[Michael Bloodgood]

Has anyone actually used non-ECC RAM in this systems. If my memory is correct, the Xeon 5300 series chipset only works with FB-ECC. This style of ECC does not diminish performance like the ECC of before. Now that I think of it, I don’t think that there is non-ECC fully buffered RAM.

[Michael Bloodgood]

Get the 1884. It has more industry standard plugin options plus 5.1 monitoring and word clock. I got mine for $720 from a music store that sells used equipment on ebay. Tascam gear is like a Mac, refurbs are an excellent value.

[Michael Bloodgood]

I’m not saying that Core Animation is gay but it would just be lame if FCP was dependent on it.

[Michael Bloodgood]

Let us not forget that Tiger is “mostly 64 bit” in an analogy to “He is only ‘mostly dead'”
The only major components of Tiger that are currently not 64 bit are User interface, CocoaLib (however if the code were written in 64 bit Cocoa, then it would run as a 64 bit app), CarbonLib, and ADLib. These are all user level components and about half of FCP’s components are below the user level. The new OS would remove the bottleneck of converting to 32 bit for the user level.

All that to say that FCP 6 is not dependent on 64 bit processes under Leopard although it could possibly be dependent on something else which would suck. (something gay like Core Animation)

[Michael Bloodgood]

Just about anything made in the last four years or so will “do” everything that final cut can dish out provided it is equipped properly. You can’t do uncompressed HD without a RAID array and an acceleration card. I don’t care if it is an eight core Intel or a 1.6GHz G5, it’s just a fact of life.

I think the word speed gets tossed around here quite a bit and really speed can mean a whole lot of things to different people. Speed to editers, however, means two things-RT and render times. Every system has a RT threshold, basically the amount of effects that can be handled before having to render out. Faster sytems have a higher threshold. Faster systems will also render faster when the threshold is exceeded.

For right now and your needs, HDV, a G5 system will be just fine but remember the old adage, “What is fine today won’t neccessarily be fine tommorrow.” Newer systems have a longer planned obselensce time period. For your needs, get a G5 with at least the PCIe bus interface, you’ll be able to do more with it later. A 2GHz system can be either-or between a third gen PCI express and a second gen PCI-X, be sure to ask.

[Michael Bloodgood]

Now that the Mac Pro is Intel based, I would disagree that it is more difficult to change the processor. Before, you couldn’t even find a different proc for your system. Now it’s apart of a standardized system. And right now, you’ll be paying the premium for quad core chips since Apple is currently the only one offering that chip (Xeon 3365 3.0GHz). Wait eight months and these chips (which are estimated to retail for about 18) will be down to about 800, a far more manageable price or you could upgrade. The current chipset will probably be good for upgrades for at least 18 months according to Intel’s website. On the note if the power supply can handle it, the 750 watt power supply placed in the Mac Pros is more than sufficient. It will run hotter but shouldn’t be too bad.

On the note of RAM, I would say, go with the Apple RAM since it has dropped down to competitive prices (I place Apple RAM on par with Crucial or Corsair, all of which use Samsung chips) and you get it covered by that nice Apple, brown-nose warranty. In our business, every second counts.

[Michael Bloodgood]

1. OSX Tiger PowerPC
2. OSX Tiger Intel
3. OSX Server Tiger PowerPC
4. OSX Server Intel

First, it is OS X Tiger UB and OS X Tiger Server UB It works on both systems yet the updates are for different computers because the application ADlib support is designed for either PowerPC or Intel.

Second, you only named a quarter of the versions of Vista. Those are all the versions that mere mortals like us can afford. There are several server and enterprise versions of Vista (single and mutiple license) that can run up to thousands of dollars for a single license! And it still can’t touch what a certain free operating system can do.

[Michael Bloodgood]

Graphic cards use active-matrix and floating-point operation processing which basically translates to they are only used for realtime operations like editing and the FX plugins, during render, that actually use the firmware built into the card to process the data.

That being said, if you use an aquisition card, like Kona, then that setup is far faster in the graphics processing than any other card that you can throw in there. However, the stock card is unable to drive two 30″ screens so it really depends on your integration. If there are a good number of effects in your projects, then the 1900 or the FX are really worth it. Otherwise, render times really won’t be affected.

Michael Bloodgood
Senior Editor, OTD Productions

Ah yes, the laser fields