[Wes Browning]

Excellent – thanks for the tips!

[Wes Browning]

This sounds like a workable solution for certain scenarios. What I enjoy most about premiere is the “replace with after effects composition” option, which allows me to work quickly within the both programs and not spend a lot of time managing media, creating subclips, exporting, etc. I usually work with sequences less than 10 minutes, so even if these grow to huge sizes, that’s okay. I’m just wondering if there’s a way to neatly cleanup a project that includes smaller trimmed files, etc. This might just be a dream option, and I just need to adopt a more thoughtful workflow (such as using your subclip idea).

[Wes Browning]

I should add that the 16gb RAM is what’s key to my Premiere and After Effects speed. I got the 16gb RAM for $100, but you could go as high as 32gb RAM if you’re willing to shell out around $500.

[Wes Browning]

Hi Roger-

I ended up with the 27-inch (Mid 2011) 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7. It’s been a great machine for light to medium After Effects use. And of course Premiere screams with this setup.

I didn’t upgrade the hard disk because the firmware Apple installs to it is impossible to put on other hard disks. That firmware is what controls the iMac fans. I’m told if you’re okay with the fans running all the time, which sounds like a jet engine, then upgrade the hard disk to whatever you need. I opted for an external eSata/Thunderbolt RAID (see below) instead.

Here’s my setup…

BASIC CONFIGURATION
27-inch, Mid 2011 iMac
Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB (the 2gb upgrade that Apple offers)

DRIVES
System/Applications: 240 GB OCZ-VERTEX3 SSD
Render/File Exports: Internal Seagate Barracuda 7200 SATA 3Gb/s 1TB Hard Drive (Apple installed)
Media Source Files: OWC Mercury Elite Pro RAID with 2 Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 7200RPM 3.5″ Sata Hard Drives connected via eSata to Thunderbolt

THUNDERBOLT ADAPTER
Sonnet Echo Expresscard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter with Sonnet Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34 eSata card (https://bit.ly/zKfJQA and https://bit.ly/zKfJQA)

My thunderbolt RAID adapter setup gets me satisfactory results. I’m getting write speeds of 60 MB/s and read speeds of 115 of MB/s. By comparison, my internal 1TB hard drive mentioned above is getting write speeds of 80 MB/s and read speeds of 107 MB/s.

Hope this helps!

[Wes Browning]

ClipWrap won’t modify or require you to move your folder structure. What it will do is take all the metadata (including timecode) and create a new file with all that data. The resulting file is a Quicktime (.mov) file. You can take those files into FCP and transcode them there if you like, or you might find it useful to go straight from the AF100’s folder system and transcode it to ProRes within ClipWrap.

[Wes Browning]

I’m considering moving to ClipWrap as a big part of my workflow. I’ve used it to rewrap the MTS files/folders and it seems to keep everything intact. And yes, I do have many spanning clips, as much of my work involves long interviews without breaks. It seems that ClipWrap outputs these wrapped files as H264 Quicktime files, which are great for me since they offer portability (ie. getting rid of the AF100 folder nightmare). This also allows me to keep these wrapped H264 files as part of my footage library and convert to ProRes 422 LT as I need them for projects. Any reason why wrapping them in ClipWrap, then later converting those wrapped files to ProRes 422 LT would throw up any red flags concerning quality loss?

[Wes Browning]

After discussions with my local Apple authorized service center, I came to the conclusion that the best configuration I could get in my iMac was a 240gb internal SSD and a 1tb internal SATA HDD drive.

The service center wouldn’t do two SSD drives since it wasn’t a supported configuration. They also wouldn’t upgrade the 1tb drive to a 3tb drive without an Apple hard drive. Since Apple upgrades are twice, sometimes three times more than buying the parts off the shelf, I decided to keep the configuration stated above. They could upgrade the HDD, but doing so would result in disabling the fan control embedded in the Apple’s HDD firmware. That meant the fan would run all the time, which would get annoying after a while.

With the above system, I’m adding a 4tb RAID-0 external drive connected by an eSata/Thunderbolt adapter from Sonnet (https://bit.ly/tQ7eSB). It seems this will give my external drive speeds between 1.5Gbps and 2.5Gbps. I’m not sure how this configuration will work since there’s no documentation on this setup, but will know when I do some speed tests.

With this setup, I plan on using these drives as follows…
– SSD: Operating System & Programs
– Internal 1 TB: Previews, Media Cache, Exports
– External 4 TB RAID: Media, Projects

[Wes Browning]

I’m looking at the FS100 for sure. I notice that it out performs the AF100 in low light, which is really important to me. However, as a point of comparison, how much better is the AF100 in low light vs the EX1?

[Wes Browning]

Great – thanks for the advice! I think I have all I need now to make an informed decision.

[Wes Browning]

Thanks Steve for the link. Lots of good info.

I fully expect it to be a a major switch, and taking my photography knowledge in to this is part of why I want to make the switch. With my current setup, I’m just not getting the look I really want.

I think I may hold off until the Canon line sees another update. Any thoughts on how the T3i would compare to the 5D? I know its a consumer model, but what are the major differences?

I think I could probably work around the 12 minute limitation just by altering my habits. If I had to do an hour interview, I could probably stop/start between each question. Would that sort of activity over an hour overheat it? Could I use an external unit to record, rather than utilizing the on-board memory?

Lastly, is there a configuration that works well for the run & gun operator? In some cases, I really just need to pull out the camera quick and start filming. However, I don’t want to be fiddling with lots of add-ons.