8K Nikon Z8/Z9 iMac Pro/Mac Pro Playback

[ssj92]

Could someone with a Nikon Z8/Z9 and iMac Pro or Mac Pro confirm something for me?

Right now 8K HEVC from these cameras stutter when playing back in Quicktime or Final Cut Pro X on my 10-Core iMac Pro.

They're smooth on my M1 Pro 16" MacBook Pro.

I was hoping someone with the 18-Core iMac Pro or 16-Core Mac Pro can confirm if they can smoothly playback and edit Nikon 8K HEVC video.

Was thinking of upgrading the CPU on this to 18-core if it works.

 

[R S K]

a) It's Intel. Therefore to be expected.
b) How do you think you'll be upgrading the CPU without the risk of messing up the entire machine?

But let's say you could and did, how could that make any economic sense? Seeing that it would cost you about as much if not more than e.g. an M2 MacBook Air, which would smoke the 18-core Intel two times til Sunday on every level. For video most certainly.

 

[e1me5]

Intel Macs lack the chips for hardware decoding HEVC video of such high resolutions. No CPU update will make the machine fast enough for this kind of work. Why don't you encode your clips to ProRes?

 

[R S K]

Why don't you encode your clips to ProRes?

While optimizing will certainly improve overall performance, he'll need 6-10 fold the storage for each clip. And even then I'm not convinced such an old Mac will cut it (no pun intended). You're most likely reduced to using proxies for editing.

FYI

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m2_8_gpu-vs-intel_xeon_w_2191b

 

[ssj92]

Perhaps I should have asked in the Mac Pro forum.

1) I can get the cpu for $200 which is way cheaper than any Mac. And it’s an OEM cpu pulled from an iMac Pro not those engineering samples. I can re-sell my 10-core for at least $100 to make it cost even less. I already have a 16” M1 Pro MBP I just want to upgrade my iMac if it allows editing 8K HEVC video.

2) I can perform the install myself, I have done more complicated things with computers. Installation isn’t a problem.

3) If the GPU lacks the encoders for HEVC then the CPU does all the work. There are some people in the Mac Pro forum saying their 16-core can playback fine but Canon HEVC, no one seems to mention Nikon 8K. If the 16-core Mac Pro can playback 8K HEVC then the 18-Core iMac Pro can.

I appreciate everyones responses but if I wanted to do ProRes I can record directly in ProRes in camera but 8K HEVC already uses lots of storage. If I need to waste time with Proxy media I can just use my 16" Macbook Pro to do the editing (which I've been doing). Was mainly looking for someone to get me a yes or no answer if they tried.

If anyone wants to try here is a small clip I just recorded: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f4hEmFCdv_Om8sJvU8Slwhadthj62VEj/view?usp=sharing

Here's how it plays back on my iMac Pro:

Screen Recording 2023-06-26 at 8.07.37 AM.mov

drive.google.com

 

[e1me5]

I doubt you would see any difference. Video decoding is being handled by the gpu or in the case of the iMac Pro from the T2 coprocessor. Adding more cores won’t really affect the performance of 8K video decoding on your machine.

 

[lin2log]

Gee, good thing you guys didn't just get an arrogant, condescending "pro" response! 🤣
Anyone who wants to invest any amount in such an old machine, good luck. It won't change a thing. Horses for courses. And this is a pony. The CPUs are way too lame to get the job done no matter how many you throw at it.
BTW: there is no X in Final Cut Pro. 🙄