Amarture video/animation looking for right hardware

[midnightvii]

currently we have an Refurbish 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo We invested over 2500.- of software so far, and have been working an animation film since we got it.

Right now, the animation is getting more polish and complex with layers. iMac is froze up often. We use a lot of Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and eventually are planning to buy Final Cut. We like to get an out put of 3-6 mins quicktime w/o compression and sound, minimum of 720P resolution.

Which Mac is suitable to what I am trying accomplish. + 3-5 years future proof (we are going to invest on sound recording too.) Thank you for all help in advance.

 

[mBox]

currently we have an Refurbish 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo We invested over 2500.- of software so far, and have been working an animation film since we got it.

Right now, the animation is getting more polish and complex with layers. iMac is froze up often. We use a lot of Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and eventually are planning to buy Final Cut. We like to get an out put of 3-6 mins quicktime w/o compression and sound, minimum of 720P resolution.

Which Mac is suitable to what I am trying accomplish. + 3-5 years future proof (we are going to invest on sound recording too.) Thank you for all help in advance.

I work with all of the above as well as Maya. Were mostly in HD res which is 1920x1080.
Honestly you just need more RAM and a better display card.
Sadly the iMac doesnt fare well with display options.
When you say freezing exactly where does it freeze?
There are a lot of factors when After Effects freezes up from bad vector files (Illustrator) to Fonts.
On the FCP side it could be anything from hardware to corrupt QT files.

 

[midnightvii]

I work with all of the above as well as Maya. Were mostly in HD res which is 1920x1080.
Honestly you just need more RAM and a better display card.
Sadly the iMac doesnt fare well with display options.
When you say freezing exactly where does it freeze?
There are a lot of factors when After Effects freezes up from bad vector files (Illustrator) to Fonts.
On the FCP side it could be anything from hardware to corrupt QT files.

I can only have the maximum 4 gigs of ram... It froze when I have complex brush line in Illustrator and a lots of layer. Also, more than 30 layers in After Effects. Are you about to render 3-5 mins animation to QT uncompressed format? I haven't try yet since I don't have all scenes together but very curious if it is capable. O also I don't have FCP install onto my iMac yet. Just waiting for the time that I need it. $$$

 

[mBox]

I can only have the maximum 4 gigs of ram... It froze when I have complex brush line in Illustrator and a lots of layer. Also, more than 30 layers in After Effects. Are you about to render 3-5 mins animation to QT uncompressed format? I haven't try yet since I don't have all scenes together but very curious if it is capable. O also I don't have FCP install onto my iMac yet. Just waiting for the time that I need it. $$$

To be honest rendering to QT Uncompressed takes less computer resources than any compression setting. Since your outputting to no compression it spits out frames to QT/single files on hard-drive. The only bad thing is the files are huge.
We render all our files to QT Uncompressed. Then use MainConcept MPEG Encoder to convert for final output.
Lately we've been rendering straight to MPEG and it seems to shave the total workflow. however we'd have to buy that Encoder for every After Effects box.

 

[midnightvii]

To be honest rendering to QT Uncompressed takes less computer resources than any compression setting. Since your outputting to no compression it spits out frames to QT/single files on hard-drive. The only bad thing is the files are huge.
We render all our files to QT Uncompressed. Then use MainConcept MPEG Encoder to convert for final output.
Lately we've been rendering straight to MPEG and it seems to shave the total workflow. however we'd have to buy that Encoder for every After Effects box.

Thank you, mBox. I am going to stick with my iMac until it shows some sign of weakness. As long as it is capable I think I am okay. Reason I am specifically asking for uncompress QT format is because i am requested to do so. But I remembered back at Calarts I had difficult time play back on the mac pro there! So I assumed that with an iMac I might not be able to do it? or no way to test to see if it work. Thanks again.

 

[mBox]

Thank you, mBox. I am going to stick with my iMac until it shows some sign of weakness. As long as it is capable I think I am okay. Reason I am specifically asking for uncompress QT format is because i am requested to do so. But I remembered back at Calarts I had difficult time play back on the mac pro there! So I assumed that with an iMac I might not be able to do it? or no way to test to see if it work. Thanks again.

Anyone that asks for the QT Uncompressed usually needs it for their own system. They want that so that it stays true to its highest quality. But in the end it gets chewed up by MPEG, web, crappy video systems and television.
We use Avid here for Broadcast and even at times it loses some quality.
Its always good to start with the best then brought down to something uggh.
No machine here can play a 30sec spot at QT Uncompressed.
We have a few Mac Pros with 8 Core and 16GB RAM plus BOXX Windows system with same config.
Render it to QT MPG4 or H.264 for playback. Just dont cringe when you see the images crunch up

 

[Clarkk]

Anyone that asks for the QT Uncompressed usually needs it for their own system. They want that so that it stays true to its highest quality. But in the end it gets chewed up by MPEG, web, crappy video systems and television.
We use Avid here for Broadcast and even at times it loses some quality.
Its always good to start with the best then brought down to something uggh.
No machine here can play a 30sec spot at QT Uncompressed.
We have a few Mac Pros with 8 Core and 16GB RAM plus BOXX Windows system with same config.
Render it to QT MPG4 or H.264 for playback. Just dont cringe when you see the images crunch up

It would be great if there would be more reliable companies, that can provide some promotion by making animation videos about companies.