So Power PC Macs cannot ingest and edit XDCAM EX?

[puredrifting]

Hi all:

I hope that I am wrong but according to Sony's brochure for the EX-1,
"PDZK-P1 System Requirements
OS: Mac OS X 10.4.10 or later CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz or higher
Intel Xeon 2 GHz or higher RAM: 1 GB or more "???

So those of us with older PPC based G5s are basically locked out in the cold as far as ingesting and editing EX-1 footage?

Dan

[matthew77]

Wrong.

Works fine on my G5.

I think the viewer app only works on Intel, but that's a fairly useless program.

Ingest and edit works great on the G5.

[puredrifting]

Hi Matthew:

Thanks for the reassurance. Do you transcode to Pro Res? What kind of G5 do you have?

Thanks,

Dan

[matthew77]

Power Mac Dual G5 2.3

I do not transcode to ProRes. I work in the native XDCAM codec.

[puredrifting]

Power Mac Dual G5 2.3

I do not transcode to ProRes. I work in the native XDCAM codec.

I have the same G5. So you have never tried working with the XDCAM EX material in Pro Res? I do a lot in Magic Bullet Looks color correction and Motion, I think it could be a good workflow for my style.

What about if you are doing 3-5 layer composites, doesn't the XDCAM drag down your G5 and begin to look bad?

Dan

[matthew77]

Perhaps - I don't do those composites in FCP - I use Shake or Nuke. Generally I convert to a frame sequence for that stuff. Much better for distributed rendering to work from multiple frame files than a single Quicktime.

I did mostly cuts on the G5 and it never stalled

But I actually just upgraded to an 8-core. Much better, but not quite as much of a speed bump as i would have expected.

[DCSensui]

Matthew...

I was thinking of eventually upgrading from a dual 2.5 GHz G5 to one of the recent octo-Macs.

What G5 did you have and what Intel Xeon did you get? And what kind of speed increase was there? I'm wondering what advantage it might have for XDCam and Color.

Thanks,

[Gerald Loidl]

I had a dual 1.8 G5 before I upgraded to the new MacPro just recently.
Editing with FCP worked flawlessly and without any problems.
After the upgrade, editing itself is not much faster with the new MacPro as FCP does not seem to use all 8 cores to the full extent. Other programs like Motion and especially After Effects are really much much faster now. Color is also faster but thats mainly because of the new graphic card that comes with the new models.
All in all I did expect a much more noticeable speedbump.