New Mac studio

[Ravalec Amelie]

Hi, I want to buy the new Mac Studio to replace my IMac Pro. Based on the reviews I’ve read so far, it seems that the M1 Max is enough for 4K grading and video editing, and that the Ultra is only worth it for heavy VFX or 3D work (which I don’t do). 

I’m considering the M1 Max with 32 GPU. Do you think the 64gb extra memory is worth getting? I currently have 32gb on my IMac Pro. Resolve runs perfectly fine even with complex grades but Premiere Pro has been running very slow on editing projects with mixed footage source / codecs and a couple of effects (stabilising, pre-grade/LUT, titles). 

Any thoughts or advice? 

Also, I’m not sure about the Studio Display. What alternative monitor would you recommend?

I already have a Eizo calibrated monitor for my grading work. I’ve been looking at Eizo and BenQ options as main editing / GUI monitor but any recommendations would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Andy 1968]

It depends. Some video codecs use more RAM than others. If you think you might want to edit multiple layers of 8K Pro Res it will proably take a big toll on the RAM. I think the Apple M1 chips have hardware encoding and decoding for Pro Res. In the video below I am using Windows Task Manager but I think you can use iStats on the Mac to check your systems perfromance. 

[Warren Heaton]

Yes, the M1 Max seems to be the sweet spot for video editing.

If you're already accostomed to an iMac Pro display with Eizo as a second display, I'd go with the Apple Studio Display with Eizo as a second display.

As far as RAM and internal storage goes, I'd match or exceed what's in your current iMac Pro.

[KaiWhat]

I'm running Premiere Pro on the exact machine you mentioned: Mac Studio with M1 Max and 32 GB of RAM. I was previously using a 27" iMac from late 2015 with a 3.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and 32 GB of RAM.

Using Premiere Pro on my brand new Mac Studio is terrible. It's glitchy and laggy with playback and scrubbing on the timeline or in the source monitor, and gives me tons of frame substitution errors. Tyring to export videos in any format takes several tries because it also runs into frame substitution errors on output and gives you exports with black frames.

Whether I run the latest version or the beta version, it's an awful experience. I have a RAID array that gives me 400+ MB/s read and write speeds, yet this machine handles any type of media (HD ProRes files, 2K and 4K MXF OP1a files, 4K H.264 files) much worse than my 7 year old iMac which was connected ot the same RAID array. Davinci Resolve and FCP run perfectly but somehow Adobe has failed to make their software work properly on the new Apple Silicon, even two and a half years after it was released to the public. I have several colleagues that are experiencing the same problems on various different M1 powered Macs.

I tried speaking to Adobe Tech Support but they are suffering some major technical issues with their phone lines. When I was finally able to get through to a person whose connection wasn't cutting out every 2 seconds, they ran me through all the things I'd already done to try to fix things, and their last suggestion was to "render everything". I didn't even have to do that on my 2015 iMac.

The Mac Studio and Studio Display are a pleasure to work on, but not if you're trying to use Adobe software.

[Fingerspitz_Norway]

Agreed! I got the Mac Studio with these specs for exactly the same reason. Every project now has the error "Frame Substitution Recursion Attempt Aborting After Multiple Attempts On File" on SO many clips. I had to reopen one of the projects on my old macbook pro just to get an export without glitches. As we speak I am consolidating all MXF files to prores which delays my workflow significantly.

[Moses Duenas]

Totally agree! I've started using a brand new macbook pro M1 Max, 32GB Ram, and all my MXF files are having this problem now. Footage is all filmed on a Sony PWX-Z90 which has never been a problem before. 

Adobe please fix this!