System Config Advice

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Don’t use 1607 – slow memory access. E5-1620 minimum.

Upgrading to 16GB RAM isn’t a lot more money – and really worth it.

My favorite base Z420: B2B94UT at $2199, also here fully configured.

Ideally, get it graphics-less and add a GeForce GTX-660Ti for about $300 – much stronger than a Quadro 2000. If you must, go with Quadro 2000, but not the SDI version – Premiere Pro does not need or use the SDI part of it.

What Blackmagic card do you have on the Mac and why do you need it?

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Dennis Radeke]

Hi Gautam –

I’d say you’re light on the RAM – you’d benefit from at least 16GB. If you’re trying to save a few bucks, you might see if you can configure the Z420 with a supported GeForce card instead of Quadro. THat said, the Q2000 is fine.

Good luck.

Dennis – Adobe guy

[Gautam Pandey]

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for responding! Been doing some more reading and it seems the Geforce is the way to go and according some tests seems to work better with Premiere (even though Quadro does seem to be recommended on the site)

here’s a few links which helped 🙂

https://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-2.php

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/947698?start=0&tstart=0

Any Advice on I/O cards. Blackmagic vs AJA vs Matrox 🙂

Thanks a bunch!

Gautam Pandey
http://www.riverbankstudios.com

[Dennis Radeke]

All three of the card vendors are good. I’m Switzerland when it comes to i/o cards. They each have certain advantages.

[Gautam Pandey]

hahaha… point taken 🙂

Gautam Pandey
http://www.riverbankstudios.com

[Walter Soyka]

[Gautam Pandey] “Any Advice on I/O cards. Blackmagic vs AJA vs Matrox :)”

I am not Switzerland, so I can give a little more detail.

AJA has legendary support that no other vendor can match. BMD has low, low prices and Resolve. Matrox has H.264 acceleration and external units that are easily portable, even without Thunderbolt.

AJA has higher prices. BMD has questionable support and the cards can be finicky. Matrox is sometimes slow to update drivers.

Search this forum for “capture card” and you’ll see tales of victory and tales of woe.

I have had both AJA Kona and BMD Decklink cards here for years, and I’ve been happy with both. I have a Matrox CompressHD card that’s been a workhorse, too. Maybe I am Switzerland.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Tom Daigon]

Im the USA (AKA outspoken) 😀

I like the products and support of AJA.

I do not like BMD based on my experiences with them. Cheap products with less durability then AJA. And tech support left a lot to be desired. Reports are they are still having problems getting good CS 6.03 drivers for their external monitoring hardware. AJA has had that nailed for the last month.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Gautam Pandey]

Thanks Walter… that clears it up

Think I’ll need to do a few corporate gigs and then go in for an AJA 🙂

Gautam Pandey
http://www.riverbankstudios.com

[Gautam Pandey]

Hello USA 🙂

Well that seals it! AJA it is!

Gautam Pandey
http://www.riverbankstudios.com

[Robert Brown]

Well you might get an angry reply from Grant on that post. But, I recently bought a BM Studio board for Davinci use and have to say on the Mac side it’s pretty crappy. Serious lag in PPro meaning the video out is several frames behind PPro’s monitors with no apparent solution. Also if you are doing something as basic as editing 24p into a 29i timeline, expect no video out from the source monitor. For whatever reason they are able to add pulldown on the Windows side with the same board and oddly sometimes it actually did this in Mac but I couldn’t figure out why it would come and go. I’d have to say the BM drivers are almost unusable for PPro in Mac at the moment.

I have boot camp and found them to be better in Windows.

Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist – FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Pro

https://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos