HomeThe HitFilm Pro is all-in-one editor, compositor and VFX powerhouse. Nowadays, support for 4K video source content has become pretty standard in video editing software, HitFilm Pro is also on the cutting edge of technology with support for up to 8K resolution UHD. However, a lot of people reflect that they encounter the following problem when editing 4K video footage from GH4 or GH5 with HitFilm Pro.
"It makes me mad that apparently hitfilm Pro 2017 is not able to work with 4k 10bit footage that I took with the GH5. Has anybody else seen this problem? Hoping for an update."
"I am having continual crashes with HitFilm 4 Pro. I have an i7 4790K processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, 16 gigs of ram. All my footage is 4K from a Panasonic Lumix GH4. I have an hour of footage loaded into HitFilm, and I currently cannot even load the project without it crashing. Does anyone have a suggestion of what to do?"
4K video recording mode of Panasonic GH4/GH5
The Panasonic GH4/GH5 supports to record both DCI and UHD 4K video in either or MP4 or MOV container file format with H.264 compression codec. After searching for HitFilm Pro supported file formats, we can see that this professional editing software has native importing support for the H.264 MP4 format shot with GH4/GH5, as for the H.264 MOV footage, Hitfilm also adds support for MOV that use H.264 codec natively without installing QuickTime.
Since there is no format incompatible issue, then we will focus on our attention on the crashing issues of GH4/GH5 footage with HitFilm Pro. It is well known that smooth and high quality 4K video editing has both requirements on the editing software, but also requirements on the hardware, you will need a bigger and better machine to handle 4K resolution video. Following are the minimum requirements to edit 4K video on both a Windows and Mac computer.
Integrated Graphics solutions that support 4K external displays (8GB RAM recommended with integrated graphics solutions):
- 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor family (Intel Haswell based CPUs) - (Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics 5200 / Intel® Iris™ Graphics 5100, Intel® HD Graphics 5000 / 4600 / 4400 / 4200)
- AMD A10-7800 APU
Discrete Graphics cards that support 4K external displays:
Nvidia GeForce
GeForce® GTX™ 970
GeForce® GTX™ 980
GeForce® GTX™ TITAN Z
GeForce® GTX™ TITAN Black
GeForce® GTX™ TITAN
GeForce® GTX™ 780 & 780 Ti
GeForce® GTX™ 770
GeForce® GTX™ 760 & 760 Ti
GeForce® GTX™ 750 & 750 Ti
GeForce® GTX™ 690, 680, 670, 660, 660 Ti, 650, 650 Ti BOOST, 650 Ti
AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series or better
If your computer doesn't meet above listed hardware requirements, then your computer will struggle when handing the 4K video footage. Sometimes, even your computer satisfy above standards, you may still find that the 4K video playback is very choppy, this is due to the immense processing power required to play 4K video.
Compress GH4/GH5 4K for HitFilm Pro smooth editing workflow
To fix the 4K video crashing issue, the most effective solution is to use Proxy files, which means to make a copies of the 4K video files at a lower resolution, you can then load these lower resolution files into your editing software and editing use these. Unlike some professional NLE software such as Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Pro CC that can produce Proxy files on its own, HitFilm Pro lacks the ability to do that job, you will need the help a a third-party video conversion app.
If you are looking for a powerful yet simple to use application to get the job completed, we highly recommend Pavtube Video Converter to you. The program not only assists you to efficiently compress 4K to 1080p or 720p resolution files in smaller file resolution, but also directly output HitFilm Pro supported editing formats such as H.264 MP4, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, QuickTime MOV, Prores, etc. Thanks to its batch conversion mode, you can load multiple 4K video into the application for conversion at one time.
Edit 4K video with built-in editing functions
Besides compressing 4K video for HitFilm Pro, the program can also act as a simple 4K video editing tool to allow you do do some basic video editing work. You can trim or cut 4k video to remove unwanted parts or segments, merge separate video clips into one file, split large files into small parts by file size, length or count, crop the black bars around the video frame, add video/image/transparent text watermark to video, apply special rendering effects to video, etc.
For Mac users, you can switch to download Pavtube Video Converter for Mac to perform the conversion on macOS High Sierra, macOS Sierra, Mac OS X El Capitan, Mac OS X Yosemite, Mac OS X Mavericks, etc.
Step by Step to Compress and Convert 4K Video for HitFilm Pro Smooth Editing
Step 1: Load 4K video into the application.
Download the free trial version of the program. Launch it on your computer. Click "File" menu and select "Add Video/Audio" or click the "Add Video" button on the top tool bar to import source video files into the program.
Step 2: Specify output file format.
Clicking the Format bar, from its drop-down list, select one of HitFilm Pro supported HD editing formats such as "H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)" under "HD Video" main category. You can also choose other editing formats according to your own needs.
Tips: Click "Settings" to open "Profile Settings" window, in video section, from "Size(pix)" drop-down list, select "1980*1020" or "1080*720" to compress 4K to 1080p.
Step 3: Edit 4K video with built-in editing tools.
Select a 4K video to activate the Edit menu. When a video or movie is selected, click the pencil like Edit icon on the left top tool bar to open the video editor window, here, you can play and preview the original video and output effects. Also you can trim, crop, add watermark, apply special effect, or insert external subtitle.
Step 4: Begin the conversion process.
After all setting is completed, hit the "Convert" button at the right bottom of the main interface to begin the conversion and compressing process from 4K to HitFilm Pro smooth editable 1080p or 720p HD file format.
Free Trial Video Converter
