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Understanding FCPX under the hood.
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True – it really isn’t difficult or time consuming. Instead of looking at the Apple site and picking from a very few models, none of which particularly fits your spec and are jolly expensive, you go to your local equivalent of dabs.com and choose from dozens of graphics cards, processors, motherboards etc for just the ones you want.
And you know that if any of these needs updating in a few months, you just change it – none of that “when are they producing a new MacPro?” rubbish.
A couple of hours – if that – to set up, and you’re on your way with the very latest in editing machinery, with the sure and certain knowledge that if any part of it stops being at the cutting edge, you can just change it….. GTX690 getting a bit slow for your 6k video? Out it comes, and in with a nice new GTXXX8000 mega card. Drives not spacious enough? Out with those four 2 terabyte clunkers and in with some brand new 6 terabyte SSDs. All terribly easy, and can be done in no time at all, with still time to edit the odd four-minuter before lunch. And no Thunderbolt required at all.
Bernie
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There are two types of people in this world. People who drink Coca Cola, and weirdly people who prefer Pepsi. People who drink Coca Cola use Macs and people who drink Pepsi generally use PCs. I myself prefer the real thing and therefore drink Coca Cola while driving my Mac. As for the cost issue! My first mac was an LC 11, Ive upgraded my Mac every 2 yrs to the latest and greatest maxed out version, but Ive never actually owned a computer. I rent my computers from Mac finance, the premiums are totally tax deductible, (not tax deductible on a percentage of depreciation if I owned them) so in actual fact I don’t pay for them either. At the end of the two year cycle, I send the old computer back and they send me a new one.
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[Chris Harlan] “What it is is that its cheeper for the non-discerning,”
But of course.
That does not describe the people that frequent this forum, however.
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[Bernard Newnham] “True – it really isn’t difficult or time consuming. Instead of looking at the Apple site and picking from a very few models, none of which particularly fits your spec and are jolly expensive”
Now, I see you haven’t been paying attention in class.
Almost any place that I went to to price a similar configured PC cost about the same as the jolly expensive Mac.
Can we please out this myth out to pasture?
[Bernard Newnham] “And you know that if any of these needs updating in a few months, you just change it – none of that “when are they producing a new MacPro?” rubbish. “
Is it really that easy? I always read about mother board conflicts and when you are talking about a professional video setup with capture cards, storage cards, etc, its not as easy as “just changing it”.
[Bernard Newnham] “A couple of hours – if that – to set up, and you’re on your way with the very latest in editing machinery, with the sure and certain knowledge that if any part of it stops being at the cutting edge, you can just change it….. GTX690 getting a bit slow for your 6k video? Out it comes, and in with a nice new GTXXX8000 mega card. Drives not spacious enough? Out with those four 2 terabyte clunkers and in with some brand new 6 terabyte SSDs. All terribly easy, and can be done in no time at all, with still time to edit the odd four-minuter before lunch. And no Thunderbolt required at all.”
I see here you are preparing for capabilities that aren’t possible yet. That’s fine.
I like to dream too.
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Er news?
I regularly edit news on the road with a 15 or 17″ MBP, bus powered G tech Mini Raid and use the camera (PDW800 mostly) as a deck.
Normally edit in the back of the car or a hotel lobby, coffee shop etc and then send via FTP either over 3G or hotspot.
Also do quite a few quick turn around corporates in the same way usually in a hotel room and output a Prores file.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
[Chris Harlan] ” My dad just got a nice little Windows 8 machine based on an i5 for under 500 bucks. Its zippy enough for all of the things he likes to do, and has a solid build. He wouldn’t see the difference with an i7. It a replaces a 5 year old whatever-the-heck-it-was processor and seems in comparison like a race car from another planet.
The majority of computer users in this world are probably in my dad’s camp, hence the widely held belief that Macs are currently overpriced. “
I have a hunch that actually many such people are moving to Tablets, hence the decline in PC sales overall.
Also the margins for the manufacturers of computers at the lower end of the market is so low that there’s no business reason for Apple to go there.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Is it really that easy? I always read about mother board conflicts and when you are talking about a professional video setup with capture cards, storage cards, etc, its not as easy as “just changing it”.”
Yes. Both the motherboard manufacturers and the video card manufacturers have come a long way from the dreaded old conflicting interrupts stuff. These days I only have a Blackmagic Intensity Pro, and don’t use that much, but it goes in the the PC or the hackintosh and does its job as required. Other stuff – graphics cards, drives, RAM etc, just slip in and work too.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Almost any place that I went to to price a similar configured PC cost about the same as the jolly expensive Mac.”
Off to Apple…..
27-inch, 2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 ,8GB memory, 1TB hard drive, GeForce GTX 660M
£1,499.00Off to Dabs….
Dabs don’t have a Core i5 at 2.9Ghz, but a faster i5-3750k at 3.4Ghz is £173.8Gb RAM – £30.99.
No, I want 16Gb – £50.98Motherboard – lets have a nice one, though there are lots to choose from – Asus P8Z77-V PRO at £149.98 – though I could probably get one at £100 and not lose much.
1TB drive – no, lets upgrade and get two at 2TB – £141
GTX 660M – no, lets have better – a GTX670 for £300
At that point, I’m on just over £800, and I have all the important bits. Because I’ve been doing this a while now, I have case, keyboards, mice and screens already, and because they aren’t all stuck in a flashy plastic box, I can re-use them till they are out of date. Big price in that would be a nice big new screen. I’ll have an Acer 27″ priced at £200.
At that point I still haven’t nearly hit the cost of the iMac and I have £500 to spare to go on holiday. A couple of hours work when the boxes arrive, and we’re back editing again, or in my current case writing an application for a uni newsroom in Actionscript 3.
Bernie
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[Bernard Newnham] “These days I only have a Blackmagic Intensity Pro, and don’t use that much,”
I’ve worked with too many people that have had to deal with the following when putting together systems. This extends to other manufacturers as well. Then there’s the driver update dance.
Supported Hardware
Certified PC Workstations
The following workstations are certified for use with Decklink, Multibridge and Intensity capture cards:Hewlett Packard Z400
Hewlett Packard Z600
Hewlett Packard Z800
Hewlett Packard XW9300
Hewlett Packard XW8600 (not recommended for Decklink PCI or PCI-X cards)
For additional configuration information, check the HP XW8600 or XW9300 workstation Tech note.Please note: Dell workstations are not supported for use with Blackmagic Design capture cards.
Recommended Motherboards
The following motherboards are recommended for use with Decklink, Multibridge and Intensity capture cards:Asus P5E
Asus P5B
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo
Asus P6X58D (Bios later than 12.04.2010)
Asus P8P67 PRO (Rev 3.1)
Gigabyte EP45-DS3
Gigabyte x48DQ6
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD7-B3 (rev. 1.0)
Intel D975XBX
XFX 790i UltraFor the latest compatibility information regarding x58 chipsets, please review the following Tech notes:
Intel® Desktop Board DX58SO
Asus P6T series motherboards
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Jeremy –
I suggest you go here. Their builds are updated every 6 months or so. Generally New Egg has the best prices for the parts.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
And if you add a dual link 27″ led monitor?
We all agreed that building your own is cheaper. I am building comparative products from reputable comparative companies with comparative (paid) services.
I could also build a hackintosh for much cheaper than a Mac, probably close to your prices above, but needing a little more time to configure.
There are people who don’t want to build their own.
Even if a Mac motherboard completely dies, I can take that same boot drive and mount it on any other Mac in the shop and keep working, from MacMini to MacPro, in minutes. With Thunderbolt, this would be even easier as all of my components can transfer from macmini to MacPro (assuming a thunderbolt MacPro) in seconds. That’s worth something to me.
We have more than one mouth to feed, more than one machine to maintain, and more than one point of view, but one very busy shop that needs to stay up, but it doesn’t necessarily need to by a new GPU every 6 months for a few more clock cycles to garner new clients.
I appreciate the DIY ethic, and I can see that it is demonstrably cheaper, but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot, or a Luddite, or throwing good money after bad because I have machine that sits in the corner with 26000 hours on the hard drive.
PC hard drives spin just like Mac hard drives spin, no?
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