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Final Cut Studio 2: Mac Pro or G5?
Hi friends,
I’m having some problems.At the moment I have a PC running Adobe CS4, which is still not accepting HD scene detect for HDV capture, and I have a whole Ext HDD full of QT converted XDCAM footage that will only obviously work in Final Cut.
Because of all these issues I’m looking to either get myself a Power Mac G5, or an Apple Mac Pro to run my dusty copy of FCS2 on.
As I’m on a tight budget I was wondering what hardware I REALLY need to edit 720p on a Mac, bearing in mind my timeline will likely be 50 mins long. I’ve looked at the spec for FCS2, but if i was to buy a referb G5 as they are more within my price range, what should i be aiming for in terms of hardware specification for resonable performance? If a G5 wont hack what I want to do, I would just like the extra advice to buy a Mac Pro. If so would I be able to get away with the basic model, ie Intel Quad-core Xenon 2.66 GHz, 3GB ram and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB to edit fluently?
Thanks in advance
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3 Replies
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Even the stock Mac Pro from 2007 stomps all over the fastest G5. In January of 2007 I sold my dual 2GHz G5 and bought the twin dual core Mac Pro Xeon 2.66GHz with 2GB of RAM. It slaughters the G5 in every way. Another big reason to go with a Mac Pro over a G5 is ProRes – you can’t capture ProRes in realtime on a G5.
If money is a problem, just buy a cheap 2007 quad core 2.66GHz Mac Pro on eBay and add extra RAM and hard drives when needed.
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If all you want to do is edit, a G5 is a great little box. We have dual 2.5 in the studio that we rent – someone just edited a 30 minute piece in 1080 HDV at it performed admirably.
But the performance jump going to the MacPro would astound you. Plus you could dual boot it with Windows XP and use your CS4 on the same box.
spend the extra dinero now, get a better and more versatile box. In two years it’ll still be valid where the G5 will be lost to time.
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>>someone just edited a 30 minute piece in 1080 HDV at it performed admirably.
Editing is fine, but just have a good book handy when you are ready to render HDV. 🙂
The Intel macs from 2007 had a long run, and they still seem fast.
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