Best Upgrade for FCP

[Thomas Morter-laing]

Sorry if I soudned argumentative, and I totally understand what you’re saying, but the OP didnt want portability, and if you’re looking at ‘professional’ stuff such as broadcast monitors and have the budget for the kind of equipment, but DONT need portability, a macbook pro is severely underpowered in comparison to what could be bought for the same amount of money. Also, when you talk about portability , just out of interest do you take all of that stuff with you? If not, how do you capture on location? Where is it stored on location?

😀
Tom Morter-Laing
Freelance Editor
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
http://www.depictproductions.co.uk

Sony Z5, with Rode NTG2.
iMac 27″ intel i7 2.93GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD5750 [1GB GDDR5], 2TB Int. SATA with 2TB External HDD; (FW800), with Elgato Turbo H264HD.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “but the OP didnt want portability, “

In all fairness, you said that, he didn’t.

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “a macbook pro is severely underpowered in comparison to what could be bought for the same amount of money”

Power is relative. The MBPs allow you to connect with other devices, iMacs do not (or are limited to the type of devices you can connect to). To me, that is under powered. I can wait for a render, but if I can’t make a tape master, or layoff to another baseband device, or playback footage that requires a faster raid than fw800 to a monitor that the client can see, that stops the job completely. Slower or less number of processors allows you to keep working at least.

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “Also, when you talk about portability , just out of interest do you take all of that stuff with you?”

A laptop, storage, and monitors? Absolutely.

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “If not, how do you capture on location?”

The KiPro is wonderful.

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “Where is it stored on location?”

Where is what stored?

Question for Sean.

Sean-

What kind of outputs do you require? Meaning, what are you rendering that takes 7 hours. DVD? h264? Something else?

[Sean Simms]

I’m rendering H264 for the internet……my workflow is all sd capture dv….edit in the timeline sd and export in sd……

my capture setting is 720 x 480 and so is the timeline setting and my export settings

so maybe there is something wrong with the computer…I don’t know….it’s such an old machine (2001) and I didn’t start learning about editing at all until 2007 and I’m not a computer person…..

also I am exporting with QT conversion……instead of compressor……it has compressor on it but keeps asking me for the serial numbers to use it and I dont have them……

[Jeremy Garchow]

Yeah dude. Time for a new computer.

If you do h264 all the time, check this out:

https://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/Turbo264HD/product1.en.html

Especially helps on laptops if that’s what you decide to do.

[Kenny Miracle]

Hi Sean – I understand that workflow well. H.264 is one of my main deliverable.

QT Conversion isn’t a bad idea. A pro is that non-FCP machines can play the file. A con is it takes longer to export, and there’s higher risk to get the settings wrong. I like it because it gives full customization over the settings.

For your workflow… I recommend exporting a QT with your full quality SD settings, then using compressor or QT Pro to encode into H.264. This will give you more flexibility, and it’s good to always have a full quality QT file around for future use.

If you need speed more than backup, then export as a Quicktime Movie, and uncheck the “Make Movie Self-Contained” box. This will make it a reference file in seconds. you can then encode that. Then later export a full quality file.

Hope this helps. I’ve done it wrong a lot, too 🙂

Kenny Miracle

http://www.kennymiracle.com

[Jay Soriano]

Jeremy, how’s the el gato compare to a mxo2 mini w/ max for h.264 acceleration?

[Sean Simms]

Just to add my G4 specs

Dual 1GHz Power PC
2MB L3 cache per processor

1.5 GB SDRAM

Thanks,

Eros Salvatore (another victim of creative cow’s “real name” policy”)

[Sean Simms]

…..I did try using the self-contained Quick Time Movie just now…and it took 16 minutes but the file size is 3x as big…..and I am worried about being able to upload these fcp files to websites….

i’m wondering if there is an easy way to convert these files to H264 QT

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jay Soriano] “Jeremy, how’s the el gato compare to a mxo2 mini w/ max for h.264 acceleration?”

Dunno, actually. I have never seen the matrox max. I’ve seen the Elgato run at an effective 60fps on 24fps material. Also what I like about the Elgato is the complete portability. It’s only a little USB dongle and fits in anywhere and it’s always with me.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Sean Simms] “i’m wondering if there is an easy way to convert these files to H264 QT”

Compressor, but on a G4 it’s going to take a very very long time. That computer should have made those guys money hand over fist by now, time to upgrade.

Jeremy