Jeff Carpenter
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Wayne,
Do you know of any place that explains the mixing of 1 GB and 512 chips? I’ve never heard anything about that and was wondering if you had an online source for it.
As for the 4 GB vs. 8 GB, that can be broken down even more for leemce. 4 GB is enough for Final Cut. Any more than that and you won’t see any difference in your video work. What you WILL gain with more RAM is the ability to run many other programs at once without having to swap memory as you switch between them.
So although 4 GB is enough for Final Cut, yes, 8 GB is probably a good idea if you’re always concurrently using Photoshop, DVD Studio Pro, Compressor, After Effects, etc. And since that includes of us, 8 GB is not a terrible idea. It’s not as critical as that video card upgrade, but it’s still a pretty good iedea if you can get it.
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A) Upgrade the video card to the ATI X1900 w/512 MB VRAM. After your 4GB of RAM, that’s probably the best $250 you’ll put into the machine.
B) 4 GB of RAM is fine. Be sure to buy from someplace like Crucial.com instead of from Apple. Actually, I suggest buying four 1 GB sticks from Crucial and adding them to the two 512 sticks the computer comes with. That will give you 5 GB for $472. Going with Apple you’d get a total of 4 GB for $700.
Those 2 bits of advice are solid. I think everyone would recomend them. These next bits are purely my OPINION and it’s very easy to argue against them. I’m not suggesting them, just putting them out there for you to think about.
C) Personally, I went with the quad-core instead of the octo-core. Why? Well you’ll save $700 and the difference in your editing will be zero. The 2 times you’ll notice a differnce is when you render and when you compress for DVD or the web. So it comes down to your work. Do you do 2 to 3 hour event videos? Half hour shows? 30 second spots?
Remember, with Final Cut you’ll get good real-time previews without having to render everything. So you can work through almost everything before you have to render. That’s more of a last step when you’re finished editing. Also keep in mind that the octo-core isn’t twice as fast as the quad-core. More like 1.4 to 1.5 times as fast. Faster, yes, but once again, consider the payoff vs. the money.
So think about the advantage vs. the cost. Yes, time is money, but if all your projects are short, and you only render when you’re done, you might not save that much time. Or maybe you will, it’s up to your workflow.
C) Having the 250 GB hard drive for the system is good. Best to keep it small. But instead of the 750 GB secondary drive, consider getting two 500 GB drives (again, from someplace other than Apple) and RAIDing them together into a single drive. Sure, it might just be for graphics and music, but you’ll get a speed boost from it and everything will be that much faster. Downside: You have twice the risk of a drive failing. Backups become even MORE critical when working like this.
D) Two monitors. Have you used Final Cut much yet? I ask because I find that dual-monitors are much less necessary. I work on an Avid system with dual-monitors and I feel like I need it there to stay organized. I have a single monitor on my Final Cut System, however, and am just fine with it. Everything’s much more tab-based in Final Cut. I feel that I can stay better organized in a smaller space. And if you get the 30″ monitor you still have plenty of room to srpread out without going to a 2nd monitor. I dunno, I just find dual-monitors annoying. They’ve been necessary for years, but with the larger LCDs these days and Final Cut’s interface I feel that I can finally leave them behind. Others disagree. Just my thoughts.
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A) I don’t know the answer to that.
B) Generally, they’ll at least look at it and try easy fixes without checking ANY warranty information. So if it’s some kind of software reset they’ll probably just do it. If hardware needs to be replaced…well then your question becomes relevant. Unfortunately I can’t answer it.
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This is definately up to the level of “go to an Apple Store” and have them look at it.
If your friend has never been, forward him this link:
Tell him to find the page for the closest store and sign on to that site the morning he wants to go. He can sign up for a genius bar appointment time before he goes by looking for the “Apple Store Concierge” section of the page.
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Are you asking HOW to compresss a file? The manuals can help you with the details, but basically you use Compressor to compress to MPEG II video and AC3 audio (dolby) and then take those files and import them into DVD studio Pro.
Or are you asking something else about CBR?
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I suggest just waiting for Leopard.
Ok, so you’ll have to do without this feature ’till October, and even then you’ll have to upgrade both computers. But you’ll get this built in:
https://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ichat.html
Watch that video to the end. That looks perfect to me. All you have to do is get through the summer without it!
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Apple Menu -> System Preferences -> ACCOUNTS -> STARTUP ITEMS
I suspect you’ll find Mail on that list. Just erase it.
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First, get rid of the Compression markers. It’s probably just confusing the system and making things worse at this point.
Second, are you using the pre-set “90 min Best Quality” setting in compressor? Or did you make something up yourself?
Finally, in Final Cut, go to EXPORT -> COMPRESSOR and re-compress it that way. It will work directly off the Final Cut timeline and compress from there rather than using a Quicktime file to get from Final Cut to Compressor.
This will take longer to do AND it will tie-up Final Cut, so it’s not always the best way. But given the number of photos you’re using and the proeblems you’ve been having, it’s probably worth a try.
(I suggest duplicating your sequence and in that copy cutting out all but 5 minutes of your video. Export that as a test to save time. Burn it to a DVD and watch it in a stand-alone DVD player on a TV set to really judge it.)
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Speaking as someone who uses Avid and FCP daily, here’s my advice:
In a multi-user environment, think of “FCP Projects” in the same way you think of “Avid Bins.”
That’s the easiest way to get your mind around the concept. Whatever you would have called your bins in Avid, just make those all different projects in FCP. Since you can open multiple projects at once in FCP (unlike Avid) you can essentially treat each project AS a bin.
At that point pretty much all the same restrictions and possibilities exist on each platform. You just have to keep my equation in mind to figure out what you can and can’t do to a FCP project with multiple users.
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They can use the same media and scratch disk, but they must work on 2 different projects.
I sugget having a master project that no one works on. Anyone who wants to work on it should duplicate it and re-name the new file with the project namd AND their name. Then work on that file.
At the end of the day, one person should open the master project and all the editors’ projects and copy the pieces they worked on from their project into the master project.
Then save the master and throw the individual projects into a folder to be locked away. (Essentially trashing them, but keeping them around just in case as backup.)
Then, the next day everyone starts again by duplicating the new master project and doing the same thing all over again.