(About to purchase)Opinion of this set up for editing HDV shot with GY-HD100
 

Would like opinions on this set up for editing HDV the software I will be using is Final Cut Studio 2
is there anything I should change to get full use out of Final Cut Studio 2 or is this sufficiant to do the job?
I will also be adding a HDV Burner that is compatable with Final Cut. I could use advise on which one I should get, If I am correct the only compatable HDV burner with the DVD Studio Pro 4 is an HD Burner like the one Toshiba makes but I am not shure.
This would be the set up of my Mac Pro tower.
Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
4GB (4 x 1GB)
250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Thanks in advance Gary Williams

Looks great.

I'd skip the mighty mouse and get a third party mouse, though.

Hi Gary.

Your system will easily handle footage from the GY-HD100 and it looks capable of handling most other codecs as well! (Although I'm not sure what the system requirements are for RED camera footage at this point.)

Your X1900 XT graphics card is an excellent choice for the new Color application, so you'll definitely be able to make the most out of the full FCS 2 suite.

On the Mighty Mouse, it generally works okay, but the little ball on top stopped functioning properly for me after about 4 weeks. My case could be isolated, but it might be worth following Daniel's advice and check out the options for a third-party mouse.

Question will I be able to make HDV masters with the super drive that comes with the system or will I have to get an HD Burner in addition?

You'll have to get an HD burner if you want to make a disc playable in set top players. If you just want to burn a data DVD for backup you use the SuperDrive assuming your final output is small enough to fit on an normal DVD.


-A

You can burn regular DVDs, formatted as HD-DVDs, with up to about 30 minutes of footage on a single layer DVD, twice as much on double-layer discs.
See this thread:
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=99744

Such discs play fine on HD-DVD players from Toshiba and it is true HD (1920x1080). I've done it myself, it produces beautiful HD!!

Dino

So if I am using final cut studio 2 and I finish, author and subtitle a program in HD using the DVD Studio Pro 4 if I buy and external or after market internal burner such a the new Pioneer blue ray burner or the soon to come Toshiba HD burner I can make a completed HD disk authored with subtitles and every thing?

Just to further reinforce what Dino posted, if you look at the "Settings" in Compressor 3.0.1, you will notice that Compressor has TWO NEW SETTINGS.

These settings allow you to to make a 60 minute HD DVD or a 90 minute HD DVD on your existing SuperDrive using a regular single-sided, single layer DVD (DVD-5) with only 4.7 GB of storage.

To quote from the settings:

HD DVD H.264 60 minutes
"Name: H.264 10.3Mbps
Description: For HD DVD. Fits up to 60 minutes of video with Dolby Digital audio at 192 Kbps on a DVD-5
File Extension: mov
Estimated file size: 4.94 GB/hour of source"


HD DVD H.264 90 minutes
"Name: H.264 6.75Mbps
Description: For HD DVD. Fits up to 90 minutes of video with Dolby Digital audio at 192 Kbps on a DVD-5
File Extension: mov
Estimated file size: 3.47 GB/hour of source"

Obviously you would have to lower the bit rate of each slightly to fit onto the disc's actual capacity of about 4.38 GB.

I only noticed these the other day and haven't tried them yet, so I'm not sure how good the final quality is. But it seems Apple have provided us with a short-term, workable solution for making (up to) 90 minute HD DVDs using our existing set-ups. (At least to tide us over until they start shipping HD DVD/Blu-Ray burners.)

Yes this sounds great for the time being but these 60 and 90 minute HD DVD,s
Will only play on the Mac correct? I cannot play them on any current HD Players on the market.
and If so then how could I do a finished HD Disk Authored, subtitled ect... that I could take to a dup house and have copies made?
is thier a work around with the current systems that are out or should I say how are people doing this at this time.

Hi Gary.

According to Dino's post above, "Such discs play fine on HD-DVD players from Toshiba." I don't have access to a Toshiba player but I would definitely take Dino's word for it.

You can author your HD DVD in DVD Studio Pro. Just set it up for "HD DVD" and then import the HD DVD assets made by Compressor. DVD SP can add subtitles and anything else you'd like. It's a fine tool.

Ok so if this is true it looks like problem solved, I can Author my HD-DVD in DVD Studio Pro and then take a copy of it to a dup house and they should be able to make HD-DVD copies of it for me. Deno were the HD-DVD,s you played on the Toshiba finished authored version's and based on your information it would seem the longest program that I could make would be about an hour on a doubled layerd disk correct.Gary

As David pointed out too, these disks are *real* HD-DVDs in terms of their format. They're called DVD-5. They're just limited to 4.7GB (single layer, or 8.3GB for dual layer discs). But they do play in the Toshiba HD DVD players. I've got a Toshiba HD A20 HD-DVD player and it plays such discs fine, it recognizes them as HD-DVDs at 1080i.

And like David said, just pop everything into DVD StudioPro, select the HD-DVD preset and format and everything else goes automatically. Again, read the thread I referred to in my previous post - it explains everything.

And yes, you should be fine to author such discs and then bring 'em to a local copy shop; since physically, they are regular DVDs, a normal copy shop can make copies.

Sorry Dino I did not read the thread you referred to in the previous post just did and it was very informative. I also noticed that this is done using the MPEG-2 encoding which I assume is what my HD-100 records in so given all the problems with the HD-100 in editing when I dump my 720 30p footage in to final cut studio 2 will I have any problems with editing. Just curious what camera are you shooting with? and thanks again that thread was great. Gary

Gary,
I'm using a Canon XH A1. The emphasis on mpeg2 in the other thread was because using mpeg2 allows you to burn an HD DVD without transcoding or re-rendering in final cut (because the source from the cam is already mpeg2), so that was extremely fast (like 15 minutes or so to author and burn the disc) and you end up with best possible quality.
I don't understand what problems you have with mpeg2, but the footage from the canon A1 I used was 1080/30p and it went into DVD Studio Pro perfectly (ended up as 1080i on disc). Anyway, the whole thing should also work using H.264 with one of the presets that David listed.
Best,

Thanks to every one for there asst, I will be buying my Mac Pro through Zatz Digital one of the sponsors of this forum the quote they gave me was a good one and I was very impressed with the (owner) Brian's help. If you are in the market I would give them a call.Thanks again Gary Williams
Final spec > Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
> 8GB (4 x 2GB) Ram added by them!
> 250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
> 750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s Barracuda ES added by them!
> ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
> One 16x SuperDrive
> Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
> Mac OS X - U.S. English
> AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) -
Auto-enroll
> Data Video converter for $200 for Mac Pro purchase

Gary, I use the HD200. Your 720p30 will work fine with FCP.

I can also confirm that burning 720p30 onto a DVD-5 works every bit as well as burning a normal DVD with chapters, titles, menus, etc. Only it's in HD. In fact it works so well I don't really see the need for an HD burner unless your programs end up over 45 minutes. I bet you could even fit 60 min. of 720p30 onto a single layer DVD-5 because your material takes less space thatn 1080i.

The Toshiba A2 is a steal right now at $135. It doesn't do 1080p60 but who cares at $235. My 720p60 DVD's are stunning burning with H.264.

Best.

Thanks Justin thats great to know.
I am making my purchase later today just doing the final piecing together at the last minute, I wasnt sure if I should go with a smaller data drive say 500GB and a dual instead of a quad core & leave out the Data Video converter so I can get a black magic HD extreme, a MacGurus 1TB SATA RAIDS external with a Sonnet EP Card so the final verson would look like this.

Final spec > Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
> 8GB (4 x 2GB) Ram added by them
> 250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
> 500B 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s Barracuda ES added by them
> ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
> One 16x SuperDrive
> Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
> Mac OS X - U.S. English
> AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) -
Auto-enroll
> Black Magic Decklink HD Extreme & Sonnet E4P card
> MacGurus 1TB Sata Raids

INSTEAD OF THIS

Final spec > Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
> 8GB (4 x 2GB) Ram added by them
> 250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
> 750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s Barracuda ES added by them
> ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
> One 16x SuperDrive
> Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
> Mac OS X - U.S. English
> AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) -
Auto-enroll
> Data Video converter for $200 for Mac Pro purchase

I know I thought I had my mind made up! last minute jitters
I guess but this is costing me allot of cash and I want to get it right any final inputs would be greatly appreciated.

Word on the street is that there is no benefit to quad-core at the moment. Perhaps we'll know more when Leopord comes out in 8 days.

Well, that "word on the street" has been shown to be not totally accurate. I remember there was a macworld story that made such a claim a while ago, and this story has been shown to be inaccurate.
I'd say it's important to be aware that up to Leopard, it's up to individual applications to be optimized for several cores (which is in many cases not done properly, so to this extent, I do agree with Justin); Apple claims one of the new technologies part of Leopard specifically addresses this issue.

With respect to final cut studio, you can actually configure an 8-core machine to take full advantage of its 8 cores. Here's a link to a thread that describes how:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....65000&tstart=0
In essence, you need to configure Qmaster with 4 instances for the MacPro. In this way it'll distribute a compressor job to 4 virtual machines (residing) on that 8core which will subsequently push all the 8 cores to the max.
Dino