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Kona LHe
Using the latest version of Final Cut Pro, and Apple’s latest operating system running on a G5 with plenty of RAM, as well as doing a lot of work in Motion and AfterEffects, do you think that the KONA LHe would provide increased throughput when rendering? What other hardware accelerators might move the process much closer to real-time, rather than having to wait for long render times?
We are working mostly at DV resolution.
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10 Replies
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Kona card will not help you.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Director-At-Large
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
To expand upon that answer, the only things that speed up render times are a combination of processor speed and RAM…but mainly the processors. The faster the computer, the quicker the renders. And have at least 2GB-3GB of RAM. Beyond 4GB is overkill, if you are running FCP only.
No hardware accelerators for renders…sorry.
Shane
FCP Preferences set to UNCONTROLLED ADVICE
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
DV is a walk in the park for most modern computer systems. Spend your money on the fastest graphics card you can afford. That’s the most immediate bottleneck in the system. There are huge strides being made in graphics card technology these days for this reason.
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[Rennie] “Spend your money on the fastest graphics card you can afford. That’s the most immediate bottleneck in the system.”
But graphics cards do not speed up rendering, or aid FCP in any way. Except for the new Motion plugins (that came with FCP 5.1.2) that utilize the card…and Motion itself. And how your computer communicates with your display. Other than that…it doesn’t help FCP in the slightest.
Shane
FCP Preferences set to UNCONTROLLED ADVICE
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Yes but he specifically mentioned “doing a lot of work in motion” which is why I posted.
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Well Shane, I think I should have elaborated more on my suggestion. The overall issue being discussed was rendering. Given the situation, the graphics card seemed like the best place for MaximaDrive to shovel money for “increased throughput when rendering” thinking it would make motion more responsive and help keep your attention to tasks at hand. Any other rendering with DV that won’t take place in the background is best dealt with over lunch.
I just did a google search on “mac mini render farm” and a ton of stuff popped up. Might be worth looking into as these things are so small and powerfull. With export via compressor and all the up/down/format conversions we do it would be nice to have your own render farm and they wouldn’t take up a whole room either. It would be more like having a hobby farm as oppossed to having a real render farm. -
Thanks for your thoughts.
What do you make of this statement, taken from B & H Photo’s description of the AJA Kona LHe card?
“KONA LHe hardware takes a portion of the codec processing load off the CPU, allowing more RealTime (RT) effects in Final Cut Pro 5 when outputting.”
I’m in no way arguing with you. I seems like they are suggesting this card will contribute to faster RT effects.
Any additional thoughts or comments are most welcome.
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[MaximaDrive] “”KONA LHe hardware takes a portion of the codec processing load off the CPU, allowing more RealTime (RT) effects in Final Cut Pro 5 when outputting.””
ALL Kona Cards offload the scaling of HDV and compressed HD content to the hardware on the card- freeing the CPU of this load does give you increased processing power, Apple however does not allow for acceleration of other RT effects or any filters.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows -
I was told by the Manufacturer themselves the the Kona 3 card does in fact help the rendering of effects in FCP and provides more realtime. They said none of the other cards do much, but the Kona 3 does quite a bit. Were they speaking the truth? Or just a sales pitch?
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