$1199 iMac good for FCP HD editing?

[poisontwilight]

Hey all,

I'm planning on buying a Panasonic HVX200a and an iMac. I'm thinking about buying the $1199 imac but I'm afraid that the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT w/ 128MB gfx card won't be enough for editing 720p HD(I probably won't be editing 1080p). I'll be upgrading the RAM on the iMac, so not worried about that. Is there a lot of lag and dropped frames when editing HD video? Is that imac good enough or should I stretch my budget even more and go for the $1500 iMac?

Thank You all - any help is highly appreciated!

[tri3limited]

the more you spend, the more you get. In this case however, a speedier graphics card won't make much difference in Final Cut unless you've got plans for things like Motion, After Effects, Maya etc. (3D/motion graphics stuff).

I seriously recommend the 24" model though for video editing as you get the higher resolution which is an advantage when editing. Why not keep your eyes open for a refurb mac and get something a bit better for less.

[airjuggernaut]

It's more than enough.

The only advantage you would have with the higher end models is faster rendering/conversion times and if your going to do any 3D work with Motion the GPU's in the higher end models are more up for the job.

But honestly it's a fantastic machine.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[poisontwilight]

Thanks for the responses - Does the difference between 2.4ghz and 2.66ghz
matter much?

[iCheddar]

You should probably ask this question again in the video editing forum. What I can tell you is this, if you're planning on dropping the $5000 on the HVX, you shouldn't skimp on your editing rig.

2 reasons - For color accuracy, the iMac screen is not reliable enough,especially the 20" which is washed out and uses dithering to achieve 16.7 million colors

- Rendering, you'll find that you'll be tearing you hair out when it comes time to do renders, be it the final render or mock-renders in FCP.

Your best bet is to buy a low-end Mac Pro and a 23" Cinema Display...or perhaps even an Eizio if money allows.