Impressive performance with Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Tablet and MEP2015

Scenestealer wrote on 6/23/2015, 2:19 AM

I have recently bought a Microsoft Surface Pro3, and having not bought it for editing as such I decided to give it a try with the , 2015 full version of MEP. Quite a surprise how well it works with such a modestly resourced unit – specs are:-
Intel I5 Dual core (4 threads) at 1.9GHz boosted to 2.5GHz max, Intel HD4400 graphics, 128GB SSD and only 4GB of RAM. I have slotted in a 64GB Strontium Micro SDHC card as my AV drive as this is capable of reading at 75MB/s which seems adequate for the clip files.
Loading a project is swift, Timeline scrubbing is smooth, and preview with my 1080 50p AVCHD clips is smooth through the transitions with applied effects, at full resolution, with only the “Reduce Frame rate” option ticked. Hardware export to the same format went through in 20 minutes for a 13 minute project without the processor breaking a sweat. Much faster than I have seen on my older Quadcore desktop running at 3.4Ghz. Quality of the Intel H264 encoded output looks good too. The software export without the HW acceleration looked like it was rather slow though.

I suppose the overall improvements have come due to the program getting the most out of the optimizations for H264 in the new generation Intels, plus the more efficient use of the RAM in 64bit.To be fair to Microsoft also, I think the performance of the modestly specified machine is probably due to the fact that they build it, and optimize the marriage of Hardware and drivers as a package.

The touch interface works with MEP and is not a bad way of dragging clips on the timeline. I have the mini display port on the Tablet hooked into my 24 inch monitor and am working as on my desktop with a bluetooth mouse. Unfortunately 2015 does not have Intel WiDi (wireless display) capability as 2014 had, otherwise I could do all my editing in front of the 50 incher in the lounge room!

Peter

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 6/23/2015, 1:19 PM

Hi Peter

Looks like Microsoft have got the Pro 3 right - the Pro 2 256GB I tested was diabolical with MEP 2015, jerky playback with anything more than one track containing video, image and audio objects, and rendering was painfully slow.

How would you rate the practicality of using a Pro 3 as a portable editting machine and what is the battery life like when rendering?

I am currently using a high end laptop, but would prefer something lighter for taking on aircraft..

John EB

Scenestealer wrote on 6/25/2015, 7:29 PM

Hi John

Thanks for the feedback.

I have been comparing the specs of the Pro2 with my Pro3 and the main difference is the Pro2 has a 4200U I5 with base clock of 1.6Ghz / Max 2.5Ghz against my 4300U with a 1.9 / Max 2.9Ghz clock. However MS has limited the P3's boost to 2.6 in their specs so it may not be that much better.

I just tried a couple of P in P's and a chroma key and it does get jerky with stuff in additional tracks, even on reduced resolution in the Smooth Playback dropdown. A little surprising considering it plays so well with one track with just about any of the Magix video efects or fades added. This may be due to the well intergrated acceleration of the Intel HD GPU with the programs inbuilt effects. I think this shows too with the rapid HW Export using the Quicksync compared to the slow SW Export just using the CPU.

As a portable editing machine? As I said I did not buy it for that purpose but still stand by my comments that it is impressive for its spec. and having seen how well it goes I would have bought the I7 model. I don't think I would ever be in the position where I would want to render a whole movie on batteries so have not tried this.

I think the things that make this viable as a portable editor are its' performance, its' excellent display with a 3x2 AR which is much better for the MEP GUI albeit a little intricate, requiring the lowering of the DPI settings in Windows and increase of size in the program settings, its' display port out and its USB3 port for fast down loads, and not least its' weight as you mentioned.

It will be very useful for my holiday shoots to download my SD cards to and start roughing out a project and correcting and grading the footage.

I will post more observations as I try things.

Cheers

Peter

It certainly will be very handy for downloading

johnebaker wrote on 6/26/2015, 12:09 PM

Thanks for the testing and opinions.

After testing Windows 10 I think I will go for a lighter weight high spec laptop again.

Windows 10 is blazingly fast - just need to finish testing with MEP 2015.

Cheers

John EB