Need some advice on buying my first Mac (for video editing)

[psu2010]

Hi all,

I am a sophomore in college majoring in film (just switched into that major) and I am looking to buy an iMac (which actually will be my first Mac) and put final cut studio 2 on it. My question is this I am looking at getting the 24" 2.4ghz iMac and upgrading the ram to 4GB is this a good configuration for running Final Cut Studio 2? and by good I mean will it be optimal. Because I've seen alot of posts that say iMacs will be able to run it OKAY whatever that means... Really any help at all will be greatly appreciated thanks in advance

 

[snickelfritz]

You'll want a very large, high speed, external HDD for video capture. (FW800 RAID-0 would be a good idea)
Your CPU/GPU/RAM choices etc... should be fine.

BTW, You'll probably also want a second external FW HDD dedicated to Time Machine backup.

 

[4God]

You'll want a very large, high speed, external HDD for video capture. (FW800 RAID-0 would be a good idea)
Your CPU/GPU/RAM choices etc... should be fine.

BTW, You'll probably also want a second external FW HDD dedicated to Time Machine backup.

Yes and get your RAM from a 3rd party, Apple's is way expensive.

 

[psu2010]

Nice yeah I think ill use crucial or OWC for the ram upgrade. Just curious have either of you two used Final Cut on an iMac?

 

[snickelfritz]

I have FCE HD; works beautifully, even on my old 1ghz Powermac G4.

 

[4God]

Nice yeah I think ill use crucial or OWC for the ram upgrade. Just curious have either of you two used Final Cut on an iMac?

Yeah I just sold my 24" iMac but it was the 2.8 Extreme flavor.
Not that much of a difference though, and yes it ran all of the Final Cut Studio apps just fine.
Motion was a little choppy but no big deal.

 

[sfs]

I am a sophomore in college majoring in film

Congratulations! Always nice to see another film major around these parts. Which school, if I may ask?

Anyway, for my part, I would recommend the Macbook Pro (and waiting at least a couple more weeks, since the updates are well overdue and will be worth the wait for FCS2). It's almost as powerful, and the 17" model comes in 1080p. FCS2 runs beautifully on the MBPs, and you even get a machine to take notes on. Later on, when you're making films, you can also edit on the go. I've never heard anyone complain about that feature. You still have the FW800, and you can buy an eSATA card as well. After examining the benefits of all available systems, I've decided that the MBP is about the best film major computer money can buy. Now if they'd just update the darn thing, I could place my order...

If you want "optimal," buy a Mac Pro with the eight cores and 32GB of RAM. Ok, ok... So you'd only really make use of 6-8GB, even if you're doing a lot of high-def work... But your resale value would be sky-high. At least for a while.

OWC is good for memory, by all accounts, but Newegg has 4GB of Mushkin for about $80. I'd take that, personally.

 

[psu2010]

Right now I am at Penn State..but I am hoping to try to get into grad school at USC or Tisch or something close to that. I was looking at MBP's and Mac Pros but they are just out of my price range right now. So I was hoping to be able to slip by with just getting an iMac. One last question for anyone.. well really a couple of them. When do you think the update will be for the iMac and will the penryn processors really be worth the wait? Thanks to everyone for all the help so far by the way

 

[Techguy172]

Penryn processors aren't really that much better than the ones that are out now maybe 5-10% difference at best so really if you need it now buy now and be happy!

 

[psu2010]

Alright sweet yeah I think I will be buying within the next week or so...What's your guy's advice on the best external hard drive I can get for around $250?

 

[sfs]

What's you guys' advice on the best external hard drive I can get for around $250?

As always, the first typo is free.

Anyway, I just bought a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750gb for $200. It comes with eSATA, USB2, and a dual-FW400 module that replaces the other two ports. It ships Windows-formatted, but that's soon remedied. While there are bigger disks, and more portable disks as well, this one is the best value for my money. It was on sale at Fry's last weekend (two days after I bought mine... ) for only $180. I'm not sure if that price is still good, but it's worth the $200. I've been using it for video storage to edit. I've not tried capturing to it yet, but I suspect that unless I use eSATA it won't quite keep up with DV datastreams. It does OK playing, though, so I suppose it could work.

 

[digitalnicotine]

If you can spend a little more for your external HD, I'd highly recommend this. The ability to use multi-streaming is a huge plus for DV editing. I've purchased the 500GB version recently to use with FCP2 on my MBP, and I'm extremely satisfied with it's performance. This company shipped quickly and sent a tracking number.

 

[Morod]

I second the G-Tech external HD. They are fast, quiet and well built, as well as easy on the eye. I use the G0-Drive 500GB for Time Machine w/fw800 connection. Nice, but a bit spendy. 3 yr. warranty FWIW.
Morod

 

[psu2010]

Thanks guess I'll just wait and save for that one then...Looks pretty bad ass haha...any suggestions on some good portables?

 

[digitalnicotine]

The Mercury on the Go is a great portable drive, and gives you several options. Here is a link.