Newbie: Hardware & software

Philip Ngoi · July 27th, 2009, 09:51 AM

Hi i've been doing basic (and still learning) videography & editing - my sony camcor using 'movie maker'. I've been mths reading up here on the 5d2 and its really a blast!..the HD, oh wow...the rigs & accessories! I'm saving up for the 5d2 done! but here is where i need advice the support 'hardware': I need to upgrade my PC and have decided on the iMac 2.66GHz (reason budget) - now the software for editing, which one? the price of upgraded ones like FCE & FCS dont seem to be too much. I narrow down to FCS pro 7 and there is a 'system requirement' which i need to 'topup' the OS, extra cost - isit worth it?

Right PC - any upgrade?
Which software?

Thanks pros! I'm really enjoying it here even better when i complete my gears..woowh!

cheers

Nigel Barker · July 27th, 2009, 10:46 PM

You made the right choice in going for a Mac as people seem to have far less issues with handling 5DII video on the Mac than on Windows. If all you have been using is Windows Movie Maker then you will find that iMovie '09 that is installed on all Macs is a fantastic improvement on WMM. To start learning video editing then save your money initially & use iMovie until you find that there is stuff you want to do that iMovie is not capable of. Then you can decide on which software you need for more advanced use FCE or FCP. Here is a great detailed review of iMovie '09 iMovie 09

BTW Those cheap upgrade prices for Final Cut require that you already have a copy of the previous version. If you do not already have FCS2 then you cannot use the FCS3 upgrade pack.

Chris Barcellos · July 27th, 2009, 10:56 PM

I take the opposite position. You are limiting yourself to an expensive proprietary system.

I have been editing with Vegas, using NeoScene from Cineform for a codec, all with a $1,200 off the shelf Dell machine. No problems. Happy days, and money left to mess with lenses and other equipment.

I suspect that since there are more PC users out there, that Nigel takes reports of issues being more numerous, as proof of his theory.

Nigel Barker · July 27th, 2009, 11:36 PM

After spending most of my working life in the IT industry working with Windows since before V1 all I can say is that my recommendation to any non-professional computer user would be to purchase a Mac. The difference in price for equivalent quality systems is not great & well worth paying for in terms of ease of use & reliability.

Macs make up about 10-15% of the PC population but on this forum my impression is that Mac usage is far higher which would be in line with the higher usage of Macs among video & graphics professionals. Reports on this forum of Windows users having problems even just playing the 5DII .MOV files are so frequent that they cannot be ignored. It is still true as far as I am aware that it is impossible to play back 5DII files without installing extra software & is not possible to edit the files reliably without purchasing the NeoScene CODEC. A Mac can play & edit the 5DII files out of the box with QuickTime & iMovie '09.

Jon Fairhurst · July 27th, 2009, 11:37 PM

I also use Vegas and NeoScene, and it's problem free.

That's not to say that a Mac with FCP isn't a good solution too.

Marcus Marchesseault · July 27th, 2009, 11:47 PM

Chris has some good points but Nigel's argument that the PC can be troublesome in simply playing 5Dii files is compelling. I have run into these issues and they can be really annoying if I want to show some video I just shot on someone else' computer. Even quadcore windows machines don't play 5dii files without a few tweaks. That said, I'm not switching to Apple because their systems are certainly more expensive with equal hardware. There are often serious shortcuts taken with mac machines with a slow video card being the most common. Also, the abilty to upgrade a PC for about $600 with new mobo/memory/cpu blows Apple away. Finally, FCP is over double the cost of getting into Vegas with NeoScene. There are always affordable upgrade paths to get into Sony Vegas.

The advice that I have heard around here time and again is to "get what works best for you". If you find the PC to be annoying, get a Mac with FCP. If you work well with the PC and are turned off by Mac/FCP pricing, get a PC with Vegas/NeoScene.

Since you are planning to go with the Mac, make sure you get a quadcore processor. 5Dii files need the fastest CPU you can find.

Andrew Clark · July 28th, 2009, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

I take the opposite position. You are limiting yourself to an expensive proprietary system.

Not quite true.

EXPENSIVE - I've priced out a comparable HP Z system to my MacPro system and the MacPro was less expensive, by a good margin.

PROPRIETARY - Mac's can run Windows via Bootcamp. Windows only machines (so far as I am aware of) cannot. However, the hardware modifications are almost limitless for a Windows only machine.

I have a MacPro running Mac OSX.5.7 and am also running Win7 64bit (via Bootcamp of course) and it runs great. I don't side with either Mac or Win...I just choose the tool(s) that best suits MY needs.

Philip Ngoi · July 28th, 2009, 03:46 AM

Thanks guys i'm getting educated! Those advice & infors best ever:)
Nigel it is indeed a good review iMovie 09 - good advice!
Marcus, appreciate what you think if the iMac i chose isit fast enought?

so good keep it coming...

Marcus Marchesseault · July 28th, 2009, 03:59 AM

The iMac has a core2duo processor which has two cores instead of the newer quadcore chips. That would make that brand new system half as fast as my PC that is almost two years old. It can technically work with HD video, but it will render somewhat slowly.

Philip Ngoi · July 28th, 2009, 04:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcus Marchesseault

The iMac has a core2duo processor which has two cores instead of the newer quadcore chips. That would make that brand new system half as fast as my PC that is almost two years old. It can technically work with HD video, but it will render somewhat slowly.

I was afraid of that - tell me marcus 'somewhat slowly' can be bare with?

so good keep it coming

Nigel Barker · July 28th, 2009, 11:14 AM

Theoretically a quad-core system can be 2x faster than a dual-core but that is theoretical & depends on the applications having perfectly parallelism so that the work is spread over all four processors. In practice except for certain specific applications it will never be 2x as fast. My 8-core Mac pro is not 4x faster than my dual-core laptop. Many people do video editing on a MacBook Pro although personally I would find the screen small but enormous processing power is not necessary unless you are doing very complex work with multiple video streams & even then it is the likely the disk I/O that will be dragging the system down rather than the processor.

The Mac Pro is the only 4/8 core Mac system available & while it is a fantastic workstation class machine & a better & faster system than almost any other personal computer on the market it is a lot more expensive than an iMac.

The iMac will be fine for what you want to do.

Chris Barcellos · July 28th, 2009, 11:31 AM

The point of the NeoScene with Vegas (or other PC NLE) production process is that you don't have to have a high speed top end system. For many reasons, you don't want to edit in the capture file format. NeoScene converts your files to editable .avi files, adding near lossless renders over successive I believe FCP compressor does the same. Incidentally, NeoScene, is also available for Mac, as I understand it.

Marcus Marchesseault · July 28th, 2009, 12:38 PM

"The Mac Pro is the only 4/8 core Mac system available"

This is why Apple is more expensive than PC. There are lots of affordable quadcore PCs and the Mac STARTS at $2500.

A quadcore processor with Vegas is almost exactly twice as fast as a dual core.

I refuse to participate in a mac/pc war and it won't be allowed by the forum admins. That said, there are more powerful PCs available for less money than Apple machines but the real reason to buy one or the other is what you prefer to use.

I didn't realize that there were no low-end quadcore macs so that machine should be fine as it is the fastest non-workstation apple available (core2duo).

Peter Chang · July 29th, 2009, 12:40 AM

For the best bang for the buck, best of both worlds, and the ability to customize with the components of your choosing, build your own Hackintosh! Mine's an i7 920 overclocked to 4Ghz stable, 12GB RAM, GTX 285 - faster than the top-of-the-line Mac Pro for a fraction of the price. Now, I do own a shiny Apple-made Macbook Pro. No good ways around that if you want to run FCP.

InsanelyMac is the hub for all things Hackintosh. Also see Hackint0sh - Powered by vBulletin

I used the Gigabyte UD5 board which made it a cinch:
[GUIDE] Retail OS X Install (10.5.7) on Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 (Core i7) Mobo - InsanelyMac Forum

Evan Donn · July 29th, 2009, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Chang

For the best bang for the buck, best of both worlds, and the ability to customize with the components of your choosing, build your own Hackintosh!

How much time did you spend researching & putting that together? I know it's certainly possible to put together very cheap systems, but I've never been able to come up with a combo with comparable or better performance than an apple system where the price was cheap enough to be a bargain once I factored my own time into the equation.

July 27th, 2009, 09:51 AM	#1
Philip Ngoi New Boot Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Singapore Posts: 12	Newbie: Hardware & software - Advice Hi i've been doing basic (and still learning) videography & editing - my sony camcor using 'movie maker'. I've been mths reading up here on the 5d2 and its really a blast!..the HD, oh wow...the rigs & accessories! I'm saving up for the 5d2 done! but here is where i need advice the support 'hardware': I need to upgrade my PC and have decided on the iMac 2.66GHz (reason budget) - now the software for editing, which one? the price of upgraded ones like FCE & FCS dont seem to be too much. I narrow down to FCS pro 7 and there is a 'system requirement' which i need to 'topup' the OS, extra cost - isit worth it? Right PC - any upgrade? Which software? Thanks pros! I'm really enjoying it here even better when i complete my gears..woowh! cheers __________________ Philip Ngoi Last edited by Philip Ngoi; July 28th, 2009 at 04:12 AM.

July 27th, 2009, 10:56 PM	#3
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	I take the opposite position. You are limiting yourself to an expensive proprietary system. I have been editing with Vegas, using NeoScene from Cineform for a codec, all with a $1,200 off the shelf Dell machine. No problems. Happy days, and money left to mess with lenses and other equipment. I suspect that since there are more PC users out there, that Nigel takes reports of issues being more numerous, as proof of his theory. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

July 27th, 2009, 11:37 PM	#5
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	I also use Vegas and NeoScene, and it's problem free. That's not to say that a Mac with FCP isn't a good solution too. __________________ Jon Fairhurst

July 28th, 2009, 03:46 AM	#8
Philip Ngoi New Boot Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Singapore Posts: 12	Thanks guys i'm getting educated! Those advice & infors best ever:) Nigel it is indeed a good review iMovie 09 - good advice! Marcus, appreciate what you think if the iMac i chose isit fast enought? so good keep it coming... __________________ Philip Ngoi

July 28th, 2009, 11:31 AM	#12
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	The point of the NeoScene with Vegas (or other PC NLE) production process is that you don't have to have a high speed top end system. For many reasons, you don't want to edit in the capture file format. NeoScene converts your files to editable .avi files, adding near lossless renders over successive I believe FCP compressor does the same. Incidentally, NeoScene, is also available for Mac, as I understand it. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

July 27th, 2009, 10:46 PM	#2
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	You made the right choice in going for a Mac as people seem to have far less issues with handling 5DII video on the Mac than on Windows. If all you have been using is Windows Movie Maker then you will find that iMovie '09 that is installed on all Macs is a fantastic improvement on WMM. To start learning video editing then save your money initially & use iMovie until you find that there is stuff you want to do that iMovie is not capable of. Then you can decide on which software you need for more advanced use FCE or FCP. Here is a great detailed review of iMovie '09 iMovie 09 BTW Those cheap upgrade prices for Final Cut require that you already have a copy of the previous version. If you do not already have FCS2 then you cannot use the FCS3 upgrade pack.

July 27th, 2009, 11:36 PM	#4
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	After spending most of my working life in the IT industry working with Windows since before V1 all I can say is that my recommendation to any non-professional computer user would be to purchase a Mac. The difference in price for equivalent quality systems is not great & well worth paying for in terms of ease of use & reliability. Macs make up about 10-15% of the PC population but on this forum my impression is that Mac usage is far higher which would be in line with the higher usage of Macs among video & graphics professionals. Reports on this forum of Windows users having problems even just playing the 5DII .MOV files are so frequent that they cannot be ignored. It is still true as far as I am aware that it is impossible to play back 5DII files without installing extra software & is not possible to edit the files reliably without purchasing the NeoScene CODEC. A Mac can play & edit the 5DII files out of the box with QuickTime & iMovie '09.

July 27th, 2009, 11:47 PM	#6
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	Chris has some good points but Nigel's argument that the PC can be troublesome in simply playing 5Dii files is compelling. I have run into these issues and they can be really annoying if I want to show some video I just shot on someone else' computer. Even quadcore windows machines don't play 5dii files without a few tweaks. That said, I'm not switching to Apple because their systems are certainly more expensive with equal hardware. There are often serious shortcuts taken with mac machines with a slow video card being the most common. Also, the abilty to upgrade a PC for about $600 with new mobo/memory/cpu blows Apple away. Finally, FCP is over double the cost of getting into Vegas with NeoScene. There are always affordable upgrade paths to get into Sony Vegas. The advice that I have heard around here time and again is to "get what works best for you". If you find the PC to be annoying, get a Mac with FCP. If you work well with the PC and are turned off by Mac/FCP pricing, get a PC with Vegas/NeoScene. Since you are planning to go with the Mac, make sure you get a quadcore processor. 5Dii files need the fastest CPU you can find.

July 28th, 2009, 03:59 AM	#9
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	The iMac has a core2duo processor which has two cores instead of the newer quadcore chips. That would make that brand new system half as fast as my PC that is almost two years old. It can technically work with HD video, but it will render somewhat slowly.

July 28th, 2009, 11:14 AM	#11
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	Theoretically a quad-core system can be 2x faster than a dual-core but that is theoretical & depends on the applications having perfectly parallelism so that the work is spread over all four processors. In practice except for certain specific applications it will never be 2x as fast. My 8-core Mac pro is not 4x faster than my dual-core laptop. Many people do video editing on a MacBook Pro although personally I would find the screen small but enormous processing power is not necessary unless you are doing very complex work with multiple video streams & even then it is the likely the disk I/O that will be dragging the system down rather than the processor. The Mac Pro is the only 4/8 core Mac system available & while it is a fantastic workstation class machine & a better & faster system than almost any other personal computer on the market it is a lot more expensive than an iMac. The iMac will be fine for what you want to do.

July 28th, 2009, 12:38 PM	#13
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	"The Mac Pro is the only 4/8 core Mac system available" This is why Apple is more expensive than PC. There are lots of affordable quadcore PCs and the Mac STARTS at $2500. A quadcore processor with Vegas is almost exactly twice as fast as a dual core. I refuse to participate in a mac/pc war and it won't be allowed by the forum admins. That said, there are more powerful PCs available for less money than Apple machines but the real reason to buy one or the other is what you prefer to use. I didn't realize that there were no low-end quadcore macs so that machine should be fine as it is the fastest non-workstation apple available (core2duo).

July 29th, 2009, 12:40 AM	#14
Peter Chang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 46	For the best bang for the buck, best of both worlds, and the ability to customize with the components of your choosing, build your own Hackintosh! Mine's an i7 920 overclocked to 4Ghz stable, 12GB RAM, GTX 285 - faster than the top-of-the-line Mac Pro for a fraction of the price. Now, I do own a shiny Apple-made Macbook Pro. No good ways around that if you want to run FCP. InsanelyMac is the hub for all things Hackintosh. Also see Hackint0sh - Powered by vBulletin I used the Gigabyte UD5 board which made it a cinch: [GUIDE] Retail OS X Install (10.5.7) on Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 (Core i7) Mobo - InsanelyMac Forum