FCP system – CPU, storage, blu-ray, video card

[Walter Biscardi]

The first question I have to ask is why are you switching? If Premiere has been working well for you, why the switch?

[Krzysztof Kalukin] “1. Which CPU should I go for? Is 2.26 sufficient or 2.66 are really worth it? The price difference is significant and I do not see such added value that would justify it. WHat do you think? “

The fastest Mac you can afford and 8GB RAM minimum.

[Krzysztof Kalukin] “2. Should I stay with Blackmagic, or should I spend more cash for Kona 3? In which situations AJA is more recommended? “

AJA products are simply better made and better supported. Have you looked at the new LHi? It has almost all the features as the Kona 3 for $1,500. Really the only big thing you lose is 2K playback. There are a few more smaller things, but that’s the biggy. Upconvert, Cross Convert and Downconvert are all there. If you’re working in TV and not film outs, then the LHi suits your needs for half the price.

[Krzysztof Kalukin] “3. How should I set up storage. My idea is to have – one system disk (640 GB), and 3*1 TB caviar black set up as RAID 5 and one external RAID 1 array connected via FireWire. Right now I cannot afford big external array. “

Three drives set up in RAID 5? That’s not much at all. I would recommend a minimum 5 drive RAID for RAID 5. Look at Maxx Digital, you might be surprised at what you can afford. They sell all manner of arrays.

[Krzysztof Kalukin] “4. Apple does not support Blu-Ray as far as I know. I have external LG Blue Ray burner. Will I be able to use it somehow? “

If the drivers exist for Mac, yep. LaCie has an external burner that works fine and our internal BluRay burners came from FastMac.com.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Krzysztof Kalukin]

Thanks for the reply.

Regarding Premiere – well, we are not happy with its stability and reliability. Besides, after switching to HD problems appeared. In my opinion Mac offers better OS.

Regarding AJA – so, you think AJA LHi would be better than Blackmagic Decklink HD? If so, I will consider that.

For Mac – we’ll add 2 more Gigs of RAM to make it 8, but – first of all, I’ve heard that FCP can utilize not more than 2,5 Gigs, if so, why need so much reserve? And CPU… will I really feel the difference between 2.26 and 2.66 in dual quad config?

And storage – that is temporary solution to have 3 drive RAID 5. In the future, we’ll add separate storage. The question is – is Apple RAID card good enough? I’m considering to buy CalDigit RAID card, but I’ve heard that is does not support internal arrays on latest Mac Pros.

Krzysztof

[Shane Ross]

I will also suggest the Matrox MXO2. I like AJA products as well, and the LHi is a great card (from what I have seen). I would just like to present you with another option.

The MXO 2 does everything the LHi does. Upconvert, cross convert, downconvert…all in hardware. HD SDI, component, composite, HDMI, AES EBU audio. All that. The advantage to the MXO2 is that you can also use it on a laptop…it ships with both PCIe and Express34 cards.

AND…this I like…AND, with the Matrox CompressHD hardware installed in the MXO2 (for like $300 more), you can add acceleration to your H.264 compression, making it far faster than real time. What takes compressor 1 min to compress a 2 min ProRes peice to iPod, the CompressHD takes seconds. Like maybe 10-20 seconds.

Anyway, just throwing another option out there. I have the MXO2 and use it and like it a lot. I would recommend this as another viable option.

Shane

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