Upgrading G5 for HD

Hi,

I'm in the process of upgrading a G5 to speed up it's HD capabilities. I'm running 1.8 Gig processor and will be upgrading the RAM to 3 Gig. I'm also contemplating using the firewire 800 socket for transfer of footage both from camera and to and from ext hard drive.

What I'd like to know is whether these upgrades are worth while or will I not see any discernable change.

At the moment when I'm previewing the footage through imovie it runs at 1/2 speed at best and captures at 1/4 speed, not too good for a speedy turn around of clients DVDs.

Will the FW800 speed things up in the transfer or is it the internal processes of the computer that are slowing things down?

Cheers

Richard

eSATA cards and enclosures will give you the increase in speed you need... esp with a RAID 0 system. FW800 is limited to 100MB/s and that's with a RAID 0. It also has a limited number of drives you can daisy chain before the bandwidth on the bus is stretched thin. eSATA can hit 300MB/s with enough drives in RAID 0.

If you are capturing via firewire, then a different bus for the drives would be a better idea although most drives nowadays can easily handle the 4MB/s needed for HDV or 3MB/s for AVCHD.

Do a search in the Unrequited Gear sub forum for ideas on eSATA and RAID.

Then again why go for all this super fast raid stuff when normal Sata drives are fine for editing DV or HDV.

Editing 1440/1080 HDV on my 3.2 Ghz Quad PC I can have 10 pips open with the same video clip playing in all of them on just a normal Sata drive. Processor runs at 75%

Editing normal DV I can have 16 pips open with the same video clip playing in all of them on just a normal Sata drive. Processor runs at 65%

Using your same drive as your operating system is not the best but as Drew said they are plenty fast now days to handle it.

If moving large files super fast from one drive to another is important than got the RAID way.

I have also firewired in from 3 DV feeds at the same time to normal sata drives no problems while surfing the net.

eSATA cards and enclosures will give you the increase in speed you need... esp with a RAID 0 system. FW800 is limited to 100MB/s and that's with a RAID 0. It also has a limited number of drives you can daisy chain before the bandwidth on the bus is stretched thin. eSATA can hit 300MB/s with enough drives in RAID 0.

If you are capturing via firewire, then a different bus for the drives would be a better idea although most drives nowadays can easily handle the 4MB/s needed for HDV or 3MB/s for AVCHD.

Do a search in the Unrequited Gear sub forum for ideas on eSATA and RAID.

Thanks Drew, it seems that there is a lot for me to research and look into, the data rate for HD is very good to know as are places to look in the forums,

thankyou

RW

The G5 1.8 is a single processor correct? I think you should check the minimum requirements for your iMovie version. I believe the latest version requires a G5 2.0ghz to run HD.

Hard drive speed will help some but the RAM and processor speed is what crunches the numbers.

If it were me, I wouldn't bother with this computer as the processor speed is pretty slow and if its a single processor that's one more count against. However, to improve on it anyway which is your plan, I would change out the video card, The Radion 9800 would be the one for this model and has 256 mgs of virtual ram, and upgrade your total ram to 4 gigs( buying crucial or ramjet ram is cheaper and both make excellent ram).

Then again, if you are only using iMovie and have no intentions of going the FCP route, what you have may just be enough as it is. You don't say what OS you are running and much of the newer software is for intel Macs only.

Steve B)

Upgrading your RAM will help tremendously. I would say up to 4GB. Get rid of the 2x512MB chips that came with it and replace it with 2x2GB chips. Remember everything has to be added in pairs. The 1.8 will be okay and I agree about the 9800, I used to have a 9800 pro in my old 2.0 G5 and it definitely has a leg up over the stock one, if that's what you have. I think the 1.8 is a dual processor isn't it?

Billy

Thanks for all your help, RAID 0 Ext drive and RAM upgrade kit in the post, God I love B&H!

Licking of lips and rubbing of hands together.....

sorry I'm late but this may be of use....

larry jordan

another snippet of info.... my old desktop (this one) still works with HDV!?!?!?

check out these stats -

5 yr old PowerMac 2 x 1.25GHz G4

768 Megs of RAM..... !?!?!?!?!

as i say - it works..... with simple projects

Chris