Final Cut Studio 2

Jules,

Apple strongly recommends the 1900 card as well so your inclination is correct. For those still looking for an overview of Studio 2 here is a good one:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_6...ook_martin.html

Its written by Steve Martin. Don't know of anyone who knows this stuff better than Steve does.

Steve B)

Here is an exerpt from the article regarding the smooth cam

"The background process window updates to show you how many clips are currently in the queue for processing. Once the clip has been analyzed it does not have to be analyzed again. The analysis data is stored on your hard drive. By default, this data file is stored in the same directory as the media file. To achieve optimal results from the filter, make sure to set in and out point for the portion of the clip you want to stabilize. As I mentioned, the entire media file must be analyzed, but the results of the filter will only be applied to the portion of the clip between the in and out points. If your clip has already been edited into the timeline, in and out points will most likely have already been established. However, clips you plan on analyzing in the Browser may or may not have in and out points sets and you will want to set them before analyzing."

The 3ghz quad cores are a bit too far out of my budget at the moment. I hadn't realised that there were possibly new Power Macs being announced in a few weeks time. I'm away to South Africa after this week for 10 days, so maybe I should hold off until I get back before I decide and probably order?

It's killing me at the moment though having 10 hours of HDV on tape that I can't import above SD because my PC can't handle it!! Arrrrgggghhhh!!

Cheers, Simon

Steve,

Great info on the smooth cam. I suppose you can render the new clips to master clips if necessary. Media manager has some painful gaps i continue to uncover...really bummer as it is quite powerful.

Simon,

4 cores is fine. Focus on graphics card (1900), RAM (at least 4gig, with 64bit OS coming, 8gig and up will be great) and harddrive (7200 sata II in Raid 0). With this you will have an awesome set up. Buy all your RAM and harddrives after-market of course.

Shawn

The possibility of the new 3GHz laptops will be announced in about 3 weeks. I am holding off on buying that desperately needed laptop until I see whether they come out with one or not. Because of that expense I will probably have to hold off on selling my DP 2Ghz G5, pre intel chipped. Actually, I'm not too sad because, except for the new color app, all will run fine and this G5 has been rock solid for me.

I never use the media manager, too buggy for my tastes, tho I use the render manager all the time. The render manager will also not trash the renders from the smoothcam filter like the MM

Steve B)

Buy all your RAM and harddrives after-market of course.

So just buy the basic 1gig RAM and 250mbHHD from Apple and then shop around for the best price afterwards?

Cheers, Simon

Exactly what i did. This is an example of a place that guarantees compatility with your Mac:

http://www.otherworldcomputing.com/

I found their prices to be very good and their delivery and service to be excellent.

I purchased 3 750gig sata II drives and striped them in raid 0. I left the OS on the 250gig drive and installed all my apps there. All my data and render files reside on the raid drives. I also purchased 8 gig of RAM (1/2 the cost of apple) in 2 gig sticks. This way i still have 4 slots to fill when a 64bit OS enables me to take full advantage of more RAM.

Remember however, that not all ram is of the same quality.

Steve B)

Certainly. This is why I did some digging on where to buy. These folks were specifically recommended by www.barefeats.com.

"DDR2 ECC Fully-Buffered PC5300

Apple Mac Pro 8-core / Quad-core Memory upgrades from OWC fully meet Apple's specifications and use True Apple Qualified Heat-Spreaders to insure proper thermal compliance"

Certainly. This is why I did some digging on where to buy. These folks were specifically recommended by www.barefeats.com.

 

"DDR2 ECC Fully-Buffered PC5300

Apple Mac Pro 8-core / Quad-core Memory upgrades from OWC fully meet Apple's specifications and use True Apple Qualified Heat-Spreaders to insure proper thermal compliance"

Shawn to put your mind at ease (maybe) I have been buying from them for years (10+) and they have been solid. Had one or two glitches here and there (a couple of hard drive enclosures and one RAM chip out of many chips) which is not too bad considering how much I bought and they took care of things promptly when there was an issue.

Putting the new Studio through its paces now. Getting lost in the 3D aspects of Motion right now and having alot of fun effectively wasting time

Got to finish up a couple of projects before switching horses in mid-stream.

Here's some new info I was just sent.....http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0706macbookpro.html

Steve B)

Here's some new info I was just sent.....http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0706macbookpro.html

Steve B)

I have seen that it may be coming - the LED screen seems to be the big guess, maybe Santa Rosa Chips (Dell just announced a portable with that in fact.)

I love the rumors, always enough out there to stop me from buying things unless I really need it Next two purchases - an Octo and the ultra portable flash based booting laptop (which is still down the road). The funny part is if you go to many boards people wonder why someone could use something that small/portable. Probaby not divers who also have to carry all the extra toys

Give me something to check email, download photos and capture video as a back up to a hard drive while travelling and I will be real happy - can edit and tweak on the big machine at home.

EDIT: Yup LEDs on 15" and Santa Rosa announced today (Tuesday June 5th) in the AM, plus some speed bumps and other things.

Well, the new laptops are now up on the Apple website. Prices are consistant and you can put up to 4gigs ram in them. They also offer 2 separate 160 gig boot drives, one spinning at 5400 and the other 7200. Mary Lynn uses a small Lacie travel drive which spins at 5400 so she thinks it is better to go with the 5400 but I'm not so sure. Would an external spinning at 5400 have any problems with the laptops drive spinning at 7200?

Also, any thoughts from you folk about the glossy screen vs the regular screen?

Steve B)

Apple should discount -300 US, if someone chooses the glossy screen...

Just ordered it.

Mac pro

2x 2.66ghz dual core Xeon

2GB Ram (will get more from other suppliers when I can afford it)

2x 500 GB HDD

ATI X1900 256MB gfx

23'' HD Display

and

Final Cut Studo 2!

Now I'm broke !!

Cheers, Simon

P.S Any pointers for some good tutorials would be VERY appreciated

First, congratulations,

second:

you should check the above mentioned:

www.rippletraining.com

or

www.macprovideo.com

and new apple pro training books are coming in the following weeks, they are also quite useful.

I have personally used the ripple training materials and find them to be excellent.

There are several excellent DVD tutorials and Ripple Training's quality is top notch. You can expect an onslaught of new tutorials and books to be coming out. Peachpit Press has already sent me an advance copy of their Apple Pro Training series for Final Cut 6. Their schedule of releases show that several more will be released soon. For DVD tutorials, other than Ripple, you can expect more to be coming from DMTS, Total Training (both of these companies produce some excellent stuff) and Absolute Training as well.

Just finished my Studio Pro 2 install this morning. My DVD Studio Pro opens up at 4.2.0.......is this correct?

Steve B)

Well, the new laptops are now up on the Apple website. Prices are consistant and you can put up to 4gigs ram in them. They also offer 2 separate 160 gig boot drives, one spinning at 5400 and the other 7200. Mary Lynn uses a small Lacie travel drive which spins at 5400 so she thinks it is better to go with the 5400 but I'm not so sure. Would an external spinning at 5400 have any problems with the laptops drive spinning at 7200?

Also, any thoughts from you folk about the glossy screen vs the regular screen?

Steve B)

I am not a fan of glossy screens

As to the 7200RPM vs 5400RPM internal the 7200RPM will have more performance boost, but back when the real increase came from 4200RPM to 5400RPM, the increment from 5400RPM to 7200RPM was not as great and the higher spinning drive could make battery life shorter. BUT these tests (the last I looked) was a few years back. Check out barefeats.com The newer drives may change that a bit.

As to the rate of internal/external - should make no difference if they do not match. My laptops all have 5400RPMs and have many small and large 7200RPMs hooked up. Have hooked up towers with 7200RPM to 5400RPM drives

Have also used many other combinations (5400 internal 4200 external, 4200 internal 5400/7200 external) and real no issues but 4200RPMS are slow.

As to Lacie Drives, really not my favorties - I had too many go south and have become soured on them.

macsales.com has some good ones and I have captured many hours of DV and HDV to them using iBooks, tiBooks and my MacBook Pro. I usually carry one that is partitioned with a boot drive clone and then extra storage space and one or two others for capturing and duping.

4.2.0 is right on the DVD SP side

Just ordered it.

 

Mac pro

 

2x 2.66ghz dual core Xeon

2GB Ram (will get more from other suppliers when I can afford it)

2x 500 GB HDD

ATI X1900 256MB gfx

23'' HD Display

 

and

 

Final Cut Studo 2!

 

Now I'm broke !!

 

Cheers, Simon

 

P.S Any pointers for some good tutorials would be VERY appreciated

Wow go Simon.

Hey does that MAC stuff use all the power of the multiply processors?

On the PC side of things with Vista I don't think there is any NLE software yet that will use all the cores with a Quad just yet.

I think it uses the dual cores well, but from what I've read it doesn't use the quad cores yet - waiting for an OS update I believe which is due in the Autumn.

I think the quote that swung the Pro Mac choice for me was when a Parallels review quoted 'It runs Vista better than a Dell', so I can still use all my old PC software on it too

Thanks for the training advice everyone - I'll look into it.

Cheers, Simon