New job with wish list!

[Chris Borjis]

each core should have 2gb of ram so make it 16GB

Caldigit makes excellent, reliable and cost effective storage.

Look into fx factory for plugins.

[Bob Flood]

Hi John

good so far, however i am not sure you need 8 gB ram, as i Think leopard can only use 4.

Wahts the predominant Format you will be working in? DV? uncompressed SD?
2K? 19mm film? (just kidding on the last)

If its a tape source, waht VTRs will you need?

you may need an audio mixer to adjust levels in and out of fcp. or at least to control your monitor levels and plug in a mic.

and you may need a real video monitor, like a panasonic LCD, or comparable.

hope this helps

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Nicole Haddock]

Here are a few doo-dads I would want, YMMV-

Gadgets:
An Elgato Turbo which speeds up h.264 compression for web/ipod quicktimes. $100.
A card reader for compact flash, sd cards etc
A firewire expansion card- which may not be too much of an issue for you, but if the Kona is going in through firewire, and if you want to hook up any external drives, it’s usually best to avoid going into the original bus card
An external blu-ray burner (MacSales.com sells a reliable one) but not sure if this is a direction you’ll be going in
For monitors, you could also go with 2 24″ Dell monitors if the Apples are hard to find and they don’t want to spring for the 30″
A Wacom tablet. I have a 6×4 in the editing suite and it makes a big difference with my tendonitis. It’s also great with Photoshop, but I do edit in FCP with it a fair amount of the time.
Also- HD scopes?
I wouldn’t go less than 8GB of RAM. You can tweak Compressor to use all 8 processors in your machine to compress (but you should probably only tell it to use 7) and you need some decent RAM to make that haul.

Software:
Toast 10!
Microsoft Office
iWork
Noise Industries FX Factory Plug-ins – https://www.noiseindustries.com/
Magic Bullet plug-ins – https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/
this is some crossover with MB, but the 55mm DFT suite, which is now sold by Tiffen- https://www.tiffen.com/dfx_v2_home.html
Eureka! Plug-ins – https://www.kafwang.com/
I occasionally use some of these, but may not be worth the purchase- CGM effects https://www.cgm-online.com/eiperle/cgm_e.html
If you’re using After FX alot, get Nucleo Pro which will take advantage of as much RAM as you’ve got. Can cut render time in half, which is insane 😀

That’s all I can think of right now, but I’m sure other people will have suggestions.

[Walter Biscardi]

Your system is set up well. 8GB RAM is the minimum required for that system (1GB per core is minimum)

For storage, look to MaxxDigital as they are a reseller that sells all manner of arrays, including their own.

Since you’re starting from scratch, look to the new Expando Chassis system that both Maxx and Dulce now sell. What this means is you can essentially daisy-chain high speed arrays just like you daisy chain Firewire drives. The difference is you don’t lose speed. I’m testing out a new Maxx Expando chassis now and their system can support up to 128 drives strung together.

So I’m set up for RAID 5 on the current chassis. When I need more storage, I purchase another chassis, connect it to the first chassis, set it up in RAID 5 and go. Takes about 10 minutes and I maintain 500 to 700MB/s.

For plug-ins, Red Giant has a ton, Graeme Nattress has his “Big Box of Tricks” that are well worth the money and Boris Continuum Complete is a good swiss army knife of plugs. Digital Heaven also has some really useful plugs like “Big Time” that gives you a nice large TC display right on your screens.

For Color, you’ll want my DVD to show you how to use the interface, available right here on the Cow. It’s a very easy program to use, just the interface is a bit foreign to Mac users.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

Read my Blog!

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!

[Walter Biscardi]

Oh yeah, forgot one thing if you have it in the budget.

Telestream Episode Pro. Takes advantage of all the cores, and you can compress to absolutely anything a client could ask for. Well worth the money and much more stable than Compressor.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

Read my Blog!

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!

[Ben Holmes]

Let’s take a look!

[John Higgins] “Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors (8-core)
8 GB ram “

Check – although maybe if you can hold off for a month or so you’ll get yourself a shiny new i7 system, who knows! 8Gb RAM is fine – you have no need for 16Gb, really – unless you keep every Adobe and Apple app open all the time. What the heck – if someone else is paying, get the 16Gb.

[John Higgins] “NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Graphics card “

There is no need for this card to be honest. The stock card is still the best performer for Motion, and the (crazy expensive) Quadro will be of no real benefit unless you plan to do 3d modelling of nuclear explosions on the weekend. Again – it’ll do no harm, but I could think of better ways to spend my money.

[John Higgins] “AJA Kona 3 and Breakout Box
AJA HD10AVA Component to SDI converter for Analog sources. “

The Kona 3 is top of the line – no question. It also supports capture and playback of analogue sources – why do you need the HD10AVA?

[John Higgins] “Storage ?? – come from a Server world but they’re not ready for that so some kind of external raid suggestions needed. “

Everyone here will recommend the systems they use and are happy with – so here’s mine: I use G-Tech gear like the RAID5 G-Speed ES ‘cos it’s bulletproof and good value. I like Walter’s linked thingy as well, but I like e-SATA for a single workstation for massive cheap bandwidth. Noise can be an issue though, and the cable length is limited. Depends on whether you need HD playback really.

[John Higgins] “Dual Apple 23 Cinema Displays, tough to find now I’m told so maybe (2) 30 inch “

Yup – no more 23’s – I keep mine flightcased and safe for working away. You could go with the 30’s, but I think 2 is too large an area to keep track of – I prefer to just use one. The Dell 24’s are excellent, and have video inputs too.

[John Higgins] “FCP Studio 2
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium
“

Check and check. No brainer.

Now you left out a few things:

Video monitor: Panasonic, Sony or JVC. You can get one with the money you saved on the Quadra and AVA… If you are producing for DVD, you will NEED to see the video on an interlaced monitor. Grab yourself an SD CRT while you still can. I think the JVCs are excellent, but really all the above are good.

Speakers/mixer. I use a pair of active speakers and forgo the mixer. I have the Audiophile 5Bs and they’re excellent. Adding a mixer allows you better control over levels to the speakers, as well as mic channels if you want to do voiceover, or adjust incoming levels from a deck – neither of which are a concern to me at base. Both of these items are cheap (for great gear). Figure $300 for speakers, and $200 for a mixer.

Hope that helps! Why not save yourself a headache and go to a good reseller? Although I’m not from the US, I’ve used Promax over there and they’re great! They’ll sell you a system already integrated and sink-tested.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
—————————-
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer

[Tom Daigon]

If you intend to do After Effects work I highly recommend the
Trapcode Suite and the Zaxwerks family of plugins. They address any needs for particles(3d), glints, 3D text,volumetric lighting, 3D Strokes and a bunch of other cool things. I use them daily.

[Alan Okey]

[Ben Holmes] “There is no need for this card to be honest. The stock card is still the best performer for Motion, and the (crazy expensive) Quadro will be of no real benefit unless you plan to do 3d modelling of nuclear explosions on the weekend.”

Despite its price, the nVidia Quadro won’t perform as well in Motion and Color as the ATI Radeon HD 3870, available here:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI%20Technologies/100435928/

The ATI drivers are better optimized for Apple’s software:

https://www.barefeats.com/harper16.html

The 3870 is not the stock card, it’s an upgrade that must be purchased from a third party.

You’ll definitely want to budget for a good preview monitor or monitors. For SD, a Sony PVM or BVM is perfect. For HD, look at TVLogic, JVC, Panasonic and FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.).

For RAID storage, CalDigit or Maxx Digital offer great high-performance hardware RAID options that connect to a native PCIe host card in the Mac.

[Nicholas Bierzonski]

I didn’t see speakers on your wish list.
We are selling off a pair of Alesis M1 Active 620 Monitor Speaker on ebay if you are interested.
They’re great for near field monitoring.

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=130287215153

Also a versatile mixer would be useful if you plan on having several speakers connected to your system.

-Nicholas Bierzonski
Senior Editor/DVD Author/Java Boy
http://www.finalfocusvideo.com

[John Higgins]

A lot of great suggestions everyone, thanks!

John Higgins
posteditguy@gmail.com