Buying Mac Pro – what specs for editing hd video?

[Rob Grauert]

Final Cut Express doesn’t support nearly as many codecs as Final Cut Pro. I would get Final Cut Pro now.

I personally wouldn’t blow my money on an Apple monitor either. I’d be sure to have a Kona LHi or Matrox MXO2 so I can monitor my video properly.

Rob Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com
command-r.tumblr.com

[Jerry Hofmann]

I wouldn’t wait to purchase the suite… update is likely a year or more away… and I’d upgrade that graphics card with the $200 upgraded card for sure.

Crucial sells dandy RAM chips for it as does MacSales.com.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

DVD:https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays

[Chris Rowe]

Hi Jerry,
will you please elaborate on the graphics card advice?
I’m currently upgrading our 4 year old G5 to a new system and Promax is recommending saving the money and just taking the ATI HD 5770. They say their real world tests show that the 200$ more expensive ATI HD 5870 is no faster.
Do you have an opinion on this?

Thanks,
Chris

[Walter Biscardi]

[Rob Fourchalk] “I’m going with the 8 core as it seems that Final Cut will most likely update to become 64 bit (take advantage of them extra cores).”

Really? FCP will most likely update soon? I wouldn’t get your hopes up about seeing much of anything before 2011. Purchase the Suite and get to work today.

Go with at least 8GB RAM, 12 or 16 if you can afford it.

As for “editing HD video” with a Mac Pro, I’ve been editing HD video since the G4’s were out. What you need is a very fast media array and for that you want to look at Maxx Digital, Small Tree, Sonnett, Dulce and WeibeTech. Any Mac Pro or iMac will cut HD today, they just need very fast arrays.

I would also recommend something like an AJA Kona LHi that can do realtime conversions of SD to HD, HD to SD and 720 to 1080 or vice versa. VERY versatile tool as we’re making conversions pretty much every day as a regular part of editing.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.

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[James Hilton]

I agree, I can’t see any major updates to FCP untill 2011 either (maybe even late 2011), I would like to be proved wrong on this though!

Maybe the FCP team have been too busy playing on their iPads recently and iPhones before that? I tried Premiere CS5 a few weeks ago….have to say I was very impressed….it will be interesting to see what the next major update of FCP will bring.

From my recent experience can I also reccomend you get an extended warranty on your new machine.

I agree with Walter on the ram, go for at least 8GB if you can afford it, and a fast HDD aray is a must.

[Jerry Hofmann]

The card will not run FCP faster. True. However it should speed up renders in Color, Motion, and some of the filters in FCP (FX Plug class). I also think that GPU processing will become more and more important down the line.

There is a movement in software coding that will use more and more of the GPU (graphics processor) If today’s software doesn’t take advantage of the speed up available in the faster card, tomorrow’s will.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

DVD:https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays

[Sean Kapleton]

Hey Walter just thought I would ask whether or nits possible to just RAID three internal TB drives to 0 or 5 and of course back up to an external regularly for safety?

Will this not perform as well as an external RAID w/ raid card of course?

thanks
s

[Walter Biscardi]

[Sean Kapleton] “Hey Walter just thought I would ask whether or nits possible to just RAID three internal TB drives to 0 or 5 and of course back up to an external regularly for safety?”

Honestly can’t comment on that as I’ve never done this. I only run external RAIDs for two reasons.

They’re more easily expandable.

If anything happens to my Mac Pro, I can simply connect the RAID to another machine and keep going.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.

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[Rob Fourchalk]

Thank you gentlemen, thank you. Well now that I’m confused beyond belief. Just kidding…sorta. I really picked a helluva time to go from actor to film maker (with my limited editing experience).

Here’s the deal: I know I need a Pro for future expandability (amongst all the hundreds of other reasons). I am presently a novice (having only put together little 15 min projects in Magix Movie Pro (PC), still needing to go through the learning curves in FCP, Motion, etc…

We are presently shooting a trailer, as well as the feature length as we speak. I’m investing my money into the mac for these projects and of course to continue making films and possibly documentaries.

Do I need these Matrox’s and Kona’s etc…to start off with. It sounds like for you experts that without an array system it’s like eating macaroni without cheese. But without the cheese will the macaroni still make it out my bowels successfully?

Initially, could I get by with a basic 8 core Pro, 8g memory, FCS – with no array system – in order to edit a 90 m feature which will have next to no special fx. Pretty bare balls.

I have approx. cdn 7,000 g’s to dispense of and not a penny more.

Thanks everyone for putting your 2 cents in.

[Jerry Hofmann]

The most the tower can hold for scratch disk space would be 6 TB… so if that’s enough space, you could edit a whole film. How much space you’ll really need depends on which format you’re shooting and editing, and how many hours of footage you’ll need to be able to store. You’ll need backup for this too if you don’t shoot tape.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

DVD:https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays