Which Mac would you recomend for HVX200 HD editing?

KRONSTADT films

KRONSTADT films

Member
Howdy everyone!!! This is my first posting.
At the moment I'm budgeting and planning for a feature. After much research I've decided 1 year ago that its going to be HVX200 with P2 cards and an adapter (either Guerilla35 or home-made-DIY). For editing its going to be Final Cut Pro and a Mac of some sort. The big question is which Mac shall I go for??? The new Mac Pro is out and G5 Quad is going cheap, and if G5 will work with HD footage, that would mean a lot to my shoe-string production!!!

Alright, from what I gather DVCPRO-HD is going to record 1GB/minute, which means that for the whole feature I will have around 700GB - 900GB of footages to work with (assuming a 1:7 ratio and intercuts) in post-producion. So you can imagine the amount of data!!! The question is what sort of specs and configurations of Mac shall I go for? Apple gives the minimum requirements, but those are only minimum. My question to this community and especially to people who are already working with HVX200's highest resolutions, is which Mac works best?
- should I go for Mac Pro or is G5 Quad enough? This is an important question because of my budget constraints (someone told me that even MacMini and iMac is enough. Is this true?)
- which processor is enough for fast and eficient cutting and rendering? 1.8GHz? 2GHz? 2.66GHz or 3GHz?
- how much RAM works for you?
- which grafix card must I choose?
- do I need to get an HD screen in order to edit DVCPRO-HD format effectively?

It is a simple drama movie so there will be only few Specal Effects. But I know that I would also add some post-production effects to make it look more cinematic + some colour corrections.

I appreciate any advice you may dive based on your experience.

Thank you very much.

G.
Kronstadt Films
 
I edited a feature (86 minutes miniDV) on a PowerBook G4. 1.67 GHz with a 500 MB external drive. When I do it again, I'll definitely have a faster processor. Even if you go with the MacBook Pro, you'll be happier. I'm sure you can pick up a used G5 but at some point you'll find yourself wanting to upgrade, especially with Mac going to the new Intel processors.
 
Im picking up an iMac 24" 2.16ghz tomorrow, i bought it a week ago. The Mac Pro and a 23 inch Apple display runs about 3500, thats a base Mac Pro and monitor. Id recommend getting an Intel Machine no matter what personally. If you are going to own the computer, then get something that you can own for a while, it would be a better investment in the long run in my opinion, ya know, something you can have for a while!

You can configure the iMac 24" with 2 gigs of Ram and an updated video card and a 500gb internal drive from apple for 2499.99. Im sure a specific person will come in and contridict me, but thats my recommendation. The screen is included and ill be benchmarking this system the best i can with some 720pN and 1080i/p footage by friday for everone here. Ive been talking with everyone about the iMac in this thread here:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=70848

I already get remarkable results on my Macbook Pro 2.0ghz 1gb Ram and x1600 Video Card with 256mb , never have to render to preview 35mm Adapter footage from my HVX flipped in FCP and color corrected, full rez on an external HDTV monitor. So i am sure the iMac will perform even better with the newer Core 2 Duo and better video card.

Thats my suggestion
 
Hi Cinic821,
Thanks for the advice. But, are you shooting with HVX200??? and are you using its highest resolution at 1GB/minute ???
The thing is, though US$ is cheap at the moment, the prices for Macs are sill prety high here in UK. And since the Mac Pro has been introduced, everyone went mad over it. So there are these "consumerist-types" who are selling their G5 Quad 2.5GHz/1TB/4GB-RAM on eBay for dirt cheap ("dirt-cheap" by UK standards) just so that they can get "the latest" technology. And then I've read here and there that when it comes to Final Cut Pro and Rendering G5 Quad is sometimes even more powerful then the Mac Pro. Others say that Final Cut Pro doesn't need that much power... but then what about HD??? what about heavy footages with 1GB/minute???
I mean... we're talking about a whole feature shot in DVCPRO-HD 100MB/second.
I'm totally confused over this probably because I never used a Mac. I'm a WinXP man. If Final Cut Pro was available on PC, I'd get a nice Dell - so I have no other choice but to switch to Mac. But I know from experience that Adobe Premier Pro is very slow and problematic to work (I even ruined my laptop's motherborad from overheating it) that is why for the purposes of this movie I'm switching to Mac of some sort. I have also read that it will be possible to run Mac OS and XP simultaneously on Apple - so that gives some hope.. it means I can then use Adobe After Effect.
But the questions remain: In order to edit HVX200 footage what sort of Mac and what sort of specs is enough to work on a FEATURE length movie without any hasle or complications???
So c'mon people out there... what works for you?

cheers
 
Yes, i have an HVX and yes ive been editing it with color correction and flipping filters in FCP on my Macbook Pro 2.0ghz Core (1) Duo. Been editing seemlessly, ive got like 150gb for one HD-DVD project that ive been working with and i NEVER get a beach ball (the mac version of just waiting and waiting for something to load)

ALSO: You can only dual boot windows XP and Mac OS X on INTEL based macs. The quad G5 will handle HD, but if you are just going to buy it and dump and you are ok with that, then itll be fine, but for a system that you would like to keep, i really recommend an INTEL based Mac system.

The LENGTH of your movie doesnt somehow effect the specs of a computer needed to edit it in any way, atleast that i could think of. Ive had about 90 minutes of 1080i/p 1gb per second HVX footage in a time line, all color corrected and filtered and it always plays back at FULL REZ, without needing to render to play back, either in my timeline viewer in FCP or on an external HD monitor.
 
Is that the euro in the UK. The configured iMac in Euro if thats the right thing with the VAT price and stuff is 1,689.02
 
No we still keep the Pound Stirling unfortunately... and it's too Stirling :)

Thanks for the link... I've read around... It looks like you're a Pro and that HVX with matte-box... By the way, which adapter are you using there with letter "M"???

Anyway, I've read around the thread by you Cinic821, 911Split and others. As I said I'm not much of a computer geek... I'm more of a director... for some of the experimental shorts, I wouldn't eve touch the camera and have the cameraman sort out the technical staff and the depth and the light. But now I'm slowly getting into it because I realise that as a director it is important to maintain control and influence over all stages and aspects of production [as Coppola said, directing is the last tiranical profession left... ha ha :( ]

I agree with what you're saying. Maybe it is better to get a basic Mac Pro which is up to date and later add some more. Though, if G5 Quad works for HD from HVX200, it is really tempting to get a second hand one of those when they appear on eBay for just £1200 (~US$2300). But hell with it... its better to tighten the belt and go for something that can be upgraded in the future.

It looks like there is a new Processor "Quadro" to be introduced sometime later this year. But it might not be designed to Mac Pro. I've bumped on to a page which claimed that they ran a test on Mac Pro but replacing the existing processors with Two of these Quadros 2.66 each... and they said that it worked!!! 8CPUs in a Mac Pro... woofff

So, this makes me even more confused. On one hand I want to go for the following system: MacPro Two 2.66GHz, 1GB RAM (extra 4 to be purchased later at a cheaper store), ATI Radeon x1900 graphix card, 160GB (+Seagate 750GB to be purchased from elsewhere), 23" HD display. Total: £2588 ($4800)

On the other hand, I'm thinking wait till December and see what's happening with this new Quadro processor which bodes to increase HD editing and rendering by up-to 80%.

Another 2 questions for Mac Pro users: Will any standard generic Hard Drive fit in? Also, instead of bying the overpriced 23" from Apple, will it be possible to fit a generic display from any other manufacturer? or will it have to be for Apple?
And can I fit in 2 monitors or 1 monitor + 1 Broadcast Monitor into the ATI Radeon x1900 card?

many thanks
 
I took the plunge and ordered the dual 2.66 with 2gb Ram and the x 1900 and the Decklink HD Pro PCI e card. All I can say is there will always be an updated model; buy it now if you need it. The one difference with the Intel Mac is that you know your going to get at least four years out of it and not have to worry about upgrades, compatability. This really is the next generation, by this I mean until 4:4:4 cameras and higher like the Red come on stream you more than likely will be shooting in 4:2:2. I have decided that this is the format for me for the next few years anyway. Even if I do get to use a Varicam or similar camera I still have the editing power I need and the storage options. And I can still use most of my Windows Progs running Parallels. I am glad I waited for the Pro Mac as I was about to buy a G5 a year ago but knew that the Intel move would signal a major shift in support and compatability; and it has !
 
Cynic821 said:
You can configure the iMac 24" with 2 gigs of Ram and an updated video card and a 500gb internal drive from apple for 2499.99. Im sure a specific person will come in and contridict me, but thats my recommendation. T
Click to expand...

This is in my view a good recommendation, although I still have issues with using external firewire drives on a single bus Mac that can't be expanded.

Just be careful with mounting and dismounting the firewire drive due to the issues with power. You don't want to blow a bus.

I would prefer a desktop Intel with multiple internal SATA drives instead. We have five drives with a spare drive carrier and use one to back up p2 cards. Nice workflow.
 
Okay, so here's a totally uninformed question -- is there such a thing as a gigabit-ethernet-to-FW800 adapter? That little $1199 iMac looks like it could serve as a decent desktop edit station, seems to have all the "right stuff" for a low-end system, but no fw800. And the 24" costs nearly double. So ... just wondering... gigabit port sitting there doing nothing, gigabit = 1000 megabits, fw800 = 800 megabits... just wondering, does such a thing exist?
 
I've never seen an external box to do this. Nice idea though.

Of course Apple differentiates the iMac from desktops by limiting expansion. The same from MB and MBP.
 
I found this:

New Features of FireWire 800

FireWire 800 uses one of two new nine-pin cables and connectors to support speeds from 800Mbps up to 3200Mbps with copper or fiber-optic cabling. Initially 800Mbps is the top speed supported. In addition to faster speeds, FireWire 800 also has the following new features:

Self-healing loops - If you improperly connect 1394b devices together to create a logical loop, the interface corrects the problem instead of failing as with 1394a.
Continuous dual simplex - Of the two wire pairs used, each pair transmits data to the other device, so that speed remains constant.
Additional cable standards supported - Support for fiber-optic and CAT5 network cable as well as standard 1394a and 1394b copper cable.
Improved signal arbitration Supports faster performance and longer cable distances.
Note that although FireWire 800 can use the same CAT5 network cable used by 10/100 Ethernet and Fast Ethernet, it uses only wire pairs 1 & 2 and 7 & 8 for greater reliability. No crossover cables are required.

But i cant find a Gigabit Ethernet to Firewire 800 adapter/converter for the life of me. I gotta call Fed Ex, ill keep looking in the mean time barry
 
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