Ben Holmes
Forum Replies Created
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Peace indeed – the world needs a little more of that.
As you say – misinterpretated text (and a nightmare re-master) has removed my sense of humour. I should know better. Apologies also.
Ben
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com
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Curious review for two reasons:
1) They don’t compare a Quad Mac Pro to a Quad G5 – only DuoCore G5s. Seems an odd comparison, albeit useful for anyone upgrading from a DuoCore machine (probably the majority). Seems a bit apples and oranges if I’ve read that right.
2) The Quad Mac Pro performs at exactly the same speed when they disconnect two of the cores. Will we see that doubling in performance we hoped for when FCP/QT/OSX can better use that config? Or get somewhere near it anyway..
Interesting.
Ben
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com
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Sorry Walter – I wasn’t talking to you. I should have made it clearer.
“I don’t give two cents on whether you upgrade or not. LOL” is just basically rude.
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com
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[walter biscardi] ” I have recommended to several people locally that they go with the Mac Pro because any updates Apple makes from here on out with Studio will more than likely improve the Intel performance”
Not disagreeing with any of that – and when we get that increased performance, I’ll change my views on what the best current purchase is. Right now, for me, it’s not the Mac Pro because I gain nothing in performance, and lose qualified support on some of my third party hardware and software. Down the line – and that may be in six months or a year (who knows) then DEFINITELY the balance will shift to the newer machines. But not only can’t I wait that long, I feel a little let down on behalf of anyone who delayed and delayed purchases expecting it all to be in place now. I was led to believe FCP5.1 would ‘really fly’ when we finally got it on Intel Macs. It doesn’t.
I’m genuinely not bothered what compatability is like in 3-4 years. We turn over kit, as it takes a hammering in the field, and Mac hardware is an inexpensive upgrade, relatively speaking, for us. I realise that is NOT the case for many other people.
BTW – If you’re not bothered what I buy, why try to change my mind? Honestly, I’m just expressing an opinion here, there’s no need to attack me because we disagree.
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com
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[Chi-Ho Lee] “That’s always the case! No company ever release rev2 hardware right from the start”
All the more reason not to buy one yet. If the performance gains were there, you may feel more like a gamble.
[Chi-Ho Lee] “Will FCP and other software be universal 3 years from now? How about 4 years? Hard to say, but I would guess no”
Isn’t that the point of universal software? It’s our guarantee of backward compatability for older kit, isn’t it? You mean Mac will drop the support, like it did with classic, in a few years? That’s different surely, as all THAT did was force me to buy a new OS – by which time OS X was actually stable enough to use. At any rate, my guess is that 3-4 years would be more than long enough to expect my systems to work with up-to-date software. I’d be looking to upgrade again before then – OS 10.8 will probably CRAWL on a Quad 2.5….
Not convinced – sorry.
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com
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[stuntgirl] “People I’ve talked to have all told me the best solution is fiber channel server with RAID in room….saving all student files to that location……..only”
They were all right. Having a server shared by other workstations doing other things is a recipe for disaster. I’m generalising here, as I don’t know much about the rest of your setup.
For consistent video playback, you need a dedicated high-speed array doing nothing but video. Hopefully someone with more experience of shared storage can wade in here? My only other comment is that many of the problems you describe MAY be due to bad project management by students, or files being deleted by other users. Using local storage or internal drives even (if you work DV/HDV etc) may be a safer solution if it fits into your workflow at all. It’s not as neat or flexible, but it works… Projects could be backed up (via Media Manager – which is better these days) to a shared drive as required.
Ben
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com
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[walter biscardi] “The G5 Quad has not dropped in price and still sits at $3,299 to start”
Maybe that’s an indication of Apple’s real view on this – they know some people will still pay good money for a machine they claim they have made obselescent? 😉
If we don’t keep the noise down about this, their won’t be a glut of G5 Quads for sale!
Ben
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com
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Agree with the comments about the internals. No contest on the newer machines.
Based on new prices, the new machines are better value. But you won’t have to pay new prices for a G5 Quad any more, will you? Keep a beady eye on those refurbs…
Intel Macs still represent a leap of faith for pro users, when you see AJA, for example, bringing out new drivers for the new machines ‘at the end of the month’ or that Sapphire filters are available as beta versions for Intel Macs.
[walter biscardi] “I take barefeats with a grain of salt” – I take Apple’s test with a beta with an even BIGGER grain. As I said, I’m a little weary of Apple’s claims.
My point is that many people have held off purchasing new towers for a year, expecting something more than this. All we really have is rev 1 hardware with beta software. Doesn’t sound like the Pro choice to me yet.
Just my view, obviously.
Ben
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com
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[Jon B745435] “I just got a quote for a breakout box / Aja setup (w/ 500gb addt’l to my 1tb setup) and it’s around $4200…”
Gulp. You only need to add an SD card to your setup – It’s a Quad with a SATA array.
You could purchase the Blackmagic SD cheapo card (think it’s $300) and output your finished HDV timeline as NTSC SD at the final hurdle.
Do as suggested in the post above, capture and edit everything HDV (unless you have the budget to shoot Digibeta or HDCam – I’m guessing not) then export your finshed sequence as HDV, drag it into the Uncompressed 10-bit timeline exactly as suggested above, and output straight to Digibeta with 4 tracks on Embedded audio. You don’t even need a card with analogue/digital audio outs, as long as you don’t want to see your audio levels on an external scope. The AJA cards support realtime playback of HDV via SDI for monitoring/recording. I THINK the BlackMagic cards do the same. You can then view your output on an SDI monitor for proper colour correction etc.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong – but that array should support 1 stream of SD? Otherwise spend another $300 on a FW800 disc array – I recommend backing up to one anyway – the G-Raids are excellent.
All you have to do is hire a DVW-500 for ONE DAY for the mastering. Another couple of hundred bucks I’m guessing (can get them in the UK for
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Do you need to keep working on the footage at DV quality? If you’ve finished working on it, I would recommend exporting your sequence as a QuickTime movie using the DV compression settings. This will automatically reset the field ordering as well. Don’t use the deinterlace.
Ben
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com