FCP scratch disk

[Walter Biscardi]

[Kurt Endebrock] “I just bought a new mac pro 8 core 2 hard drives 12 ram and I have been reading to make the scratch disk on a separate firewire hard drive. I thought that was why I spent so much money on getting a super mac (for me) Is this a necessity?”

You never, ever put any media on your main System Drive whether you’re running a desktop or a laptop. You need a media drive to properly run FCP.

This can be drives internal to your Mac Pro (you have 3 more drive bays available inside) or any number of external arrays from Firewire to Fibre channel. A RAID is always faster than a single drive.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Kai Cheong]

Hey Kurt,

Now that you have your Super Mac, what are you intending to edit? Are you going to be working in HD? Or a mix of SD/DV and HD? Looking at how much RAM you loaded up on your Mac Pro, are you doing heavy-duty compositing or 3D renderings?

I’d say that getting a souped up Mac is only half the deal – your media storage solution makes up the other half that gives you the speed & reliability that you need for your editing needs. So don’t scrimp on that or else it’ll just drag down the performance of your Mac.

I work on an 8-core Mac Pro at work with a modest 8GB of RAM and only 1 internal HDD that is my systems drive. But I’m using a CalDigit VR 3TB RAID 0 solution for my media storage. Blazing speed for the Apple ProRes, HDV & DVDProHD footage we’ve been working with.

Have fun with your new Mac – and with shopping for a new hard drive! Depending on your needs, you might not need to invest in an external RAID. Maybe adding 1 more internal hard drive & striping it would give you the speed you need. Or even just a FW800 drive.

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
https://kai-fcp-editor.blogspot.com
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Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com
At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
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MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kurt Endebrock]

Kai,

Thank you for the info. I may do that in the near future. For now, I am having major trouble getting my project to transfer to a dvd. I keep getting incompatible format. I have everything in apple pro res or intermediate codec. My format is from the HMC 150 and is high definition video on a class 6 sd card. I don’t know how to get it to a dvd without going down to standard definition and the quality is horrible. can you help?

Kurt Endebrock

[Kai Cheong]

Hey Kurt,

I can’t really advise you on the best way to get your footage to DVD without knowing more details about how much footage and what applications you’re using. But generally speaking, if you want to author DVDs, you need to get familiar with Compressor and DVD Studio Pro – which comes bundled in Final Cut Studio. It’s not too difficult if you read the help documentation for them – especially since the presets in Compressor are good enough for most tasks.

Anyhow, unless you’re authoring to a HD or Blu-Ray DVD [which means you need an additional HD/Blu-Ray DVD burner since the stock burner that comes with the Mac Pro does not support these formats] – you are essentially authoring SD DVDs, regardless of your source footage.

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
https://kai-fcp-editor.blogspot.com
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com
At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2