Ok, I’m finally making the jump from SD to HD…better late then never, right?
I feel like I did when I first started working with DV footage about eight years ago…confussed! I think I have decided on a Panny HMC150, cant afford P2 technology, need 3CCD’s for weddings and sports, and like the price point.
However I’m using FCP 6 on a dual 2.66 intel mac, with 2 Ghz of ram.
Sooooo, I need a little guidance on what I need to beef up so I’m ready for my new camera.
I obviously need more ram, I’m thinking an additional 6 Ghz (8 total). I also need more hard drive space, I’m thinking 4 GB. But should I be looking at an external solution like G tech, or a couple internal HDD’s? Finally, I need an external HD monitor solution… whats the most bang for the buck? I cant afford a real HD monitor so I was thinking a nice 1080p tv and maybe a black magic card? Would this work for a start?
Most of the work I do is weddings, sports, and events.
This is all new to me, up till now it has all been SD shooting and editing, so any advice would be really helpful.
Thanks.
-Shane

Hi Shane,

Your setup should work fine, even with 4Gb of memory. I suppose you mean 4Tb of harddisk space. That is fine. Use two 2Tb disks (WD caviar Black or other high speed disks) internal. For HD monitoring you could use Black Magic or Matrox MXO and a second LCD monitor, but not sure if you need it right from the start. It depends if you are doing a lot of color correction. The Panasonic HMC150 is a great camera. The files need to be transcoded before you can edit. This takes a while, but you don't have to be present at the computer.

Thanks for the reply!
I was thinking the internal drives would be better also... I'll check out the brands you mentioned.
-Shane

the Ram isn't as important as the hard drive and processor speed when using FCP. I have two systems and even my 1st gen MBP with a single Core 2.16 and 2 gig RAM works just fine. I even ran AE CS4 although I couldn't do anything else at the same time! As mentioned, you will want to transcode to Pro Res which on my MBP is pretty much realtime. My new MacPro (8 core 2.66) is about 1/3 real time. This is processor intensive...not Ram.
Get lots of disk space as pro res is pretty large.
BTW, the HMC-150 ROCKS!!! Had mine for about 2 months now and couldn't be happier. Make sure you get the big battery.
Enjoy!

Also, I think I saw a Matrox MX02 mini for $300 in the classifieds on this site. Better move quick on it though as all I need is another good gig and I'll buy it! HaHa!