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Understanding FCPX under the hood.
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i just want the Legend to keep growing
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[Walter Soyka] “But when you have only one set of storage and one set of video I/O, you have only one edit system, no matter how many computers you have.”
Many years ago I worked in a few small facilities that didn’t have centralized machine rooms. They’d put a couple of beta decks on carts and wheel them from Avid to Avid for input. Of course there was the inevitable issue when too many people where inputting for too long. But in this economy I can certainly see some tighter budgeted facilities opting for mobile I/O. I have a hunch that’s part of the attraction to AJA’s T-TAP and Blackmagic’s Mini Monitor. This frees Input devices to wander while a less expensive monitor device remains attached. Is every facility like this? No. I think as the economy and budgets continue tightening the attraction to movable components is only increasing. For similar reasons some take their “dedicated storage” home with them since the work day doesn’t end.
The need for flexibility is escalating like crazy as far as i can tell. In many respects it’s actually sad but I think it’s part of the economic circumstances.
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I got into building gear when I had to order a custom machine for the graphics designer on our team at the BBC, where I was a producer. We were told to pioneer “low cost” production, which meant DV cameras, strictly no Quantel, and shoot and edit it yourself. A bit of research at IBC said we we needed a powerful PC – Pentium 2 or whatever – with Matrox Digisuite, a still impressive set of cards.
When the PC turned up, it was wrong, and I had to take it apart and start again. It then ran for two years on our weekly show. When we needed a second one, I just ordered the parts. If you wanted something done properly, even at the BBC, do it yourself!
Since I left, I’ve made about a dozen, including a hackintosh. They all worked fine, and some are still running merrily. One that used to be my main machine has been a Linux terminal at my flying club since 2008. It’s never turned off.
So it is possible to do your own – in fact it’s easy these days. A lot like Lego, really.
And I for one am not into “gear porn” – these are machines to do a job, reliably and for a long time. I only ever used the Macs – a G4 then the hack – for Final Cut, as the PCs can do so much more and for so much less.
BTW Crystal Disc says that one of the four drives in this machine has 26041 hours on it. Only a backup though, ‘cos that’s a lot of hours.
Bernie
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‘Gear porn’! I understand that is the case when my 19 yo stepson drools over specs – cases with flashing blue LEDs around the fans etc. But building your own edit PC is just simple professionalism. It has nothing to do with poor analogies of overeating. I charge for a job which means spending hours longer waiting for a slower machine to render or drop frames on critical playouts to tape makes the economics of building grunt a total no brainer. If you charge by the hour and your client doesn’t mind paying for under performing hardware then sure, the economics may be different.
Even over paying for my MacPro three years ago paid for itself within weeks on a big job compared to unbillable time waiting for a G5. With FCP legend now being phased out for CS6 and da Vinci I would be practicing poor economy not building a PC.
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[Michael Gissing] “But building your own edit PC is just simple professionalism.”
Or a task that one might view as avoidable – and further, one that sucks time and energy that would be better forced on prospecting, marketing, client services, etc, etc, etc.
I respect people who train themselves to be good at anything, including computer systems specification and integration.
But I’m NOT a computer systems integrator, nor do I wish to become one.
I want to launch the software and EDIT. Period.
That task is dauntingly difficult enough by itself, IMHE.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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To each his own Bill. Apple I am sure prefer people like you. Much of their business model is based on the idea of ‘just give me a working box that I don’t have to think about’.
It actually takes very little time to maintain hardware and software but it sure pays off.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Can someone else run a real world cost analysis and show me something that is much cheaper? I am truly wondering if this is adding to the Legend. It grows greater every day.”
Did you look for any other vendors? HP is probably the biggest and best SI on the Windows side, but they’re not the only one. Try Dell, Promax, BoldData Systems or Puget Systems.
Shawn
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[Craig Seeman] ” Or maybe another way to put it, How many 4x PCIe slots does your Windows laptop have?”
Thunderbolt specs claims to be PCIe 4x capable , well it might be sometimes. IDK.
But here we have this new PCIe 2.0 4x card, where one or two SSDs work in tandem.
Great product as it doesn’t require drivers on OS X or on WIN 7 – but no booting OS in MP!
But I digress…According to them, both in native PCIe 4x in a Mac Pro and also in a Thunderbolt enabled PCIe 4x,
The Mac Pro performs considerably better than the TB Mac which isn’t disclosured but it must be an iMac 11https://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempossdpro.html?tab=2
Testing was done on their own Thunderbolt expansion chassis for PCIe card, so the problem may lie there
But the card is Thunderbolt aware and I can’t for the life of me grasp why would they cap ThunderBolt
Unless there’s a firmware upgrade that unleashes the lightpeak of thunderbolt, IDK what to make of this… -
[Christian Schumacher] “, IDK what to make of this…”
No matter what machine you are on, you have enough bandwidth to capture uncompressed 1080iHD.
You’d have enough to capture 444 uncompressed HD. One one 2.5″ drive.
On an iMac, or a retina, or a MacPro.
Switch that to compressed, and you can do a multicam on one drive.
I don’t know what you make of that, but I’d say we are doing ok.
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[Shawn Miller] “Did you look for any other vendors?”
No, but I will. What should I expect? A few bucks difference? Lesser quality?
Am I going to be able to save 400 more dollars for a similarly speced machine?
More legend?
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