• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Moving to Mac! How entry level can I get?

  Posted by Nathan Tinsley on December 29, 2009 at 3:40 pm

  Greetings,

  I have finally decided to make the switch from an older Adobe Premiere Pro edit system on a PC to FCP and a Mac. I will be making the upgrade this coming year with the idea of editing HDV material, either natively or perhaps with AIC. At my full time job I’m using a nice 8 core MacPro. I can’t afford that but here’s my idea:

  Get a refurbished iMac, say 24 inch display.
  Get as much ram as possible.
  Processor would be like a 2.66 Ghz Core2 Duo and a 1066 FSB.
  Get an external Firewire800 drive like a G-raid for video storage.
  (Remember we’re talking HDV-AIC storage requirements here, not uncompressed HD)
  Get an external Blue Ray burner for delivery. USB 2.0

  I know this setup will likely WORK, the question is will it work WELL? Will AIC throughput choke on the Firewire800 drive? Will the Core2 Duo have enough horsepower? Is 2-4 gigs of ram enough?

  Just to give you an idea I work full time at a TV station and then moonlight doing industrial and wedding videos. Maybe 10 projects per year? Not a ton of work and RARELY with a client sitting next to me. I know that this situation is not really upgradeable. But think about it, I could actually take my project in to work on the external drive and do any heavy rendering overnight at work on my 8 core! Later on I may be able to afford the mac pro.

  Please comment.

  Nathan Tinsley replied 16 years, 4 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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