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Buying a new Mac for FCS 2 – Need advice
Hello Good People of Creative Cow,
I am in the midst of preparing to purchase a new Mac so i can better accommodate Final Cut Studio 2- my old G5 just doesn’t cut it with Motion and can’t even run Color.
So I am wondering what people would recommend for powerful and efficient running of Final Cut Studio without breaking the bank. Obviously the most suped up MacPro would be most ideal, but I’ve heard that the new iMacs, particularly the top of the line ones do an excellent job of handling Final Cut Studio 2, both HD footage and working in Motion in Color.
How well do Motion and Color run on a top of the line iMac? Is there something so amazing in the MacPro that it’s worth making the extra sacrifice to buy one instead?
I look forward to some useful feedback and thank you in advance…
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5 Replies
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Two biggest problems with using an iMac with FCS2.
1. No PCI expansion for a capture/video out card (AJA or Blackmagic Design).
2. Limited graphics card selection. Motion and Color run better with bigger graphics cards. Really, the ATI cards work better for FCS2 than the Nvidia cards.
I’d much rather get the 2.8Ghz Mac Pro 8-core. It just leaves the options open. But for basic stuff, the iMac should work fine.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Ridgeline Digital Cinema Mastering
Universal Post
Salt Lake City, UT -
Don’t paint yourself into a corner with an iMac. Sure, if you edit only DV and HDV. But above and beyond that, you’ll need a MacPro. You can future-proof yourself that way a lot more.
Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
Look for a warrantied factory refurbished MacPro. You can get AppleCare for it and everything. Should save you about $1,000 or so.
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[Russell Lasson] “biggest problems with using an iMac with FCS2.
“The single biggest issue is only one FW bus.
many camera storage combinations need to be on separate control channels to handle the data. From the computer side FW 400 and FW 800 are the same and without the ability to add via cardbus or PCIe you may run into capture and playback issues with FW devices.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows -
Forget all other graphics cards, too. Just get the Radeon 3870. You only need one but you may want another cheap display card but you can’t run more than one display card when using FCP or a bunch of Motion’s effects won’t render inside FCP but they will inside Motion with any number of display cards active. Sheesh.
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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