4K video editing question.

I need to upload a 4K clip to a website. My computer is capable of doing the necessary minor edits and creating the .mov file using iMovie, but it's too slow to view properly. It's very choppy when viewed in iMovie. Am I correct in assuming that this choppiness won't transfer to the exported .mov file?

Do you have other 4K videos that run smoothly? It's probably that your computer can't handle playing the large hi-res file. When you export you will most likely lower the bitrate which will make it easier to play, whether it will be choppy or not at the exported bitrate is up to your computer.

Hi Larry,

Old'ish post, I know, but yes. This would not be on the exported / rendered version. 4K H.264 video is still a CPU intensive task and needs a good machine to edit. This is largely down to the way the codec works and how it essentially needs to reconstruct the full frames on the fly from partial frames (unlike some codecs which just have every frame as a complete frame).

If you're uploading to a standard website, be aware that you probably should offer lower resolutions too. If you're just uploading to a video site like YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia etc. that's a none issue as they will take care of that for you.

Torsten.

Thanks for replying, Torsten. Someone on another forum confirmed that as well. I've been uploading short 4K clips to a stock site. Although they don't run well on my machine, I'm able to view them in iMovie by moving the curser over them slowly. That's all I need in order to trim them properly.