What hardware is needed to edit a feature?

E

emptytea

Member
I am a film student and will be editing a feature film shot on the HVX200 in summer. I need to know what hardware is optimal (under a tight budget) in editing a professional feature film.

Currently, I own a Powermac G5 Dual Core 2.3ghz.
3.5gb of Ram.
A 300gb External HDD (firewire).
Final Cut Studio

I don't know too much about editing hardware (capture cards, array hard drives, etc.) as I was hired more for creative editing.

What can any of you suggest I get and what does each piece of hardware do?
Thanks.
 
Well, the good news is that you won't need the capture card if you're shooting on the HVX's P2 cards, though you will need to work out the workflow of getting the footage off the cards and to you at the end of every day (or in chunks every few days). You should also look at ways to back up the footage, either to additional drives or to dual-layer DVD's (the G5 Dual Core 2.3 should have a dual-layer DVD burner).

However, if you plan on outputting to DVCPRO HD tape (or HD CAM) then you'll need a card to go out from your system to a rented deck, or you'll need to take your finished Final Cut Sequence on a hard drive to a post house that can output it for you.

The Dual Core 2.3 G5 should be more than able to work with the HD footage and you have plenty of RAM. You're going to need a bigger hard drive depending on what the shooting ratio is (and if they're shooting 720 or 1080). For a feature though, I would say a 1.2TB drive would be something to invest in. If the director shoots a lot of footage, you may end up getting two of them. Make sure you get something with a FW800 connection just to speed things up (the Lacie drives work really well for me).

Hope this helps!
 
I got an additional gig to edit a feature film for a University production. The project will be shot on the DVX100A and edited on FCP5.

The system is a Dual 2.0ghz g5, w/ 2gb of Ram.
- I believe I will need a capture card to maintain uncompressed quality.
- Any particular capture card I should invest in? Blackmagic? Kona? What models?
- How big of a hard drive will I need for uncompressed SD?
- Anything else I should worry about?

Thanks in advanced!!!!
- Mark
 
If the project is shot on the DVX, then you won't need a capture card, you'll be able to go in through firewire and a miniDV deck or through the camera. If you want to go through a 3rd party card, then I'd recommend the Blackmagic SD card with component inputs/outputs. You'll need to get a DV deck with component outputs to digitize...though I'm not sure how much better the footage is going to look...that's a question for someone else. The card you should look at is the DeckLink SP card (http://www.decklink.com)...it's got analog in/out component as well as 10-bit SDI for mastering...should do the trick nicely.

As for storage, a 1TB drive should be fine depending on how much footage is shot. If the director goes crazy and shoots a ton of footage, then you may need an additional 500GB drive.

The specs of your computer are fine, you won't need anything else...
 
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