iMac i7 and Premiere Pro CS5

igetcha

igetcha

Active member
hi all,

just wondering if some of you guys could possibly give me some advise please:-

i own a small video production company and use Premiere Pro CS5 and After Effects CS5 for my editing. i currently use a self built windows PC (dedicated solely for editing) with the following spec and everything renders very nicely and i can happily edit many layers of AVCHD footage in real time, even with effects, transitions etc etc added

Windows 7 (64)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 285
i7 860 Quad Core Processor 280 Ghz
16 Gig memory
3 separate HDD - 2TB each



i currently own an iPhone, iPad etc but have always been apprehensive about buying a Mac due to the different operating system and all my current software being windows.
but last week i fancied treating myself to something a little different and purchased a 13 inch Macbook Air........and I've been very impressed!
biggrin.gif


i love how simple they are to use and especially how smooth everything operates. in fact I'm so impressed that I'm now considering changing my editing PC to a iMac. now i know that as an editor the Mac Pro is the obvious better choice over the iMac.......but i just love the look of the iMac, its space saving capabilities and the screen quality is amazing
smile.gif



here is the spec of what I'm considering:-

3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 4x4GB (i will purchase the memory elsewhere though to save on cost!)
1TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5
Magic Trackpad
Apple Wireless Keyboard (British) & User's Guide (English)


now when i compare that spec to my current PC's spec then the iMac looks pretty good on paper..........however, i have one major concern
frown.gif


the iMac comes with a pretty good graphics card, but its not compatible with the Mercury Playback engine that is a very important feature of Premiere Pro

when using the Mercury Playback engine i can place layer upon layer of footage on top of each other to create a video wall, load them all up with a ton of effects and it will still play back in real time without any stutters etc (at full resolution too i should add)
but if i do the exact same thing without the Mercury Playback engine kicking in then my PC struggles terribly, lol

however, i rarely produce such videos that are so intensive.....so that was more of just an example of the difference between using the Mercury Playback engine and not using it.......but even the more simple projects still slow down quite badly when not using the Mercury feature


okay, so to basically try and cut a long story short.........do you guys think that the iMac with the spec posted above would be able to handle my requirements for editing even though it would not be possible to enable the Mercury Playback engine (its only compatible with Nvidia cards unfortunately)

as I'm sure you can appreciate, i don't really want to spend a couple of grand on a machine that even though it has a higher spec than my current PC would actually have a lower performance when editing, lol

many thanks in advance,

cheers

scott


ps.....is it possible to replace the graphics card in the iMac for a nvidia one?
 
i don't really want to spend a couple of grand on a machine that even though it has a higher spec than my current PC would actually have a lower performance when editing
Click to expand...

Reason enough to stick with the PC.
 
I don't think it is possible to replace your graphics card on the iMac. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll go replace mine. I would love to get my hands on that Mercury Playback thing.

You have the cash to drop on a Mac Pro?
 
hi mate,

yeah i do have the cash for a Mac Pro, but I'm actually very happy with my current PC's performance as it can handle pretty much anything i throw at it......its just that i really like the look of the iMac and have been impressed with how smooth and easy to use the Macs are

if i thought that i would get an equally good performance from the high spec iMac then i would happily get one, even though technically its a lot of money to spend and not see at least some improvement, lol

but if it means that i would actually see a drop in performance then i guess i will just stick with my current PC

cheers

scott
 
Especially with Premiere Pro, you will not see an improvement in speed. Macs in general are popular video/film because of its lower tech maintenance and better stability. The performance, however, has always lacked a bit behind the PC counterparts. Especially throw in the fact that you cannot get CUDA off an imac... there's your answer.
 
In your case, i prefer PC, better performance + cheap + more custom, but if you like so muuuuuuuuuuuuuuchh Mac and don't matter about performance, you can take a Mac Pro and be happy.
 
Vandrei said:
In your case, i prefer PC, better performance + cheap + more custom, but if you like so muuuuuuuuuuuuuuchh Mac and don't matter about performance, you can take a Mac Pro and be happy.
Click to expand...

eh? I've said that performance does matter and i would not get a iMac if it meant a loss in performance compared to my current editing PC which works flawlessly.........i simply said that if the iMac could perform at least the same then i would get one ;)

cheers

scott
 
Scott,

I have a very similar question to yours about the imac, I need to upgrade and the Imac package you are looking at does look enticing as I occasionally need to travel with my desktop for editing video, and having everything in one package would make my life a lot easier. Having said that is anyone out there actually editing on this machine that was mentioned earlier that could shed light on performance with premiere pro?

igetcha said:
here is the spec of what I'm considering:-

3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 4x4GB (i will purchase the memory elsewhere though to save on cost!)
1TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5
Magic Trackpad
Apple Wireless Keyboard (British) & User's Guide (English)
Click to expand...

thanks,
jordan

 
I think the Apple system is more stable but stability sacrifice performance, sorry, i forget to say about the stability in older post =). For me this is a real question about Mac vs PC (Stability vs Performance). I know a lot of people which edit videos in Mac, and they don't worry about the performance, because have stability.
 
Premiere on the Mac is way more stable than the PC. I run both on both platforms. However, my PC i7/12GIG RAM was $2,000 dollars less than my Mac dual Quad core.
 
hi mate,

what spec does your iMac have and does it edit nice and smooth? are you having to use proxy files or can it handle original footage and still edit in real time?

many thanks

scott
 
I've done some limited testing with PP5.5 on a Quad-i7 MacBook Pro, which is a good deal less powerful than your proposed iMac. For basic editing it works fine (I have no PC to compare to)... and i don't generally do much that is effects heavy (outside of CC), or which uses more than 2 video streams. Not exactly an answer to your question, but maybe a useful data point....
 
If can you shell the cash for a Mac Pro, I would reco it:

http://www.apple.com/macpro/design.html#graphics

The design of this thing is so very cool. Upgrading parts is so easy that it feels like it is the last tower you will ever have to buy.

But you might want to wait til they have thunderbolts on these things first.

... and they STILL don't have blu-ray drives built in...
 
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