Switching to FCP – Hardware question

[Phil]

i run FCP 5 on a powerbook 1.67 & 1 GIG of ram, and it runs decently fine, though i do have an external harddrive, which is definitely recommended. as for as compressor goes, 10 minutes at 7.2 1 pass VBR took about 30-40 minutes to compress…(or something like that)…..

if you’re going to be using AE or Motion, then i would definitely get a PowerMac, but FCP straight editing can be done well on a powerbook.

[Shane Ross]

If you aren’t gonna get a tower then I’d suggest the Powerbook. It has minor upgrade ability with the PCMCIA slot for additional ports. I’d never recomment running professional software on an iMac, and never on a mini.

If you are getting professional software, use professional equipment.

Shane Ross
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[Spiro]

Thanks for the quick responses! I’ll look into the Powerbook some more – mobility would be nice.

Phil – does your Powerbook have the DDR2 RAM?

[Debe]

With the PowerBook you do sacrifice speed for that mobility.

As an exercise, I took a multilayered project and rendered it out on both my machines. I have a dual 2 GHz G5 with 3 gigs of RAM and a 1.5 GHz G4 PowerBook with 1 gig of RAM. The exact same timeline that took 8 minutes to render on the G5 took 32 minutes to render on the G4 PowerBook.

If you intend on doing straight cutting, then it’s probably a no brainer. If you do any kind of graphics, compositing, or color correction, seriously consider the speed difference.

Also, get a Firewire bus card if you go the PB route. It’ll save you many headaches. It’ll give you another FW bus, and with that, capture and output problems will dramatically decrease. They likely won’t go away, but they will decrease. There are SATA bus cards now, so you can use SATA drives instead of FW. I’ve not had the opportunity to use one, but I am seriously considering it for my next big traveling project at the end of January.

One piece of unsolicited advice, if you’re coming from another NLE, I’d recommend either taking a certified FCP course, or going through the FCP Pro Training Series for FCP published by PeachPit Press. I have an Avid background, and after 4 years of beating my head against the wall trying to force FCP to be what I thought an NLE was supposed to be based on my Avid background, I took the level one certification at an authorized FCP training center. It’s night and day difference on how much better I understand FCP and how much faster I am on FCP now. Understanding the architecture of FCP has made me a much more efficient editor. It’s been a boon for me, my business, and most importantly, my clients!

Of course, part of my problem was that I work on both systems. I have Avid clients and FCP clients. It’s much harder to “unlearn” things you still need to know!

Welcome to the wacky world of FCP! Once you get familiar with some of the quirks, you’ll be glad you’re here!

debe

[Debe]

With the PowerBook you do sacrifice speed for that mobility.

As an exercise, I took a multilayered project and rendered it out on both my machines. I have a dual 2 GHz G5 with 3 gigs of RAM and a 1.5 GHz G4 PowerBook with 1 gig of RAM. The exact same timeline that took 8 minutes to render on the G5 took 32 minutes to render on the G4 PowerBook.

If you intend on doing straight cutting, then it’s probably a no brainer. If you do any kind of graphics, compositing, or color correction, seriously consider the speed difference.

Also, get a Firewire bus card if you go the PB route. It’ll save you many headaches. It’ll give you another FW bus, and with that, capture and output problems will dramatically decrease. They likely won’t go away, but they will decrease. There are SATA bus cards now, so you can use SATA drives instead of FW. I’ve not had the opportunity to use one, but I am seriously considering it for my next big traveling project at the end of January.

One piece of unsolicited advice, if you’re coming from another NLE, I’d recommend either taking a certified FCP course, or going through the FCP Pro Training Series for FCP published by PeachPit Press. I have an Avid background, and after 4 years of beating my head against the wall trying to force FCP to be what I thought an NLE was supposed to be based on my Avid background, I took the level one certification at an authorized FCP training center. It’s night and day difference on how much better I understand FCP and how much faster I am on FCP now. Understanding the architecture of FCP has made me a much more efficient editor. It’s been a boon for me, my business, and most importantly, my clients!

Of course, part of my problem was that I work on both systems. I have Avid clients and FCP clients. It’s much harder to “unlearn” things you still need to know!

Welcome to the wacky world of FCP! Once you get familiar with some of the quirks, you’ll be glad you’re here!

debe

[Debe]

Sorry….got bit by the double-post bug again!

debe

[Tim O’grady]

I don’t own an iMac but I think the fact that it is advertised primarily to non proffessionals may be giving it a bad rap. Talking strickly specs and presumably the ability to run FCP, the iMac seems to me to be the better machine.

iMac G5:
20-inch widescreen TFT active-matrix LCD 1680 x 1050 pixels
2.1GHz PowerPC G5
700mhz Frontside Bus
512MB memory (533MHz DDR2 SDRAM) supports up to 2.5GB
250GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load 8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon X600 XT with 128MB DDR video memory
Two FireWire 400 ports; three USB 2.0 ports, two USB 1.1 ports (on keyboard); VGA output(2); S-video and composite video output(2)
Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit)
$1,699.00

Powerbook G4:
17-inch TFT widescreen display with 1680×1050 resolution
1.67GHz PowerPC G4 processor
512MB memory (DDR2 PC2-4200 SDRAM running at 333MHz) supports up to 2GB
120GB 7200rpm ATA hard drive
Slot-load 8x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD

[Spiro]

Thanks debe! That was very helpful advice. Much appreciated!

I’m crossing over from Adobe PPro & Encore. The company I work for has decided to buy me a PowerMac dual 2.3 GHz G5 for here in the office, but I’d like another Mac for home and/or for when I’m on the road. I’d like for my home/travel Mac to be powerful enough to capture video and do a little editing when need be, but most of the heavy editing and effects will be done on the PowerMac G5.

[Phil]

yes, it is DDR2 RAM :).

one thing i like about having a Powerbook is the fact that (i shoot on DV) when i’m shooting (using a GL2), i use my Power book as a “tester” to make sure my video looks good. I usually just open up IMovie, and watch the feed live….it’s a pretty big help, to make sure you’re shooting decent footage….and that the audio isn’t terrible….

i have had problems though, capturing from my GL2 in FCP, so i usually just import in IMovie (which I DON’T suggest to anyone, because Imovie captures a 32bit floating point audio and FCP doesn’t support that (?))…i haven’t done that much work lately to force myself to figure out the problem…but just a heads up….

[Debe]

Well, Tim, the inability to add another FW bus to an iMac is the biggest drawback. Since you have to use external drives, and you have no way of adding a card for that either, you are stuck using FW drives and a deck or camera on the same FW bus. That’s a recipe for all sorts of headaches.

I’m not the technologist many here are, so I can’t “discuss” the merits of the iMac being faster any more than saying this, the PB is expandable. The iMac is not. That’s all I need to know. Being able to avoid problems is by far more important to me than speed. Setting oneself up for headaches seems to me to be a waste of the money.

There are some folks who use FCP on an iMac G5. It works. I don’t know how well it works. I do know that it works well on a PB with a PCMCIA FW bus card.

If you’re going a professional route, the only two options for FCP are G5 tower or G4 PowerBook, in my humble opinion. Going with an iMac is really for those who want to futz around with FCP but don’t want to shell out for a proper system because it’s not the crux of why their buying the computer.

Like I said, in my opinion. I’m sure other professionals will disagree.

debe