[ducko]

evenin'

 i've been thinking about upgrading my old macbook pro 13" for something with a bit more grunt.
ive decently acquired a panasonic gh4 that films in C4K which really does destroy my computer when i try to load it on final cut pro so im after something that will edit it nice and smooth (playing it back would be a good start!!)
the machines in question:

27" imac with 256gb flash storage, 3.5ghz quadcore, 8gb ram, 4gb graphics.
macbook pro 15" 512gb flash, 2.5 ghz quad (boost to 3.9ghz) 2gb graphics.

both will have external drives for media as to keep the flash drive pretty clear.

portability is nice to have but not essential, i was wondering if anyone has an experience or a better understanding of the specs than me, i know bigger is usually better so the imac sounds better, but if anyone knows different feel free to have an input.

thanks

[Muenchener]

I'd go for the MacBook Pro. Why? You might find you need/want the portability at some point even if you don't need it all the time. Normally for things like photo/video editing, or coding, I would have said in the past go for the biggest possible screen and sacrifice the portability, but now I'd go the other way and say that high-res (retina) screens on modern laptops are so good it's difficult to go back to normal resolution on large monitors even if they're bigger.

Or wait until >300 ppi big monitors become affordable, but you might be waiting a while.

[cheque]

I've got a 27" iMac with more RAM than that but the normal hard drive- all my media's on an external drive so I'm not sure a flash drive would improve the performance too much. Works perfectly for video, but I'm not shooting 4k. I'd go for the desktop if portability's not essential- more power for your money and you'll need it for 4k.

Bear in mind that even the 27" screen isn't 4k resolution and neither are most people's monitors and TVs. Unless you're making films for the imax it may be worth waiting 'til 4k's more widespread before upgrading your setup around it (although as a jealous GH3 user I would say that  ).

[ducko]

Thanks for your input maybe the extra power would be a big plus, as for 4k it gives amazing results when downscaled to 1080p I don't intend on making 4k videos just yet

[cheque]

gives amazing results when downscaled to 1080p

  Hadn't really thought about it like that- should have occurred to me really...

Looking forward to seeing your results.