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Buying Advice FCP set-up
Hi all,
My name is Gunther, I live in Holland. In daily life I run a electronic music studio from my house, and one day a week I edit a tv show for a company I started to work for after doing my internship there.
I came to this forum because I’m looking into setting up a FCP suite. Problem is that I’m a complete noob to FCP, I haven’t even worked non-linear in the past 6 years… In film school I started with Premiere, and I graduated using Avid and Media 100. But in the past years I only worked on a linear 3 machine beta-sp suite so I’m very rusty. And that’s probably an understatement. I want to change that and set up a FCP suite. Most important now is that I get things right 😉 Searching this forum already provided me with tons of info but I’d like to get some things right. I hope you don’t mind me asking some noob questions, and questions that have already been answered…I will be working in SD mostly, but I don’t know what the future will bring. It is likely that HD will come eventually, but right now that’s not the case so it’s not necessary that the system can handle HD. Right now I’ll be capturing a lot of material from Beta-SP (PVW2800), Digibeta (DVW-500) and sometimes from DV, DVcam and DVCpro. It isn’t unlikely that I’ll be capturing from VHS as well… Because I won’t be using sdi solely but also analog composite and component, I thought perhaps the Decklink Multibridge Pro or Aja iO HD would be the best choice. Am I right? Are there reasons to prefer one over the other, or to even consider a third option?
The system will run on a Mac Pro. Because I got a good budget now, I figure I want to get the best out of it right no. I’ll go for a set-up with two 3,2-GHz quad-core Intel Xeon-processors.
What I’d like to know is, what graphics card would be best? And what about hard drives? Internal? External? Should I buy it from Mac or can I get them somewhere else? Also, I read here that 4GB ram is suffice. Should I consider 8GB?
What screens (brands, types) should I consider?I guess that’s it for now… Thanks for your time, I hope some of some of you can give me at least some pointers 🙂
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8 Replies
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Gunther,
Welcome to the Cow. Rather than re-typing what others have already said, check out the search function. Your question is a common one, so there are lots of posts to read on this topic.Good Luck,
KevinKevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
Thank you. I know, searching gives me all my answers. It’s hard to determine what applies to my situation (heck, it;s hard to determine my situation in general 😉 ). As suggested here on the forum I guess I’ll be best of contacting a dealer that sets up systems. It’s just that it’s quite a big purchase, I was hoping to get some pointers to make me more secure about choosing. There is so much info here it’s a bit overwhelming, I can’t see the wood for the trees 😉
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[Gunther Stern] ” It’s just that it’s quite a big purchase, I was hoping to get some pointers to make me more secure about choosing. There is so much info here it’s a bit overwhelming, I can’t see the wood for the trees ;)”
Gunther,
Actually there are relatively few choices when buying a Mac as they come pretty standard right out of the box, and you don’t have to order everything intially. The only decisions are:
1. You need a minimum of 4Gb of RAM, but will you install 8Gb because its better?
2. Stock Nvidia graphics card or stock ATI card?
3. Raid array? Internal or external. You can add three SATA drives internally and stripe them and later you can move them to an external enclosure.
4. Capture card? BM or Kona?
Those are the only really big decisions. Its nothing compared to the Windows world, believe me. Because Apple makes the hardware and software its pretty hard to buy wrong. Just make certain you get the peoper matching RAM and the rest will work. If you change your mind later about something you can swap it out and sell it on Ebay. You don’t have to be perfect.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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That’s really useful, and reassuring. Thanks!
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Gunther,
You might also want to check out the Matrox MXO2. It is an I/O box that is very lightweight/portable. Connects to the system via a PCI-express card in a MacPro or via the Express/34 slot on a MacBook Pro.
It does up/down and cross conversion in the hardware and has many inputs and outputs. For a full list I’d suggest going here:
https://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo2/If you have any questions about it just let me know.
cheers,
Joe
Joseph Trepanier
Matrox Video Products Group
Product Specialist -
Well searching provided me with a lot of info and clearified a lot for me, but it also made me doubt about what card I should get.
I’ve been looking at the AJA IO HD and IO, and the BM Decklink Pro and Eclipse. I won’t be using firewire for anything else, but I remember from my Media 100 days that capturing using firewire (back then firewire 400) was limiting. Since the portability and ease of connecting would be wasted on me, would it be better to go for a PCIe card like the Decklink Pro / Eclipse? Or are there reasons to prefer firewire over PCIe in a studio situation?Also, the material I’m provided with on a weekly base comes on different formats, I’ll be capturing from different machines on one day. What card makes it easy to switch between the different inputs(component, composite, sdi)?
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The AJA is IO HD is a great tool, but it does have to be disconnected when capturing or doing anything else via firewire. Its not a very big deal unless you have to do all the time.
On the other hand, having a card like a BM card or the AJA LHe (I, like lots of others here, prefer the AJA cards) are also great ways to go if you don’t need to go on the road or move the box around your studio. The cards also do uncompressed HD, while the IO HD is limited to compressed HD video, such as ProRes and DVCProHD.
They’re all good choices Gunther, and all of them, especially the full AJA line, have good resale values, so don’t feel like you have to be perfect, just make you best decision now and go with it, and adjust later if you reconsider. THe most important thing for you is get up and running so you can learn how to use what you get and start generating income and creativity. Don’t get bogged-down buying the toolset, they all work well.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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I’m sorry I never thanked you for your last reply, and I’m ashamed I only do it now whilst posting more of my questions…
I have been shopping around and made up my mind a bit, but I still have a few doubts. The set up I’ve been looking at is:
Mac Pro Dual Quad Core 2,8ghz
Nvidia 8800GT
3 x Seagate Barracuda 1tb
2x 2x2GB ram
Aja IO HD
2x Dell 2408wfpI chose the Aja for it’s connectivity and for the fact that I’ll be able to move it around, it just seems to me that in that sense it’s a very versatile piece of equipment.
I choose 2.8ghz cause I figured that I’d be better of saving the extra money and keep it in my pocket for future upgrades.For portability and back up I’m in doubt whether I should perhaps get a 1tb LaCie BigDisk as well, and perhaps get only 2x Barracuda if I do so. Will there be conflicts with the IO HD if I add a 2nd fw800 port?
For two of my clients I will need to render 25 min projects to mpeg2, and I’ll be doing a lot of open caption titling (from my experience it will be roughly 175 titles per project). Will the system I chose be able to handle the rendering quickly enough, or can I gain some speed with different drives? I want to put the internal disks in Raid 0.
I gathered that FCP is not the most easy program for spotting and titling. Are there, besides Belle Nuit and Subbits any other programs I can download demo’s from?
Thanks in advance,
Gunther.
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