G5 ports failed, and desperate to produce...HELP!

Hi, all -

New to the forum and need some advice from the video editors out there...

I have over 20 videos posted on my Youtube channel. Most were produced with cyberlink powerdirector 8, and all were done on older PC's that could barely handle the editing process.

My channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/lboiv001?feature=mhee

Now, I recently bought a G5 so I could take the next step up for more serious production, and I aim to use imovie to warm up, and eventually Photoshop CS4 when I can afford it, but I knew I needed a Mac to get serious (yes, I know I shouldn't have gone to the second hand market, but I am desperate to at least get some starting experience with the Mac world after many years of only PC use).

The problem is that this G5 has rear ports that only occasionally read my External HD, which has all my raw vids and pics that I work from, and after following all the tips I could gather on the forums, I took it to a Mac tech who told me that this is all too common with power macs (and basically unfixable) and that the best thing to do would be to get a better machine, and I fear, with great despair, that he may be right.

Is there any hope? It will be many months before I can save enough for a new machine, and even then it will probably be a $1000 or under budget. What's the best intel mac I can get for that price? Do I have any other possible choice?


Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated, and I thank any benevolent gurus who deem to help me up the ladder to the true Mac world.

Thank you greatly in advance.

thekev said:

I hope you didn't spend too much on the G5. Those things are worth very little used these days. A mac isn't necessary unless you want to use Mac specific software. The G5 can only run older versions of such software. It's possible that you won't even be able to deal with newer file formats. In my opinion a PC would be a better option than a G5. With the G5 anything you use from PCI hardware to software would be from a totally different era. I'm not sure how that is superior to PC versions of newer software generations.

Click to expand...

I only spent $100, but there is a lot more value in it considering the pre-installed software, so I felt I really couldn't go wrong..... I was basically just trying to break in to the Mac world and learn a little with an older system, see how much of my needs were met, then see what the next upgrade would be.

I have seen what you mean about working with some formats... some of my older videos won't open with even the latest upgrade of Quicktime (not exactly sure why, since the MOV vids are not that new, and some DO work, though your response seems to be right on target and seems to answer the question) and I have seen the need for an upgrade since my original post.

Do you think that this imac
http://gizrush.net/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=41

....would have enough power to smoothly edit gopro2 videos and/or work with protools? If not, what minimum model specs would you recommend?

Thanks for the reply

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justperry said:

Too little information here.

Which ports do you use, USB, Firewire?
Are your external Disks bus powered or externally powered?
How are the externals formatted?

For instance, if you use an external USB bus powered it is possible it draws too much power and need a Y-USB cable for it to work.

The OS can also be a point of troubles, it's easy for Apple to say it's old and there are many problems but if these problems are intermittent than it is more likely to have another cause than HW on the G5 side.

Click to expand...

The Seagate Freeagent HD is non-firewire and bus powered, and using a multi port powered USB hub (so far) seems to have that particular issue.

I was told by the sales agent (Yikes!) that I should be able to work with the HD on both Macs and PCs. Was that foolish? Should I have formatted the HD for a Mac setup?

I'm really pleased so far that this $100 Mac is outperforming my equivalent era PC, but it still skips a small tad with Gopro footage, whereas I could barely make the vid frames move with the PC...... I think I am a lot closer to- but just shy of the hardware spec I need to get to smoothly edit music/video projects.

Is there desktop Mac model you would recommend that I could get for under $1k?