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Have you tried the refurbished G5s on the apple site . Do a search for “refurbished G5” and it will come up with what is available for that day . The equipment has a warranty .

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Sorry my post may not have been clear . I have 8 slots for ram . I’m not asking wether I can fit it all in . I was wondering if mixing the original 512mgs (2 x 256) with the new ram would cause any issues . I bought 4 1Gig modules . I know that mixing ram can sometimes cause trouble . It’s all Samsung ram and the same speed .

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Walter ,

Are you running the latest version of FCP on the original Dual 2 G5 ? I have a chance to pick up a refurb original dual 2 Ghz for a decent price and I’m wondering if it is powerful enough to run FCP 5 along with Motion. Does the original Dual G5 have PCI-X slots ?

PD

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I had not thought about a refurbished Dual G5 . I will check on that . Again this is primarely for learning the software but if I could pick up a refurb dual for about the same price that might be a way to go . As for not going back to Avid after using FCP , I’m not looking to give one up for the other . As a freelancer I have use what the production companies have in house .

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Thanks Craig ,

You brought up a lot of good points . I am an experienced editor , editing for about 16 years . The last 10 years I’ve used Avids on both Macs and PCs . I’ve also used Media 100 , Premiere ,Pinnacle among other NLEs . I do a lot of freelance work for cable Networks such as Discovery and Food Network . I usually do this work at larger facilities with their inhouse equipment and some of these facilities are starting to use FCP . As I said I currently use Avid systems , and I’m not looking to stop using Avids but rather to become proficient on FCP to add to my skill level and expand my horizons . I currently own a couple of NLE Avids and if the FCP systems was my only system I would definately buy the fastest one . I agree with you on the time saving benefits of the faster Duals . But this will primarely be to learn on and not the foundation of my business . The last Mac that I worked on was a G4 and I don’t have any experience with G5s . If I got the 1.8 GHZ , I would put in a much bigger hardrive and at least 2 gigs of ram . I’m just wondering if a single processor will make working on Motion excruciating . I primarely do long form work and wonder how well the 1.8 GHZ would handle 30 mins to an hour sequences on Final Cut .Thanks for the reply , those were very well thought out and valid points .

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I make a a video only Quicktime reference movie of the sequence . Then save the audio as a Wav file . I import both into Encore . Encore transcodes the video media (that will take a while) . I import the Wav file into the Encore project window . You can then author a DVD in Encore and burn it to disk . You can also save the sequence with video and audio , but I’ve sometime had problems that way .If you are just making a copy of the sequence and don’t care too much about the DVD menu , you might consider getting a desktop DVD recorder . Just take the output of the Avid into the recorder . Some recorders have firewire inputs . It will create a simple menu .