edit DvcPro 50 on G4 powerbook?

Pelican

Pelican

Well-known member
Quick question please from a non-mac person. What would be the minimum requirements for editing DvcPro50 on FCP? I don't do compositing work. I want to shoot 720-24p for short films. Thanks.

ps. would this guy be too slow?
15" Apple PowerBook 1.67 GHz SD 100GB 512MB
 
Stuff in as much ram as reasonable. 1 GB minimum if you're editing. 2-3 even better,
Get any upgrades you can when buying since some items are difficult to install later.
Upgrade hard drive to largest/fastest.
If there's an option on display card get the faster one.
Consider getting a firewire buscard ($60-80) if you're going to do much firewire work of camera and drive at same time.
 
kai said:
Are you sure Barry? 512MB to handle HD on a single chip machine?
Click to expand...
He didn't ask about HD. He asked about SD DVCPRO50.

EDIT:
Hmm, now that I look back at the post he does say 720/24p. When I read it the first time I just saw the line about DVCPRO50...
 
In terms of data rate, yes. In terms of pixel size, no -- the 720p frame is going to have twice as many pixels, so double the workload in rendering etc.

There's no bottleneck, I've seen HD edited on a lowly G4 1.33ghz powerbook. The bottleneck is when trying to use a non-editing codec like HDV. With DVCPRO-HD, you could probably do it on the system he described;
 
I do DVCPro-50 all day long on my 17" PB G4 with 2 GB of Ram, FW800 card on an external G-raid drive and the AjaIO LA.

Works and looks great.
 
I do DVCPro-50 all day long on my 17" PB G4 with 2 GB of Ram, FW800 card on an external G-raid drive and the AjaIO LA.
Click to expand...

So, you hook your deck to the IO LA via component/XLR audio, into the PB via the onboard FW connector, and run the G-raid off the FW800 card, right? Just checking that I understand.

Thanks.
 
Joe Kras said:
So, you hook your deck to the IO LA via component/XLR audio, into the PB via the onboard FW connector, and run the G-raid off the FW800 card, right? Just checking that I understand.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

That is correct.
 
If you are thinking about buying a new powerbook, you should really seriously consider waiting at least a couple of weeks. There are very strong rumors going around that Apple will announce their new Intel powerbooks this month. I believe the new processors would be a substantial increase in performance over the existing (and now very old) g4 powerbooks.
 
".. are thinking about buying a new powerbook"

No, I really was thinking about a used one, or possibly a used G5 PowerMac. I just jumped ship to Vegas, and have an HVX due in soon (?). My quick love affair with Vegas is ending, cuz she won't put out.. DVCPro.
I am starting a documentary in late January, and really want to shoot 720-24p. But alas, I am not about to jump ship once again to a platform that is soon to go into a major depreciation, due to the announcement of the Intel-Mac. With Vegas' closed-mouth approach, I feel like I'm in NLE-limbo-land. I never had troubles in the past deciding on a platform, but I also bought a $25k Media100 in 1999 and watched it depreciate way too fast for my liking.
I may borrow my friends G5, and load it with FCP. It appears that they do not have a trial version. Is it possible to load FCP (if borrowed) and try it, or is it require registering/unlocking?
 
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