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Fastest configuration?
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Fun to read all this, hi Robin, no real answer to our question is there… or did i miss something?
What’s the bottleneck or let’s say the difference between 2 computers, one having to deal with 4 layers of 10 bits uncompressed SD, (each has Keying, Layer effects, Gaussian Blur, X/Y-movement, Cropping, Scaling, Transparency, Masking AND Convolving applied to it…)all in REALTIME!
The other gets hickups doing 1 channel HD (apple Prores HQ, with about the same data rate as our 10-bits uncompressed, only slightly higher)and needs 3 MINUTES of RENDERING on a stream of 12 seconds?
Our Mac pro is a Quad-core 266Ghz with the latest FC Studio, Blackmagic HD Extreme card, and insufficient graphics (got error reports while wanting to apply certain effects) Disc speed is ok.
As Robin mentioned before: is there something reliable and fast on the market? Or should we keep editing SD 😉
Kind Regards,
Emile (PMP)
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Four and a half years ago, I started HD with a G5 dual 2.5 and a dual fibre channel ATTO 4TB RAID so I was doing uncompressed 10 bit 1920 x 1080.
Today I am still using the G5 but with HDV/ ProRes workflows common, I can use FW800 drives. XDCam experience is similar. It all comes down to render time. I am looking at the upgrade path and at this stage, I can’t see any reason not to wait a few months until the price drops on the 2.9 Octo Nehalem. I will basically buy as much grunt as possible to get the longest life out of the system, like I did with the G5.
My RAID is still useful although I might swap out the 14 x 250 gig drives for a bunch of 1 or 1.5 TB drives.
Only other choice is switching to AJA from Blackmagic and also getting the most graphics card grunt. It might seem expensive to buy the best, but how much does it cost to have to change systems more often?
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AFAIK Media 100 844i included bespoke hardware accellerators. My old Fast 601 did the same. The market we’re in has changed since then – some would say for the worst. I don’t think so.
Whilst my 601 would cope with multi-stream uncompressed SD video, the overall package of FCS offers more to me. Yes, rendering happens but it’s not an issue for my workflow.
So you may well find that the fastest current Mac/FCS solution won’t give you enough realtime HD streams with all the effects you use without rendering (remember btw you’re dealing with at least 4x the data in terms of computational power to process HD)so you may have to look elsewhere. Something like Flame or Smoke would probably give you the realtime functionality you need. It comes at a price though – so we’re back to the cost/performance equation again.
If I were you I’d hang fire till FCS3 and Snow Leopard arrive. You may find this combination solves many of your problems.
Jason
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.*the artist formally known as Jaymags*
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[Robin Plomp] “We’re used to the (compositing) speed of our Media100 844/X system.
Now we want to move to HD. Did some tests on FCP on our MacPro, but with disappointing speed results.
“The 844x was a compositing system first, editing system second. Came with dedicated hardware that enabled all sorts of realtime capabilities.
FCP is a software based editing system. There are three ways you get the maximum performance out of an FCP system.
1 – Fastest Mac you can afford with 8 to 16GB RAM.
2 – AJA Kona board. Gives hardware acceleration to formats such as DVCPro HD, HDV and almost infinite flexibility in editing with conversions.
3 – Fastest hard drive array you can afford with plenty of overhead. We run both the Maxx Digital EVO HD 8TB array (520MB/s+) and the EVO2 HD 16TB array (up to 700MB/s+)
The combination of those three things will give you the fastest configuration possible.
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!
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