Jeff Carpenter
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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In your case, this is a tough one. First off, if you buy the MacPro you’ll have to upgrad Final Cut Pro if you haven’t done so recently. It’s very cheap, but check the list first to be sure that this price won’t surprise you later:
https://www.apple.com/universal/crossgrade/
If you have the whole studio with Final Cut Pro 5 it’s only $50. If you have some other version of Final Cut it’s more, but not too much. Shake will also require a $50 upgrade. Anway, you’ll HAVE to do that to use them on the MacPro because it uses Intel chips. The G5 will run the Apple software you have now without upgrading.
Secondly, ALL of your Adobe software is not optomized for the Intel chips yet. It won’t be until next year and you’ll have to buy the next version number upgrade to get it. What does this mean? Well, unlike Final Cut it WILL run on the MacPro…you don’t HAVE to upgrade it, ever, if you don’t want to. It will be running through an emulation enviroment on the MacPro, though. You will never see that program, you don’t have to do anything. It “just works” without you having to do a thing. It does make it a little slower, though. So what will happen is that After Effects will run just fine now, but when you upgrade to the new After Effects next year it will suddenly become much, much faster.
So there’s the catch, if you buy a MacPro much of your software will be much faster than if you buy the G5 but SOME of it will be slightly slower. But if you upgrade all the software next year then ALL of your software will be faster than if you’d bought the G5. If you buy the G5 you’ll be better off THIS year, but by next year you’ll be using a slower computer than you could have had if you’d just put up with slightly slower Adobe software for a little while.
So really, it’s more of a personal choice. We can’t tell you what’s “best” here because it depends on what matters to you most. If you use After Effects 90% of the time then I’d say get the G5. If you use Final Cut Pro and Shake 90% of the time I’d say get the MacPro.
There’s one more thing to remember…I’m going on and on about Adobe prodcuts being “slower.” What do I mean by that? Generally they’re about 15-25% slower than they would be if they were upgraded next year. Ok, but remember, you’re using a Powerbook. You didn’t say what Powerbook it is, but the MacPro will be at least, AT LEAST 500% faster than that machine. You said you’d had it for a while so I’m betting the difference is even MORE than that.
To me, that’s what makes the difference. Yes, After Effects will be slightly slower on the MacPro than the G5. But you know what? It’ll still be way, way, WAY faster than what you’re used to now. So if it were me, I’d get the MacPro and be happy that my Adobe products are going to get even better next year. But that’s me. If you think the G5 will serve you better, then go with that.
And as I tell all Mac Tower buyers, buy at LEAST 2 GB of RAM…4 would be better. Don’t buy it from Apple, go to crucial.com to get it, and please follow the Mac’s instruction book (available on Apple.com if you lose it) because which slots you put the RAM in does matter.
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And yes, I know my math is wrong. The answer I wanted was $1,689. I figured it out right and then somehow typed it wrong. D’oh!
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I’m pretty sure it will work to some degree. You’ll need to have an external firewire hard drive as a video scratch disc and yeah, it might be kind of slow. But it will work. Don’t expect much in the way of real-time effects, but if you’re just cutting and doing a dissolve here and there it should get the job done well enough until you get back on a desktop machine.
Since you own it I suggest buying the hard drive and TRYING it at least. If you find that it’s too slow you don’t have to spend $2,800 for a new one. Go to Apple’s website and click on the “store” tab. Go to the red “SALE” tag in the lower right. Click on “Apple Certified.” That very first Macbook Pro there is $1,549. Get that and then go to Crucial.com. Spend another $140 buying 1 GB of RAM. Add it to what’s in there. Use that same firewire hard drive as a scratch disc and there ya’ go: for just $1,640 you’ll be flying with a fantastic system.
Just be warned that you need to upgrade to Final Cut 5.1 to use the new intel Macs. If you haven’t already that could cost more. See here for details:
https://www.apple.com/universal/crossgrade/
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My wife used to work in a University lab with those JVC decks. She says, first of all, they were lots of trouble when it came to playing nice with Final Cut. But she DOES seem to remember that you could capture VHS directly.
The problem, as Matte said, is that just getting the deck to talk to Final Cut Pro at all can be a challenge. But once you get the DV section to capture it SHOULD be possible to set the deck to do a “VHS-to-DV” dub and have it capture directly. Of course, that was a few years back, you may have a model that works differently. I make no promises, but looking through deck menus with a remote control is ALWAYS a good place to start with these kinds of issues.
As for the settings, you’re out of luck there. There are ways to lock users out of programs, but not out of particular PARTS of programs. Once you let a user into an application the system assumes they have the right to use everything in there.
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Was your old system not updated to the most recent version and now your new one is? There’s nothing special about the way Apple installs the OS.
As for the numbers:
1) You’re exporting to Compressor right out of Final Cut, right? That window is actually part of Final Cut. It usually stays behind the compressor window so you don’t usually see it. Sometimes it just pops forward for no reason and you do see it. But it’s always there somewhere.
2) and 3) Either the joy of reformatting has affected your perception or it does have something to do with an updated version number. I know that “more colorful bars” sure isn’t a setting you (or Apple) can change in the preferences.
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Focus on the audio first.
Of course, let the video stay attached to the audio, it will get edited too, but don’t worry about jump cuts, camera movement, or other video problems. Ignore all that for now.
You want the dialog to sound natural which may mean adding some space between clips or cutting out pauses or “uhms” within the dialog. Do whatever it takes to make everything SOUND right first.
Once you’re happy with that part, then go back and fix the video. Add B-roll, reaction shots, etc.
It’s a lot easier to fix video problems than audio problems so working this way is, in my mind, the most efficient.
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Drag it out to your desktop.
By “not locked” do you mean that you clicked it, hit Apple-i, and checked the ownership and permissions so that you have read and write permission?
If you’ve already done that, I suggest altering the file name. Add “.txt” to the end (or replace whatever extention is there already). It should change to a text document. Try erasing it again. If that doesn’t work, reset your computer and try it again.
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What Steve said is what you need to do, but after that your Mac should check the Apple servers once per week and tell you if there are any free updates.
If you want to manually check go to the Apple menu>Software Update.
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Yes, USB is unsuitable for any video project.
It has high peak speeds but firewire is more consistant. This means that USB will often give you far more bandwidth than you need but sometimes too little which results in choppy playback or dropped frames. Firewire was designed to maintain a fairly average rate the entire time.
If you’re just copying files the speeds will average out to about the same over time. But if you’re working with video it will lead to problems.
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So why would anyone opt for Apple’s pricey ram upgrades?
=============No one really knows. I think Jane Goodall studied these mysterious “Apple-RAM-buyers” for a few years but she never reached any conclusions.