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New Mac Pro…semi-laments and asking for I/O suggestions
Just got the new Mac Pro on Saturday, and have a few laments (not directed at anyone here, just blowing off a little light steam…).
First, i was unpleasantly surprised to find that my BlackMagic Decklink SD capture card would not go into the Mac Pro. I had no idea that would be the case. Large bummer there. Second, i’m not seeing a huge advance in rendering times in FCP, and no change (thus far) in “real-time” graphics and effects on the timeline. Fortunately, i do see a pretty huge improvement in Motion 3. That is a nice change. So, i’m guessing part of my problem is getting the “stock” graphics card, but i had thought that just going to the quad-core alone would’ve made a bigger difference. Oh well, i’m a bit more ready for the future than i was before…at least i can upgrade my graphics card and get my RAM up to 8GB eventually, but now i also have to buy a new I/O card…on that note, what’s your favorite at this point? I have no allegiance to BlackMagic, though the Decklink has served me well for 4 years. Most of my captures these days are via firewire anyway, but i do still do quite a bit of BetaSP shooting as well, so definitely need some component capturing.
Thanks again!
J. Tad Newberry
Big Ya Productions
Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Quad-Core
3 GB RAM
http://www.bigya.tv -
11 Replies
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[J. Tad Newberry] “First, i was unpleasantly surprised to find that my BlackMagic Decklink SD capture card would not go into the Mac Pro. I had no idea that would be the ca”
You can not use that card in a Mac already since few years ago.
In fact the last G5 generations had changed the PCI-X for PCI-Express.
About your Mac’s performance, If you just have installed everything, run Diskwarrior or TechTools.
rafael -
I’ve been eyeballing the Kona LHi lately, which supports analog component as well as HD capture. The Matrox MXO2 is also a great product, that I know Shane loves. I would say those will be your best bet as far as allowing analog capture, as well as leaving the HD option open to you for future expansion.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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Check out the matrox mxo2 mini. HDMI and component. All the pluses of mx02, but no sdi. I’m looking at that. I’m in your boat. Most of my HD comes in on drives as p2 or other material. Much of the rest comes in DVCam. But I need the HDMI monitoring (and matrox allows accurate monitoring on HDMI LCDs) and up/down conversion. So component is nice for that, plus it supports my old PVM SD monitor.
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[J. Tad Newberry] “First, i was unpleasantly surprised to find that my BlackMagic Decklink SD capture card would not go into the Mac Pro. I had no idea that would be the case.”
No PCI-X card can be installed in the PCIe architecture machines.
[J. Tad Newberry] “Second, i’m not seeing a huge advance in rendering times in FCP, and no change (thus far) in “real-time” graphics and effects on the timeline”
Realtime on the timeline is almost wholly controlled by the speed of your media array. The faster the array, the more RT.
[J. Tad Newberry] “Most of my captures these days are via firewire anyway, but i do still do quite a bit of BetaSP shooting as well, so definitely need some component capturing. “
AJA Kona LHi is a fantastic card and sets you up perfectly for any HD work when you start transitioning to that format while also giving you up-convert capabilities to use any legacy SD material in an HD project. You can input / output from your analog sources.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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[J. Tad Newberry] “i’m not seeing a huge advance in rendering times in FCP”
FCP doesn’t really take advantage of multiple cores yet. For a better performance comparison, set up a virtual cluster in Compressor with 4 instances (search this forum for details) and submit some jobs.
The best improvements you can make for general FCP performance are more RAM and a fast disk array. Even if you can’t afford a real RAID, you can still set up a RAID 0 volume by adding 3 drives to your Mac Pro internal drive bays and using Disk Utility to create a software RAID. Just make sure you have backups of your footage, as RAID 0 has no redundancy.
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What kind of I/O do you need? Do you do a lot of H.264 encoding?
You should check out the I/O Devices from Matrox…
https://www.matrox.com/video/en/solutions/devices/
I have the MXO2 and love it! It will work with your MacPro and a MacBook Pro. You can get it with their new MAX H.264 Encoding Engine which will give you faster then realtime H.264 file creation. I saw a demo at NAB and was blown away with the speed along with everyone else around me.
You can see more info here..
https://www.matrox.com/video/en/solutions/encoding/
If you have any questions let me know.
Greg
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Looks decent. Have they come out with anything to compete with the mxo2 mini. It seems like except for some minor differences in codec support and/or acceleration, the only differences with all these products seem to be the connections. Looks like the LHi is the equivalent of the full MXO2. The MXO2 is a $100 more, but includes the breakout box.
My suggestion would be not to buy anything until you have to. Seems like lower prices and new products keep coming every day.
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The two best cards at the moment, IMHO, are the Matrox MXO2 and Kona LHi. They friggin do EVERYTHING (but 2K).
YOu want the mini versions of those, then there is the Matrox MXO2 Mini and the AJA I/O Express.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
No component in on the I/O express? I guess it has SDI, but component would cover those sources too.
Hmmm… still looking at the MXO2 mini. Shane, do you know how to deal with RS-422 with the MXO2 mini? The good ol usb – serial adapter?
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[Bret Williams] “No component in on the I/O express? I guess it has SDI, but component would cover those sources too. “
but since there are not XLR’s for proper audio what is the point?
Most HD decks have HDSDI inputs, and since this was designed for tapeless production they are assuming that layoff would go via HDSDI or use the HDMI port for client viewing.
If you have component in, then everyone wants upconversion too, and that would make it cost more to have AJA’s quality.
So choose to limit input to digital only connection with 1 pro, 1 consumer.
Analog TV died last friday, move on.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production WorkflowsCheck out
https://www.aja.com/kiprotour/Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php
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