Worth it to make the jump - PC -> Mac (dealing with 5d II files)
 

Hey guys,

I've been set for the past year to make the jump to a mac setup for final cut pro. As in the past it seemed that Final Cut was the best workflow for working with video from the 5d II. I have about 2000$ set aside for computer hardware so I have a decision to make.

Buy an i7 desktop pretty much loaded to the bone
or Buy a 15 inch macbook pro (the i7 one) and start learning / using Final Cut Pro.

But lately with things like Cineform it seems that working with 5d II files has gotten much easier on the PC.

So my question is.. workflow wise for the 5d II and possible other sources in the future. Is it worth it for me to jump over to the mac and final cut? or is sticking with Adobe Premiere just as good?

I know this is another one of "those" kind of post. I've done a lot of research on both but I haven't used a Mac enough to know the real differences for video editing.

Thanks

Haven't used Premier in a decade, so I can't give you much feedback on the actual functionality & workflow differences. However a friend from Adobe just mentioned that he was able to edit multiple streams of 5d & 7D camera-native files in the new Premier CS5 without a problem on a macbook... presumably you'd get similar performance on a PC depending on specs. So it may be worth waiting a month and trying out the demo before committing to the switch if your primary criteria is ease of use with 5D files.

It may be out of your budget but Avid is promising support for native editing of 5Dmk2 files in the next version of Media Composer, due out in June.

Thanks for the info so far.

I have about 1k set aside for new software. I'm currently on Premiere CS3 :( yes it's been awhile since i've upgraded.

So Avid would be out of my budget unless I decided to not upgrade my computer which is pretty old :(

And yes for now I will be seeing how far I can go with my 5d II and 1d4 (mainly a photographer). So they will my main video sources for the foreseeable future.

the new macbook i7 is not a quad. You can get a quad i7 hp for 900 when on sale. It will run about as fast as an old quad 6600 workstation from 2 years ago.

Cineform for 100 dollars and a 1000 pc will edit the 5D files all day long. You are going to pay twice as much for the same power in a mac. If you go mac, you will want a workstation and they are expensive and FCP is over a 1000.

Sony's Vegas works fine and you don't need much else. If you are so inclined, check out the new Adobe CS5. Looks like some amazing new technology and mercury with a cuda Nividia looks pretty powerful.

What ever you do, get 2-3 drives and stripe them as raid 0 or 4-5 drives and stripe them as raid 5 and remember to backup.

"But lately with things like Cineform it seems that working with 5d II files has gotten much easier on the PC."

I would watch some of the demos for CS5. I saw it in person yesterday at NAB. They had 7 layers of DVDPro HD playing in real time with CC, blurs, etc.

I also saw it play 5Dmk2 files plus a lot of other files all play in real time.

It is truly a game changer.

If you can get student pricing, you can purchase the full version of Media Composer 5.0 with native support for 5D files and other formats as well for $295.

T.

I had the same intention to switch from vegas/premiere to FCP just because FCP works better for 5D. I was looking at i7. However with the new release of CS5, I decide to give FCP a miss. I could save the $ and get myself a brand new blazing fast PC with a supporting CUDA card and still have some $ for software upgrading. Not having to transcode 5D footage is the way to go for me.

I keep a fairly potent PC around solely for video editing. I tried final cut on my macs and I absolutely cannot stand it. It is excruciatingly slow and after weeks of screwing around with Final Cut's interface, I just absolutely abhor it. So I've been using Sony Vegas Pro and Cineform. Sometimes when I'm in a hurry I will edit using the native 5D Mk II files and it's still useful when time is critical.

That's not to say that Vegas is THE BEST option out there, but for my needs, it is actually something I can use, where Final Cut's constant rendering and re-rendering just stopped me dead in the water.

Consider the very stable EDIUS 5.5 on PC.

Here's a demo of Media Composer Version 5 showing how it handles these files.
YouTube - NAB2010: Demo Avid Media Composer 5
When he says D7 I suppose that he means the 7D (and therefore the 5D too).

Constant rendering & re-rendering in FCP is usually a sign of improper setup. I do very little rendering before final output.

You'll still need to buy some editing software to work with your Cineform files. Just about any mac with FCP and ProRes will edit all day long as well, even the $700 mac mini. I'm working on a 2 year old macbook (slower than a new mini) without a problem. A workstation is certainly faster - hell, the new iMacs are dramatically faster than my system. I find it's not really that big a deal, and it's the reason I haven't bothered upgrading. Most of the performance difference shows up in either batch conversion, final render or compression, all of which are things I run while I'm sleeping or otherwise occupied. The actual editing process isn't impacted that much by the processor speed.

Again I'd say this isn't that big a deal. I've got 4 single drive units daisy chained off a single FW800 connection for media files (mostly prores), as well as one RAID1 unit for camera source files and project media.

We've really hit a point where you don't need to go out and get the most powerful workstation and expensive, complex media to do good work. If you're already set up with a pc and premier I'd say it's worth waiting for CS5 to see if it works for you, but if you decide to switch to mac it's worth knowing you don't need to go for a maxed out workstation.

Oh there are many of us having issues with Vegas right now. There doesn't seem to be consistency or solutions to the isses with AVCHD. Some can't get CF and Vegas to play nice, JPEG issues, red frame issues, terrible playback on the timeline.

And the latest iteration of Vegas seems worse.

Grass Valley seems to have some good options right now.

for $2K you can get a very decent PC, to get a MAC with the same specs will cost you 3x,
I installed Vegas 9d this morning, it's a bit slow to load the project, BUT, I've been trying to crash it for a few hours and I can't so far, with Cineform and native 5D files 9c was crashing all the time;
I run i7 950 12Gb RAM Win7 64;
Couple months ago I was seriously thinking the same thing, and i even bought the MAC, and I loved it, i mean MAC, not the FCP;
Edius is stable and fast, but I love Vegas, and 9d seems has everything I was waiting for since version 4 :)
Sorry, I can't tell about Premiere DSLR workflow, cuz I've never used it again after I switched to Vegas about 7 years ago;
would be great if you could give your new solution a try, before you will start spending money

WOW didn't know it was that cheap for students.

The video i saw was on a Mac. I'm assuming this runs equally as smoothly on a PC?
After your guys advice I am leaning toward staying with the PC route. Seems most people went the self built route too?

I am still considering the mac as I just found out that a friend works at the apple store as a trainer so he gets a decent discount but it looks like PC is a safe route to go.

I am dropping the files right into avid version 3, V5 will render quicker.
aloha
tito

If you can get a good price / discount on a Mac from your friend, then you may want to strongly consider that option. Reason being, is that the Mac can also run (via BootCamp) Windows 7 64bit.

So you'll have both platforms to utilize, but the only downside is the limited graphic card choices for both the MacBook Pro's and MacPro's. Then again, there are no better quality built PC's than the Mac's...at least in my opinion.

How's it editing with the 5D files?

I have the 7D. If your using the current firmware on the 5D then its should fix a lot of issues on several NLEs.

Also, I'm still using 4.6 right now which I use to convert the mov to HQ then edit.

Our other suites use 5.12 and they are ok if the files are converted to HQ. Hope to install 5.5 when my GV card arrives this week. Will give you feed back on that.

I've had almost a year using Premier Pro CS4 on an HP xw8600 running on Vista 64, using NeoScene to transcode my 5D2 files. Neoscene doesn't take too long but I usually transcode overnight after a shoot. However PP CS4 still requires regular renders that can be very time consuming. Adding any effect will always require a render and there are still instances of opening yesterdays project and finding some and sometimes all the renders need redoing.
I work in sound post production and my video collegues all use Avid Media Composer and have been telling me to give it a try. Almost all the audiowork I undertake over the last 15 years has come from Avid edited material and obviously as the 'work horse' of the broadcast industry I was aware that it's capable of doing just about everything.
I initially found it's very specific editing methods rather intimidating, however after watching a few tutorials and playing with it I certainly won't be going back to PP.
The ability to drop the 5D2 files directly into the program currently does require a render to make DNxHD files...probably marginly slower than using Neoscene. That will change with the new version, MC 5, that will play the 5D2 H264 files directly.
There is very little rendering otherwise and that's given me back 'a large part of the working day'!
I was using the freeware 'DeShaker' plugin within VirtualDub and re-importing back into Premiere. All very slow, but Avid has it's own stabilizing software built-in and color correction is superb although Magic Bullet Looks can be used as well.
A learning curve therefore and one that really requires the use of keyboard shortcuts to speed up the operation but worthwhile in the end and now Avid has been shaken up by the growth of Final Cut into it's market it's realistically priced. I'll stay with it.
David

Thanks Ted...please do share your experiences with the new 5.5 version. Also, does Edius's HQ codec edit in 8 or 10 bit space?

I could be mistaken, its 8 bit. I am sure though that its not 10 bit.

I use Vegas. When doing color correction, I preview in 8-bits and do the final render in 16. Good bye banding!

Much of what people think is a problem with 8-bit source material is actually a problem with 8-bit processing.

After years now editing in Premiere (from good old Pro to CS4 now), when I bought a Macbook Pro, I naturally tried editing in FCP. For everything else the PC to Mac switch is great to me, but I couldn't get used to FCP, little things mostly, but in the end, it's those little things which matter the most.

Don't get me wrong, I think FCP is great, but I like CS4 better, and I hope to like CS5 even more!