Alright guys, I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet. It's a decent story though, so bear with me. I really need some advice!
I am an aspiring writer/director/editor/musician/do-it-all. I recently finished my first short film which was shot with my HV30 and edited with Sony Vegas Pro. To edit, I used my current desktop which is outfitted with a crappy Intel Dual-Core Pentium 2.0ghz processor, 2gb of ddr2 667 ram (highest speed my motherboard goes) a some crappy version of a low end nvidia graphics card. I built this computer as cheap as I could for about $300. The film came out surprisingly good and it wasn't too much of a hassle to edit on the slow specs.
Around a month ago, a couple of my friends who are in a band invited me to their music video shoot. After seeing my short film, they wanted me to shoot them a documentary. I said of course, as I'm trying to get my name out there as much as possible and saw this as a great opportunity.
Long story short, they end up really digging my documentary. Eventually, after getting cuts of the music video from the editor, they told me that they wanted me to edit the video because they weren't happy with the other editors cut. Stunned, I told them I would do it. (Secretly wondering whether my computer could take the professional footage instead of my little HV30.)
Long story cut even shorter, I end up editing this crazy huge footage from their professional cameras on my ****** computer. It was 4 days in hell, (random shut downs, hours worth of rendering problems, freezing) but I got it done and it came out great.
After that experience, I learned an important lesson. I'm going to need a mac if I'm going to be serious about this. The problem is that at $2400, a quad core mac pro is very expensive. But on the other hand, it is also very future proof.
Is their a previous version that is cheaper but will not be left in the dust when newer technology comes out? Should I look more towards ebay? Also, is an iMac an option? Remember, I'm probably going to be dealing with some very dense footage in the future. I am going to end up having to get a bigger screen anyways as my current one is on 1680 x 1050. Also, iMacs are a lot cheaper.
Whatever system I get, I am going throw FCS on it and probably some type of sound software. Basically the question is, should I invest now or pay later? Either way I have to be prepared for any business I get, I can't tell people that I won't be able to edit their video because my computer sucks.
If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. Thanks for reading!
I am an aspiring writer/director/editor/musician/do-it-all. I recently finished my first short film which was shot with my HV30 and edited with Sony Vegas Pro. To edit, I used my current desktop which is outfitted with a crappy Intel Dual-Core Pentium 2.0ghz processor, 2gb of ddr2 667 ram (highest speed my motherboard goes) a some crappy version of a low end nvidia graphics card. I built this computer as cheap as I could for about $300. The film came out surprisingly good and it wasn't too much of a hassle to edit on the slow specs.
Around a month ago, a couple of my friends who are in a band invited me to their music video shoot. After seeing my short film, they wanted me to shoot them a documentary. I said of course, as I'm trying to get my name out there as much as possible and saw this as a great opportunity.
Long story short, they end up really digging my documentary. Eventually, after getting cuts of the music video from the editor, they told me that they wanted me to edit the video because they weren't happy with the other editors cut. Stunned, I told them I would do it. (Secretly wondering whether my computer could take the professional footage instead of my little HV30.)
Long story cut even shorter, I end up editing this crazy huge footage from their professional cameras on my ****** computer. It was 4 days in hell, (random shut downs, hours worth of rendering problems, freezing) but I got it done and it came out great.
After that experience, I learned an important lesson. I'm going to need a mac if I'm going to be serious about this. The problem is that at $2400, a quad core mac pro is very expensive. But on the other hand, it is also very future proof.
Is their a previous version that is cheaper but will not be left in the dust when newer technology comes out? Should I look more towards ebay? Also, is an iMac an option? Remember, I'm probably going to be dealing with some very dense footage in the future. I am going to end up having to get a bigger screen anyways as my current one is on 1680 x 1050. Also, iMacs are a lot cheaper.
Whatever system I get, I am going throw FCS on it and probably some type of sound software. Basically the question is, should I invest now or pay later? Either way I have to be prepared for any business I get, I can't tell people that I won't be able to edit their video because my computer sucks.
If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. Thanks for reading!
