[Steve To]

ok, looks like it’s the Dell 2405 (i’m in the Uk so got a keen price of 790pounds (apples 23″ cinema HD is 1049 pounds!) so that one’s sorted….

but still not sure if i should go for an upgraded video card? should i go for the Nvidia 6800 or X800XT over the installed card in a Dual 2.7? Will they offer me better performace in:

FCP5 RT performance?
Compressor MPEG2 encoding?
FCP5 rendering?

I;ve settled on 4GB ram but will spending upwards of 300pounds on one of these two gfx cards be money well spent in terms of performance in the above?

thanks again

Steve

[Steve To]

Thanks all 🙂

My local reseller (Edinburgh, UK) installs Hynix RAM PC3200, although i may spend the extra 20 pounds per chip to get Kingston RAM – is it worth it? The reseller swears by Hynix tho – lifetime warranty apparently?

Sorted then! 4GB and a shiny X800 XT it is!!

thanks all

Steve

[Steve To]

Thanks Graeme! one thing was to possibly speed up the rendering/performance of your superb film filters (when i get the mac it’ll be one of the first thing i purchase!) 🙂

BTW, what kind of performance can i expect for rendering for a basic film look? I guess RT will be out of the question? Can i get RT preview? Going to be buying a Dual 2.5 G5, 4gb ram, X800….

thanks

Anyone else agree/disagree with Graeme?!

Steve

[Steve To]

Thanks again to all, and in particular Enzo and Mitch, as you have all been superb in answering my questions and been surprisingly patient . After reading posts galore, I’m going for it!! G5 2.7 and FC Studio here i come!

I’ll figure out the MacDrive6 program to read/write my Mac OS drives on the PC, and still use my PC for MPEG2 encoding of the final Mac produced .mov (or .avi?) files. This will hopefully allow me to move onto the next project while the PC encodes away for me over the other side of the room! (hope it works!)

Thanks again and I’m off to email my Apple reseller…… (but i’m bound to be back at the second sign of trouble – at the first sign i’ll read the manual!)

Cheers

Steve

[Steve To]

ps…

https://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/

using FW Mac formatted drives…will MACDRIVE 6 do this? i could;

quickly export the project to avi(?) from FCP5 to my FW drive
connect the FW drive to PC
use procoder2 to encode MPG2
reconnect FW drive to Mac, load up MPG2 into DVD Studio and voila!

I’m sure there’s something i’ve forgotten but this may give me the best of both worlds?

I know this isn’t the dream workflow i’ve been looking at, but does get me the superb FCP, Motion2, LiveType, Sountrack Pro, DVD Studio functionality that I’m convinced are superb, whilst still being able to use my existing PC for high quality and fast MPEG2
encoding?

Anyone?

[Steve To]

Enzo (and others)

any ideas on how to integrate FCP editing and Procoder MPEG2 encoding? Then i could just edit on the Mac and punt the MPEG2 encoding off to the dusty PC in the corner, and get on with the next project while it encodes. Then get the FW drive back and author the DVD in DVD studio? (will the FW drive be readble by pc and mac?)

Thanks

Steve

[Steve To]

Thanks Walter

Freat forum btw – excellent responses and more info and more detail than Apple’s own discussion groups!

Steve

[Steve To]

Hi Mitch,

it’s not so much that Canopus is perfect – far from it and the weekly patches are a royal pain in the….

I am trying to decide on a new HDV edit system and want to make a decision based on an easier workflow which i think the Mac will give me with FC Studio. I’m used to using one program to edit, one to title, one to export and one to author DVD. This is the same as Mac land but with my current PC system none of the programs communicate with each other, so making changes is a time consuming affair. The workflow just isn’t there. Also i seem to get a better bang per buck with G5/FCP route for the same performance and without having to use an intermediate codec like the Canopus option.

If i didn’t use Slow Motion then it’s a very easy decision, but i do and i need to make sure this aspect os covered before i do make the switch.

Can anyone recommedn a site or info on how to get the performance and quality out of compressor2 as this seems to be abig bone of contention right now with FCP5.

Thanks

Steve

[Steve To]

also, has anyone got any opinions on the miglia dual disk?

i guess i don’t need a whole Terrabyte, so a good ols 2 disk RAID 500GB would suffice just now…

https://www.miglia.com/products/storage/dualdisk/index.html

anyone used or tried this? want to know if its likely to be as good as the Lacie Biggest Disk 800 Walter reviewed?

TIA

[Steve To]

thanks Walter, i did read yoru review and guess i;m just trying to decide on SATA internal or an external FW800 like this. I already have 4 250GB Lacie FW800 D2 disks, but guess i would need the addition of RAID to really make RT HDV fly, hence the decision to make……

I guess it’s an Internal/External/Cost decision in the end so long as both options will give comparable speeds?!

thanks again
steve