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optimal computer for FC 7
I was hoping to get specific suggestions for the optimal Mac for FC 7. I’ve been getting conflicting advice. We’re a small doc company and looking to cut the bottom line of our budgets by doing more things in-house and want to set up an editing station that won’t become obsolete in a year. Some people have suggested that an iMac will work fine but others have said you won’t be able to upgrade your video card, etc. I would also love to know specifics for optimally running FC, e.g. amount of RAM, memory, etc. Thanks!
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5 Replies
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This get hashed out weekly. It is all on the board. No computer becomes obsolete in a year if does what you need it to. Desktop will always be better and more flexible. You have more storage options for speed and redundancy, that is the #1 benefit of a MacPro, along with speed of rendering and encoding. So unless you give details of your budget and workflow we can all just guess at what you need.
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Well, I thought I made it clear by underlining optimal that I meant optimal, in other words not restricted by a budget. And isn’t it clear what kind of workflow we have by saying we’re a small doc company? I did look on the board and did not find any postings like you described.
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AN iMac is never “optimal.” You said it yourself…people said and iMac is “fine” for editing. Fine and Optimal are different things. Fine means “you can get away with editing with this, but it isn’t the best.”
OPTIMAL: Fastest MAC PRO they make, with about 8GB of RAM, and a good NVIDIA or ATI graphics card. ATI 4870, or NVIDIA GT120.
Now do you want to add a hard drive RAID? HD Capture card? Broadcast Monitor?
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
It really depends on the length of programs you intend to cut and the frequency you will be using it. (Program length roughly predicts the complexity of the project and frequency allows you to guesstimate the amount of storage needed.)
If its short and not often, iMovie on a used eBay Mac would work. That’s some super budget cutting!
Tech-T Productions
http://www.technical-t.com -
Sorry for asking for you to give more info. Just trying to help. An optimal system for editing narrative ProRes material is totally different that a system for uncompressed HD. If optimal simply means the biggest and fastest no budget concerns than get the biggest and fastest MacPro, fill it with RAM, get a 6G SAS card and super fast RAID enclosure.
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