iMac i7 and Premiere Pro CS5

[igetcha69]

hi all,

just wondering if some of you guys could possibly give me some advise please:-

i own a small video production company and use Premiere Pro CS5 and After Effects CS5 for my editing. i currently use a self built windows PC (dedicated solely for editing) with the following spec and everything renders very nicely and i can happily edit many layers of AVCHD footage in real time, even with effects, transitions etc etc added

Windows 7 (64)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 285
i7 860 Quad Core Processor 280 Ghz
16 Gig memory
3 separate HDD - 2TB each



i currently own an iPhone, iPad etc but have always been apprehensive about buying a Mac due to the different operating system and all my current software being windows.
but last week i fancied treating myself to something a little different and purchased a 13 inch Macbook Air........and I've been very impressed!

i love how simple they are to use and especially how smooth everything operates. in fact I'm so impressed that I'm now considering changing my editing PC to a iMac. now i know that as an editor the Mac Pro is the obvious better choice over the iMac.......but i just love the look of the iMac, its space saving capabilities and the screen quality is amazing


here is the spec of what I'm considering:-

3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 4x4GB (i will purchase the memory elsewhere though to save on cost!)
1TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5
Magic Trackpad
Apple Wireless Keyboard (British) & User's Guide (English)


now when i compare that spec to my current PC's spec then the iMac looks pretty good on paper..........however, i have one major concern

the iMac comes with a pretty good graphics card, but its not compatible with the Mercury Playback engine that is a very important feature of Premiere Pro

when using the Mercury Playback engine i can place layer upon layer of footage on top of each each to create a video wall, load them all up with a ton of effects and it will still play back in real time without any stutters etc (at full resolution too i should add)
but if i do the exact same thing without the Mercury Playback engine kicking in then my PC struggles terribly, lol

however, i rarely produce such videos that are so intensive.....so that was more of just an example of the difference between using the Mercury Playback engine and not using it.......but even the more simple projects still slow down quite badly when not using the Mercury feature


okay, so to basically try and cut a long story short.........do you guys think that the iMac with the spec posted above would be able to handle my requirements for editing even though it would not be possible to enable the Mercury Playback engine (its only compatible with Nvidia cards unfortunately)

as I'm sure you can appreciate, i don't really want to spend a couple of grand on a machine that even though it has a higher spec than my current PC would actually have a lower performance when editing, lol

many thanks in advance,

cheers

scott


ps.....is it possible to replace the graphics card in the iMac for a nvidia one?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

ps.....is it possible to replace the graphics card in the iMac for a nvidia one?

No.

I know the advantage of using AVCHD footage directly is not transcoding it to a proper format, but if you use a proper editing codec in Adobe Premiere Pro (I don't know, if Pr has one, but I use ProRes for my work in AE), you will be able to do what you want, but that means transcoding your footage, which might take some time depending on how much video you have.

 

[igetcha69]

hi mate,

thanks for the reply

yeah, I'm sure that transcoding to a different format would improve things but that would kinda be like a backward step......also, i often take on large projects which involve 3 or 4 days worth of filming, so transcoding that lot would be a bit of a nightmare, lol

so would you say that the bottom line is that the highest spec iMac would simply not be good enough to cope with my needs?

im a bit gutted....really had my heart set on getting one but i know i need to be practical about it

cheers

scott

 

[simsaladimbamba]

hi mate,

thanks for the reply

yeah, I'm sure that transcoding to a different format would improve things but that would kinda be like a backward step......also, i often take on large projects which involve 3 or 4 days worth of filming, so transcoding that lot would be a bit of a nightmare, lol

so would you say that the bottom line is that the highest spec iMac would simply not be good enough to cope with my needs?

im a bit gutted....really had my heart set on getting one but i know i need to be practical about it

cheers

scott

Yeah, I know about that transcoding stuff, but our four core 2008 Mac Pro and Avid Media Composer only took an hour to transcode two hours of ProRes encoded HD footage to DV encoded footage (we didn't want to spend the money for HD monitoring via the Mojo Box), and Avid didn't even use all four cores to its maximum.

Maybe there is a thread here or somewhere else, where this procedure (transcoding to an editing codec) on a 3.4GHz i7 iMac is featured and you can get some perspective how long that would take.

But if the GPU in the iMac does not support the MPE, and the iMac would take too long to transcode to a proper editing codec, you might be better off with a Windows PC or an older or refurbished Mac Pro and GPU supporting the MPE.

 

[igetcha69]

hi mate,

at the moment i can do a days filming, take out the SD card, plug it into my PC and start editing......so i guess from my point of view, if i have to start transcoding the footage 1st (regardless of how quick it may be) then it can only be a backwards step

as much as i love the look of the iMac, if it means that i will have to do extra work in order to get it to edit smoothly then unfortunately i think i would be crazy to spend out that sort of money

even if i thought that i would only get the exact same performance as my current PC then i would still buy one in a heartbeat! lol
but if the performance will be less, then sadly i will have to stick with the PC

thanks for your help

cheers

scott