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Switching to FCP from DPS Velocity
I am purchasing a new Mac Pro with Final Cut Studio 2 in the next 30-60 days and I have some questions about what I can expect to be different. With the Velocity system, it came with a proprietary video card that I believe handled a lot of the horsepower.
My biggest question I have is about real time editing. With Velocity, captured clips could be trimmed, edited, moved around, or whatever and it was instantly reviewable for playback without having to render anything. It also had a multitude of real-time transitions that could be applied and reviewed again without doing any rendering. The only time rendering was ever required was when you started messing with video effects. For the other 99% of the time when all you needed was trims/dissolves/cuts it was totally render-free. From my understanding this was possible because the video card provided a decent amount of hardware acceleration.
I guess my question is, with Final Cut how much is it able to do in real-time and how much does it have to render before you review your work? Obviously the final output requires a render, but I’m just talking about what occurs during the editing process. Will I have to re-render the project every time I move a clip 10 frames to the left? Or every time I add a dissolve transition between two elements? Or a wipe?
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8 Replies
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It all depends on your hardware and on the video format you’re editing.
You’re getting a fast computer, if you also get a raid with sufficient throughput to handle your video of choice you’ll be able to preview several layers of video and the many realtime transitions and effects that are supplied, all without rendering. Skimp on the raid and you’ll be rendering some things just to preview them.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[Justin Geoghegan] “with Final Cut how much is it able to do in real-time and how much does it have to render before you review your work? “
If your footage matched your sequence settings…which FCP 6 does automatically…then there are a lot of real time effects. Having a beefy graphics card helps too, as many of the effects are FXPlug, and they rely on the graphics card. The new NVIDIA one (forget model…helpful huh?) is supposedly a wonder. And the speed of the drives help too. But you have NEVER had to render dissolves and many transitions. Only the fancy ones.
[Justin Geoghegan] “Will I have to re-render the project every time I move a clip 10 frames to the left? “
No…not if your settings are right. And as I said, FCP 6 does this automatically now. Choose the Easy Setup that matches you footage and this is never an issue. And FCP 6 allows multiple codec types, but dealing with that in real time depends on the speed of the processor and if the format lends itself to work without rendering. Such as any footage that has the same codec as appear in the Easy Setups. Odd codecs like H.264 and Sorenson (delivery codecs) might require rendering.
[Justin Geoghegan] “Or every time I add a dissolve transition between two elements? Or a wipe?”
Those have always been real time.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
This is great information and very much relieving to hear. I have never actually used FCP, so it’s a bit of a blind purchase.
The new NVIDIA one (forget model…helpful huh?) is supposedly a wonder.
It looks like the new Mac Pros can be upgraded from ATI to the NVIDIA 8800GT for about $150. Think that’ll do it?
And the speed of the drives help too.
Will an external RAID configuration help with the speed? I’m considering just getting the basic 320GB 7200 RPM that ships with the MacPro as a systems and application drive. Then I’d get some kind of external RAID setup to run all the media off of.
I am clearly a FCP newb here, thank you for your time! It sounds like the stock Mac Pro out of the box will be able to handle everything just fine if I slap on an external RAID. Is that about right?
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[David Roth Weiss] “It all depends on your hardware and on the video format you’re editing.”
I’m looking at a brand new mac pro with the default loadout, so hopefully that will be enough for me. What should I be looking for in regards to a RAID with sufficient throughput? What does that mean? I want the whole setup to be as affordable as possible, but I also don’t want to waste time on renders that could be unnecessary.
Regarding video format, it will be focused on editing mainly two things: 1) captured footage from Mini-DV or DVCPRO cameras and 2)captured video from a DVD player.
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[Justin Geoghegan] “I have never actually used FCP, so it’s a bit of a blind purchase.”
You are just one of many Justin and this place has helped many make the transition from their other NLEs.
[Justin Geoghegan] “It looks like the new Mac Pros can be upgraded from ATI to the NVIDIA 8800GT for about $150. Think that’ll do it?”
I don’t think that’s the one… Shane was most likely refering to the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 — a bit more than $150.
[Justin Geoghegan] “Will an external RAID configuration help with the speed? I’m considering just getting the basic 320GB 7200 RPM that ships with the MacPro as a systems and application drive.”
That’s just fine for now.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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For the footage you are working with, getting some internal SATA drives for the other 3 slots will be fine. They are PLENTY fast. RAIDS are good for uncompressed work, or if you do a lot of multi-layering work. And you can RAID the internal drives as well for more speed.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Justin Geoghegan] “What should I be looking for in regards to a RAID with sufficient throughput? What does that mean? I want the whole setup to be as affordable as possible, but I also don’t want to waste time on renders that could be unnecessary.”
As Shane says, stick three 1Tb SATA drives in th three open internal slots and stripe them as raid-0. 1Tb Hitachi SATA drives are available at Newegg.com for a song now, and you can easily install them yourself and ask us how to do the raid.
BTW, the striping the three drives together on Mac is an incredibly lengthy process… NOT!!! It only takes like 10-seconds… Say goodbye to the long formating times you expereinced on the Windows side, that’s history.
You’re gonna like working on a MAC.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Don’t forget about a capture device. These are made by third parties (AJA and Blackmagic), and without them, you’ll be limited to decks with firewire interfaces.
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