Should I take the plunge?

J

Jay Laville

Well-known member
After having a sleepless night I realised I need to get serious. I love FCP studio 2, (fcp editing mainly) when everything goes to plan and I love my canon xh-a1 and I love HDV recordings. What Im not totally over the moon about is the system that runs it. Rendering effects on HDV footage is annoyingly time consuming, just to see the clip play smoothly without stuttering, and yes I set sequence setting to render prores 422 and set RT to Unlimited and dynamic dynamic..

I currently have:

IMAC 2.8GHZ INTEL CORE 2 DUO, Memory 2GB 800MHZ DDR2 SDRAM and has a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS

I am looking at selling and buying instead a MAC Pro with following Spec:

Processor: two 3.0GHZ Quad Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 4GB
Hard Drive: 500GB 7200-rpm
Graphics: NVIDIA GeFORCE 8800 GT 512MB
Optical Drive: Two 16x Superdrives
Apple Display: Apple Cinema Display 20” Flat Panel

Is it worth the change over and spend this money so I can work with HDV footage better, is it over kill or will rendering still be as long. I dont want to start converting footage in prores 422 as I hear mixed issues regarding this, Id rather keep HDV native when editing but make rendering alot quicker and playback realtime without too much choppyness when adding effects.

Thanks for your time

Jay :thumbup:
 
HDV ingests by firewire and is processor intensive.

iMac can't create a second FW bus, add a second internal HDD or eSATA.

I would get what you indicate except with a stock video card and switch to an ATI 3870 which is optimized for FXPLUG.
 
David S. said:
HDV ingests by firewire and is processor intensive.

iMac can't create a second FW bus, add a second internal HDD or eSATA.

I would get what you indicate except with a stock video card and switch to an ATI 3870 which is optimized for FXPLUG.
Click to expand...

Hi so is the Nvidia Gforce not that great compared to ATI 3870?
 
Wait a few more weeks- MacWorld is right around the corner. Maybe some new machines if we're lucky.

Noah
 
Jay Laville said:
Hi so is the Nvidia Gforce not that great compared to ATI 3870?
Click to expand...
The drivers for the 8800 aren't very good. Even the ATi x1900 will outperform the 8800 when it comes to FCS apps. I wouldn't get the 20" ACD since you won't be able to view 1920x1080 footage full screen on it.


-A
 
adkimery said:
The drivers for the 8800 aren't very good. Even the ATi x1900 will outperform the 8800 when it comes to FCS apps. I wouldn't get the 20" ACD since you won't be able to view 1920x1080 footage full screen on it.


-A
Click to expand...

Thansk for all your advice Ive taken everything on board and ordered the computer today with 30 inch monitor and the standard graphics card which I will update as soon as I can down the line. Got the 3.0 GHZ 2GB ram which will be shortly upgraded to 4. Hope this runs FCP better than my imac. Should get this on friday..
 
Noel Evans said:
I got the 3870 recently and it really made a difference over my burnt out x1900. And by all reviews it does run FCS better than the 8800.
Click to expand...

Thats what im looking into, is it worth adding this to the stock graphics card as there is room for two or three, or should I simply replace the existing one?

Also:

I know I need to uninstall FCP studio 2 from imac so that I can install it and use it on MAc Pro, can i do the same on Magic Bullet looks, can it be uninstalled and then reinstalled on the Mac pro, i saw on their site on how to uninstall but couldnt see if could be reinstalled on another mac afterwards without having to purchase again. I have the serial number and all, do i simply just delete and download on macpro again? Sorry if Im getting on everyones nerves with all these questions :dankk2:
 
Nice machine. I have an A1 and FCS2 as well, I thought I'd throw something else out, here...

HDV is a pretty good codec for recording, but as you know, crap for editing. I now transcode on capture to AIC, and my whole workflow runs much faster. In addition, AIC handles color correction better, not being temporally compressed. It runs about 45 gigs a tape, so you'll need more storage for long-form projects, but storage is cheap. Try it out, see if it works for you:

1. Use file>Easy Setup, or file>Audio/Video settings to select AIC as your import codec.
2. Create a new bin (Apple-B)
3. Right-click on the new bin, select "Set Logging Bin"
4. Capture

FCP will transcode your footage to AIC as it's coming in, and on your new machine, probably in real time. (I have a MBP, so it runs a few percent behind.)

Have fun with that new box!

Paul
 
lovetrumpsfear said:
Nice machine. I have an A1 and FCS2 as well, I thought I'd throw something else out, here...

HDV is a pretty good codec for recording, but as you know, crap for editing. I now transcode on capture to AIC, and my whole workflow runs much faster. In addition, AIC handles color correction better, not being temporally compressed. It runs about 45 gigs a tape, so you'll need more storage for long-form projects, but storage is cheap. Try it out, see if it works for you:

1. Use file>Easy Setup, or file>Audio/Video settings to select AIC as your import codec.
2. Create a new bin (Apple-B)
3. Right-click on the new bin, select "Set Logging Bin"
4. Capture

FCP will transcode your footage to AIC as it's coming in, and on your new machine, probably in real time. (I have a MBP, so it runs a few percent behind.)

Have fun with that new box!

Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks for that great to have advice from one with similar gear, do you know if mbl is easily transfered from one mac to another?
 
Replace the existing inexpensive stock card with the 3870. Works great.

What are you referring to when you say "mbl" being transferred?
 
David S. said:
Replace the existing inexpensive stock card with the 3870. Works great.

What are you referring to when you say "mbl" being transferred?
Click to expand...

I need to uninstall magic bullet looks from my imac and then when I get my mac pro reinstall it on that, I dont know how to do it, as originally I needed the serial code to access it so how do I take off one computer and access it on my new computer. Also how do I do this with final cut studio 2?
 
please help guys as have to send of my imac tomo as its sold and i just spent 30mins on apple support waiting for them to pick up. They must know its me lol
 
Jay Laville said:
please help guys as have to send of my imac tomo as its sold and i just spent 30mins on apple support waiting for them to pick up. They must know its me lol
Click to expand...

Im sure your licensed copy will be OK to transfer. If you have any issues contact Red Giant.

Heres what I would do - clean reinstall of the Mac OS that your selling the machine with. Reinstall any software you are including in the sale, then to be nice do the auto update. This will remove everything and give them a nice clean machine.

And, once your new machine arrives just install everything. Should be OK. But again, if theres an issue with MBL - contact Red Giant. The software isnt licensed to a machine, its licensed to you.
 
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