Mac Pro 8-core... Cineform or not
 

I am about to purchase a new mac to edit with either premiere or avid media composer. My total budget is $6500. I figure the best idea is to put more money into the cpu so Im going with the 2X4-core 3.0g processors, 4g of RAM, 1X250g and 2X500g hard drives. I figure this will leave me about about $500 after a couple dislpays(not apple). My question is, what should I do with the extra $500? I was thinking of an intermediate like cineform, but Im not that familiar with thier usage. I realize it enables faster realtime editing, but Im not sure if it will the best thing to improve performance. Is the mac's 8-core cpu enough to handle the load without the codec? Might be a dumb question...

Also, would a software RAID 0 config with the mac HDD's be better than possibly a g-raid2 setup? would think the internals would be faster, but wanted a better opinion. Thanks!

...Or maybe step down on the processor and use the money for the matrox rx2(?) card? or any other hardware suggestions? Im open to suggestions, however, I do want to stay with mac.

Matrox RTX2 is Windows-only (in fact, XP-only). It's great for quick-n-dirty editing as it's REALLY powerful, but you're to get into problems if you want to use matrox-captured footage in apps other than premiere. I would suggest Matrox's RTX2 support forum to see how many people (including me) have problems.

Octo-Mac will handle any HD just fine, and 299 USD for Neo HDV (from cineform) won't hurt your budget if you decide you need it. For editing platform, I would choose Final Cut Studio 2, but avoid it if you have JVC ProHD camcorder, there are tons of problems with capturing.

Mac Pro 8 core
 

Hi:

Just thought that I would add my 2cents to this thread.
I am the happy owner of a MacPro dual quad 3ghz machine with 4gig of Ram, etc, etc. In addition, I use a JVC HD-250U and FCP Studio 2 is my preferred editing suite. I capture all of my files to a DRHD-100 (Firestore) in QT format and have had a fairly smooth work flow. I had heard that there were some issues with JVC capture using FCP 5.1.4 via firewire and I cannot really comment on this matter since I have, for the most part, relegated my session tapes to archiving.

If it became necessary, however, to capture from my archived tapes, I would do so via SDI through a currently installed BlackMagic Multibridge Extreme system that would hopefully avoid the alleged problems alluded to by the prior poster.

I don't know if this reply will be of any assistance to you but I wish you the best.

I too have a dual 8xCore MacPro and it can edit without any need for a hardware card or "special" software codec.

There is no reason to use Cineform on the Mac unless you need to go between the Mac and PC without conversion. I use to edit on the PC with Cineform so I have moved some files over but the new stuff I just go straight from my HD source to ProRes422.

If you are going to convert to Cineform on the Mac you might as well just use the built in ProRes422 codec.

Something to think about:

Not only is ProRes Mac only, it's FCP only. If you want to edit compressed HD and need to be able to share elements between applications other than FCS then you should seriously consider Cineform and SheerVideo.

Both of these codecs are on their third or fourth generations, work in 8 and 10 bit YUV and RGB, and SheerVideo is lossless with an embedded alpha channel.

It really depends on what your originating on and what you want to master too.

hey Chuck

how are you getting on with Sheer in your workflow? you deliberated for what seemed an eternity .. did it all work out well? pro's and con's?

cheers
Andy

Chuck,

What applications do you need to use the files in that do not support ProRes422?

Not sure why you would want to carry around an alpha channel imbedded but in that case I'd mix footage if needed.

Cineform is beta on the Mac and 1st gen as far as OS X is concerned.

All of the Adobe applications which are now available on the Mac, SoftImage SXI, to mention a few.

If your going to do a lot of compositing then you need the alpha.

ProRes is [public beta] and 1st generation on anything.

Andy, thanks for remembering [I think...] my experience with Sheer Video, actually my experience with Andreas Wittenstein, the developer, has been great. This is a very good product. As far as the pro's and con's go I'm still deliberating but I plan on posting a fairly extensive evaluation of it for anyone who wants to read it.

Softimage XSI is NOT available on OSX. I wish it was.

Sorry quite correct. I'm using both systems so much together that in many ways it is getting indistinguishable.