Hack or Mac Platform for editing AVCHD Natively?

B

bcdevoe

Member
Dear DVXcommunity,

A superficial search has convinced me a hackintosh is probably not the platform to use for Pro-Apps + AVCHD but it has been a while since I've researched building one for.

Has anyone built a relaible AVCHD /FCP Studio system from PC hardware? What's the magic recipie?

In all likelihood there is none, in that case are there any happy refurb'd mac users who edit AVCHD on FCP and would like to share the details of their hardware investment? I'm looking to edit HMC/Gh1/AF100 footage.

Thanks all,
Ben
 
Well, the footage from those cameras all must be transcoded, as I am sure you're aware. So you're going to be looking for a very strong intel CPU. I would suggest at least the newer variety of quad cores (whatever the newest hardware a hackintosh will support) and a stack of RAM. With FCPX it's hard to say, as it has more support for hardware based effects and editing, so you may want to drive a bunch of money into getting the biggest most badass GPU available to you, as this will probably prove to be as worthwhile an investment as a good CPU.

Ultimately I wouldn't suggest a hackintosh for editing important client's videos as you never know what might go wrong (that's not to say Apple's offerings don't sometimes crap themselves...). I know from my own dabbling that they can be finnicky to set up and customise and you don't always get a 100% stable system, but things might have moved on since when I last tried.
 
If you want to edit AVCHD natively your best solution at this point is Premiere CS5. Take it from one disappointed new owner of FCPX, lol. I hope there's a solution soon.
 
I recently built a hackintosh, and while I do not edit AVCHD, I do edit on FCP and it has worked flawlessly for me.

I got the top of the line intel i7 960 (3.2gHz Quad Core) (before sandy bridge was hack-friendly) and it has been able to handle most of my rendering/transcoding/exporting needs with ease.
8gb RAM @1333mHz, again, works fine with rendering and keeping up with my needs.
I went with the hd Radeon 5770 because most of the Mac Pros use them and they are extremely easy to use when you create a hack, unlike most Nividia Fermi cards. I think 1gb of VRAM is fine, at least for me it is.
 
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