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A little more life from PPC G5
Besides the obvious – buy some new Imacs!! – any suggestions on squeezing a little more life out of a lab of non-intel G5s with Final Cut Express 4.
We have a lab for students, which has been fine using DV for years.
With all the new consumer grade HD cameras, the bottle neck is now log and transfer, which won’t run on PPC. The kids have been “capturing” in another lab with intel machines, and then bringing the files over – but time is a problem?Any PPC native apps that can work like log and transfer?
Consumer Grade cameras that record in native .mov (under $500)?
Premiere? Avid?again, please be kind – I am only the messenger
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5 Replies
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[Joe Piazzo] “Any PPC native apps that can work like log and transfer?”
ClipWrap2 will convert AVCHD to ProRes…oh, Final Cut Express. Hmm…It also does Apple Intermedia Codec, which I think FCE supports. They have a demo. Mind you, because it is PowerPC, it will take A LONG TIME.
[Joe Piazzo] “Consumer Grade cameras that record in native .mov (under $500)?”
Quicktime movies that will NOT need to be transcoded before editing with FCE…under $500? No. Avid? Yes, but the new Avid requires Intel Macs running Lion. Older Avid versions that run on G5s won’t recognize the format, and will transcode. And take a long time. Premiere Pro? Not sure the new one runs on PowerPCs. It works with all formats natively…but only if you have the hardware to allow it to do so. G5’s won’t work.
Sorry, if you want to remain current and work with current camera tech, you might need to get new machines. But, try ClipWrap2 for AVCHD…oh, it also converts to DNxHD QTs, for Avid. Unsure of the speed on a G5.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
OK…Just spoke to a friend who also has a G5. A G5…a PPC Mac, cannot convert AVCHD to ProRes. That requires an Intel Mac. Even with ClipWrap. Just too much for the processors. So either you need to get new machines, or the students need to go to Intel Macs to do the converting, and then use the G5s to edit.
My friend used his MacBook to convert, and then the G5 to edit.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Shane Ross] “Premiere Pro? Not sure the new one runs on PowerPCs”
Premiere Pro CS5.5 and most recent versions run on Intel Macs only.
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Thank you all. Not my purchase decision, but it will be my recommendation. 20 new computers are always a hard sell…
“we just bought new ones 5 years ago!” -
[Joe Piazzo] “Not my purchase decision, but it will be my recommendation. 20 new computers are always a hard sell…
“we just bought new ones 5 years ago!””Apple has pretty great pricing for academic software and hardware.
Furthermore, teaching a new generation of filmmakers to do things the old way or the wrong way is not doing them any good, and I think that’s what using antiquated computers really forces you to do.
David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.com
http://www.ProMax.comDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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