[Jeff Carpenter]

Somethning you can look at are Final Cut’s render files for your projects. They keep building up forever…the old ones are never erased. You can trash those files and then re-render the project. It should save some space.

I’m sure that’s part of the 57 GB you already accounted for so that doesn’t answer your main question, but it might help you clear up some space.

Another place to check: iPhoto. Look in the trash can that’s inside of iPhoto. Is it full of stuff? That’s a place files can hide for quite some time before people notice them.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’m not technical enough to give you a real answer, but here’s my 2 experiences:

1) At my job we have an Avid unity hooked up to 5 workstations with gigabit ethernet. We edit DVCAM/DV and have had all 5 stations working at once without problems.

2) At home I have a MacPro with a Firewire 800 G-Raid as my media drive. (This is also DV editing.) I also have an iMac hooked up over gigabit ethernet through a consumer-grade gigabit router. My wife and I can access the same media and edit at the same time without any problem. I’ve also been compressing on one computer while editing on the other without issue. I’ve done split-screen stuff where it’s pulling 3 or 4 clips and once and that works ok too.

IMX50 is what, twice the size of DV? I’m not exactly sure, but given my experiences I’d have to guess that it would still work to some extent.

Again, I really can’t say if it will work for you and your format, but I just wanted to share my own (DV) experiences.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Sometimes this little trick works:

Put an extention on the end file name like “.doc” or “.zip” or “.mp4”

Sometimes that tricks the computer into thinking the file is something it’s not. The icon will change and you might be able to erase it.

That’s one of those long-shot kind of things, but I’ve had it work in the past from time to time.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Drag that file onto your desktop. Select it and press Command-i.

Look around in the info to see if the file is locked.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I can’t promise you anything, but I can say that I used to use a G4 Powerbook with a Sony VX-2000 plgged into a firewire drive that was plugged into the laptop. It worked fine.

I’ve also used a system very similar to what you’ve described with a Core 1 Duo iMac and a DVCPRO deck. That worked too.

In both situations, however, what I was doing was going on alongside my full Powermac system. It was always a way to get extra capturing and DVD burning done on the side…it was never my primary edit station. So I never put it through as much work as you probably will.

But overall I’d say you’ll be ok. You seem aware of the limitations, and as long as you’re clear on that you’ll be fine. There aren’t other hidden problems you didn’t already talk about, if that’s what you’re asking.

As for Motion, you’ll be able to use it, but it’s not going to be super-amazing when it comes to speed. But if you’re not working in HD, you’ll probably be ok.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Ok, since I was the one who said matching was a FCP thing, not a Mac thing. Here’s a couple of things:

1) When talking about the Mac Pro (as we were) it’s important to remember that you absolutely HAVE to have matched pairs of RAM. What I said was that you could have 2 pairs that didn’t match if you’re not a Final Cut Pro user. (So we’re talking about 4 chips.) So having two 512 chips and then adding two 1 GB chips would be ok (as far as the Mac is concerned…Final Cut would prefer that they all be the same). So even though the pairs don’t have to be paired, yes you totally have to have an even number of chips where each pair has matching chips.

2) That’s only true for the Mac Pro.

3) HOWEVER, the Macbook (regular non-Pro) and Mac Mini really like matched RAM too. This is because they don’t have video cards. Their system RAM gets shared as video RAM. The system will work with an un-matched pair (or one chip) but you’ll get better video performance with a matched pair. That only applies to those 2 computers, however. All the rest have dedicated video cards with their own video RAM.

4) The iMac and the Macbook Pro’s motherboard can only read 3 GB of RAM. You can put 4 GB in them (2 x 2GB) but the machine will only read 3 GB. You’d be wasting your money to buy 4 GB.

5) By getting an un-matched pair in the examples in #4…are you sacrificing performance? I really don’t know. I’d think so, but Apple sells them that way so it can’t be terrible. My best guess is that having 3 GB is worse than having (the impossible) 4 GB, but it’s still better than having 2 GB. So I’d say go for it.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Crucial has been great for me for years now. I’ve had zero problems with them.

And in the “useless info” category you should know that having all chips match is a Final Cut suggestion, not a Macintosh requirement.

Two chips in a pair DO have to match each other, but the pairs don’t have to match other pairs. So having 512 x2 and 1 GB x2 is ok as far as the Mac is concerned.

Now, Final Cut Pro strongly suggests that you have ALL chips the same, so you should do it that way just as Wayne said. But I feel it’s good to tell the whole story in case a non-Final Cut user ever ask for your help. It’s good to know even if it doesn’t apply to you.

[Jeff Carpenter]

You’ve got a much easier solution at hand, Lisa.

You have a Mac. You have a DVD burner. Do you have iDVD version 6? (If not, it’s $80 to upgrade iLife.)

Once you have those elements, you’re all set! See here:

https://www.apple.com/ilife/idvd/features/onestepdvd.html

I’m not sure how to handle the anamorphic, but I know iDVD does do widescreen DVDs. I’m sure a little experimenting is all it will take.

[Jeff Carpenter]

The ATI 1900 is the best card of the bunch. Yep, it’s the cheapest, but it’s the best one.
===

I think you mean 2nd cheapest. The 7300 would be the least expensive option.

At any rate, I agree that the 1900 is the way to go. It’s been working great for me too.

[Jeff Carpenter]

The files are cross-platform, but the hard drive isn’t. Your hard drive is formated using the Mac Standard known as HFS+. Windows machines can’t read HFS+. They use what’s called NTFS to format their drives. Macs can read those, but they can’t write to them. So neither format is really cross-platform.

You have 2 solutions:

1) Re-format your drive as a FAT32 drive. This can be used on both systems BUT you’ll have to erase the drive to do this AND all files must be less than 2 GB as FAT32 won’t recognize files bigger than that. This works, but I consider it a poor solution.

2) Get a program like this:
https://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

That’s really what you need, although I’ve never used it. You may want to use Google to find some reviews before you pay for it, just to make sure it works well.