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$9,G'S to spend on a editing system can u help

I would very strongly avoid spending the full 9 grand if you are not fully clear how the system will match your employer's needs.

Spend maybe 5 or 6 G now, deliver the system, and look for where it doesn't match the actual use (which could be quite different from the stated intended use).

Maybe it needs an extra 30'' monitor, or extra HD space, or a HDTV capture card or a fibrechannel card to deal with massive RAID or something else.

You can then spend your reserve on adding the vital missing component.

Someone said FCP can only address 2.5 GB - I would check if this is true. If it is true, then buying 8GB now is the height of folly. RAM prices will halve in a year. Buy 2x2GB now, and more RAM when FCP can address it, not before.

Is your previous experience with PC edit stations? If you tell us, we can tailor our advice. A lot of things are the same actually :)
 
Maybe its just me but I could never see my self putting 9 grand towards and FCP editing station... I always have more problems using FCP than Avid... though I know I know (before I am flamed) FCP is amazing, orgasmic, wonderful...
 
Ok. First, dont buy the ram from apple.
Second, the Ati X1900 is enough.
What kind of video are you editing, in wich format?
If it is HD of any kind, you need to get a capture/monitoring card, like the Kona 3. And maybe a External real HD monitor (Sonyh Luma, or Panasonic) to be able to do true color correction and real state HD monitoring (apple HD cinema display is not a way to go for color correction)
The kona 3 is the best card right now (better than Decklink)
So, save 3k for the kona, and maybe 2k more for the HD monitor.
So, yo have 4k for your setup.
I would wait for the new 8-core Xeon, they are around the corner.
If not, get the stock Mac Pro with the radeon X1900, and get the ram from smalldog or OWC, and the harddrives to.
Thats my 2cents
 
You can save quite a bit buying your RAM at Macsales.come or datamem.com, you just have to make sure that you select Mac Pro compatible RAM with the oversized heat sinks.

As mentioned above, NewEgg.com generally has the best prices on hard drives.

I strongly recommend holding off just a bit longer until the 8 core machines
are released along with OS X 10.5 Leopard.

That may not be until spring, but you will be able to compare the new release
against the current Mac Pro and then decide between saving on the current model or going for the new machines.

You have not mentioned any other gear that you might require, like interfaces for audio, mixing consoles, nearfield monitors etc.

It's not clear if you also require DAW software or if you're primarily editing film.

I also recommend checking out the forums at gearslutz.com for
a wealth of information from professional engineers and editors.
 
To those of you recommending the Quadro, just stop, please.

the Quadro 4500 is a rebadged Geforce 7800GTX, which a Radeon X1900XT outruns... the Quadro gets by on 'LOOK HOW WORKSTATION CLASS I AM', not on it's actual merits.

the X1900XT is the best choice of gpu for a Mac Pro as a result, and is actually slightly more capable in addition to being faster (whether that functionality is exposed under MacOS is another question, but still.)

Specifications I'd recommend (sans software and monitor, with $9k to spend)

* Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
* 8GB (8 x 1GB)
* 750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
* One 16x SuperDrive
* Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
* Mac OS X - U.S. English
* AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro/Power Mac (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll


Subtotal $8,491.00

Estimated Ship:
2-4 business days
Free Shipping


Of course, you might want the wifi/bluetooth, the second superdrive is both damned expensive and also not really that handy for an editing box. IMO.
 
Rob587 said:
this post seems really odd.. am I the only one that thinks so? "9 G's" seems like a lot for someone that doesnt seem to know what theyre talking about. If someone had 9 grand they could afford to spend on a computer, wouldnt they be sophisticated enough to make sensical posts?

I think all the mac fans in here are blinded by their ability to reccomend 9 grand worth of apple product.. lol
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly...
 
That would be a dream if my company gives me $9000 to buy a Mac instead of $600 to buy a Dell... :mad:
 
Apple themselves recommend:
Apple.com said:
Recommended Mac Pro Film and Video Workstation

* Two 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
* 4GB 667MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM ECC memory
* ATI Radeon X1900 XT graphics card
* Four 500GB SATA 3Gb/s hard drives
* 16x SuperDrive
Click to expand...

Which only comes to $6291, I'd upgrade the hard drives to 750GB each which brings you up to $7091.
 
If this is a business system, you want it covered for service and FAST. Buying the RAM from Apple is wiser if it is going to get the whole system covered under warranty. If you are editing and this thing goes down due to hardware, you want it fixed and fast. You will want to be bumped to the head of the queue.
 
Danteinferno said:
are there better video cards that i should look into maybe other than what mac offer's on the site. I dont mind spending up to another $1,000 on a video card if i have to.


but im confused reg: the video card. Im reading from other mac sites that a higher end card is no that nessesary if im going with the 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Click to expand...

This is where it would help if you told us more about your editing project. The advice you are getting is not worth much if you don't fill in some more details

1) What format is the media. Is the Mini-DV. HD video (1080i, ???) or is this digitized 35mm film done at 4k.

Next question: How much media. Are you cutting five hours of footage down to a 20 minute show? is this for a feature. How many hours of material do you need to be able to keep on-line.

What about an Archive? What do you do with material you don't need right away but you don't want to trash. Archives can get huge over time. Copy back to tape? Store in a huge RAID system

Biggest question: How many people are involved in the project: Will more than one person be working with the material at the same time.

Will you be dioing any three-D work. Spinning titles. How about mats and compositing. Any of the mats on moving surfaces? Or is this just straight cuts

Depending on how you answer the above 9K could be a VERY limited budget. Right off the bat you are going to need FCP. and a Mac Pro. the rest of the budget will have to go to RAM and storage. Storage. The cheapest way to go is with interal drives. Use one for the system and software and stuff you need to keep for months. Then configure the other three drives as a stripped array. use this as temporary working storage.

You will need some external Firewire-800 drives for backups. Don't skip on backups. Drives fail. the more drives you own the more drive failures you will deal with. A guy with a PC that has one drive will have to deal with a failed drive every 3 to 4 years on averages. A guy with 8 drives (that's you) should expect 8 failures in the same time frame or about one every six months. You do NOT want to miss a deadline do to a drive failure.
do NOT go light on backup hardware.

After FCP and the Mac Pro I'd buy internal disks then one big external firewire800 G-Tech storage system then use the leftover money to fill in RAM but make sure you have at least 4GB of RAM. More is better but not if you have to go light on disk storage and backup storage Remember the golden rule to prevent data loss: data must live in three places on three different physical media in two differnt goegraphical locations If your data is 500GB this becomes expensive but loosing data is even more expensive. Yiou need two backup devices. One to leave connected and one you can disconnect and move to some other location.

A for the video card, if doing 3D and lots of compositing then upgrade the card. But for normal stuff it will not help and the money is better spent on another g-tech raid box.



I'm assuming here that you are doing short segments, not feature lenght stuff and it is HD video.
 
Eraserhead said:
Apple themselves recommend:


Which only comes to $6291, I'd upgrade the hard drives to 750GB each which brings you up to $7091.
Click to expand...

I doubt he really needs that much internal storage. the 500GB drives give better bang per buck. Three 500GB drives in a RAID zero config will give enough workspace for several TV shows. Take the extra $800 and spend it on a Terabyte sized extrnal drive box. He needs backup more than he needs the extra work space.

With a larger budget I'd go with a fiber channel storage array in a RAID 5+1 config but that alone would more than blow is $9K budget.
 
OK, since you have the decks already (DV), it doesn't sound like you need a whole lot. Still, you need to list what you DO have and what your workflow will be (footage format, deliverable format, etc.). Seems a bit strange that if you are an editor you know very little about this...

Needless to say, I would contact a vendor. They can configure a system which will meet your company's needs. Post houses I've worked at have gone straight to Apple to configure their suites as well as Promax. There are plenty of others out there and you should have some locally to work with.

Don't buy all that 'max out the ram' and this and that. At one post house I work at we have 4 FCP suites running Dual 2.7 G5's with 2GB Ram running on an xSAN. Formats include everything from HD to DV. No problems. Sometimes real-world experience is more telling than perceived ideas.
 
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