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imac needs for fcp studio
hello everyone, I’m desperate for some advice from people who have used the new imac 2.6 with the latest version of fcp studio.
i’ve used the 1.6 g5 for the past 4 years. it’s finally slowing to a halt after years of good work.
i need to upgrade. i use fcp studio, and after effects. just recently had bad experience with an “authorized dealer” selling me various imacs that didn’t meet my needs.
the most important being it would eject my external drives. i have four daisy-chained via firewire, each partitioned into two partitions. the imac i got from the store, would eject whichever was the first drive on the chain and i would get an error message. since i could use the computer with these drives where all my media is stored, i couldn’t use the computer. they were unable to answer this problem.
i was able to successfully able to mount same drives to a macbook jsut fine. they told me that i would have to reformat the drives. a pain but not undoable. i’m more concerned with this video card issue,
an official apple store told me that the 2.6 imac doesn’t have the right video card for fcp studio. even though i’ve known other people that have used it on that computer.
i’ve talked to a friend who said he ran fcp studio on an imac with multiple external drives fine, but i don’t want to screw myself if i try to return it against a salesperson’s original pitch.
i can’t afford the mac pro tower, which is what they’re telling me i’d have to get to run fcp studio. i’m so confused at this point and would some input from someone who has experience with this computer and not someone trying to sell me on something i can’t afford.
seems dubious to me,
please help,
ignacio.
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4 Replies
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Ignacio
I run FCS (not as a main machine) on a 24″ imac 2.8Ghz. It all runs fine – although nowhere near as well as on my Mac Pro towers. Color will need the higher resolution of the 24″ to run I think, but since the imac has an external graphics card, you shouldn’t have any problems. I would however suggest you invest a modest amount of money on a proper disk array, and you’ll be limited to FW800 on the iMac – honestly that’s the biggest drawback, and the inability to add video capture etc.
If you plan on making money out of the system, the lowest priced Pro tower and a 23″ monitor will serve you far better I’m afraid.
Ben
Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer -
thanks so much for replying on a sunday!
-I would however suggest you invest a modest amount of money on a proper disk array, and you’ll be limited to FW800 on the iMac – honestly that’s the biggest drawback, and the inability to add video capture etc.
what do you mean by disk array? are you referring to the configuration i have of my four external hard drives?
is there a difference between the video card on the imac 2.6ghz and the 2.8″ that would make the previous one unable to run final cut pro?
that’s the only selling point the apple people are pushing me from, claiming that the video card won’t support final cut studio.
at this point anything would probably run better than my old g5 that spins the pinwheel more often than i’d like.
thanks again,
ignacio
dip
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Ignacio
Is it Sunday? I’m so far into a project I didn’t notice….
What I mean by a disk array in this case is something like the many devices that you can see up and down your screen on the edge of this page on the Cow. An array is just a box with a bunch of drives in that gives you both more space and more SPEED. New technology like e-Sata (have a look at the G-Speed advertised right here) means you can connect a really fast set of drives (which means better render times, better scrubbing on the timeline, better realtime performance) that can store a lot of data for less per Gb (cos you’re only paying for one box and some cheaper internal drives) and also can store it SAFER. Drives like the G-Speed can run RAID 5, which means that if one drive fails, the array can re-build all the data from the others – so you never lose footage. You can’t connect drives like this to an iMac. The best you can do is connect FW800 drives, and get a big one – but you’ll miss out on the safety element.
This is a big topic – too big to go into now really. Point is your daisy-chained firewire drives are slowing down your firewire connection, and are unsafe as nothing is backed up – one drive failure could kill a project. I bet your spinning beachballs o’ death have a lot do with those drives…
As far as the iMac goes, your reseller is wrong: Take a look at these specs:
https://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs/
As an iMac has a proper (albeit laptop spec) graphics card, you’re ok. In fact, my iMac has a version of the graphics card shipped as stock in my Mac Pro.
Really, it’s connectivity and expansion that let down the iMac. Lovely machine though….
Ben
Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer -
I started having some strange issues with FCP Studio 1, using multiple FW drives daisy-chained on an iMac G5 2.1 GHz. Eventually, FCP would not open.
After a few hours and several Tech Support folks, I ended up with a Final Cut Pro Product Specialist who said weirdnesses will eventually occur in FCP with daisey-chained drives. He stresses that only one device (no hubs) should be plugged into each of the two FW ports on the iMac.
I changed my ways and have had no further problems (1 year+).
Lee HIlliard
hcg1000@earthlink.net
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