[Erik Lindahl]

Depending on the plasma-screen’s native resolution I’d go with:

– SD DVD 16×9 FHA
– HD DVD MPEG2
– HD DVD h264

From the tests I’ve done MPEG2 at high-def looks super and you fit about 30 mins of material on a standard DVD-R. However, you will need a playback system here. The only thing that will “just work” is the SD DVD in a DVD-player.

You will not gain anything from going to a higher resolution than the final display output. Running QuickTime h.264 is fantastic, from my tests much better than WMV9. However, the format is quite system-demanding at playback.

Photo-jpeg at 75% will give you great quality as well at quite modest bitrates and will not require half the machine h264 does.

[Erik Lindahl]

Also a test I did is about 7% faster on h264 encoding compared to the 7.04 version on my Dual Core G5.

QT7.04: 119s
QT7.10: 111s

Always something!

[Erik Lindahl]

The export size settings dialog box is updated and no includes options for “preserve aspect ration using

[Erik Lindahl]

That is actually quite an interesting approach. The mini’s have gigabith now as well and you get at least 2 mini’s to a G5. Heat and noise should be quite low as well.

They are somewhat limited when it comes to drivespace and RAM however, but with 2GB of RAM they should do quite good work.

I was a bit “knocked off my feet” by how slow the iMac Core Duo was at compression however (h.264 via QuickTime and Compression Master). But in WinXP and AE they should do quite fine I reckon. Probbably alot more bang for the buck compared to a G5, but you are stuck in Windows then. Also, WinXP isn’t cheap.

[Erik Lindahl]

A G4 can not run H.264 QuickTime files, however.
Uhm, yes they can. A Dual G5 500 handles 480p files at full rate, usually. A more modern G4 with good GPU and RAM will probably handle a 720p.

Going from 10.1.x to 10.4 will be a HUGE step to a better computer world. However, you really should have:

– 1Ghz or faster G4 (or dual 800)
– 1GB RAM (512 MB will work)
– 30GB HD
– 64MB GPU

Then you’re sort of “fixed”. A Dual 500 Mhz G4 with a better GPU and extra RAM runs Tiger nicely. Of course AE is dog-slow compared to a Quad G5, but it works.

[Erik Lindahl]

Well not much work at all… Adobe already today validates your licens when you install AE7 on your Mac or PC so this wouldn’t really mean a big thing at all for Adobe more than the cost of bandwidth or extra CD/DVD dublicates. Perhaps one could even buy these for 29 or 49 dollars or what ever they cost to produce.

Then for Adobe to do this is another cup of tea. But it really shouldn’t be to much work for them.

[Erik Lindahl]

xServe only has one benifit over the G5 tower and that is space and HD-storage. They make more noise, they are slower, they have much worse GPU capabilities etc etc.

If you have the space for G5-towers, go with them.

I agree with you’re point in gettings a OSX-only environment too. I wouldn’t go with G4’s however. They are a lot slower than G5’s, make a lot more noise, have a lot worse upgrade path for RAM etc.

[Erik Lindahl]

What you’ve been doing today Pfrederick is authoring HD-DVD content to SD-DVD media (DVD-R). One has to differ the two. “Real HD-DVD” media will come on either HD-DVD disc or BluRay discs.

When it comes what’s on the HD-DVD media you will have two options:

– MPEG2
– h264

MPEG2 on HD-DVD authored disc is NOT just SD-material at higher bitrate. Here you get full 1080i (perhaps even 1080p) at full 25 fps (in PAL) at roughly 19 Mbit/s. An SD DVD gives you 576i at about 6 Mbit/s. HUGE difference in quality of the image. The downside here is a standard DVD-R that you’re using today only holds about 30 mins of HD-DVD content.

The second “codec side” of HD-DVD content i h264. Here we will see similar quality to MPEG2 HD, but at 1/2 to 1/4 of the birate. I think an 1080i or p disk at 24fps is rated at about 6-9 Mbit/s, similar to an SD DVD production. But here you’re getting the full she-bang of HD resolution. The downside of h264 is that the encoding kills at the moment.

Personally I’ve just experimentet a little with HD-DVD with MPEG2 and for the time being, that’s what I choose.

Actually I think Microsofts VC1 codec is also going to be accepted to the HD-DVD spectrum, but I’m not sure about that (little talk about it now a days, lots of talk a year or so ago).

[Erik Lindahl]

I’d look at getting Nucleo for your single system setup.

If you’re running multiple systems, AE multi-render might do it or look into getting X-Factor (not sure it that works for AE7 though). To speed AE up you can have multiple rendering engines per system, this is how Nucleo works and it does work good for rendering nodes.

As you I’d very much prefer going the G5-road eventhough currently a dual core Wintel-system is cheaper. It all depends on if you’re confortable with them (I wouldn’t be). A Quad G5 system is a lot more bang for the buck.

On a Dual system I’d say about 2GB RAM is sufficent. On a Quad I’d go for about 4GB (quad’s can run more things at the same time if you want, more apps need more RAM).

Have a look at my Quad G5 review and see what speed’s we’re talking about there:
https://www.fcpug.se/forum/showthread.php?p=1337#post1337

When it comes to rendering a central folder is required, yes, but a G5 system over gigabith will generelly give you 30 or so MB/s over the network and concidering you’re doing 1 hour per second on the renderingside, network speed really isn’t your issue 🙂

I’d start off small and grow if I were you. Two more rendering slaves is a good start.

[Erik Lindahl]

Yeah, we have a G5 with a Kona LS actually but it was “going out the door” to become a sound suite. One-station solutions are always nice to have