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HD Video Editing: faster CPU? or more cores?

eoblaed

eoblaed

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 21, 2010
3,127
3,301
Tired of editing HD video on my MBP. I love my MBP, but I need something that's tailored more for this kind of work.

I've configured a couple of Mac Pro's, but I'm not sure which configuration would be better:

One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”
or
Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (8 cores)

All other elements of these two configurations are identical: 8GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB, etc. They come in at almost the same price (the Westmere option is *slightly* more than the Nehalem option, but close enough for me).

Today, I do most of my editing in iMovie, but Final Cut is on the horizon.

Thoughts?
 
iMovie, FCP, Avid Media Composer and FCE don't take advantage of more cores, Adobe Premiere might though.

What kind of footage (XDCam, Red, P2, ...) do you edit?
 
For the time being, I'm still in the 'pro-sumer' space. I use a Panasonic HDC-TM700K -- allows me to be incredibly portable and get some pretty good quality footage pretty much anywhere.

I don't envision going to something like an XDCAM anytime soon -- not portable enough.
 
Go with a higher clock speed over more cores, especially if you're going to use Final Cut.

Of course this will change down the road, but for now that's the way to go.

Oh, and load up on RAM too.
 
spinnerlys said:
I do?

I left it in as an example, as I'm not that fluent with consumer formats.
Click to expand...

You edit RED and XDCAM with imovie? Are you out of your mind? Why waste the money on those cameras if you can't even edit it properly? And I'm not talking about a stringout I'm talking about a full professional edit.

And if you really do you need to step up and get out of the "fisher-price-my-first-NLE" stage because you are doing that stuff a disservice. And I can't believe you are saying "I'm not that fluent with consumer formats" when you use a consumer FREE NLE.

I have literally never once seen imovie even installed in any of the production houses I have worked at.
 
handsome pete said:
Go with a higher clock speed over more cores, especially if you're going to use Final Cut.

Of course this will change down the road, but for now that's the way to go.

Oh, and load up on RAM too.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I see 8GB as the absolute minimum. We'll have to see how much I can convince my wif, er, accountant to let me spend on RAM. ;)

iMovie's been a fun tool, but more and more I'm running into things I just can't do with it. I pretty much push it to its limit, which why I'm strongly considering making the leap to Final Cut.
 
advres said:
You edit RED and XDCAM with imovie? Are you out of your mind? Why waste the money on those cameras if you can't even edit it properly? And I'm not talking about a stringout I'm talking about a full professional edit.

And if you really do you need to step up and get out of the "fisher-price-my-first-NLE" stage because you are doing that stuff a disservice. And I can't believe you are saying "I'm not that fluent with consumer formats" when you use a consumer FREE NLE.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I forgot some kind of smiley, I guess this one is appropriate: ;)

I wouldn't even know, how to get RED or XDCam footage into iMovie.

I'm an Avid enthusiasts myself, sometimes dabbling with FCP when appropriate.

Sorry for the confusion.


eoblaed, consider FCE for a while, no need to get FCP just yet.
 
spinnerlys said:
Sorry, I forgot some kind of smiley, I guess this one is appropriate: ;)

I wouldn't even know, how to get RED or XDCam footage into iMovie.

I'm an Avid enthusiasts myself, sometimes dabbling with FCP when appropriate.

Sorry for the confusion.
Click to expand...

gotcha! :D
 
eoblaed said:
Yeah, I see 8GB as the absolute minimum. We'll have to see how much I can convince my wif, er, accountant to let me spend on RAM. ;)

iMovie's been a fun tool, but more and more I'm running into things I just can't do with it. I pretty much push it to its limit, which why I'm strongly considering making the leap to Final Cut.
Click to expand...

What kind of editing do you plan on doing and how intensive?

I only ask because I'd also look into the Adobe Creative Suite as an alternative to FCS. Premiere has come a long way and has even surpassed Final Cut in some people's eyes.

I'm not trying to be negative towards Final Cut either as I've been cutting on Final Cut exclusively for the past 6 years or so. I just think you get more bang for your buck with the Adobe package right now.
 
handsome pete said:
What kind of editing do you plan on doing and how intensive?

I only ask because I'd also look into the Adobe Creative Suite as an alternative to FCS. Premiere has come a long way and has even surpassed Final Cut in some people's eyes.

I'm not trying to be negative towards Final Cut either as I've been cutting on Final Cut exclusively for the past 6 years or so. I just think you get more bang for your buck with the Adobe package right now.
Click to expand...

Sadly, I kind of agree. If the industry around here wasn't so deeply invested in FCP and AVID I would certainly start working with Premiere. But alas, due to workflow, backwards compatibility and communication with other companies I have to stick with FCP.
 
advres said:
Sadly, I kind of agree. If the industry around here wasn't so deeply invested in FCP and AVID I would certainly start working with Premiere. But alas, due to workflow, backwards compatibility and communication with other companies I have to stick with FCP.
Click to expand...

Well, because of where I work, I get a killer deal on FC (E or P) that I'd be silly to pass up.
 
Having more cores saves you time when encoding (i.e. with the Apple Compressor app included with Final Cut Studio). I work with a great deal of RED media on a daily basis, so having an 8-core over a 4-core definitely has its advantages in my workflow (which involves tons of batch transcoding).

But as for actual cutting within FCP, there's no appreciable difference between a 4-core and 8-core and thus higher clock speed would be more useful. For that reason, a lot of people have been eyeing the 3.33GHz 6-core option because it's a good balance between clock speed and number of cores. The only real tradeoff is that the 8- and 12-core models have 8 DIMM sockets instead of the 4 you get with 4/6-core models.
 
advres said:
You edit RED and XDCAM with imovie? Are you out of your mind? Why waste the money on those cameras if you can't even edit it properly? And I'm not talking about a stringout I'm talking about a full professional edit.

And if you really do you need to step up and get out of the "fisher-price-my-first-NLE" stage because you are doing that stuff a disservice. And I can't believe you are saying "I'm not that fluent with consumer formats" when you use a consumer FREE NLE.

I have literally never once seen imovie even installed in any of the production houses I have worked at.
Click to expand...

Having said that, it does a quick slideshow .mov file. Chuck the stills in imovie, export as a slideshow.

I havent really ever figured out how to edit with imovie, because ive never really bothrered with 'it came with the com' editing software - i started out with premiere pro 6.5 in 2002, then Avid, and now FCP - though have recently got premiere cs5
 
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