Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

timr62

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 22, 2009
4
0
1)How much ram do I need?
2)What kind of video card?
3)The G5 has Tiger installed now. Do I need to upgrade?
4) Any other suggestions?

Thank You
 
RAM - Generally, the minimum amount of RAM for HD media is 4GB, but like with every other machine - the more you feed it, the better.

Video Card - Any one on the G5 will do, but generally the Quadro worked the best.

OS - Tiger will work just fine unless you want to shell out $129.00 for Lepord.

Any other thoughts?
Okay, for HD video, what codecs will you be working in? ProRes? HDV? Uncompressed?
Are you planning on getting a scratch disc?
What programs do you intend to do your editing with?

All of these have to be taken into consideration before you really can discern your computer needs. The G5 will work dandy (getting one soon for the same purpose), but some things require an arsetonne of speed. Like uncompressed 1080 - ~230 MB/sec. External enclosure with speedy connection is necessary, and generally (not always) a RAID or expansion card. You could cdo internal RAID at the cost of your optical drive, but... meh... I wouldn't do it.
 
1)How much ram do I need?
2)What kind of video card?
3)The G5 has Tiger installed now. Do I need to upgrade?
4) Any other suggestions?

Thank You

1. As much as you can afford.
2. Barely matters for FCP, but honestly I don't know much abotu G5 video options.
3. I would personally, but it's subjective.
4. Depending on how much you're paying for the machine, you might be better off buying an Intel iMac or something. That having been said, you're going to want a high speed HDD besides your boot drive… the rest depends on a lot of other crap such as codecs, software, etc
 
Sorry I don't have an HD Video camera yet.

I have never edited HD video. I am getting the computer soon and I was hoping to be able to edit movies for personal use. I wanted to get an HD movie camera after I get the computer. So I don't know anything about codecs? Will this be explained by the type of camera I get? I will get a second HDD. Is the SATA the right one? Anyway, I wasn't doing anything other than for personal use. I wanted to be able to watch my movies on my HD TV. I thought I would be able to get an adapter or an HDMI card to run a cable from the computer to the TV?
 
Ah, okay. Well, it not like I can help a ton more, but for your use, it seems to me that whatever in the tower should be fine when you get it (except for RAM; I'll repeat the general mantra, more is better) - I don't know about OSX and playing DRM media, though. AND ANOTHER THING! It shouldn't really matter, but HDMI is basically DVI with an audio channel. If you intend on running another monitor (besides your television) at a higher rez then 1900x1080, you may have to worry about which DVI port is single-link and which is dual-link. HDMI is single link (I think), but anything higher requires dual-link.

I THINK! Can somebody affirm me on this?

Anyways, for your second drive, since you aren't worried about RAID, research on your hard drives to find a big one with a good write speed.
 
Using the HD Tv as my monitor.

Thanks a lot. I'll check on hard drives.
 
Just my experience

Hi Timr62,

I have used a dual G5 2.5 for video-editing, both HD and normal. I recently bougth a mini for my children and to my big surprise found that it was faster than my powermac for editing! Based on this, I would at least consider a new mac over a used one.

regards,

Jeroen Hoekstra
 
Which Mini? was it HD Editing.

Which Mac Mini did you use and was it HD video editing? How was your mini configured?

Thanks, Tim
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.