Final Cut Studio

[Intel Inside]

Hi everyone,

i want to run final cut studio on an iMac. The specs of it are:-

2.4GHz
1GB RAM
250GB HDD
Bought Sept. '08

will i be able to run final cut studio and all the optional content on my iMac?

Ps, I've just ordered 4GB of RAM to instal.

Edit:- forgot to ask, would i benefit from a second monitor, any recommendations?

 

[yoak]

It will run Final Cut fine, DVD studio Pro and compressor as well.
When it comes to Motion and Color I´m not so sure, they both put a lot of strain on the graphics card. What card is in your iMac?
I had the first 24" iMac with 256 GPU and I could use motion, but it didn´t run perfect. Dropped frames in playback etc

 

[Intel Inside]

Mine has the ATI Radeon HD 2400 with 128GB VRAM. So do you recommend that i use Final Cut Express until i can afford maybe a Mac Pro? or use Final Cut Pro on my iMac and live with it?

 

[yoak]

Hard to say. It depends a bit on what you will use most.
If you are mainly editing, using Final Cut, you will be ok on your iMac. If you want to do a lot of 3D stuff, you need a better machine.
With the price drop I think I advice you to just get FCS and skip express if you have the money.
I used my iMac for 2 years and it was only lately I got into a bit of graphics etc. It takes time to learn all this.
We got the MP for rendering speeds etc.
What footage will you edit? I presume nothing too heavy as you are starting out?
I edited HDV and XDCAM EX HD on mine without problems.

 

[Intel Inside]

Thanks for the replies, im editing HDV & standard def. stuff. at the moment i use adobe premiere at school, and ive used iMovie, but i want to use what they do in the "field". I think im going to use Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack and Color mostly. Do you recomend a second monitor fo color?

 

[Dr.Pants]

Thanks for the replies, im editing HDV & standard def. stuff. at the moment i use adobe premiere at school, and ive used iMovie, but i want to use what they do in the "field". I think im going to use Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack and Color mostly. Do you recomend a second monitor fo color?

Depends on how much you want to spend - cheap options is the Dell 2209WA, which should be coming back soon. Basically in a monitor for colour-accuracy, the very minimum is that it displays 8-bit colour nativly , which means *VA and IPS panels. TN panels are 6-bit native and dither for the rest of the colour gamut.

Personally I am going to pick up an NEC 2690WUXi for Color in a few months.

Also, what's the rez on your HDV tapes?

 

[Intel Inside]

Thanks, Dr. Pants for the advice, the res on my tapes is 1080i

 

[Dr.Pants]

Thanks, Dr. Pants for the advice, the res on my tapes is 1080i

No problem. Just curious on the HDV, is all.

Also, I have to second going for FCS and dropping FCE. IMO, having all the stuff means that it is a lot more fun to figure out how to use it, as compared to Express, which is a seriously cut-down version.

 

[Intel Inside]

No problem. Just curious on the HDV, is all.

Also, I have to second going for FCS and dropping FCE. IMO, having all the stuff means that it is a lot more fun to figure out how to use it, as compared to Express, which is a seriously cut-down version.

Thanks again Dr. Pants, I'm going to go for FCS, and i might get myself a new external HDD

 

[yoak]

A Firewire 800 external HD as a scratch disk is highly recommended. Keep FCS on your main disk.

 

[Intel Inside]

A Firewire 800 external HD as a scratch disk is highly recommended. Keep FCS on your main disk.

My Exact plan, already have a 320GB FW800 hooked up, but ive filled it up fairly quickly, so im looking at one of those 2TB Western Digitals