Ideal FCP X Setup

Hey,

I'm looking at upgrading to a macbook pro system at the moment my self. Would be keen to have a solid state hard drive and then edit projects off a thunderbolt raid. Is the data transfer rate of a thunderbolt raid going to be good enough to handle RAW video editing? (Looking at getting the BMD Cine Camera).
 
dop16mm said:
Does anyone know if the base i5's video chip is enough for Resolve, or must you move up to a top end 27". I don't need real-time.
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I have one of the base i5 iMacs and Resolve does run on it, though I haven't used it extensively enough to know if it would actually be usable for a long-form project.


From the Mac configuration guide on Blackmagic's website:

"An iMac can provide faster image processing than a MacBook Pro due to the availability of faster CPUs and GPUs in the top models. An iMac provides a flexible and simple desktop work horse for previewing and grading material up to and including HD720p video. A Thunderbolt connection can be used for ingest of video tape and high speed disk storage.
...
Resolve 8.2 runs on Mac Pro, iMac and MacBook Pro computers. OpenCL graphics support was introduced with Resolve 8.0 to allow the 2011 models of iMac and MacBook Pro computers to be used as they contain AMD/ATI GPUs. NVIDIA CUDA-based GPU cards should continue to be used with Mac Pro computers as CUDA provides much faster image processing thanOpenCL, and also supports noise reduction."


They only suggest working with 720p footage on iMac, though I have done basic color / transcoding of 1080p H.264 footage in Resolve Lite.
 
dop16mm said:
Does anyone know if the base i5's video chip is enough for Resolve, or must you move up to a top end 27". I don't need real-time.
Click to expand...

I asked Blackmagic before buying the 21" i5 if it was adequate for Resolve Free. They told me it should be no problem and I have yet to find one. Admittedly I have yet to really stress the system.
 
I have wandered over to this thread because having recently changed cameras to FS100 and NEX7 and Ninja it is now time to upgrade the edit system. I am currently using FCS 7 and it works fine on my MacPro quad core. Time to speed things up and I have tried a copy of Premiere and like it but have not tried FCX yet. My question is the "legacy" gear I currently own and use and how it will make the transition to the FCX system. I run two 12tb raid towers via my HighPoint Rocket raid card and several internal drives. We have a couple of other smaller six tb raid enclosures etc. Making a change to a ThunderBolt equipped machine will work for me so long as I can carry over what I now have. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I am also wondering if my FCS7 and earlier projects will open and work in FCX? This is uber important since I don't want to have to deal with old and new when clients are on the scene.
I understand new folks or people with smaller setups being able to start from scratch but I would like to hear from some of the folks who like me have two or more edit suites with lots of hardware to 'adapt' to a new system. I have edited on the road with my MBP 17 for the past six years on certain types of jobs and I will without a doubt up grade to a new one this year hopefully smaller and lighter as the airlines get strickter on weight but my core edits systems are the concern and continuing to service my clients who often rely on previous edits is the main issue.
Thanks
 
Well I can answer a few of the questions I think.

You CAN open FCP7 edits in FCPX using 7toX, an inexpensive App from the App Store which is regularly updated to take care of any bugs. However, just like any XML importing, there will always be cleanup, and things that won't carry over well. Thankfully for now, FCP7 runs on the same system as FCPX so honestly, just keep FCP7 around and open old projects in there when you need to. I did this yesterday when I ported an old project over and realized the time to clean it up and do all that I needed to do heavily outweighed the 32-bit slowness and horrendous export time that version 7 was going to give me.

If you want my personal advice, don't look at FCPX as the thing you'll be just switching to overnight or even over a few months. Work it in slowly until you learn it. It's not an awful program, it's just a different one that will require you to relearn some of your muscle memory and alter your workflow a little. Keep FCP7 in the pipeline for a while, and begin the transition but assume it'll be a while before leaving version 7 behind FOR GOOD is even possible.

That's just my advice since you look like you keep pretty busy.
 
In all of my FCP X classes and seminars, I'm finding newbies and pros alike picking up FCP X faster than any other NLE. Infinity faster than they picked up FCP legacy versions. You won't take "months" to learn it if you do a proper course. But if you want to hunt and peck and find hidden things on your own, go right ahead. I think the money you spend on Ripple Training's core FCP X course would save you more than enough time to pay for itself in a week or two.
 
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