Mac system poll?

tbob

tbob

Active member
I've got an AMD-based 32-bit processor (which excludes using Raylight), and have been running Vegas for years (SD only). Finally have an opportunity to start working in HD, so demoed Raylight + Vegas on a friend's smoking P4. Wasn't able to even watch the video in realtime, let alone do some simple edits. Needless to say I was not impressed.

I've been meaning to switch over to Mac for quite a while, and even have FCS 5 already. Assuming my storage problem is taken care of (external FW or eSATA RAID silo), I'm wondering what people are using for Mac systems out there, to get a flavor of how much I will spend, and the minimum I can get away with? I started going down the used dual G5 road, but people are cautioning me, so I'm also wondering if there are any serious HD editors out there working on a Dual G5?
 
This doesn't answer your question about editing HD on a Mac, but just so you know, I'm able to edit six mixed (3x DVCProHD + 3xDV25) video streams plus one 48KHz PCM audio stream with color correction and transitions in realtime on a 3.2GHz P4D using Canopus Edius 4 Broadcast.

You're going to have to get a new system anyway, and I'm not trying to discourage you from looking at a Mac with FCP, that's a very potent combination. But there are workable realtime, software-only solutions on the PC as well.
 
I do all I want with a MacPro 2.66 Ghz and single SATA drives with 5.1.4.

FCP 6 is expected in two weeks and I anticipate some strong DVCProHD/p2 improvements.

I certainly respect my PC brethren, and am just chiming in on the Mac side.

And with a combination of LiveType, Motion, DVD SP, Cinema Tools, and FCP, it is a pretty good bargain.
 
Maybe I'm still starry-eyed over my new Mac Pro after being a long time PC editor, but I got the Intel Mac and FCS specifically to edit HD, and I haven't had a hiccup yet. And real-time works just fine.
 
I have the MacPro 2.66 GHz with 2 gigs of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, and FCP 5.1.4 and I'm pretty happy with it. If anything I'd love to have more RAM to shorten the render time, but it's still a lot zipper than my old dual 1.8 GHZ G5.

I don't know a whole lot of about the 8-core mac pro that just came out today but from what I hear most software isn't currently optimized to utilize the extra cores. But I bet once FCP 6 comes out the 8-cores will make a huge difference. Still I think just going with the 2.66 GHZ option will be plenty enough to handle HD footage.

As far as the FCP studio package goes, it's a great deal and is going to be even better when version 6 comes out.
 
With multicores speed isn't all they are about. During a recent hectic afternoon I was editing with FCP, had a batch of 10 files being run through squeeze 4.5, and was uploading another heap of files to a relay site with Transmit simultaneously. It was all going on seamlessly and I honestly couldn't tell while working in FCP that any of the other stuff was going on at all. This on 2 mb of ram on a 2.66 quad.
I think I could have thrown some other compute intensive tasks on the pile and it wouldn't hav emade much difference.
 
Man that's it. I need to build my Hackintosh already. >:eek:ooo

Expediting the process right now.
 
So is anyone editing on a G5 setup? Looking around at benchmarks, it doesn't appear that the intel Macs are that much faster (even the Apple site itself claims only 1.3X better in similar configurations... and you know they tweak tests). So I am wondering if a Dual G5 is pretty good, or is it miserable and slow as tbob described the P4 experience. If it just means it is a little slower rendering, then I dont see why a $1000 used dual G5 wouldn't be fine compared to the $2500 Mac Pro.
 
G5's work well with FCP. Actually for most editing, processor cycles don't mean a heck of a lot as long as you are above a certain minimum and have enough ram. Processor cycles do not speed up the creative process one bit...
I went from a dual 1 gig g4 to a quad Mac pro and the big boost was when when I was working with HD.
When it comes to rendering or compressing or transcoding anything, the Mac pros really seem to kick it in the through put department. I use squeeze a lot and always seem to be making compressed versions of cuts to upload for client review, and there you will see a real difference between G5 and intel macs. Intels are less power hungry as well which might make a difference to some.
I don't use motion at all so I really can't say anything about g5 vs intel when it comes to motion intensive tasks.
 
I'm editing HVX footage on a DP 2.0 GHz G5, FCS. I haven't ran into any problems...no dropped frames, no errors, etc. No complaints from me!
 
A P4 is old technology. Not trying to discourage you from getting a Mac, but have you played on any Core 2 Duos? So many times faster then a P4.
 
Ike615 said:
I have the MacPro 2.66 GHz with 2 gigs of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, and FCP 5.1.4 and I'm pretty happy with it. If anything I'd love to have more RAM to shorten the render time, but it's still a lot zipper than my old dual 1.8 GHZ G5.
Click to expand...

Render times are usually a function of the cpu, not necessarily the amount of RAM.

The 8-cores will help, but 10.5 with FCP6 and a X1900 video card will likely improve as well.
 
THoff (BTW, what is your name?):

That is where Apple has been moving. Also with its FXPlug technology, the GPU is more important.

But I don't have an inside info.
 
I use a Quad Core G5 with 4.5 Gigs of RAM;
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500
30" Cinema HD Display
System Drive, 250GB
Secondary SATA, 500GB
External FW800 Lacie, 500GB
External G-Tech, 1TB
MOTU Micro Lite MIDI interface
Roland VS-1680 via optical audio in/outs

Runs DVCPRO-HD very well. I'd like more RT when I start doing very heavy compositing in FCP, but it's still pretty sweet. I won't upgrade until I really "need" more horsepower. And with a hint from someone important, FCP 6 is going to need a bit more horsepower. So I'm trying to figure out how to come up with enough cash for an OctaCore Intel, just cause I want one. Not cause I need one.
 
No.

Just like Mr. McNeese, I have a Dual 2Ghz G5. 3.5GB RAM and a Kona LH. Caldigit S2VR Duo, G-Raids, home-made SATA Raid...and deal with DVCPRO HD every day.

I edit broadcast HD television for the History Channel delivering HDCAM masters.

Not one hiccup, not one problem. Render times are fine (not that I have compared them to an Intel mac or Quad) and I use Magic Bullet, Nattress, Lyric, Digital Film Tools...
 
I can tell you that in my last trainer class with Apple last December I found out that FCP now is using some GPU power (not enough to really mention), and that the next version will be HEAVILY dependent on GPU power.

So if you're wanting FCP 6, and don't have the cash for a new machine, get the biggest, most badass video card your machine will handle, NOW.

Someone questioned Apple not waiting until NAB to announce the new 8 core Mac Pro. Well, Apple doesn't wait for NAB to release hardware, never has really. BUT my bet is this puppy is out now, so folks can get their hands on it, and at NAB we'll see FCP 6 and it will use all 8 cores, and will need a high end graphics card, and will just kick ass.

I mean, where's the 8 core Windows PC (aside from the Intel Macs) that runs an NLE on all 8? I also don't see any rumors about such being announced at NAB. If there are, please let me know. I'm not bashing, just relating what information I have at the moment.

Here's the deal; about six months or so ago, I did a huge, very in depth article for a magazine who was working on an eBook, a large one, all about HD and HDV editing. I got to interview the product managers of all the major NLEs: Avid, Vegas, Edius (Grassvalley), PPro, etc. They all said that after you get past the marketing hype about editing native HDV (they all also admited native HDV editing sucks on any NLE once you start stacking compositing tracks and adding filters, they all see RT break downs really fast), it's going to take more powerful hardware. They said they can all program for super performance, but the harddware is just not there yet. Even the PM for Edius (GrassValley) said their multi-format timelines begin to lose RT pretty fast when you start to composite and filter a lot.

So, the 8 core and FCP 6, one can only imagine...

One week... one more long, painful, drawn out week...
 
I've recently upgraded to a (used) dual 2.7 GHZ G5 (the fastest ever that will run my PCI-X Digidesign system), and it runs FCP just great. But I should also mention that my old system, a dual 1GHz G4 MDD also ran it surprisingly well, leaving very little to be desired with a 720/24P DVCPROHD timeline aside from the sheer number of realtime effects it could manage (only a few, but including cross-dissolve, which most of the time is the only one I want).

The only real deficiency with the G4 was that its stock (64MB ATI) video card wouldn't support Motion, which almost any newer model does. That could have been easily fixed by upgrading the card, but I decided for many other reasons to go with the G5.

Looking forward to what an FCP6/8 core Intel system can deliver... : )
 
I'm using a G5 DP 1.8 with 2.5gis ram... FCP 5.1 ..editing a 1 hour doco in 1080i.. (off firewire drives)..and it's kinda painful.. little like editing DV in 1997 with P3 400...

Realtime is good for single track editing..ie : 1 stream of real time (dissolves etc).. can get a single stream of graphics overlayed in realtime.. but beyond that it's render time....

Now I'd like to add that I've got about 5 terabytes of data and the master project is spread across 5 x 320gb firewire drives so hopefully soon I'll be able to consolidate the project and put it on a 300-400gb sata drive internally..

Not sure if it's going to make allot of difference though... I kinda feel that the processor is my bottle neck now.. looking at the intel macs but price is a bit of a barrier...

Also After Effects on the DP1.8 in 1080i is also very slow... shake seems to preform ok but again the HD is just killing the system...

Cheers

PS.. I also use a P4 3.06 with 3 gigs of ram ,nivida Quadra and it runs ok but never been able to get the 1080i HD to run on it.. also DVCPro 50 is crippled on the pc without third party applicatiopns..

PPS.. has anybody been successful in taking there DVCPro100 projects or even clips over to the PC with the original QT wrapper and been able to see it on the PC.. much prefer After Effects on the PC...
 
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