Powermac g5 dual 2.7 + 4 gb ram- enough for smooth HDV + Motion?

[Sergio Perez]

I'm going to invest on a new home based editing solution. I do comercials, event coverage and short films (I do a lot of progressive 25 p shooting- PAL here)

Can someone tell me if this is the way to go, or should I head "the PC way"? I do not have a problem with windows, but also like the stability of Mac. I have a P4 2ghz with Pinnacle dv500 plus 1 ghz RAM at home, and it has been great for dv for over 3 years... UI have, however, a g4 1.67 powerbook with 2 ghz RAM, even tough slow, is very stable and I LOVE the flexibility of conversion in FCP.

Any suggestions from the experts out there? I posted here on the Mac forum because I do want the opinion of someone who has the experience of actually working in "both worlds"like I do...

[Boyd Ostroff]

I can't provide a perspective of someone who's used both systems, because all my experience is on the Mac. But if you're used to a 1.67ghz G4 I can tell you to expect a speed increase between 2x to 3x with the dual 2.7 G5 (based on my experience with a 1.25 G4 single and 2.5 dual G5).

Of course Motion is a piece of software which will easily eat up as much CPU and GPU as you can throw at it. And (obviously) it doesn't even run on the PC.

[Bryan Suthard]

Sergio,

I am no Pro but I dabble with the FX1 and FCP5. The performance of my 2002 vintage Dual 1G G4 Powermac (1.5 G ram) blows away the peformance of my 2005 Powerbook 1.5G G4 (1 G ram).

I would love to have the power of a Dual 2.7 G5 and you probably would need it if you do a lot of post processing like you are talking about, but for simple cuts and transitions, even my aged Dual 1 G4 gets by pretty well. In fact the release of FCP5 has basically retooled it and made it usable again for me.

Unless you have AspectHD/ConnectHD from Cineform on the PC platform, you may struggle in the PC world with HDV edits.

Bryan

[Bryan Suthard]

Forgot to mention that I use Vegas also with a P4 3.0 Ghz. Editing native captures from HDV is really a struggle for the machine. This where the Cineform ConnectHD product which pre-processes the HDV stream into a fast editing format comes into play. I do not own it, but check out HDV Editing Solutions forum for more info about it if you choose to stick with a PC.

[Chuck Grieves]

Sergio, I use FCP 4.5 HD on a G5 dual 2.5 with an nVidia 6800 Ultra and 4.5 gb ram. Editing in FCP is great but more ram will help. My system slows noticebly while using Motion though, specifically if several types of effects are used. It's enough to make me feel that 6 to 8gb of ram would make the system fly. Hope this helps ya decide.
Chuck

[Zack Birlew]

Ok, easy question. Right now you, my friend Sergio, only have two choices for your line of work. One, AVID Xpress Pro HD. Two, Final Cut Pro HD. That's it. The bottom line is that these two apps are the top of the line and they are the only ones that work perfectly with HD right now. But from everything I've been reading for the past three years, Final Cut Pro is the way to go. AVID apparently has a ton of bugs that still haven't been ironed out yet and it's a freak thing too, some people experience bugs and some never have a crash at all. AVID would be nice since it works on both platforms, but why would you do that if you could get Final Cut Pro instead? I say that going Final Cut Pro is your best bet since I hear nothing but good things about it. Keep in mind that you should get as much RAM as possible and do try for the Geforce 6800 Ultra graphics card, it will help.

[Mark Ross]

FWIW: I am right at this moment edting HDV in FCP 5 with the same machine you describe, except I only have 2GB of RAM. So far, so good in FCP, although admittedly all I've done is short work, 3.5 minute sequences, but the native HDV looks good and runs well. Have only opened Motion to play but as Boyd suggests, it will take all you can give it and run better with more of everything.

[Sergio Perez]

Thanks everybody. I really have to say that this online community here is really helpful, and this is the reference site for everything concerning videography. Thank you all. I decided to go with the powermac, then. By the way, just did a commercial for a motocross event here in Macau, done on a PC- with very intensive After Effects work... I know I should start another thread for this, but since I never used motion... How does it compare with AE? Can I do animations, keys and, you know, "after effects" with motion? Will it make me "divorce" after effects and marry motion?

[Liam Dempsey]

In fact, you will not have to divorce AfterEffects at all. Motion integrates fairly well with AfterEffects and can even be launched from within AfterEffects. See

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/...eoverview.html

for more info. Additionally , the dual 2.7 G5 will run FCP smoothly and should do very well with Motion. Like Chuck Grieves said, more memory will do wonders for FCP and Motion

I'd head in the direction of the Mac. I've been very happy with how my dual 2.5 and now dual 2.7 have worked with FCP and Motion. The dual 2.5 had 2 gig ram, but recently I got the dual 2.7 and opted for 6.5 gig RAM (I think, if not it's 5.5 gig RAM). Everything is just plug and play (or edit, capture, etc.). In the rare case, when a problem does occur, it's usually a pretty simple fix. Hope this helps.