Final Cut Studio 2 System Requirements

[Arnie Schlissel]

You will not be able to capture as Pro-Res. You may or may not be able to use it if someone gives you a file in that codec or want to use Compressor to convert to it.

Do not expect to be able to use either Color or Motion.

And double your RAM.

Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog

[David Scherzer]

Hi Arnie…

Thanks so much for the info…i had a feeling there would be some problems…i have heard varying reports on being able to increase my processor speed…someone on the phone at apple told me my RAM was maxed out, so I might not be able to get to 4 GB – I already have FCP, i wanted to save some $$$ on the upgrade plus I have read so many great things in magazines about Studio 2.

What would you do…would you recommend a different editing product that can behave with my g4 computer specs and the SONY HVR-V1U (haven’t bought the camera yet but plan to after the holidays). I saw in the FCP 6.0.2 release notes that the V1 was supported (as well as 24p) and I got excited…but now back to square one…i really hope you can provide some wisdom as I have been trying to figure this whole thing out all week.

Thanks,

David

[Arnie Schlissel]

David, as I post this, it’s already 12/22. You have 9 days more to put a Mac Pro on your 2007 tax bill. Maybe more, if you have a good accountant. I don’t know if you have enough business to justify a new mac, but you should look up “accelerated depreciation”, and maybe talk to an accountant to see if you can.

If you can’t afford a new mac, find out what the absolute max of RAM your mac can hold (you may have to throw away the RAM that’s currently installed), and the best graphics card that it can handle. I dont’ think you can upgrade the processor, but a call to Other World Computing will settle that.

Whether or not it’s worth it to make these upgrades (vs the cost of a new mac) will depend on your circumstances and your frame of mind.

FWIW, I just put a new graphics card, a used Kona card and an extra 4 megs of RAM into a 2 year old G5, along with an upgrade to FCS2 and Leopard. I’m hoping to extend it’s life until my next feature film comes along. Plus, it’s tax time, & I didn’t have any other major purchases this year.

Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog

[Exeggutor]

I think your memory is maxed out at 2gigs

You can get an ATI 9800 card at OWC for about $200. With this you should be able to do most jobs, though slowly.

You could upgrade to one of the new dual 7448 processors that OWC carries (not the older 7447 processor). I stuck a dual 1.7 7448 in a Gigabyte Ethernet G4 with 1.5gb that now seems pretty quick running FCP 5, which is all I need it to do. The card is an impressive boost to an old machine, but it cost $600, so that may or may not be a way you want to go.

[Fabio Paciucci]

I have a G4 Quicksilver where I installed FCP Studio 6, to work on some low-end editing projects (only FCP, livetype and Soundtrack were installed.) The application will not open up, it’s saying ‘not supported architecture,’ even if when I read specification the G4 seems to meet requirements. Can you help?
I’m running Leopard, with a 2GHz CPU (upgrade Maxpower dual G4 7448) and a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphic card;
parallel SCSI with main 36GB Ultra ATA/66, and ATA 250GB with slave configuration using a PCI card ACARD 628M; 1500 SDRAM, Apple LCD display.
Also I had FCP 5 running on this same machine with Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.6, with no problem.

Thanks
Fabs