How to edit 4k Video On Slow Computer
How To Smoothly Edit 4K Video On ANY Computer
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what's going on guys today we're gonna
be talking about how you can edit 4k
footage smoothly on almost any computer
using proxies so let's get started
[Music]
you guys have been following along on my
Instagram stories and things like that
you would know that I went on a
week-long road trip down through
California while I was down there I
brought my GH five and I Ronin I just
wanted to grab a whole bunch of clips of
our entire trip so I can make a little
bit of a video if you want to check out
the full video actually posted it it's
up on my channel already called
California in 4k and go check it out the
link is down in the description below of
this video I shot the entire video in 4k
on the GH five now of course if any of
you guys have tried to edit in 4k it can
definitely slow down things in your
computer it can get to the point where
you literally can't even press play your
computer is just totally glitching out
as lagging and you can't really watch or
edit anything efficiently now a lot of
you guys might just assume that you need
to have more RAM better graphics card
something like that something that has
to do with your computer when in reality
there's actually a workaround in
Premiere and many other editing
software's where you can edit 4k video
but downsample the resolution to a 1080p
720p whatever you're wanting to the
better suits your computer so what we're
gonna be talking about today is called
proxies since we're gonna be using
premier today long story short when it
import all over 4k files into Premiere
we're going to set our ingest settings
so that Adobe Media encoder goes ahead
and changes all those files into a lower
resolution for us to deal with now it
might sound a little bit complicated but
it's actually super easy and you can do
it in just seconds so I'm going to be
showing you guys how to do that right
now
[Music]
so of course I'm sure many of you guys
have used premiere already so you're
familiar with the starting screen I'm
going to go ahead and I'm going to
create a new project and I'm just gonna
call this 4k proxy example just for the
sake of this tutorial I can leave all
this stuff the same but I'm just gonna
go straight over here to ingest settings
now I'm just gonna click this ingest box
now you guys might be wondering what
does ingest mean so ingest settings or
settings that you tell premier that once
you import your footage this is what I
want done with this footage I want to
either trance code this footage I want
to create a proxy I want to create a
copy and all that can be done via our
ingest settings in the new project
window so once you click this little
ingest box you can go here to the copy
and you can just go down on the options
here and you can go down to create
proxies so I'm just gonna click that and
now as you see our preset changes to a
video output or a video resolution
output essentially so if I click on that
there's a whole bunch of different
options that I have now you might not be
sure which one to pick but the one that
I always like to go with is that 1280 by
720 Apple ProRes 4 to 2 proxy I just
find that that's a good one for sort of
my overall needs it converts my 4k
footage into 720p files it just helps my
computer run a little bit faster
especially once I get a whole bunch of
footage in one timeline if you guys have
a little bit of a faster computer you
could go ahead and do the 1024 by 540
Apple ProRes which is essentially 1k
again I would only really recommend that
if you have a little bit of a faster
computer so in this case I'm just gonna
stick with my 1280 by 720 Apple ProRes
proxy so I'm just gonna click on that
and now my preset is set to 720p so from
here I'm all good to go and I'm just
gonna go ahead and click OK so as you
see our premier window looks exactly the
same as it always does nothing looks
quite different so from here I'm just
gonna import some media so I've selected
a few 4k files from my recent trip to
California just that random here and as
you see they're all loaded in like that
so almost immediately after you import
your footage Adobe Media encoder will
open itself up and
automatically load in all of your files
that you just imported into premiere and
it will start to export them all as
proxies into your desired preset so in
this case if you're unsure what your
preset was you can just look right down
here and as you see it says video 1280
by 720 which is 720p Apple ProRes 422
proxies so that's what all of this video
is about to be converted into luckily
for us we don't have to do anything
besides just wait for media encoder to
work its magic so instead of boring you
guys well this does its thing I'm just
gonna skip ahead and meet you guys back
in premier when all of our proxies are
finished exporting so now all of our
proxies are done exporting and we can
tell just by looking under our status
bar you see that they're all say done
and there's a little green checkmark
beside all of our imported files so now
that I'm in premier I want to take a
look at my video files and double-check
that there is a proxy actually attached
to them now you might be wondering how
can you double check to see if a proxy
is attached to a file or not so if you
go up to this little bar at the top and
you just right-click you can go down to
metadata display if you click on that
and just type in proxy in the search bar
you'll notice that these three little
options come up if you just click this
one that just says proxy
click on that and click OK now if you
scroll way way over you'll find a proxy
column with all of our videos so we know
that our proxies are active and attached
to each of these files if it says
attached in the proxy column if for
whatever reason it did not work it will
say offline instead of attached so now
that all our proxies are loaded in
let's bring in one of our files into a
timeline so I'm just going to drag and
drop a random file into my timeline to
create a sequence so now if I just scrub
through here you can see how smoothly I
can look at this file now depending on
your computer if you press play you
might experience just a little bit of
lag still perhaps a little bit less than
you have with 4k file but still a little
bit of lag nonetheless what you can do
instead to help your situation out a
little if you go to this little tab
right here called the playback
resolution tab units click on that and
you have a couple different options to
change how your video is being played
back to you currently it's set to full
resolution but you can also change it to
half
quarter or eight no matter what setting
you have for your playback resolution it
will not affect your export it's just to
help make things a little bit easier in
the editing process so I'm just gonna
throw mine away down to eighth and I'm
just gonna see how this works if I press
play you can see how much smoother the
footage has become even though it's now
playing back at one eighth of the
resolution I can see my footage
completely clearly with absolutely no
lag it's playing back a full 4k file in
a 720p proxy at one eighth resolution
and there's almost no lag whatsoever now
of course depending on the capabilities
of your computer you can have your
playback resolution set to something a
little bit higher you could change your
proxies to 1k proxies instead of 720p
proxies there's a whole bunch of
different options for you but I just
wanted to demonstrate a way to pretty
much put almost no strain on your
computer now just for the sake of
example I've imported another file this
one I'm just going to call 4k no ingest
this file is gonna playback at 4k full
resolution no proxy attached so as I
mentioned before because there is no
proxy attached if I look at my proxy
column it says offline so that means
when I put it in my timeline it's gonna
be playing back at a full 4k resolution
so I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm gonna
drag and drop that into my timeline like
so already as you can see just trying to
scrub through it it's already
substantially more leggy
than our proxy so if I go to my proxy
you can see how much smoother I can just
scrub through this video now let's try
to play them side-by-side and see how
they compare this again is a 720p proxy
playing back at 1/8 resolution
now this is the 4k file playing back at
1/8 resolution so it's helping my
computer a little bit but as you can see
there is still a little bit of lag
compared to our proxy although on my
computer the leg may seem seemingly
minor at this point once you add in a
lot more video into your timeline you
have multiple video clips multiple audio
clips that's when you'll really notice a
difference between editing with a proxy
and editing something that is at full
resolution anyways guys I hope this
tutorial helped you to learn how to edit
your 4k files on any of your home
computers if you enjoyed this tutorial
make sure to hit that like button and
also consider subscribing to stay up to
date with all of my latest tutorials
again my name is Brendan from Buell
creative comm and I'll catch you next
time
[Music]
you
