Advice on building FCP HD edity system

I

indieanajonze

Member
I've been recruited to put together a plan for building an HD edit system using FCP and need some advice in the areas below. I'm relatively new to HD production, but not production, FCP and macs so I have enough knowledge to know what I need, I'm just unsure about whether my choices are the best and if I am completely overlooking anything.

I know the camera will influence what we purchase so at this point we will most likely be shooting on the HPX-170 using a Firestore. Most of our work is half-hour field-based shows and half-hour to hour long documentaries.

1. We will be getting a Mac Pro with the following specs.
- 2.8 Quad Core Intel Xenon
- 4 GB RAM
- 750GB system drive
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB

My questions regarding the Mac Pro are these:
1.1 - Is the RAM and graphics card sufficent for editing DVCPRO HD?
1.2 - How important is the processor speed? Is it worth the cost to bump up to the 3.0 or 3.2?
1.3 - Is there anything else I should consider in building the computer aspect of this edit system.

2. Breakout Box. This is where I'm totally clueless. We currently have the Kona 2 for our SD edit stations, but I have no idea what we need, or if we do need, a breakout box of any kind. We would like to monitor the output on a larger screen, possibly a consumer LCD. I know a consumer LCD isn't ideal for color correction, etc., but I think a professional HD monitor may break our budget. Any advice in this arena would be greatly appreciated.

As far as output, our short term plan is to shoot in HD and broadcast in SD. Our engineers are working on a solution for us to finish in HD and file transfer the final edit to the stations server where it will be converted into a file format for broadcast from the server. I say all of this as we have no plans for outputting projects to decks and tapes.

My questions regarding the breakout box are these:
2.1 - What would be a good choice for monitoring output on a consumer LCD using HDMI?
2.2 - Is there a more cost-effective breakout box solution for only monitoring as we will most likely
not be outputting to tape?

3. Drives - I am assuming editing in DVCPRO-HD is the best choice. That said, what editing hard drive solutions would you recommend for editing in DVCPRO-HD?

My questions regarding the drives are these:

3.1 - Would adding hard drives to the vacant drive bays inside the Mac Pro work (not sure if they
would be fast enough) or would you recommend and external solution.
3.2 - What external solution would you recommend?
3.3 - Would a FW 800 solution work or would a RAID be a better choice?

I know there are other questions and things I need to consider that I have left off so please feel free to point out these things if you feel it to be beneficial.

Thanks in advance for your advice.
 
indieanajonze said:
1.1 - Is the RAM and graphics card sufficent for editing DVCPRO HD?
1.2 - How important is the processor speed? Is it worth the cost to bump up to the 3.0 or 3.2?
1.3 - Is there anything else I should consider in building the computer aspect of this edit system.


2.1 - What would be a good choice for monitoring output on a consumer LCD using HDMI?
2.2 - Is there a more cost-effective breakout box solution for only monitoring as we will most likely
not be outputting to tape?


3.1 - Would adding hard drives to the vacant drive bays inside the Mac Pro work (not sure if they
would be fast enough) or would you recommend and external solution.
3.2 - What external solution would you recommend?
3.3 - Would a FW 800 solution work or would a RAID be a better choice?
Click to expand...

1.1 Yes, definitely sufficient. ATI 3870 graphics card is a good upgrade if you want, but not necessary if you are only editing DVCPro-HD and not doing any Motion or AE work.
1.2 Not worth the cost, IMHO, given your requirements.
1.3 Yes, see next set of answers.

2.1 Blackmagic Intensity Pro card. $350, gives you HDMI In/Out and analog connections should the need arise.
2.2 same answer

3.1 Yes, this will work. Get the 7200rpm drives or better.
3.2 I wouldn't recommend one on your budget. If/When you can afford a proper RAID system, that would be the way to go.
3.3 see answer to 3.2
 
To Will's reply:

1.1 I will be doing a lot of Motion work and, at times, I have projects with multiple layers that tax my current system. So I'm guessing an upgrade to the ATI 3870 would be a good move? Although I do not see that option when building a Mac Pro on Apple's website.

2.1 Are you familiar with the Matrox MXO 2? From what I've read it sounds like it can calibrate a consumer monitor to be color-accurate...or am I totally mistaken?

3.2 What RAID system would you recommend? It's possible it could fit our budget.

I appreciate your feedback and advice.
 
I bought the ATI 3870 card from newegg and installed it myself - it is not available as an upgrade from Apple. It's easy to do though. You should consider RAM upgrade too - check out macsales.com for better pricing than Apple's. I configured my system with 2GB from apple and then picked up 8GB of RAM from macsales.com - much cheaper. 4GB will work fine for just Final Cut Pro - but more will be better if you are using Motion and running multiple FCS programs at once.

I don't have personal experience with the MXO or MXO 2, but that is what they are supposed to do. Blackmagic Intensity card will not let you calibrate with a blue-only setting like the Matrox products, but it is $700 cheaper. If you have the budget, MXO is probably the way to go.

sorry, I assumed that if a proper HD monitor would break your bank, a RAID would definitely not fir in your budget (never good to assume!). Someone else will have to chime in here - not my area of expertise by any stretch. FW 800 drives will work for DVCPro-HD - but having a RAID system will be faster and can have redundancy, which is good. Because sometimes hard drives fail :)
 
I thought Wills advice was good for a budget set up that works. So Ill stick to your new questions.

indieanajonze said:
To Will's reply:

1.1 I will be doing a lot of Motion work and, at times, I have projects with multiple layers that tax my current system. So I'm guessing an upgrade to the ATI 3870 would be a good move? Although I do not see that option when building a Mac Pro on Apple's website.
Click to expand...

Yes, its strange they dont have the 3870 listed. I just put one in my 07 mac pro, and its very good. But, the GEforce 8800 is very close on FC and motion performance. In the reviews I read the 8800 works better with games - not important to you or me, but it is a pretty good card. The 2600 is rubbish.

indieanajonze said:
2.1 Are you familiar with the Matrox MXO 2? From what I've read it sounds like it can calibrate a consumer monitor to be color-accurate...or am I totally mistaken?
Click to expand...

For budget, the Intensity Pro is really good. Personally, and this is just me Id go intensity pro and use the analogue output to a real CRT monitor - these can found for good prices these days and you would still most likely come under the MXO2 price.

indieanajonze said:
3.2 What RAID system would you recommend? It's possible it could fit our budget.
Click to expand...

I set up a two hdd raid using two http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=1cd981f8c0f43110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD , as my edit drive. Its stable and fast.

I then back my projects up to an external fw800 two drive raid and archive to another external (removable disk) drive bay - once full I simply pop them out and label.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top