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Cutting 720p/24 on G4 powerbook
Attempting to come up with an estimate for a producer for a 30-sec spot shot 720p/24 Varicam. Problem is, despite shooting Varicam they are trying to low-ball the post side of things, and instead of renting a facility or proper desktop setup, producer is suggesting I cut this on my G4 powerbook.
My question is, is it (very) foolish to think about ingesting/cutting/final outputting 24p DVCProHD on a powerbook? My inclination is that it is, although the reading I’ve done online makes it seem technically possible, with only a 1200A deck rental, FCP 5.1.4 and a firewire cable (and HD monitor rental for CC). But I definitely do not want to be in a position where all of a sudden I realize my equipment is woefully inadequate.
Any and all suggestions/advice is appreciated.
Adam
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6 Replies
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you will be fighting this project all the way through.
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You will not be able to connect a HD-SDI monitor to your laptop without a device like the AJA HD iO (which I don’t think has been delivered quite yet).
JS
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Yup- I’d suggest turning it over to another post house that can deal with the producer’s cheapo take on post. That or offer to do a cuts only edit. Definitely possible with a Powerbook but maybe it’s a good idea to upgrade your system(or your client
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Yes you can edit 720 24p on a powerbook… I use a 1.67GHz all the time and it works great. The data rate is only 40 mbs, not much more than DV. You will need to ingest firewire, and use a 7200 rpm firewire 800 drive as your media drive (I suggest Lacie).
You can connect a monitor via the 1200As HD-SDI output, but be aware there will be a hiccup in the video every few seconds. Don’t worry, this will not effect your project in any way.
A couple of hints:
Make sure your powebook has lots of RAM.
Update to the latest version of FCP 5.1.4
Be sure that you have no other firewire devices attached when you do your import.
Be aware that renders will take longer. Budget your time. -
I have, and still do on occasion, edit DVCPRO HD 720p24 on my G4 Powerbook…utilizing G-Raids (older ones) and FirewireVR drives, or eSATA drives like the CalDigit S2VR Duo. Is it a little sluggish? Ehhh…not bad. My G5 is better, and I do notice it. Renders are slower, but general cutting is fine.
And no need for that expensive AJA I/O HD for HD SDI monitoring (which isn’t out yet). I use the matrox MXO and that sends out an HD SDI signal to my PVM-14L5 HD monitor. Or it can also send a rather decent HD signal out to an Apple 23″ Cinema Display. Very nice little mobile unit.
Now, I’d rather have a macBook pro…without a doubt. But currently the MXO isn’t supported on the new Nvidia cards they now sport (PBs have ATI cards)…and the MXO doesn’t support Color…yet. But it is being worked on. I don’t use Color, I use COLORISTA and color correct right in FCP.
Doable? Yes. Sluggish? If you have lots of footage, it can be. Renders are definately slow, but other than that, I haven’t had many issues.
OH…well, I have. When I capture from a DVCPRO HD deck to a firewire drive, I have to have a PCMCIA firewire card…because the mac only has one FW bus. The card ads another bus. Issue there is that audio is not in sync with video…off by SEVEN frames…so I have to slip the audio as I lay down clips. When I capture to an eSATA drive with a PCMCIA eSATA adapter, the offset is far less…TWO frames. But that is the offset I get when capturing DVCPRO HD via firewire on my G5 as well. The only way not to get offset is to capture with a capture card.
Still…it works…
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Thanks, all, for input and advice.
Taking all of this into consideration, current proposed plan is to capture/cut on powerbook, color correct and output at rental post-prod suite, with strong suggestion to producer of building more room into budget for additional rental suite time, for capturing at least.
Thanks again,
Adam
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