-
Imac and final cut pro 5.1 hd editing HDv Mistake ?
Hi all ,
I just bought my first Mac. its a Imac 20 inch 2ghz intel core duo .I added a 1 gig stick of memory for a total of 1 and halve gigs .along with this I also bought the Final cut pro editing package ( Final cut 5.1 and just added any update up to today June 9th ) Now before
this I have been using Permier pro 2.0 on a dual core 3 ghz computer that i put together myself with 2 gigs of ram and the 10,000 rpm raptor hard drives for video .I really had no
problems to speak of using my PC box and editing HDV video .But since I am now getting into the HDV editing much more I was impressed in all that I read about the final cut pro package
and its workflo with Hd editing .So between that and my nagging friend who uses Mac telling me how much better they are . I went out and made this purchase .So now upon using the Mac out of the box and trying both an external USB 20 hard drive and also testing video on the built in 250 drive with some test HDV clips ( shot by me with the sony z1 ) I have found that no matter
how Ive changed the video playback and system settings in final cut that playing HDV video off
the timelime and watching it on the preview of the imac its just not acceptable ! In both
scrubbing and playing the timeline I found the video to stutter badly to the point where editing is not worth the effort on this Mac ! Taking the same test clips back to my PC was
a difference of night and day ! Playback and working in general on the timeline in premier
pro was very smooth compared to the Imac . Now I know this may not be a totally fare comparsion being the PC is a 3 ghz box and the Imac is a 2 ghz box .But I feel I am well within the requierments of what Apple asks for to edit HDV video with Final cut .And Ive always heard that the Mac s were faster than would you think for any given Cpu speed when compareing them to a pc cpus speed .So now here are my big questions :
1 Is this all I should expect out of the intel 2 ghz Imac , I thought they were faster and better for editing than pc s
2 is there just too big a difference between the 2 boxes to make a fare judgment
3 or am I doing somthing wrong and is there somone out there with the same Imac setup editing hdv video and doing fine ?
Thanks for any info somone might have
steve
su******@*******ne.ne -
31 Replies
-
For HDV I think you really bought the wrong machine. Dual processor G5’s are better at HDV than single processor iMac’s. The Intel “Core Duo” is a laptop quality processor, not a desktop quality processor. HDV takes a lot of processing power.
If you want to compare your 3Ghz PC system, which I’m assuming is a desktop, then you need to compare it to an Apple Desktop system, which are the G5’s, not the iMac’s. iMac’s are essentially a laptop in a desktop configuration.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
-
-
[Michael Horton] “Did you say USB Hard drive? That a typo?”
Good gosh, I totally missed that. USB hard drive is a complete and utter no-no for video editing. FW 400 minimum, FW 800 better, SATA better yet.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
-
[walter biscardi] “The Intel “Core Duo” is a laptop quality processor, not a desktop quality processor. HDV takes a lot of processing power.”
Really? That’s funny, b/c I was just playing back HDV at an Apple Dealer on a 17″ and it was smooth as could be. Not one dropped frame.
I’m guessing the USB drive might have something to do with it.
Isn’t the Core Duo actually 2-processors on one chip?
G5 Dual 2.7 GHz
2 GB RAM
OS 10.4.6
FCP 5.0.4
QT 7.0.4 -
well i did say that ..but thats not really what i ment .its a serial ata hard drive mounted in a external box which is connected to the USB 2.0 port on the back of the Imac . I am sure
it should at least give me the same data rate as a firewire drive .Ive use it that same exact way on the PC side with no problems .and like I also said I did try some clips comming from the internal drive as well and I had the same stuttering on playback as well .
sorry if you misunderstood my statement ! But anyway whats your thoughts on this ?
thanks -
If USB is in any part of the equation it will be the limiting factor.
Now, here is the real problem. It’s NOT the cpu of the iMac – the Core Duo is easily up to the task of HDV. The problem is trying to funnel the data through the USB connection. If you load the footage on the internal SATA it should play back just fine. This becomes the limitation of the iMac however – you are stuck with using a single internal drive. This becomes the advantage of the MBP over the iMac because you can add external SATA storage. Personally, I would look at returning(or selling) the iMac and either getting a MBP if you want to go Intel or a Dual G5 (Quad if you are feeling rich). That will set you up really comfortably and you should be editing HDV without a hitch from then on…well, with the ‘normal’ hitches 🙂
-gl
-
Hi well as I stated above in my last reply its a sata drive mounted in a usb 2.0 box
so if you just want to go by specs alone usb 2.0 is a touch faster than firewire 400
and if even in the real world it was a touch slower it should still be more than enough to handle HDV data . also could you please give me more detail on what you mean by a desktop cpu
from what I understand maybe a cpu thats made for a laptop would be less power hungry
and on the new dual core chips they might reduce the cache a little from a xeon chip
but they are still very close in perfromance in the real world .just to clear up one other thing you stated that the Imac was a single cpu . I am talking about the new Imac which is a
2 core cpu …. So there are 2 cpus mounted on one core which is way more than what apple
states is needed .# Macintosh computer with 867MHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, or Intel Core Duo processor
# HD features require 1GHz or faster single or dual processors (authoring HD DVDs requires a PowerPC G5 or Intel Core Duo processor)
# 512MB of RAM; 1GB of RAM for HD features (2GB recommended)So the Imac falls well into that
spec -
[supervideo] “and like I also said I did try some clips comming from the internal drive as well and I had the same stuttering on playback as well”
There are so many factors that can contribute to this. Like I said, I watched HDV play beautifully on a 17″ iMac, without a hitch. And you definitely do not want to use a USB port.
Why not cut lo-res on your iMac. It’s been done for many, many years before and can’t see why it can’t work now (unless your currently colour correcting and/or performing key effects).
Try not to buy into the snob factor of editing (having the latest and greatest and being able say you can do this and that). Cutting is cutting. If you’re onlining tons of stuff, that’s a whole different budget anyway and a Quad PowerMac will probably be one of the cheaper things, I’m guessing.
I’ve been working on G5’s recently that are already feeling might long in the tooth. Everyone talks speed, but I find a sticky interface to be a very annoying thing that effects my editing more than what kind of video format I’m cutting. Give me the snappy interface of an iMac Intel over spinning beachballs, hangs, etc, of an older G5.
BTW, Beware of posterizing with HDV. I saw some stuff today in which the dark areas of the image were very badly posterized. Definitely want to shoot with a monitor on-set.
G5 Dual 2.7 GHz
2 GB RAM
OS 10.4.6
FCP 5.0.4
QT 7.0.4 -
yes it is 2 cpus on one chip thats what ive been trying to say .and more than enough for what final cut pro needs .What type of source file hdv clips were you watching ? were they in the native HDV format or compressed to h264 or quicktime .I am talking about scrubbing and playing native hdv after you add filters or fx s to the video on a final cut pro timeline .
I have no problems at all watching lets say a movie trailer in hd on the Imac .the problem is that final cut is suppose to be able to play back native HDV files on the timeline as you edit .If it cant handle the data its suppose to drop the quality and still play the timeline
and this is where my problem is .when I add some type of filter to the video it cant play back without it stuttering . On my pc with premier pro it plays back fine ,somthing is not right ! I am just looking for the right tool for the job I dont care if its mac or pc .
as I said before maybe i am doing somthing wrong and thats what I am trying to find out .I wish someone that was doing this hdv editing on a Imac could give me the right anser .
but i am gratefull to you guys giving me any input what so ever -
hey thanks for that reply …now I think what you said makes sence but what troubles me about that is, I already tried putting some of the files onto the internal HD and while it did get a bit better it was still not close to what I am getting on my pc side of hdv editing with a dual core 3 ghz .Now I also know that its never a good idea to put storage video files for editing on the system drive and i am wondering how much this may have hindered my testing with these clips , althogh its a new system just out of the box with not much else running .
one thought I have and i am wondering if it can be done is if i can boot my system from an
external drive and use that for the OS and final cut pro .wipe clean the internal hard drive and use that one for capture and editing video files ?like i said this is my first Mac but i thought you could maybe do am install of the OS to the external drive.one last thought is that Apple states that you need at least 1 gig of ram for hdv .but they do say 2gigs is recommended ..I am at 1 and a halve gigs now .would adding another 512 to get to the 2 gigs
make that big a difference ?Again maybe i am doing somthing simple wrong like not having
a final cut pro setting right for the preview of the timeline ………
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up