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Sony XDCAM EX Pro Handhelds
Sony PXW-Z280, Z190, X180 etc. (going back to EX3 & EX1) recording to SxS flash memory.

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Old January 12th, 2008, 11:25 PM   #1
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What are you editing on?

Alot of people are making the jump from DV to HD and so for many it will mean the purchase of a new machine. I think it would be a good idea to see what type of editing systems people are working with and how many of those people are getting smooth playback when editing nativley with the EX1's highest resolution on the timeline.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 12:37 AM   #2
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FCP is flawless (except for an import bug that we assume will be fixed, and is no big deal http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=111999).

Playback and editing are perfect on my MacBook Pro and my Dual G5.

Just make sure you have a large enough screen for the 1080 stuff.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 08:14 AM   #3
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I'll 2nd Eric. It's amazing that my aging Dual G5 can handle XDCAM without a hitch. FCP 6.0.2 is a spectacular edit system. Apple and Sony really jumped on EX1 compatibility.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 09:23 AM   #4
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im really suprised about the dual G5 handling the files perfectly, i tried to download some example files from the EX1 on my pc 2 core duo system with 2gb ram and at full resolution it struggled to pay back smoothly. Think i might jump over to a mac for my new system
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Old January 13th, 2008, 09:29 AM   #5
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Yes. I'm not just being a Mac head here. The Mac handling of the EX1 footage surprised even me with how well it works.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 09:44 AM   #6
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There's good reason why people are moving to Final Cut Pro. It's really not just hype. Apple knows who's buying their "towers." It's not just FCP, it's the computer it runs on. It's the video industry that "butter's their bread" in that end of the market.

BTW the performance you'd get on a base model Intel Mac tower would be significantly better than the Dual G5s.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 09:50 AM   #7
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i guess its mac for me then. There seems to be so many options tho and compared to pc its soooooo expensive, i mean a the cost of a mac monitor is nearly the same cost of a high end pc. Im sold on getting a mac for the EX1 but imscared im going to put my money in the wrong place, i.e the bulk of the cost on an 8 core system while sacrificing ram and graphic card speed in the process. but i have seen a deal which is:
8 core or quad core MacPro up to 3.2Ghz
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors
2GB memory (800MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive
16x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics with 256MB memory
£1750

im quite tempted
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Old January 13th, 2008, 09:57 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Alexander View Post
i guess its mac for me then. and compared to pc its soooooo expensive,
Not at all. You have to figure in REAL cost of ownership. I was senior engineer at a video post facility that had both Macs and Windows boxes. Factor in trouble shooting time and ease of use and the Macs were more profitable. Nearly all the editors started refusing to work on the Windows boxes.

Macs all use standard stuff now. You're not limited to Apple monitors at all. There is a reason why many editors love their Apple Cinema Displays though. Many will get Dells monitors though.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 10:01 AM   #9
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Daniel,

Looks like a good system to me. I just ordered the new 8-core 3.2 Ghz, but the 2.8 is so close in performance and so much less expensive. I might splurge for the slightly more expensive NVIDIA card, but not a necessity. All of the cards work with a 30" monitor, which I do feel is a necessity for editing EX1 or any other 1080 footage.

Of course you don't need to get an Apple monitor. Dell's monitors use the same panels and are much less expensive. And the newest Dell, the 3008WFP-HC actually surpasses the Apple 30" in terms of color gamut (or so I have read) and definitely has more input options. But rumor has it that Apple might come out with something new next week.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 10:19 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Alexander View Post
i guess its mac for me then. There seems to be so many options tho and compared to pc its soooooo expensive, i mean a the cost of a mac monitor is nearly the same cost of a high end pc. Im sold on getting a mac for the EX1 but imscared im going to put my money in the wrong place, i.e the bulk of the cost on an 8 core system while sacrificing ram and graphic card speed in the process. but i have seen a deal which is:
8 core or quad core MacPro up to 3.2Ghz
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors
2GB memory (800MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive
16x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics with 256MB memory
£1750

im quite tempted
Sounds a good setup Dan. But you need biger hard drives!!

I have a quad core intel mac with 3.0Ghz
8Gb RAM
Two Hard drives. One 500Gb, the secondary 750Gb.

30 inch Apple Cinema monitor, superdrive, etc.

Works a treat. Looking to buy an external Hard drive for extra storage very soon. Something like:
G-Tech G-RAID2 1TB RAID 0 Storage

You might get a better deal on Ebay.co.uk. Watch it for a couple of weeks and bargains can be had (but make sure they are not scammers and demand to pick it up and pay when you have it!)

Cheers
Steve
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Old January 13th, 2008, 10:21 AM   #11
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Yes - agreed - much more hard drive is needed. But buy those after the fact. They're simple to install and much cheaper. Same with RAM.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 10:24 AM   #12
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I agree about the monitor, i have heard alot of good stuff about it. Ok then, for myself and evrey other potential EX1 owner in the future what spec would you reccoemend (in detail) for someone wanting to work with uncompressed 1080p, taking advantage of final cut studio 6 and after effects and using "Color" to color correct? It would be interesting to see what is actually needed to achieve this as the other posts ive searched ive found that people just list their 'dream machine' rather than a realistic machine.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 10:33 AM   #13
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I have no experience working with uncompressed on my Mac but have certainly worked with Apple ProRes 422 and Color on my G5. Color is a bit sluggish on the old system but should do quite nicely on the 8-core.

That said, it is still workable, even on the old system.

For any of this stuff, massive hard drives are key. For uncompressed, massive, fast hard drives.
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Old January 13th, 2008, 11:11 AM   #14
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Get the biggest monitor you can afford. Min would be 24 inch, but if you can go to 30 inch then do so. I have been using a 30 inch monitor for a while and even now wish it 6 inches bigger!
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Old January 13th, 2008, 11:17 AM   #15
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newbie editing ??s

OK, I'm fairly new at the computer editing game - I've done some stuff on FC Express, but most of my previous work has been simple linear stuff (2-3 VCRs, mixer, output to tape, amen). I know, dark ages.

So now, moving to the XDCAM-EX world, I need to commit to the computer. I'd initially planned to get a new Mac and FC Studio, and may still do that. I'm noticing, of course, that Sony is pushing Vegas. I have two questions - one, do folks have comments on Final Cut vs Vegas vs any other program? Secondly - re hardware - I'm thinking that I should go Mac, as with the Intel Macs I could actually run Vegas or any other Microsoft/PC-based software if I chose to do so. Is it naive (or just stupid) to think that I could edit with a Microsoft/PC program on a Mac?

Comments/thoughts?
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