4K laptop video editing problems 4k vs 1080

[provlima]

Are 4k editing and exporting really worth the hassle??

I am a video editing hobbyist who likes Premiere Elements 14. I recently purchased an Asus GL552VX laptop with a 4k moniitor, 16GB RAM, and an NVIDIA GTX960m card.
It replaced a 4 year old inspiron with an i5 2450 processor that wasn't up to the task of working with 4k, but performed well with editing 1080 media.

After several weeks of use I have found the laptop to be problematic in working with Prem El due to the known scaling problems inherent in a 4k laptop display.
I have learned much from the regulars at the Adobe Premiere Forum and Steve Grisetti's excellent book on Prem El14

I thought that the premium NVIDIA card in my new Laptop and its i76700 processor would help with the 4k video editing, but after researching the Adobe forum I read a post by one of its respected gurus, AT Romano, who advised that NVIDIAs cuda acceleration feature benefits will only work with Premiere Pro not with Prem El. I also was able to learn that Intel's onboard 530 graphics display conflicts with NVIdia's card and can cause problems in Video Editing 4K files.

Others have written that Windows scaler presents other display issues so all my attempts to edit and export 4k files have been very frustrating requiring work arounds, re-starts, disabling the onboard display card etc.

Have finally come to the realization that the hassle of editing 4k on the ASUS is not worth it , and that working with and exporting 1080 projects are more than adequate for my needs. I would greatly appreciate some opinions from Mr Grisetti or experienced hobbyists on my observations.

[Steve Grisetti]

I'm eager to hear others' thoughts on this. 4K is definitely the future -- but is it essential at this point?

Somewhere in this forum's archives we've got a link to a great video where a man demonstrates how, once you compress 4K to an MP4 and display it online, it's not that much sharper than high-def.

On the other hand, others on this forum have posted 4K videos to this forum that look amazing!

Meantime, I got into an argument with a guy at Best Buy the other day (something I do on a regular basis), who was showing off their line of 4k TVs. I pointed out that, on a 50" or larger TV, 4k looks terrific -- but, on a TV smaller than 40", when viewed from across a room, it's almost indistinguishable from HD.

So for now, I'm sitting on HD. But, as I said, I'm continually impressed by the 4k shooters on this forum and their work, so let's see what the teeming masses have to say.

[sidd finch]

I think the first question that needs to be addressed is what device will you be showing your work on? A 4k TV, a monitor, YouTube/Vimeo, Blu-ray etc

Until 4K becomes more prevalent, I tend to think of 4K in the way I used to record and edit in HD then output to SD. You could see a crisper image but it was a bit of work to get there. At the time HD monitors and TV's were not that prevalent. Most of the camera manufacturers called HD future proofing. But now that the future is here it seems like 4K will be the new future there is little talk of future proofing.

I think 4k will become the standard eventually but currently you are in the early adopter phase. 4K gear is at a premium.

Sidd

[Bob]

There are two issues here. 4K as a video format, and 4K as a display capability in a laptop (or desktop).

There is no question that 4K as a video format is now here to stay. It's not universal by any means (yet), but it's heading that direction. It's similar to how 1920x1080 started out as a fringe format and now just about every video capable device on the market supports it. 4K is headed there.

4K as a format does have advantages. It is higher resolution than 1080p which means it will look better on those large screen TVs we seem to want in our living rooms. Smaller, more modest TVs, especially when viewed at the optimum viewing distance, aren't really going to benefit from the higher resolution. From an editing standpoint, 4K gives you the ability work in 1920x1080 and reframe the shot by zooming in and adjusting the horizontal/vertical position. 1080 is not unreasonable -- even if you are using a 4K capable TV, the set will probably have a built-in feature to automatically resample and up-rez. Not quite as sharp as it would be in 4K, but very acceptable. Another possible reason for shooting in 4K is to future proof your video. You may want 1080 now, but, should you want it later, you will have the option of exporting in 4K later using the original source for a sharper result.

4K display on a laptop is another matter. I really don't see any advantage to viewing 4K video full resolution on a small laptop or desktop screen. In my opinion, the main reason you may want a 4K display on a computer screen is to get more screen real estate. Video editing software has a lot of tools, features, and panels that can be used. A higher resolution panel will allow you to keep more panels and tools open at the same time and can facilitate your editing. The trade off is the smaller text you need to deal with. In addition, for now, you'll probably run into scaling issues on the application side as well at the operating system side. Both sides need to be capable of handling the higher resolution display panels. That's coming, largely due to the need to support "retina" type high resolution panels, but it's spotty right now.

There shouldn't be a conflict between the onboard cpu graphics and the video card because you should not normally keep both active at the same time. You typically disable the onboard graphics in the computer's BIOS if you have a separate graphics card. Premiere Elements does not use much in the way of accelerated graphics. It definitely does not use the NVidia CUDA cores for acceleration as does Premiere Pro. We have mentioned that here as well in other topic threads.

[provlima]

Thanks for your insights....as regards to the onboard I
Intel card, I fouund you could easily disable it in W10's device manager by right clicking on the Intel 530 icon in the display adapters. A lot easier than going into the bios. I found that when you are finished with your 4k export the Intel adapter has to be re-enabled or the the video plays in very slow motion.

All your points are true...... if a laptop or computer monitor is your display, 4k makes little difference. The best feature I have found is you can extract remarkable 4K captures from 4K video which allows stills of shots that would be extremely hard to photograph at precise moments.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

A little late to this party...

Generally speaking, now that the price of 4k TVs has fallen somewhat they are selling well in Europe 4k but there is little (read virtually none) 4k content available at present. Those "experts" that have voiced an opinion say that at normal viewing distances you will not see much improvement over HD on any screen size less than 55", opinions which echo what Steve wrote above.

Personally, I will be sticking with HD for the foreseeable future. My eight years old Samsung 46" HDTV is still good enough for me and it will eventually be replaced but by the time that happens we might well be looking at 8k going mainstream.

If only I had the bandwidth...

[Chris B]

I see the future as moving towards the Rec 2020 standard rather than simply increased resolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._2020

HDR seems much more of a jump than 4K.