPX can make use of benchmarks to see what is going on with different codecs.

We use both the GH5 and the EVA1, and in our experience using Panasonic footage 400 all-i or even the 150, you'll always experience some choppiness. Even our maxed out iMac pro stutters when going double speed, or even just playing between edits. (and that's editing off extremely fast storage)

We still make proxy so that we can edit with as much buttery smoothness as possible across all computers.

I would suspect that the increased playback you're seeing is from the improvements in fcpx 10.4.7 in regards to the Metal 2 improvements apple has made. (looking forward to when we can update to 10.4.7)

Fernkraft,

Is there anyway you could allow us to test out a few sample clips from your camera? Maybe four or five twenty second long clips?

Thier wrote: Does anyone know why I would be getting choppy playback from footage that was shot with a GH5 at 4k 400 Mbps 23.98 ...

I just tested this exact codec on FCPX 10.4.6, FCPX 10.4.7, Resolve Studio 16.1.0.055 and Premiere Pro 13.1.5 on a 10-core Vega 64 iMac Pro running macOS Mojave 10.14.6. Media was on a 4-drive RAID-0 SSD Thunderbolt 2 array. The FCPX viewer was on "better quality", Resolve was at default, and Premiere Pro was at 1/4 resolution using Metal playback.

Results: FCPX 10.4.7 has a much better viewer update rate vs. 10.4.6 using this codec on an iMac Pro. Objectively the frame update rate is "only" 42% faster but subjectively the difference is much greater since 10.4.6 was halting and uneven. It would update 3-4 frames pretty fast than a lag between the next frames. On 10.4.7 it was not only faster but more consistent. It was not as fast as the latest version of Resolve, but once you reach 20 frame/sec update rate, they both feel very responsive.

This was also mirrored by the latency between varying JKL input and playhead response, IOW response lag when switching between forward and reverse. Both FCPX 10.4.7 and Resolve Studio 16.1 were both very responsive on this "difficult" codec.

Shooting the playback screen at 240 fps enabled measuring the viewer update rate when each NLE was requested to fast forward at 4x speed, IOW 3 clicks on the L key. The results were:

Resolve: 28 frames/sec
FCPX 10.4.7: 20 frames/sec
FCPX 10.4.6: 14 frames/sec (but uneven)
Premiere: 2 frames/sec

Joema,

Could you upload a few sample clips? I would like to test it out on my system. It might prove to be interesting.

arc wrote: Joema,

Could you upload a few sample clips? I would like to test it out on my system. It might prove to be interesting.

Here is a short clip. I don't have much of this material since my documentary team rarely uses it and most of what we have can't be released.

Note since this is an FCPX forum, performance issues (regardless of NLE) should generally be evaluated on a Mac, else there is no reason to discuss it here.

www.dropbox.com/s/3dz4ez4zp4ee1eq/P1111368_35275.MOV?dl=0

joema wrote:
Here is a short clip. I don't have much of this material since my documentary team rarely uses it and most of what we have can't be released.

Note since this is an FCPX forum, performance issues (regardless of NLE) should generally be evaluated on a Mac, else there is no reason to discuss it here.

Thank you for the link. All video codecs take a hit on the CPU and GPU differently. Having said that if the video file plays back OK on a Windows system using Premiere Pro everyone will be more knowledgeable don't you think?

Joema,

I think you may have uploaded the wrong video file. The video clip you provided a link for plays back super easy on my system. I can play it back with multiple layers at full resolution with high quality enabled and also apply a couple of cc filters. It does not drop frames or even max out the CPU or GPU. One thing I noticed is that when I check the video clip's properties it is listed as H.264 but it does not work my IGPU at all. In other words it is not making use of Intel's Quick sync on my computer system. Having said that it still plays back really easy so I am thinking the wrong video file was uploaded. Just so you now the video has a lizard in it. It is hand held so that is why it might seem a little choppy for playback. Other people might want to test it out as well. I just don't think it is the correct video file. Having said that thanks for uploading it none the less because I do find it odd that the video codec is listed as H.264 but it is not using Intel's Quikc Sync on my system.

Thanks, I will check it tomorrow.

arc wrote: Joema,

I think you may have uploaded the wrong video file. The video clip you provided a link for plays back super easy on my system. ....

It was the right codec, but it appears Premiere does optimization on very short "test-type" timelines which lessens the lag problem. It can't do this on longer real-world clips, but those are difficult to upload if 4k All-Intra at 400 mbps.

I found another method that reproduces the problem, at least on my 10-core iMac Pro. I'm uploading a 24 sec clip using the same 4k GH5 10-bit 4:2:2 All-Intra codec, file suffix 35269. If you append this clip to itself 10 times in a Premiere timeline then do JKL forward at 4x followed by rapid reverse it becomes very sluggish and laggy, at least on an iMac Pro or 2017 i7 iMac running Premiere 13.1.5 and Mojave 10.14.6, 1/4 res and Metal playback, but not if using FCPX 10.4.7 or Resolve Studio 16.1 on the same machines and test file.

24 sec clip, file ID 35269, GH5 4k H.264 All-Intra 23.98 fps, 10- bit 4:2:2, 400 mbps: www.dropbox.com/s/r0brvv6ktj4vuye/p1111362_35269.mov?dl=0

To stay on track of the OP question, it does seem this codec was slower on FCPX 10.4.6 than on 10.4.7. On both iMac Pro and 2017 i7 iMac I tested, it is significantly faster on 10.4.7 (both on Mojave).

The viewer update rate of Resolve 16.1 is a bit faster than FCPX on the same Mac hardware using that codec, which shows there is no Apple secret or inside trick to getting good NLE performance on a Mac. A well written app can obtain good performance on a Mac platform, whether written by Apple or any other developer.

Thanks you for uploading another video clip. The second video clips is much harder to playback but my system can still do it. The JKL keys work just fine. I can play it back at full resolution with high quality enabled and even scrub it with ease. Having said that I cannot playback multiple layers like a picture in picture. My CPU is getting taxed hard but not my GPU. In my properties panel the video file comes up as H.264 but once again the Intel Quick Sync is not being used at all. Perhaps FCPX cannot make use of Intel's Quick Sync with these video clips as well. I will try to do a video that shows the statistics of the HD, CPU, GPU and IGPU of my system. I hope some FCPX user will do the same.

The second video clip is much harder to playback using Premiere Pro. Does FCPX behave the same way?