Speeding up my G5
 

I have mentioned in another tread that when I import a title created in Motion to the FCP timeline, I have to render it before previewing on my G5 dual 2.0 with 4gb ram.

Would a faster graphics card would help in FCP? If so which one, considering its the AGP bus flavoured G5.

What about a raid hard drive system?

Am I deluding myself when what i really need is a new Mac Pro?


Andrew

If you drop footage into the timeline, and you have to render it, it means that the settings of the footage do not match the settings of the sequence. If your sequence is DV, and your exported Motion file is say in the Animation codec, you'll have to render it.

A faster hard drive will not help, nor will a better graphics card or new mac. You need to export the file out of Motion using the same codec that you are editing.

Shane

Let me explain to make sure we are on the same page.

In FCP I select a sequence and choose send to Motion project from the menu. Motion opens where I create my titles. I then close motion and import the Motion project the FCP timeline. The timeline turns orange (not red) which means that while it doesn't have to be rendered, it plays too slowly to get a good preview. Therefore I have to render.

By the way, I'm working with HDV footage from the HD100.

I want to know if this is caused be the Harddrives being too slow or the graphics card (GPU) in my G5. If I upgrade to raid 1 or a faster graphics card (GPU) will I still get the orange line? Which is the best route?

Sorry if I didn't explain myself clearly.

Andrew

You'll still have an orange line if you drop your Motion project in your timeline.

If you render out a file in corresponding format from motion instead, you will not need to re-render.

Gunleik

Any project from LiveTyp or Motion will need to be rendered, one way or another, regardless of the Mac you are using. I use a quad MacPro with 7 gigs of ram and still need to render in the FCP timeline.

If you work with Motion or LT Project files in an FCP timeline, they will need to be rendered. If you export out from the Motion or LT project to the codec which you are using in FCP, you will not have to render it in the timeline because you have rendered it out of Motion or LT first. Either way, you have to render.

I find it more convenient to work with the Motion or LT project files in FCP

Dave
Do you find that the Quad and 7 gigs makes a big difference say over 2.5 dual and 8 gigs ram?

John,

All I've cut on the MacPro is uncompressed 10 bit HD. It does seem faster than our dual 2ghz G5 with 6 gigs of ram on which we cut 10 bit uncompressed Beta SP. Keeping in mind that 10 bit uncompressed SD is about 90 gigs/hr of footage and 10 uncompressed HD is about 800gigs/hr of footage, I'd say the MacPro is quite a bit faster. I just haven't had the "wow" factor of the speed increase because we have yet to cut any SD stuff on it. I built the machine specifically for uncompressed HD and that's strictly what we've used it for to this point.

For more info on it look at this thread. Footage and new pics coming soon.

I've read a very helpful article that recommends converting from HDV to DVCProHD format for editing, which states that rendering times will be reduced.

I'm ok at the momnent in that most of the sequences I'm rendering are less than 5 mins long, but I have a 2 hour seqeuce coming up and I can't afford to leave it rendering for a week!

Thanks for the input before I blew money I didn't have on a new MacPro!!

Andrew