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Moving from Mac/FCS2 to PC/Adobe
Due to several reasons, I’ve decided to make the move from a Mac Pro 8-core w/FCS2 into a PC Laptop w/CS4 Production Premium.
At least that’s the plan. I’ve just been getting more and more frustrated with FCP stability & bugs in my workflows (I’ve been using it since FCP2 and also teach it occasionally). Couple that with having two small children to chase around and other family things, I decided moving to a PC laptop for editing/post was my best option for the time being – especially since I can easily work from home and bring the laptop with me when/where needed.
But, due to finances (see above when I said I have two small children), I need to sell the Mac/FCS system first. Which means I haven’t bought a new editing laptop (or CS4) yet. So, does anyone have a decent PC laptop recommendation for editing? I currently shoot a Z1U (HDV) and occasionally film (HD, 2K – haven’t done 4K yet, but if a customer wants it, I’ll do it). Note that I’d like to upgrade the Z1U to an EX3 within the next year as well, but that’s not in my “necessary equipment” list just yet.
That said, I currently have a Dell Inspiron (1501) with dual AMD 2Ghz & 2GB of RAM inside. I know this is going to be a silly question, but would that be even remotely enough to hold me over for a few weeks while the Mac is sold and a new laptop is ordered? I’m pretty sure I can pick up an eSATA card for running external drives, etc. and I’d probably be working with only Z1U footage for the next few weeks. I’m just not sure how Adobe Premiere would work with a dual 2Ghz laptop…
So the really big question is: How do I make the move?
Luckily, I don’t have any clients in post right now, BUT I’m in the middle of editing an indie feature we shot almost 2 years ago. It’s one of those things where the production went smoothly, but post has been a massive headache. I’ve run into everything from losing a RAID50 setup (flaky hardware not supported very well by fairly reputable manufacturer), to constant FCP crashes and frustrating bugs, to now just a complete lack of time (again, see above with 2 small children). I originally upgraded from a G5 to the Mac Pro hoping it would help with my FCP issues and time, but all I can say is that it didn’t.
I’ve started moving files over to several external NTSC formatted drives. I plan on getting everything off the RAIDs, reformatting them to NTSC, then reloading the files back onto the RAIDs. It’s not easy, but I think things are going well (at least so far).
There’s a good many directions out there on moving FROM a PC to a Mac, but not very many directions for vice-versa. I read somewhere that CS4 can read FCP’s XML now – is that the way to go? Which XML do I export to ensure CS4 can read it?
Also, will CS4 read Apple’s ingested HDV files (how about AIC, ProRes422, Uncompressed 10-bit, etc)? I have over 10 hours (120GB) worth of HDV for the indie feature alone on the computer that alone would take an entire day to re-upload. I also have a good many other video files from the past that I’d like to keep as well.
Besides the footage, what do I have to do in order to get the FCP files into PPro? (without buying Automatic Duck – again, see above with 2 kids). Also, besides the indie feature and a few other unfinished “fun” projects, I’ve held onto several of my clients’ *.fcp project files. The idea being that it would make things easier (and keep costs down) if they ever want to add to their production.
My apologies for the long post, but I want to make this as quick and painless as possible. Anyone have any recommendations?
Thanks,
Adam Frey
Director/Cinematographer
Crimson Chain Productions
https://crimsonchainproductions.comCrimson Chain Productions
PO Box 35
Libertytown, MD 21762 -
7 Replies
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Your HDV footage is going to be a problem. HDV Quicktimes will only play back on FCP equipped Macs. You could convert to ProRes, or recapture. I’m not sure about AIC, but I think it’s the same as HDV/QT (won’t work in Windows). You can install ProRes playback codecs into PPro/PC, so ProRes would work, and should probably be your choice for conversion if you go that route rather than recapturing.
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In your situation I would get a Mac Book Pro. You can run the entire Adobe suite on it as well and you can keep the stability of a Mac. I use the CS4 suite on a 17 inch Mac Book Pro and so far has given me very few troubles.
If you sell your other system then you should have enough money to get a nice Macbook Pro.
If you must get a PC I hear most people say that a high end HP works well, but I can’t verify that. I know we have a gateway core duo sitting here with 4gb of ram and it works decently for video, a bit choppy for HD, but you can set the preview setting to lower quality and get rid of that.
Before the summer is up you will see laptops with quad core processors. You probably can’t wait that long, but if you can I would hold out as those promise to makes things much speedier.
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Just brought over several FCP/Mac made files (Quicktime codecs HDV, AIC, & ProRes422) into my current Dell, since I have QT Pro installed. Also brought in an Uncompressed SD file for good measure. The Uncompressed and ProRes422 played back just fine. The HDV and AIC had a black screen, although I could hear the audio on them. I wonder why porting QT HDV is an issue with Windows, yet ProRes422 not?
I was able to use VLC in Windows to play the HDV file though, but VLC would not play the AIC file.
Maybe my mind is going, but I swear it seems at some point a while back (QT v6.1 or 6.2 maybe?) I had a windows machine working/playing HDV via Quicktime. It had the MPEG-2 add-on and I was running an old copy of Premiere (Premiere 6) and also Ultra2 (before it was bought by Adobe). So maybe they had some sort of an “unwrapper”? Or maybe it was due to the older copy of QT – Seems I remember it broke when I upgraded or something… Hmm…
Just looked at Apple’s Quicktime FAQ and it said this:
“I upgraded to QuickTime 6.4 or QuickTime 6.5 and my QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component no longer works. What should I do?” “For Mac OS X users, a new version of the MPEG-2 Playback Component is required for use with QuickTime 6.4 or later.”
Maybe that’s the culprit?
Adam Frey
Director/Cinematographer
Crimson Chain Productions
https://crimsonchainproductions.comCrimson Chain Productions
PO Box 35
Libertytown, MD 21762 -
I’ve had a lot of bad issues with both PC and Mac over the years, but I think that OS X is a bumpier road for me at this point…
Adam Frey
Director/Cinematographer
Crimson Chain Productions
https://crimsonchainproductions.comCrimson Chain Productions
PO Box 35
Libertytown, MD 21762 -
If you’re looking to go with a Windows system, I would really look at the new HP workstations. I currently use 2 HP machines, and they are simply fantastic. I’ve had no problems with them, and CS4 runs great on them.
—Eric
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Thanks Eric. HP was going to be my second choice (Dell being the first), but since you said that you haven’t had any issues, I might just push my “HP research” into the foreground! Thanks!
And to keep everyone up-to-date here, I’ve been converting many of the files from Apple’s HDV to ProRes422 to try and make this transition smoother. I hate the idea of having generation loss due to codec conversion and in the end may end up just re-capturing some of the footage just to make sure I’m working with the best stuff possible.
I wish there was a simple way to just strip the Apple wrapper from those HDV files instead of going thru all this headache.
Adam Frey
Director/Cinematographer
Crimson Chain Productions
https://crimsonchainproductions.comCrimson Chain Productions
PO Box 35
Libertytown, MD 21762 -
I’m editing RED 4K footage with a Dell Precision M4400 with 4GB of RAM and haven’t run into any problems yet. I’m loving the laptop (though I’m kind of hating Vista).
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