Apple Product Releases 10/20: 27" Quad-Core iMacs!
 

The first I think an iMac has been recommended for Final Cut Studio, the new 27" iMac can be configured with a 2.66ghz quad core Intel i5 or 2.8 ghz Intel i7 processor, as well as up to 16 gig of ram.

Apple - iMac - The ultimate all-in-one desktop computer.

Also new is the Magic Mouse, with one seamless multi-touch surface.

Apple - Magic Mouse - The world?s first Multi-Touch mouse.

That new mouse looks fantastic! I've had a couple with the trackball on top, but find they keep gumming up and eventually lose the ability to scroll down altogether.

The 27" Quad-Core definitely looks the go. I'm just trying to find info on what the advantages are of the i7 over the i5 processors.

This is pretty cool. I am very excited about the quad core Imac. A lot of people are very excited about this. To be honest however I still think they could do more to push people into the quad core age that many PC users have been a part of for a long time. I mean $2,000.00 is pretty stiff for a quad core system. I do think this is a move in the right direction but I would have liked to have seen quad core options in all the desktop systems.

I also hear a lot of people complaining about the lack of Blu-ray. Hey why not just but a blu-ray player and hook it up to the new display port input on the 27" mac. There you go instant Blu-ray playback on your mac, sort of. Does it really matter if it plays through the Mac OS if if it is ok just to share the same screen.

The Mac Mini is a pretty impressive little machine now for video editing. Other then a slower gpu the higher end model has similar specs to a 15" Mac Book Pro which people use a lot with Final Cut Studio. While the gpu isn't as nice the Nvidia 9400 is perfectly capable of working with FCS.

27" LED Screen with a great computer inside for 1500 euros. Great prices!

And all IPS panels. Apple is doing great things. Curious about the mouse, because I wasn't wild about their previous efforts.
*drool* I can't wait to go to an Apple Store and see a 27" iMac in person.

It doesn't look like it has an expresscard slot, which I think would be limiting with FCP. Without that, expansion is really limited. No eSata drives for instance, or MXO2mini, etc.

It all really depends what type of video you do. Only a tiny sliver of FCP users ever use any form of hardware device other then their camera to get video in or out of their system. I would also love a expansion slot but I don't think this is a limitation at all for 95% of the FCP users out there.

There is always the older Matrox MXO which hooked up to a DVI port for uncompressed HD video output to component or SDI. It is an older device but it allows pretty much any mac to feed to HD-SDI decks. This covers everything minus HD-SDI capture.

A couple of questions about the New 27" Imac: the 2.66 comes in two flavors, an i5 and an i7. The upgrade from the 5 to the 7 is 200 dollars extra. For editing HDV in FCS 7, would you gain much to make it worth the upgrade? Or should I save my money?

On another question, the Imac has one FW 800 port. Is there an adapter to make a FW 400 cable compatible with that port and are they expensive?

Could I just capture video FW out from HV30 to my External Lacie 1 tb? It has a FW port on the back of it. If it is not recommended to do it this way, than am I correct to assume you capture to start up drive, and then move captured files to external before editing?

Thanks.


Jonathan

I've never understood why people consider an iMac for serious video work; it's a laptop with a big screen, external keyboard and no expandability options.

Save up a few extra $$ and get a Mac Pro, even a refurbished or used one to save some dough. You'll then have everything you need to be fully compatible with any video camera and accessory required for pro editing, period.

Robert, I think the answer is pretty simple.

I'm using my Macbook Pro already for 2 years for 'serious' video work and it has served me well (and still does). Yes, I use the Expresscard slot once in a while, and I miss it on an iMac, but I could probably miss it too.
So what you have is: enough processing power, a high quality LCD screen and all the great software that you are used too. This machine has much more horsepower then a Macbook Pro, is at the same price, but also gives you a high quality monitor with it - if you don't mind the glare. So if you are willing to make some sacrifices (the expandability of a Mac Pro, which is of course, a great sacrifice, but not for everyone who is earning their money with editing) I don't see why the iMac WOULDN'T be an option for serious video work.

I'm about to switch to the i7 iMac from a tower. She's an older quad-core G5, but the benchmark results of the iMacs next to lower-end Mac Pro's is quite impressive.

The old "don't capture to the same drive as your OS" motto doesn't really apply these days since most are shooting with some type of card-based media. The single firewire 800 instead of 2 is a little odd, but I will have to get an external drive that can piggyback.

Pros
1. Firewire cords come 4pin to 6pin for firewire 400 drives.
2. Dual display mode with a mini Apple display to dvi cable.
3. Quad iMac i7 with 8GB ram gives Quad-Core Mac Pro with 12GB ram a run for it's money (and beats in some tests).
4. 27" display is the same specs as the 24" cinema display.

Cons
1. Nothing faster than the single firewire 800 for connectivity
2. Upgrading to 16GB ram is almost $950 at OWC.

As long as it fits your workflow, then it's a great buy. I need to pick up some G-Tech drives: a 2TB for the iMac backup and another 2TB for redundancy (piggybacking off the other in some cases).

David, you do know that the new iMAc has 4 RAM slots and not 2?
So if you want to get 8GB of RAM you don't need to only use 4GB sticks.

Yes, but you need 4GB sticks to get the max of 16GB ram. I was just pointing out that OWC now has the new iMac compatible 16GB ram kits available and is almost half the cost of the Apple upgrade in the store.

I will probably just do the 4x2GB ram until prices drop next year.

David,

If you are shooting tape, and maybe before you commit to the Imac, I'd set up an appointment at an Apple store, bring in your hardware and see if you can "capture" in the two possible configurations:

1) Capturing to start-up disk using FW, then movingall those files to Ext. HD for editing. This option seems silly and time consuming, or:

2) see if you can capture with FW from camera to ext HD with the HD connected to the Imac and the camera connected to the Ext HD.

I was going to try the two options above, but got slammed with work.

Canon cameras are real poodle-ish when it comes to daisy chaining, or so I've heard.

For this reason, I saving for a more versatile tower.

Jonathan

Hey Jon,

I am not using tape at all anymore. I am card-based only. If I do end up editing tape at all, I have the tapes already captured/transcoded onto an external drive. Truth be told, I haven't messed with tape in over a year. Last capture I did was to a FW400 drive (only cable they had) and was SD DVCPro. If I have to go that route again, FW800 should be more than enough for SD.

XDCAM EX: Transfer via Express Slot on Macbook Pro
H.264 from Canon 7D/5D: Transfer via FW800 CF reader
XDCAM: Sent over on external FW800/eSata drive

This all works for me, but might not work for others. Although, I never really had an issue capturing any HDV, DV, DVCPro on the os drive of my Macbook Pro (7200rmp). I'm sure high data rate import or uncompressed may be a bad idea, though.

most pro audio interfaces use FW400 (as well as cameras) and are buggy when daisy chaining also. silly not to include a FW800 AND a FW400...