[David Slag]

Hi
Long time fan first time caller. I’ve got lots of information from this site and would like to participate, starting with this post.

I also own a 5k iMac, all factory: 4Ghz i7, 32GB, M295x, 1TB ssd. Subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud full package.

I’m still a novice in editing suite, doing some work for our newly established video production ‘hobby’ team have reference only to similar spec PC (with Nividia and esata drives tho).

For starters I would like to say that working with this display is pure pleasure, all programs text and interface is very well scaled.
I have 1080p HDMI monitor hooked into iMac via Thunderbolt-HDMI and I must say the difference is huge. It’s like to compare the screen of first generation smartphone with modern ones, you just wouldn’t go back.

I’ve been editing and colour grading 1080p footage from Nikon d810 recorded on Atoms Ninja2 in ProRes 422 HQ in PP cc, Speedgrade, AE. The performance is excellent for playback as well as for rendering.

When applying on a clip: colour correction, lightening effect, blur, noise, LUT all at the same time in PP the 100% program monitor preview still plays very well, and that without rendering (with red bar over it). These are all accelerated effects, so mercury is doing its job well.

The processor intensive modifications affect the playback more (my assumption). For example: I applied reverse speed on one clip and the playback became extremely choppy, accompanied by cooling fan ready to take off, had to render.
It’s worth to mention that it handles Prores much better than AVCHD, but thats obvious.

IMPORTANT Regarding CUDA and AE, when I open AE I’m welcomed with a message:
Ray-tracing on the GPU requires an approved NVIDIA graphics card and CUDA 5.0 or later. For now, ray-tracing will use the CPU. After installing CUDA 5.0 or later restart your computer

I suppose this applies to heavy graphics orientated AE projects. Warp stabiliser in AE work great (Fan on high speed tho)

I don’t have an external Thunderbolt RAID just yet. I move the media I work on into my internal 1TB SSD and than move them back to ext backups, tiresome but only temporary.
Once I was editing media from external, HDD via USB 3 and I noticed drop in performance.

It might be worth to mention that I played through Batman Arkham City in 4k resolution on maxed out graphics flawlessly 🙂

If anyone would like me to perform any specific tests, I’m willing to do so, if I’m able.

Cannot decide between display colour profile, can anyone give an advice?

Regards
Dav
Brick by Stone Productions