That Titanium is widely regarded as a killa machine, and equal to the task of DV editing, according to some post-production users over on 2-pop. It'll run FCP3. I would have gone for it, but I really needed a desktop machine to repplace the old klunker, and that's where the money went. But we'll see how rich I feel later this year.

that Mac Powerbook looks really good. Has anyone used or know if Final Cut Pro is any good?

Final Cut Pro 3 is a -very- good NLE (in my book) and will run well on a Mac Powerbook G4, particularly one with 512Mb of RAM. The 16:9 aspect ratio of the screen makes it especially well-suited to accommodating the various windows (browser, canvas, timeline, et.al.) involved in editing.

If you're interested in Final Cut Pro you should visit the Apple site and 2-pop.com. The latter is a 3rd-party site predominantly devoted to FCP.

You might also take a look at DVCreators.net. They feature a nationwide program of classes on DV techniques which usually use FCP as the NLE.

I use FCP exclusively, and am very impressed. This is on a G4 desktop, with 768MB of RAM. It feels more "Avid-like" than Adobe Premiere.

BTW, if any of you out there are schoolteachers, I wonder if you know...you can get FCP (now version 3) for $300!!! That's SOOO cheap!!! Not a demo copy or crippleware, the real dinkum, as the Aussies would say.

Thanks to zimvg304 for the feedback on the Dell.

After pondering all this stuff while watching the NFL playoffs (and taking much delight in the Raider's whining), I'm still leaning toward a new G4/G5. Been a MAC guy too long to switch, I guess.

We also have 2 Wintel machines in the house, and I still can't get used to the crashes & conflicts.

FCP DOES get a lot of hype, but many here seem happy with it. EditDV/Cinestream has been pretty good for me, but the support is pretty shaky now after the sale to Discreet, and FCP has caught-up with its titler module. FCP will also do several things EDV won't.

Decisions, decisions....

Vic

Vic,
Yes, this is a difficult but enjoyable decision. I used Premiere on my Dell Precsion 610 workstation (dual processors, 4-drive raid storage, etc.). But since getting my first Mac G4 DP and FCP, Premiere has been dormant.

Dell makes fabulous systems for many other tasks but the Mac wins with no contest when it comes to video. FCP is, in my opinion, not really over-hyped because it delivers on its promises.

But, certainly, you can have great success with any of several tools. My advice to anyone would be to pick an' stick. That is, choose as wisely as possible, learn the NLE tool as well as possible and then concentrate on learning EDITING rather than techno-futzing. Editing skills will be much more fulfilling and rewarding in the long-run.

<<<-- Originally posted by the graphics guy :BTW, if any of you out there are schoolteachers, I wonder if you know...you can get FCP (now version 3) for $300!!! -->>>

I'm told the same is true of bonafide students. Worth checking out.

Wait a minute, my wife is a teacher! Just retired but still working. Hummm......

There's a funny saying around: FCP has a great titler, it's called Photoshop! (actually what I use is Photoshop PSD files and I can play with the layers in FCP)

If the idea is to "cut to the chase scene" (literally) and concentrate on the editing rather than "techno-futzing" (Love that term!) then I agree w/Ken & Vic that FCP is pretty near ideal, and not just because I am partial to the Mac platform.

Now for those who are computer engineers or hobbyists who may dabble in editing as a side-issue, then other solutions may be preferable.

Do any of you Mac owners have problems with the computer getting to hot? Locking up ect?

How do you get Final Cut Pro at that price? My wife is a student right now(part time).

When I was a student I got a student discount from Apple by purchasing my computer through the University Center. They had to order it, but it only took about a week to process. Not sure how you go about it with regular retailers, but with the University Center all I had to do was show my ID.

Zimvg304,

My old G3 powerbook used to get pretty hot, but not enough to lock up. Haven't had any heat-related problems with my G4.

http://www.apple.com/education/pricelists/

My wife is a public school teacher, her school is actually listed in the K-12 section of the Apple website. But others are also eligible:


http://www.apple.com/education/k12/homepurch/eligibility.html

says:

The Apple Education Individual Purchase Program now offers expanded eligibility.
Now eligible*:

Any employee of a nonprofit (public or private) K-12 and Higher Education institution
Student currently attending a public or private Higher Education Institution in the United States
New student accepted into a public or private Higher Education Institution in the United States
School board members who are currently serving as elected or appointed members
PTA or PTO executives currently serving as elected or appointed officers

Oh yeah, and as for the heat thing, I keep my G4 running 24/7 at the jobsite and ditto at the home studio, and it's no problem.

I think I'll get the power book 550MHz 512MB Ram 30 hard drive.
So once I decide to get the Final Cut Pro 3, I'll just have to down load the software? No cards?

<<<-- Originally posted by the graphics guy : http://www.apple.com/education/pricelists/

My wife is a public school teacher, her school is actually listed in the K-12 section of the Apple website. But others are also eligible:


http://www.apple.com/education/k12/homepurch/eligibility.html

says:

The Apple Education Individual Purchase Program now offers expanded eligibility.
Now eligible*:

Any employee of a nonprofit (public or private) K-12 and Higher Education institution
Student currently attending a public or private Higher Education Institution in the United States
New student accepted into a public or private Higher Education Institution in the United States
School board members who are currently serving as elected or appointed members
PTA or PTO executives currently serving as elected or appointed officers -->>>Thanks for the website

"Cards"? We don' need no stinkin' "cards"!

The Powerbook has a built-in 6-pin Firewire (1394) port. Plug an' chug. I don't know that Apple offers a downloadable version of FCP...maybe so. But I heartily recommend that you get the CD's. They can come in handy later.

>>>>"Cards"? We don' need no stinkin' "cards"! <<<<
LOL! I love it!
It's true...that's one of the great things about the Mac platform, every (new) machine has got Firewire! Just plug & play!

As for the software, I can't imagine it would be since it comes on 2 CD's plus a separate disk for Cleaner5EZ and one for PeakDV, PLUS it includes a 3-inch-thick manual in addition to the little tutorial book. Get it shipped "rush"

If the machine arrives before the FCP disks get there, you can wing it by using iMovie which is included free with the machine...it's pretty cheezy but very easy, I actually used it to cut video for work when I was feeling lazy...just don't try using iMovie on any complicated project, it'll wind up actually being harder.

Ooops!
Meant to say " ...I can't imagine it would be downloadable since it comes on 2 CD's..."

Yeah, that's the shiznit.

Graphics Guy: iMovie: "it's pretty cheezy but very easy". You'd better copyright that before Mr. Jobs does!

Actually, as GG noted, iMovie can be very handy for quick an' dirty work such as assembling test/demo shoots. What I've found it -really- handy for is capturing clips from tapes that have -ahem- time code breaks. iMovie automatically separates clips according to the roll start/stop detection on the tape. It also -overlooks- any breaks in time code that it encounters (i.e. it's doofus-proof). Once the clips have been captured they can easily be moved directly into a FCP project since they're native DV files.

Lastly, iMovie can still do one task that FCP cannot: render in the background. I really expected this feature to be incorporated into FCP 3, particularly on the OS 10.1 (Unix) version. But, alas, not yet.

<<<-- Originally posted by Zimvg304 : I think I'll get the power book 550MHz 512MB Ram 30 hard drive.
So once I decide to get the Final Cut Pro 3, I'll just have to down load the software? No cards? -->>>


No cards. Nothin' Last night I edited a few scenes in a Mac laptop, not even the newest and fastest. Input via firewire, edit, color correct, even out audio levels, preview and output via firewire to MiniDV and/or the Internet, Cd-ROm, whatever.

It was my first experience with FCP3 - it wasn't my system so I can't get into details. We had the Avid MC1000 all fired up to edit the same material. It was our assistant editor who had the laptop and didn't need to persuade me to go the FCP3 way. I don't think it would have gone as smoothly and as quickly. All I can say is it did the job fast and well.

KT--Good point about the time code breaks...although I don't know anybody who shoots tapes w/TC breaks, do you? </grin>*

That start/stop detection is different than in FCP (probably is the reason why it tolerates TC anomalies) in that it creates a separate media file for each scene, unlike FCP which simply creates markers at the start/stop points.

BTW, I tried importing/opening iMovie clips into FCP, and while it accepted them it wanted to render everything cuz I'm told iM uses a different codec???

Hey, great news Ozzie! Life is good, it would appear! It's a whole new day!


* Actually that is why to this day I continue to ignore the advice of those who say not to pre-black your tapes, which they taught me to do without fail at the Community TV channel. I use my little Elura with the A/V jacks disconnected to lay down a break-free stripe on each new tape before going out on a critical shoot.

I'm using FCP 2.0 on my ancient B&W G3 400. It's very stable, and with the FCP keyboard (I have the EZ board) I am able to work quickly and intuitively. The big hangup, of course, is the rendering time. I do a lot of sharpening and color correction to my XL1 footage (with great results). But rendering can take so long it's best to just do it while I'm sleeping or off running errands (I work at home). I'm really looking forward to upgrading to a G5 and FCP 3.0. With OS X, the rendering bottleneck should widen appreciably. My thought is before long FCP should become real-time capable. Remember it's only been out about 3 years!

How about the Matrox RT MAC? Does that take care of the rendering issue? Does it enhance Ver. 3.0?

I spent more time running through the DVCreator tutorial CD for familiarization last night--I'm getting pumped about making the transition to FCP from my present editing program. It seems like it should be a relatively painless transition.

Vic

With the set up I have the RT MAC would definitely help. However, you still have to render your final output to tape. Actually RT MAC is rapidly being outmoded with FCP 3.0 and ever faster PowerMacs and OS X, which gives a big boost to dual processor machines. Since the new top of the line iMAC is rated at 800 mhz, almost as fast as the 867 mhz Powermac tower, the new G5's should really offer a big speed boost! I had planned to get a ProMax RT MAX board, which ProMax dropped when Apple's strategy with FCP and faster PowerMacs became apparent.

"...cheezy but very easy"...lyrics to my new rap tune: "Get Down With FCP-Yeah You Know Me" by Migga Buzzla.

The other day I sent a tape I had just shot over to one of my IT boys for him to edit quick'n'dirty...I was pretty busy and feeling kind o' lazy and we needed to get this promptly "posted and posted " (post-production done and a streaming video posted up on the web) so he used "cheezy-easy" software--

Come to find out, there was one section where one of the talent was done speaking and left the stage, he walked out of the area still miked up with his wireless, and when he got out of range, that channel of my receiver started picking up static until I heard it on the "cans" and hurriedly switched that channel off. Well, it would have been easy to pot down that section of that track in FCP, but my dawg had a problem cuz his timeline did not put discrete tracks up for each stereo channel. Ooops-upside yo' head!

Oh well, it's always something!

Ok I'm thinking about getting the PowerBook 550Mhz G4 with the 30 GB Hard drive 512 RAM 16 MB video memeory, that should get me by for now. But the question I have is on Final Cut Pro under technical specifications, it says the requirements are :
300 Mhz or faster G3 or G4 processor.
500 Mhz or faster single processor or Powerbook G4 required for G4 realtime effects.
667 Mhz Powerbook G4 required for Mobil G4 realtime effects in DV format.

I'm no sure what they mean about the Mobil G4 ? I just want to be able to plug my XL-1s into the computer. Will the Powerbook I listed above run Final cut pro using the XL?

And if for some reason I have to go cheaper would a iBook 600Mhz 640 Ram run final cut pro? I noticed that iBook has 8MB video memory and the PowerBook has 16MB. Is that a problem running this system.

But if I can swing it I will go with the PowerBook
If anyone wants to look at those requirements for Final Cut Pro it's at, http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/specs.html

OK guys, try this one on...my last post started me thinking about another situation...kind of just the reverse of my friend's proble, I can't seem to find anything in the FCP manual that tells me how to do this: I have two tracks of audio from the capture, basically the same as before, one wireless mic per channel, and I have Left and Right tracks. I want to be able to melt these down into a single track -after doing my level adjustments-so that I have ONE dialogue track, nailed down and monophonic. Whatever I do with the "pan" & "spread" controls still leaves two discrete audio tracks. I want it down to one, upon which I can "ride" gain, etc. and then if i want to add other tracks, be it music, voiceover, it's ok to me if they are in stereo. Is there a way to do this? Do I have to render the file, export it and combine the channels in analogue? Do I have to take the audio tracks out to Soundedit 16 and mix it there and re-import it, having to worry about lip-sync?