HDV editing on FCP 6 system requirements

G

gregbrosnan

New member
Hi all, I'm a newbie with my film equipment ready to go and now looking to setting up an editing system.

I'm looking to buy a mac setup to run FCP 6, editing HDV footage from a Sony Z1U. I've checked the system requirements to properly run FCP 6 in HD on the mac website and also have gone through other threads here pretty intensely.

If i understand properly I really need a Mac Pro quad or 8-core with at least 4 gigs of RAM and one of the extra optional graphics card, but a brand new mac pro with a separate monitor is out of my budget at the moment. I'm wondering if anyone has successfully used the new 20" Imac duo-core 2.4 Ghz processor, which i've had my eye on, for editing HDV. (i'm prepared to max it out to 4 gigs of RAM and hook up a decent external hard drive)

Is it simply the color correction and graphics programs that come with FCP 6 that won't work on the imac? what about the compression program so i can deliver over the Internet? Can I get away with the graphics card that comes included with the new imac, even tho the mac site says i can't? Anyone out there who has tried this?

We want to make films in high def up to 1 hour long. The only graphics we'll really need are relatively simple text and credits. On a bigger production we can always ship out to an editor for colour correction and some fancier graphics.

Also any tips on the kind of fire wire connection i'll need would be most appreciated. The imac has a Fire Wire 800 connection, is that not fast enough?

A footnote, It's very important that i can edit my HDV footage and not have to scale down to SD, but I'm still a little confused as to exactly what the difference is between HD and HDV, of the type my Z1U shoots. Do the heavy system requirements for FCP 6 with HD also apply to FCP 6 with HDV? Can you get away with less or do they amount to the same thing in the end with a finished high def product?

Thanks very much, Greg
 
tough post, I am sure you will get some good responses.

I too have been studying as I am in the market.

You say you want to output HD movies, I assume broadcast.

If this is the case:

firewire 800 is the fastest but not good enough quality (codec limitations) for HD output. HDV is only a codec and not one that is easy to process. DVC Pro HD is a better codec choice to use when editing, and then the kona card can do uncompressed also, if you have the storage.

The Sony Z1U s a great camera but I have had better results when I bring in that footage via a kona card, therefor bringing it into a wide variety of codecs of higher quality.

If budget is tight, you can buy a used G-5, they work fine as long as they have enough ram and the proper video cards. these requirement can be found on the apple website. This way you can have more money available for a proper video monitor and capture card.

FC studio 2 has some tough requirements and doesn't even run on my old g4. so it's time to change.

Good luck,
Brian
 
HDV is pretty much the same as DV in terms of data rate- it's still a 25 Mbit signal. It's just the actual amount of compression per frame is obviously much higher than DV to achieve a high definition resolution.

And sorry to say but you gain nothing in terms of signal quality by capturing any other way than firewire. All you're doing is wrapping the already compressed HDV signal into a much fatter pipeline. The image quality cannot be improved from what the camera compressed. You'll get the same effect by editing HDV and exporting the final timeline to ProRes.

I'd go for a FW800 G-Tech G-Raid2. That will be more than enough to handle HDV streams and a base model Mac Pro would be a good place to start.

Noah
 
So... one has to settle for SD?

So... one has to settle for SD?

So if you edit in HDV, every time you make even the simplest of cuts, you lose a generation? (Is that effect cumulative?) And the fix for this is to spend at least another thousand dollars on a video card? That hurts.

My budget is maxed out already with FCP and Mac hardware costs. Does that mean I'll have to settle for standard definition? I've got a Canon XHA1 and love the HDV images I'm getting, but if they're going to degrade as soon as I start to edit -- haven't started yet -- maybe I should just stick with SD.
 
GregJ said:
So if you edit in HDV, every time you make even the simplest of cuts, you lose a generation? (Is that effect cumulative?) And the fix for this is to spend at least another thousand dollars on a video card? That hurts.

My budget is maxed out already with FCP and Mac hardware costs. Does that mean I'll have to settle for standard definition? I've got a Canon XHA1 and love the HDV images I'm getting, but if they're going to degrade as soon as I start to edit -- haven't started yet -- maybe I should just stick with SD.
Click to expand...

The effect is not cumulative- if you cut in HDV and then do a final export to ProRes or MPEG-2 for example all of your footage is first generation HDV. Only transitions and filtered shots lose a generation- same as DV. Bottom line if you can handle DV with your current system you can also handle HDV.

-Noah
 
thanks guys, couple of follow up questions here (fcp 6 editing HDV, what mac?):

It seems that what i really need is a mac pro with something like the hard drive Noah mentioned, which i take it is this one: http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid2.cfm . With a new mac pro i take it i wouldn't need a separate graphics card, is that true? Also i understand from these posts that i'll be fine transferring via a fire wire 800 connection, is that also true?

That's to clear up the question what my ideal kit would be, the problem is I'm a newbie just starting out, and my budget is way over already - with a new macpro, a new display and the hard drive i'm looking at a heap of money. I'm loathed to get an old G5 that will become obsolete very quickly i imagine.

What about using that g-tech hard drive for editing fcp 6 in HDV with a new imac 20" 2.4 ghx processor? would that really not do the trick? would i need an extra graphics card? could i get away without one? a reminder that i'm really interested in pretty straight footage editing with basic transitions and some text, being willing to ship out to a professional editor for colour correction, motion stuff if we need it ... but i do want to be able to do basic editing with HDV.

Motionex, thanks for your posts. I was a little confused by part of one of them, being a newbie just gettting my head around the jargon, (especially confused by codecs) maybe you could explain, or other users could add their opinions or expand on these points:

from Motionex's thread:
"firewire 800 is the fastest but not good enough quality (codec limitations) for HD output. HDV is only a codec and not one that is easy to process. DVC Pro HD is a better codec choice to use when editing, and then the kona card can do uncompressed also, if you have the storage."

So if fire wire 800 is not fast enough, what is? I don't get it. Isn't fire wire 800 the fastest port to use to get video footage between the camera/computer/hard drive? No matter how i capture, won't if have to go through fire wire 400 or 800 ports anyway? What exactly does the kona card do? Do i really need one?

Also, with regard to DVC Pro HD being a better choice of codec to use when editing: I understand that HDV is the only high def codec i can record on with my Z1U. So would I then capture it on fcp using the different DVC Pro HD codec, or would i convert it once I've captured? Can one 'edit' in HDV or being a codec, something that compresses and decompresses, is all HD editing done in the same format when you get it into FCP? This may sound like silly questions but Codecland is a fuzzy place for me right now, so any clarifications much appreciated and thanks to all not-so-newbies for your patience!

Greg
 
Sure the iMac would be ok in a pinch and the FW 800 is fine. not sure what Motion is getting at with the codecs- bottom line is FW800 is more than up to the task of HDV which is the only format you shoot with a Z1.

But you will be limited. For example when you cut HDV you are either viewing on the desktop by default or you add a Blackmagic card to view it on an HD monitor as it really looks. You can't do this with an iMac only a desktop machine. But as a starter system, sure it would be ok and they hold resell value ok when you're ready to move up.

Noah
 
thanks Noah, that's great, just to confirm with you - if we go for the imac option, i would still need an external hard drive like the g-tech one you mentioned, but could get by without the extra graphics card? when we're bigger shots we'll update to a grander machine - thanks again, greg
 
I didnt say firewire 800 was not fast enough, I said I dont recomend it as it will make you capture as HDV codec.

I recomeneded capturing thru kona, not firewire. as far as clarification. Thats why I supplied tose two great links from the cow.

Good luck,
Brian
 
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