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Enough oomph for FCP 6 and ProRes 422?
I have a long-term project that will need to output in best possible quality HD (considering the inputs) eventually. It will mix a lot of HDV and SD DV footage, as well as large TIFF graphics. Currently using FCP 5 on a dual 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5 with 2 GB RAM and the graphics card is an ATI 96K(is that 9600? I’m reading the invoice here). OSX is 10.4.11
I am thinking it’s time to upgrade to Studio 2 so I can do a mixed timeline. Thinking I will capture HDV (and DV) and edit in a ProRes 422 timeline. Most of this project will sit on an external drive (currently Firewire 800, but has SATA capability if I bite the bullet and get a SATA card). Anything wrong with this plan? Is my machine or graphics card (or RAM, or OS) going to give me fits? Will I need to go the SATA route? Better off to move to a more modern Mac? How much RAM can this machine handle if bumping up RAM is your advice?
For the moment I could get by converting my HDV clips to DV and editing in a DV timeline, and then converting to a ProRes timeline when I have more power, but this feels like it might invite media management trouble, and obviously bumps up my storage needs, so I’d rather make the switch if my G5 could handle it. No client looking over my shoulder, so I could put up with minor performance issues temporarily.
All advice appreciated.
PowerMac Dual G5 Mac OS X (10.4.11) 2 GB RAM
Dave Gardner
Producer/Director/Writer
Visions West
Compelling Documentaries for Broadcast, Business & Communities
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6 Replies
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You really should up your RAM to at least 4gb, otherwise, you’re good to go, but with fairly slow rendering. Also, SATA is a good thing, a lot faster than firewire 800 and much more relatime performance. Multiple SATA drives striped as a raid are even better.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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I agree with David on the RAM; I’m running 8Gb in a dual 2.7, and noticed an improvement across the board over the 4 gb I had before. I think 4GB is the real minimum, go for more.
In FCS2, however, Color, and possibly Motion, will be really sluggish with the ATI 9600 card; I had the 9650 and it was all but unusable untill I updated to an X-800XT. Not available new anymore, might find one on an auction site. Careful not to buy a re-programmed PC version; you want the real Mac Edition.
Good luck.
Gary
Gary Morris McBeath
SaltAire Cinema Productions -
[dave gardner] “I am thinking it’s time to upgrade to Studio 2 so I can do a mixed timeline. Thinking I will capture HDV (and DV) and edit in a ProRes 422 timeline.”
That computer will most likely not capture ProRes 422 in HD. We have the Dual 2.0 G5 and it was not able to capture ProRes 422 in HD at all, even with an AJA Kona 2 board.
Our G5 Quad 2.5 is able to do this. If you look at the specs of Studio 2 it does note that not all features are available on all machines.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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I also agree with Walter; capturing into ProRez directly is problematic, even on my 2.7. However, I just do a batch capture of HDV clips to a G-Raid, then select the ones I want and use Media Manager to send them over to the main scratch drive for the project, converting them to ProRezHQ in the process. You can also use compressor. Editing in ProRez seems to work just fine.
Cheers,
Gary
Gary Morris McBeath
SaltAire Cinema Productions -
[walter biscardi] “That computer will most likely not capture ProRes 422 in HD. We have the Dual 2.0 G5 and it was not able to capture ProRes 422 in HD at all, even with an AJA Kona 2 board.”
Of course any G5 is capable of capturing/trancoding HDV to ProRes on the fly via firewire.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Thanks so much for the advice. I was under the impression I could just place HDV clips into a Pro Res timeline and render out to Pro Res. Why do I need to convert my clips to Pro Res before editing?
Dave Gardner
Producer/Director/Writer
Visions West
Compelling Documentaries for Broadcast, Business & Communities
Main Office:
760 Wycliffe Drive
Colorado Springs,
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