Darren Kelly
Forum Replies Created
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How about you send me the $3500, and I’ll send you back a kick ass system, and pocket the other $1700.
What I built is more than enough for today’s CS5.5, and way better than FCP7 or FCPX
DBK
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“There’s the cost of maintenance and downtime . . . but that’s the same for a one person shop if not more so.”
That’s the reason the work station exists. I some VP of production, and I want to know what every station has, where the spares are kept – all these large installs have spares on hand, or in a central place – . Everything must be the same, so someone can advise exactly how to repair something.
As an independent, if smoke suddenly comes from my box, I can rush out to the electronics store, and buy what ever I need to get back up and running.
That NBC affiliate, or what ever has to call the boss, who has to call maintenance, who has to grab the same part…… you get the picture.
We still need high end machines, I’m just not sure I need to spend 5.5X the cost of a windows machine on a Mac to achieve the same, or lesser results.
It’s reality check time – not for Apple, but for users. Applle have made their decisions. Now it’s time to make ours
DBK
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Look at the economy we’re in. I know if I had taken your suggestion to buy a Z class machine, I would have spent more money. Would it have been the same $6700 I would have spent on the MacPro solution? Don’t know.
Are you getting paid the same amount as you were for video production in the late 90’s and early part of this century? I’m not. I have a friend who keeps saying he’s never worked so hard for little money.
I use to shoot with a Broadcast grade Betacam camera. Now I shoot with a camera used for broadcast, but hardly has the reach and abilities of my previous cameras.
If I ran a network, I’d be outfitting hundreds of edit suites. ThenI’d buy the HP Workstation.
DBK
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I don’t know. Until I want to upgrade it I suppose. It has a 650 watt Power Supply, it runs cooler than the 27inch iMac I was using – quieter too frankly.
If Adobe/Nvidia or AMD come up with something that will do even more, then I’ll look at that, but I’ve used AE and the timeline of my edit software to composite my work for ever. This, for me is the holy Grail!
Why do you believe it will suddenly die or something?
DBK
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THe point I was trying to make with all of this, was to say I was leaving Apple, because they are not competitive in the professional editing market – haven’t been since CS5 in my opinion. Additionally, they are far out of competitiveness in the PC, or workstation market. As stated earlier I built this PC
HP Pavilion Elite AMD Phenom II Six Core 1045T Computer (HPE-500F (2.8Ghz
8GB of RAM
Zotac Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 – 1.280GB RAM
A SATA III card
2 X 3TB Segate 7200rpm with 64GB of buffer. Raided together with the SATA 3 card-Raid 0
1.5TB System drive (Green one unfortunately)
ESATA card to connect a 4TB G-Raid 4TB raid system
DVD burner
Blu-ray burner.cost $1200.00
To do it with a Mac:
This is the 2nd MacPro as it had atlease the same number of cores or better,
Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (8 cores)
8GB (4X2GB)
Mac Pro RAID Card
2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
One 18x SuperDrive
Magic Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User’s Guide$5399.00
Then we need an nvidia card. The one Apple sells is the NVIDIA Quadro 4000 for Mac for $1299.00
So the total is $6698.00
$1200 vs $6700. or 5.58 times the cost of doing this on a Mac.
As someone who has used a Mac since 1988, and have all the iOS devices, and love em all, even I couldn’t justify the price. I could have opened a 5 bay editing facility if I threw in some furniture, monitors, etc. I do plan to add an intensity card for RT output.
My opinion is Apple is a consumer electronics company now, and the computer is just an aside. iMacs and mini’s and even their macbook pros as now within reach of many consumers. Why would they build Mac Pro’s. There are no applications that need it that they personally make. Maybe Hackintoshes will be more the way to go.
Anyway, I couldn’t be happier.
DBK
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You may not have been part of the original s=discussion – “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish”
The System is an HP purchased from a local bestBuy store
HP Pavilion Elite AMD Phenom II Six Core 1045T Computer (HPE-500F (2.8Ghz
8GB of RAM
Zotac Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 – 1.280GB RAM
A SATA III card
2 X 3TB Segate 7200rpm with 64GB of buffer. Raided together with the SATA 3 card-Raid 0
1.5TB System drive (Green one unfortunately)
ESATA card to connect a 4TB G-Raid 4TB raid system
DVD burner
Blu-ray burner.I was taking hits because it was a consumer level machine, albeit upgraded to the nines. The system cost less that $1200.00, and was cheaper and had more performance than sticking with my Mac, and upgrading.
DBK
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It’s 2 drives at this point raided as a 0. I plan to handle security with a backup drive.
Remember, these 3TB drives are SATA III, each with 64GB as a buffer. Formats as a 5.5TB Raid.
The 10 layers are fine at least to a length of 30 seconds of clip, which works for me.
Switching from Apple has been fun. Scary, but Fun!
DBK
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Tom,
I appreciate your efforts here, but I know what the minimum requirements are.
The situation, and frankly the question asks at what level of Memory, am I wasting my money. The motherboard can handle a max of 16GB. Will that help the real-time performance. I know it will be better if I run multiple apps, but typically, that’s not my world.
More is not always better.
My original question remains.
DBK
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“That statement wouldn’t be accurate at all”
I used Premiere Pro between 1996 and 1999, and sold my wares for $1,000,000.
I don’t know of a pro editor who does not have some experience with Premiere. With it’s tight integration with After Effects, Photoshop and media encoder….. You can’t beat this.
The Pros are coming! The Pro’s are Coming!
DBK
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I did the switch to PC, and the Production Premium Bundle this week.
My reason for switching to PC….. $$$
The PC I built cost me $1,187.00 – fully decked out.
AMD 6 Core 2.7GHZ processor
8GB RAM
1.5TB System drive
DVD burner
GeForce GTX 570
SATA III interface card
2X 3TB SATA III hard drives – striped as a raid
1 external SATA port (I have a 4TB G-Raid that I will port over when I am finished my current project – Monday
I had a FW Blu-Ray Deck lying around, so I put that in the extra optical bayI already had 2 X 23″ – 1920X1080 Acer Monitors, they are plugged in now.
In addition, I cross graded my Mac CS4 Production Premium. I would have upgraded anyway as I wanted PS5.5 and AE 5.5 anyway.
Here’s the good news. 8 layers of 1080 in RT, with drop shadows, basic 3D, motion. 4 HD video and 4 graphic layers.
My Mac is a 27 inch 8 core iMac, so if I had to make the switch to a MacPro of similar power, I would estimate my cost being significantly higher. Say $3K for the basic Macpro with 8GB of RAM. Then add the other items I added for about $1,200 and my total would have been $4,000( The Mac Nvidia cards are much more costly. they can be $1K on their own).
You could buy 4 systems the way I did it for the price of the Mac, and the performance would have been
less due to the video card not having as many cores, and the general Mac architecture.I must say, windows and PC’s have come a long way since I departed in 1999. This box is quiet, easier to move that a loaded MacPro (Lighter). It seems just about as stable, although I just started playing with it.
BTW, the stabilizer effect is worth all that and more. I did a Helicopter shoot on a windy day, and this feature alone improved my shot!
Sorry Apple. It was fun. I still intend to use it for the web, emails and my iOs devices, but editing has come to an end.
DBK