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Upgrades for Mac pro Questions
Thanks ahead of time for all help with my questions.
I have a Mac Pro Mid 2010 with Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 “Westmere” processors
ATI Radeon HD 5770
21GB 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
Running FCP 7 Considering upgrading to Adobe PremiereI am having more and more performance issues with my system. I start by admitting I don’t know much about setting the computer up, so I may have problems because of that.
I get out of Memory warning when trying to edit with or bring in H264 videos or many MPEG 4 videos. I use external G-raid 7200rpm via firewire for most media but also use USB 3 drives as well. Sometimes the viewing screens in FCP will go green, I minimize and then re open FCP and screen comes back, not sure why that is, I figure i need a better graphics card?
I want to upgrade graphics so I can use two monitors.
I have concerns about upgrading to Mavericks, I have heard it doesn’t work well with FCP.
Should I do ESATA for the drives, would that speed up performance?
Is there something I should do with Qmaster or anything else to help the computer process better?Sorry for all the questions but I am a producer/editor that certainly needs to know more about the workings of the computer. I am just looking to make everything work at it’s optimum, within reasonable expense.
Easiest question, if there’s a tutorial or class or whatever to help me understand how to set up a the computer?
Thanks again.
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3 Replies
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[carlton hathcoat] “I get out of Memory warning when trying to edit with or bring in H264 videos or many MPEG 4 videos. “
It’s not your computer. FCP 7 isn’t designed to edit these formats natively. it’ll always have issues with them. You must convert them to FCP editing codecs BEFORE you edit…before you bring them into FCP. Compressor, MPEG STREAMCLIP do this. Convert to ProRes…and broadcast standard frame sizes like 1920×1080 or 1280×720. Then import and work with them. If you want to edit those formats natively you need to use different software, like Adobe premiere Pro.
[carlton hathcoat] “I use external G-raid 7200rpm via firewire for most media but also use USB 3 drives as well.”
Your computer isn’t equipped with USB3…it has USB2 ports. Those ports are not fast enough for the demands of HD video. USB 3…yes. USB2…no. So that’s another strike.
[carlton hathcoat] “I want to upgrade graphics so I can use two monitors. “
You current card allows for that. It just happens to have one DVI connection and two Mini Display Port connectors. Just get an adapter and it’ll do two monitors.
[carlton hathcoat] “Should I do ESATA for the drives, would that speed up performance?”
It’ll allow you to edit higher data rates, yes. And multiple streams. TONS better than USB2.
[carlton hathcoat] “Is there something I should do with Qmaster or anything else to help the computer process better? “
QMaster only assists Compressor.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks Shane, as always you’re the best. What is the best performance for external drives given what I have?
Thanks again!
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First off, the firewire 800 drives should work fine. And your machine has three spare SATA bays built in…get three 3TB drives and put them in those slots. That’s 12TB, and they’ll be faster than any single external drive will be. Cheaper too.
The sleds slide right out, screws are there…just add the drive and slide back in. Format with Disk Utility.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
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