good editing system.

djdougyfrsh

djdougyfrsh

Active member
I am a recent college grad with an old powerbook G4, and it just aint cuttin it anymore. In school i had access to a number of much much faster G5 desktops, so i didn't have to resort to my laptop, but now its all i got. My budget is around 3000-3500 and i need a hot editing system. I want something thats fast but doesn't have to be fastest- just a good editing machine. In short if you were to buy yourself a new editing system (from apple), what you would you get? The more specific you can get the better: processor, video card, screen setup, ect. Thanks for your help,

doug.
 
i would get a top of the line powermac from apple, but buy your ram, monitors, etc elsewhere to save some dough. wish i could be more helpful on specific money saving tips, but the last Final Cut Pro edit bay i built cost $25,000 to $30,000.
 
Well first sence you are or were a student that quifies you for the eduaction discount. so if you go to the apple store web site. and look to the right at the top of the page you will see other stores and you will see on that says educations. Click on that and find your school. They will take your cridet card and ship it to your house. So the only reason they need to know what school you are going to is to see if you quifiy. Now that will bring the prices down.

I would look at a 2.3 dual G5 I would spend my money on the 500 gb hard drive, and as much ram as you can get. I wouldn't worry to much about the video card. The three that you can chose from even the bottom line one is a very good card.

Now don't forget that you have to buy a monitor. Now I have 2 23"HD apple monitors that I love and think every one should have. But if you can get one cheeper non apple brand and it lets you get a better comp get that one.

Also do not forget to just buy FCP studio. pay the $700. It is worth it. Getting it from friends and having an unregister version is such a pain in the ass. It is not worth it. The updates that you get make it worth it alone. Just buy it.
 
imgentertainment@mac said:
Now don't forget that you have to buy a monitor. Now I have 2 23"HD apple monitors that I love and think every one should have. But if you can get one cheeper non apple brand and it lets you get a better comp get that one.
.
Click to expand...
i believe you can get Dell monitors that use the same lcd display as apple's for half the cost.
 
Don't buy a PowerMac G5. They're slow as hell compared to the new Intels.
Better get a Mac Book Pro oder iMac Core Duo with external 20" Cinema Display and Firewire RAID.
 
First of all, you need to answer a couple of questions:
1) How soon do you need this? If you can wait until the end of the year, the Intel-based Mac towers will be out.

2) What length/how much effects will the movies you make have? (not a great sentence, but you get the point). If you are doing simple shorts with no effects, you could get by with a MacBook Pro or iMac. If you plan to do features or anything with effects, you'll want a G5 (or Intel tower when they come out) since you can do more upgrading of graphics cards, RAM and drives.

I'm going to disagree with a previous poster on upgrading to a bigger hard drive. If anything, get a smaller main system drive, because you don't want to edit on that anyway. Get a second drive, either internal or external, that will be your capture and edit drive.
Also, be sure to budget for backup - my rule is for every GB of space you plan to use, get a backup drive (or drives) that is at least 50% bigger (preferrably 2x bigger). You don't want to lose a movie because your drive died and you had no backup.

Enough for now...
 
skinnyboy said:
I'm going to disagree with a previous poster on upgrading to a bigger hard drive. If anything, get a smaller main system drive, because you don't want to edit on that anyway. Get a second drive, either internal or external, that will be your capture and edit drive.
Also, be sure to budget for backup - my rule is for every GB of space you plan to use, get a backup drive (or drives) that is at least 50% bigger (preferrably 2x bigger). You don't want to lose a movie because your drive died and you had no backup.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry this is exactly what I should have said. You should get a bigger hard drive but it should be a secondary drive. Ahd I would go internal before you go external.:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Thanks for all your input. To answer some of your questions: i wanted it pretty soon, we're wrapping up pre-production within the next month and should be shooting soon after. I definitely was planning on having this (and hopefully another) project completed by the end of the year. I also want a desktop, I already have the powerbook, so the laptop is covered. I have FCP HD, and did know about the student discount (not that much better ever bit helps i guess). The projects i'm planning on shooting won't have tons of effects, but will be modified to a degree, i also plan on editing a feature with it at some point.

So i guess the question is now go with the Dual 2.3s like IMG suggested or wait for the intel chips. Is it going to be that much faster, so much so that i should maybe edit on this incredibly slow powerbook (i would have to max out its memory if i do so) while i wait for the intel towers? And i've been reading the debates on the intel chips being susceptible to windows viruses- should this also be a concern?

thanks again for all your responses,
douglas.
 
Last edited:
You will be fine going with a G5 now (2.3 seems like a good choice). The Intels will probably be a lot faster, but they won't be out until the end of the summer at the earliest. Most likely - Apple's suprised me before though, so it could be sooner.
Also, the first Intel Towers will have some bugs to be worked out, I'm sure.
If you need it now, get the best you can now.

Place to get RAM: www.datamem.com
hard drive pricing: www.pricewatch.com
or
www.dealmac.com

Good luck.
 
the other factor is what format your shooting in plain vanilla DV you can edit with a mac mini not quickly but it can be done DVX200 HD has much higher system requirments.

Look at the system requirements for Motion in the FCP Suite it asks for a minimum or 2 gb of ram I think.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top