MC6 on iMac

[C. Ryan stemple]

Indeed! MC6 is optimized for Lion and, in my case anyway, runs like a dream.

That being said though, I’m running on 10.7.2, not 10.7.3, which I’ve heard from my peers had some initial trouble with MC6 when the OS update first came along.

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Carl Ryan Stemple
Color | Edit | VFX
digitalbarbershop.com

[Sandy Shapiro]

Good to know. I’m thinking about buying an iMac and it looks like the operating system should run MC6. I’m a little concerned with running 444 DNxHD footage on the iMac though. Any thoughts on if it can handle that footage? I tried the same using Final Cut Pro, Pro Res 444 footage on an iMac and it couldn’t handle it. But I heard DNxHD is smoother….

The 444 footage is coming from the Arri Alexa.

[Michael Hancock]

The Alexa shoots DNxHD now (I assume 444 there), which should be smoother in Avid. The biggest issue will be drive speed – what kind of drive system are you hooking up to your iMac? The new ones have Thunderbolt, so if you had a Thunderbolt RAID you would probably be in good shape.

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor

[C. Ryan stemple]

I can’t speak for 444 DNxHD on it personally, nor ProRes 444 for that matter, in all honesty – most of the projects I’ve offline edited lately have been ProRes 422 in FCP or the DNxHD equivalent (115) in Avid. THAT I can assure you has been incredibly smooth.

My assumption would be that it could handle 444 material in much the same manner. We are talking about increasing the bitrate and expanding the color space, but it’s not as drastic a change as say bumping up to 2K or 4K.

—
Carl Ryan Stemple
Color | Edit | VFX
digitalbarbershop.com

[Sandy Shapiro]

That’s a good point. Part of the reason why I would run the iMac is because of the Thunderbolt. The one I was using with the Pro Res footage wasn’t Thunderbolt. It was on a network.

thanks

[Neil Goodman]

The Imac will be fine, you just will need fast storage to use 4444. Thunderbolt is probably the way to go.

Neil Goodman: Editor of New Media Production – NBC/Universal

[Daniel Frome]

My macbook pro (which a 2.2 i7, meaning lower spec’d than your imac likely) runs DNx444 just fine. It obviously isn’t quite as snappy with other DNxHD flavors but it plays back fine even on my internal 5400rpm drive.