What do you use to edit a full-length doc (computer/software)?

C

custerc

Well-known member
Hi all, so I'm still working on my first feature, and my old MBP (2008) is slowly dying on me, but even if it weren't it's probably a bit too slow to work well with tons of HD footage at this point. So now I'm pondering (although I can't yet afford) a new computer, and wondering what everyone here uses, in terms of brands and specs, and also what you use for an editing suite. I'm sort of locked into CS5 because I've been logging all our footage in it, but that's fine as it seems to be the best option these days, with FCP having shot itself in the face with FCPX....


Anyway, here are some computer configurations I've been pondering...I need something that's at least slightly portable, as I live in China but will be moving home next year and don't want to lug a giant tower around. But I do want something that can have 2 HDDs in it, and my current computer has caused me to lose faith in Apple's laptops anyway. So here's what I've been considering thusfar (these are all customized, so the components I'm listing are in some cases what I chose, not what comes stock with the machines....)

As you can probably tell from these options, I'm the sort of person who'd rather spend a lot once for quality and dependability than spend less and buy new machines every few years...

Falcon Northwest Fragbox -- $2,848:
4Core i7 960 3.2ghz
24GB 1333mhz RAM
GeForce GTX 560 TI
64GB SSD + 2TB 7200 RPM HDDs
Windows 7 Pro

Apple iMac 21" -- $2,913
4Core i7 2.8 ghz
16 GB 1333 mhz RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512MB GDDR5
256 GB SSD + 2 TB 7200 RPM
+ AppleCare

Maingear Xcube Super Stock 6 -- $2,995
4core i7 960 3.2ghz
24 gb 1600 mhz
2x nvidia geforce 460
120 GB Intel SSD + 2TB WD 7200 RPM HDDs
Blu Ray burner
Windows 7 Pro

or can switch out GFX card to 1 GTX 560 to bring it to $2,897 instead

Maingear Vybe Super Stock 6 --- $2,923
4core i7 960 32 ghz
24 gb 1600 mhz
2x nvidia geforce gtx 550
120 GB Intel SSD + 2TB WD 7200 RPM HDDs
Blu Ray burner
Windows 7 Pro


The two Maingear ones have more GPU power than I would even need, probably, but I think they would make things blazing fast given Premiere Pro's mercury playback engine. Plus, maybe I could get back into a little PC gaming....:)


Anyway, what are you all editing on? What are some other good options for portable power?
 
If your going to spend $3000 get the 2.8 Quad Core Xeon MAC PRO. ($2499) then spend $500 on getting your own ram and putting it in. You'll save at least 50% by getting it and puttin it in yourself. Amazing computer and one of the most upgradable one's out there. Not to mention it is made with medai and video in mind. Then go on over and get the Adobe Production Premium CS5.5 (I use final cut studio and CS5.5 but it's a lot of $ to get both). They are having an amazing sale right now where you can get 50% off. WHen you go to check out just type in the coupon code......SWITCH. you can get the whole suite for like $900.

And I know $3000 is a lot of money but when It comes to pro video it's barely enough to get started. Especially if you have to get software with that too. Here's what I would do if I were you....
I would get the 27" 2.7 GHz quad core i5 with 4gb of ram ($1699). The imacs are great and will do everything you need them to do without you maxing them out and wasting your money. Then get teh software you need.....then slowly save up for like a 12 core mac pro. (around $6k).

I have an old 24" imac with an intel core 2 duo and 4GB of ram. I edit DVCpro 1080 HD all the time and do high end graphics in after effects and never have a problem.
 
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mb72378 said:
If your going to spend $3000 get the 2.8 Quad Core Xeon MAC PRO. ($2499) then spend $500 on getting your own ram and putting it in. You'll save at least 50% by getting it and puttin it in yourself. Amazing computer and one of the most upgradable one's out there. Not to mention it is made with medai and video in mind. Then go on over and get the Adobe Production Premium CS5.5 (I use final cut studio and CS5.5 but it's a lot of $ to get both). They are having an amazing sale right now where you can get 50% off. WHen you go to check out just type in the coupon code......SWITCH. you can get the whole suite for like $900.

And I know $3000 is a lot of money but when It comes to pro video it's barely enough to get started. Especially if you have to get software with that too. Here's what I would do if I were you....
I would get the 27" 2.7 GHz quad core i5 with 4gb of ram ($1699). The imacs are great and will do everything you need them to do without you maxing them out and wasting your money. Then get teh software you need.....then slowly save up for like a 12 core mac pro. (around $6k).

I have an old 24" imac with an intel core 2 duo and 4GB of ram. I edit DVCpro 1080 HD all the time and do high end graphics in after effects and never have a problem.
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I dunno...I need something portable, but even if I didn't, I'd be tempted to avoid the Mac Pros. Right now they're kind of outdated, but even after they update them, you can get the same performance -- hell, the same exact components -- for much cheaper if they're not from Apple.

I was once a believer in Apple quality, but my current computer, a Macbook Pro, is only three years old and has already failed in pretty much every way possible. The battery and the optical drive were dead inside of a year, the motherboard broke (!!!) during year three, and the power cord is now failing and, I can only assume will be dead within a month or so. Now, of course, with Applecare, I could have gotten some of this fixed, but my feeling is, if I'm paying a premium for a high-quality computer, why do I need extra insurance? And if the computer isn't high-quality, why bother paying the premium?

Moreover, everything Apple has done in the last year fills me with fear. FCP X is a disaster for serious filmmakers, word is that OS X Lion is a step backward, with every new computer they release more parts are fused together so you can't easily replace them or upgrade them (see, for example, the HDDs in the new iMacs), and it generally seems clear that Apple is focused on moving away from being a professional computer company and towards being a cutting-edge phone company that also does consumer computing stuff. Which is fine for them, but.....it's making me think very hard about the wisdom of investing a lot of money in their hardware right now.

In two years, will I be able to upgrade to the most modern OS, or will OS X have morphed into some kind of iPad thing? Will I even be able to run the newest versions of all the professional software that I need on a Mac in, say, five years time? You might say yes now, but think about what most pro editors would have said about FCP X before anyone was shown the first versions....Apple has time and time again shown in the last few years they're happy to cut functionality to make their products more appealing and more affordable for average consumers. Which, again, is totally fine, but it makes me question the wisdom of buying a Mac for serious video work right now.

Also, supposedly CS5 (which I have already, probably won't upgrade to 5.5 because it's expensive and I don't need to) runs slightly faster on Windows....

I dunno, anyway, I might trick out an iMac, but there's no way I'll buy a Mac Pro right now. We'll see what happens when/if they release an updated version later this summer, but even then, it's not an ideal choice for me because they're so gigantic that it would be a HUGE (no pun intended) pain in the ass to get back to the US.
 
I understand your opinion. Apple has made a few bad decisions recently. But is it so easy to forget all that they have done. I have never had issues with any of my macs. If a new version of a product isn't up to snuff....don't upgrade to it. You don't have to. I didnt upgrade to Final Cut X. The problem comes down to people not making informed decisions and just purchasing the latest and greatest without the proper information. Imac's, and all in one computers in general are marketed to people who are not going to upgrade a computer. Why would you buy an imac to upgrade it. youd have to take the whole thing apart. Mac's are expensive. For me the cost is worth it. Now that doesnt mean you have to go buck wild. Buy the minimum computer you can upgrade with whatever cheaper aftermarket stuff you want.

It sounds to me that you already have you mind made up. If you have so much disdain for apple go with a pc. Its completely your decision. I for one just prefer macs for my digital media needs. I have invested lots of moolah in macs and have never been disappointed.....then again I dont run out and grab the hottest new stuff. I sit around....use what I have.....let time dictate what is worth the money to invest in.

SOO....I can only say from my experience.....if you go with the imac you wont be disappointed. If you have the money and would LIKE to get a mac pro....you wont be disappointed. If neither of those options hit you right maybe you should get one of the other PC computers. All personal pref. good lucK!
 
If you're okay with building your own PC, you can always go with a Hackintosh to get the same or greater power for less than a Mac Pro. NoFilmSchool has a great guide for doing this.
 
ev149 said:
If you're okay with building your own PC, you can always go with a Hackintosh to get the same or greater power for less than a Mac Pro. NoFilmSchool has a great guide for doing this.
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Yeah I would like to do that, but I've never built my own PC before, and there's also the portability issue....I suppose I could try to fit some/all of that stuff differently in a smaller case, but I really don't have the chops for that. Plus parts are hard to get a hold of in China. I mean, not really, they're everywhere, but it's VERY hard to tell whether they're actually legit or bootleg, sometimes they look exactly the same and I'm no expert.
 
mb72378 said:
I understand your opinion. Apple has made a few bad decisions recently. But is it so easy to forget all that they have done. I have never had issues with any of my macs. If a new version of a product isn't up to snuff....don't upgrade to it. You don't have to. I didnt upgrade to Final Cut X. The problem comes down to people not making informed decisions and just purchasing the latest and greatest without the proper information. Imac's, and all in one computers in general are marketed to people who are not going to upgrade a computer. Why would you buy an imac to upgrade it. youd have to take the whole thing apart. Mac's are expensive. For me the cost is worth it. Now that doesnt mean you have to go buck wild. Buy the minimum computer you can upgrade with whatever cheaper aftermarket stuff you want.

It sounds to me that you already have you mind made up. If you have so much disdain for apple go with a pc. Its completely your decision. I for one just prefer macs for my digital media needs. I have invested lots of moolah in macs and have never been disappointed.....then again I dont run out and grab the hottest new stuff. I sit around....use what I have.....let time dictate what is worth the money to invest in.

SOO....I can only say from my experience.....if you go with the imac you wont be disappointed. If you have the money and would LIKE to get a mac pro....you wont be disappointed. If neither of those options hit you right maybe you should get one of the other PC computers. All personal pref. good lucK!
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I mean, in a perfect world, I'd rather have a Mac. The PowerBook I had before my current MacBookPro was a dream, it made it through numerous bumps and scrapes, four years in college dorms, and then STILL ran for three more years after I upgraded, in the hands of my brother, who destroys computers. That was a well built machine that was worth every penny I spent on it, and it was why I bought a MBP, not to mention iPhone, iTouch, etc.

I was converted, completely. But the MBP has not held together well at all, even though by comparison it's been treated much more nicely than the PowerBook. The iTouch's (non-replacable) battery died, the iPhone 3G's (non-replacable) battery died....and now it's almost daily I read online about a decision Apple makes that, to me, seems like things are going in the wrong direction.

I still want to buy an Apple. I found myself thinking this morning that maybe if I bought a high-end desktop PC for editing, maybe I'd buy a Macbook Air for mobile computing (like I have the money for both, hah!, I don't even have the money for ONE of those things). But I also feel a bit like an abused spouse...how many more times can I believe the "I'll never do it again, baby."

(NOTE: If you're wondering why I never purchased AppleCare, in addition to the reasons I listed in my initial post, I also moved to a rather remote part of China immediately after buying my current MBP. If something broke -- and it did -- there really would have been no way for me to get it repaired even if I had had Apple Care, the nearest Apple store was thousands of miles away and I couldn't last at my job without a computer as long as would be needed to repair it by mail. In fact, that's why I bought a Mac; I felt certain I was buying something reliable...).
 
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haha Custerc I gotcha. Some things apple does def. doesn't make sense. For me its a touch decision because I have never had any issues with any of my mac products (KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on wood). I used to edit on a PC with the adobe suite and from the moment I turned it on....it started to slow down. I maintained it, didnt even hook it up to the internet so no viruses. Once I got my first imac I just fell in love with the stability of the operating system and the reliability of the parts. I've never had a mac book pro or power book tough. for my situation I dont need the portability and I feel like you spend a little more for the portability when if you buy a desktop you could put that extra monet towards the actual computer components.

What's a Hackintosh.....I've never heard that term before.
 
mb72378 said:
haha Custerc I gotcha. Some things apple does def. doesn't make sense. For me its a touch decision because I have never had any issues with any of my mac products (KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on wood). I used to edit on a PC with the adobe suite and from the moment I turned it on....it started to slow down. I maintained it, didnt even hook it up to the internet so no viruses. Once I got my first imac I just fell in love with the stability of the operating system and the reliability of the parts. I've never had a mac book pro or power book tough. for my situation I dont need the portability and I feel like you spend a little more for the portability when if you buy a desktop you could put that extra monet towards the actual computer components.

What's a Hackintosh.....I've never heard that term before.
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A hackintosh is a PC, essentially, that runs OSX. Since Apple buys most/all of their parts from third parties anyway, you can buy the parts and build the computer yourself, and then using some wizardry, trick it into thinking it is a real Mac. It's not the easiest process in the world; the main reason to do it is to save money. For example, in the NoFilmSchool guide above, they lay out how to build a Hackintosh that can run OS X and has better performance statistics than a Mac Pro -- for $1,600. It's a bit of work, and obviously there's some risk of potential instability, but if you choose the right parts, they often work just like a regular mac, and presto, you've saved $1000.


Edit: I should note that running OS X on a machine that wasn't manufactured by Apple is technically a violation of OS X's terms of service. Not that most people doing that would care...

Edit again: I was a little unclear, there are some parts that will work in a Hackintosh but that aren't actually used in Apple computers, many in fact. But most of them are at least similar to what Apple uses in one way or another, and there are many parts that will not work at all or will only partially work, so you have to be very careful what you choose.
 
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Hmm....sounds interesting. I'll have to look into it. I dont have the skills to take the chances though myself.
 
mb72378 said:
Hmm....sounds interesting. I'll have to look into it. I dont have the skills to take the chances though myself.
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Sometimes you can buy the systems premade on eBay. Legally, no one on eBay can advertise a system with OS X installed on it already, of course, but I've seen some where they make it pretty clear after you purchase the system you can arrange to have OS X installed before it's shipped, if you so choose. Of course, you could use all hackintosh-friendly components and then install Windows to make a great PC, too...
 
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