Final Cut Pro and XDCAM EX -- various topics

[Shawn Dooling]

Hello everyone, We are about to buy a New Mac System, we will be editing HD Video from our 2 EX3 Camera's. Along with Authoring it to BluRay via Toast 10 and Encore.

The Issue is, how much Ram to get?

The System will be running the following. Do you guys see any problems or any overkill within the system? Your expert knowledge would be very much appreciated.

do we need 16 Gigs of Ram or will a smaller amount do the job.??????

System specs

Final Cut Studio 2
ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 4 PRODUCTION PREMIUM

Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core IXeon “Nehalem” processors
16GB (8x2GB) 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
Mac Pro RAID Card
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
One 18x SuperDrive/Plus external Blu-Ray burner
Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)

THANK YOU

[John Stakes]

Do you NEED 16 gigs of ram? No. But it would be cool to have : ).

Minimum for that setup I would say 8gigs. Should keep you happy.

JS

[Mike Chandler]

While there is some dispute over whether 6 slots is better than 8, barefeats and diglloyd have put the new Nehalem through its paces and agree that mo' is better. You should get 16.

Memory Tech Notes on "Nehalem" Mac Pro

Macintosh Performance Guide: Reviews ? 2009 Mac Pro Nehalem ? Introduction

And it looks like if you have Silverado configure your system, you'll get the RAM for free (but compare the cost to what it would take to get the RAM from OWC @$289 for 16 gb)

Silverado Systems, Inc. :: HARDWARE :: Apple Hardware :: Apple Mac Pro :: Apple Mac Pro - 8-Core Intel Core i7 Nehalem for StudioBuilder Readers

[Mitchell Lewis]

I use and almost identical set up as you are looking to purchase:

MacPro 2 x 3Ghz Quad-Core Intel Zeon
9 GB of RAM

Ciprico RAID (5-drives / Fibre channel connection to MacPro)
Apple 30-inch Cinema Display
LG USB external Blu-Ray burner

We use Final Cut Studio 2 and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium (need to upgrade to 4) I've never missed not having 16 GB. Most software won't utilize more than 3 or 4 GB. Don't waste your money. :)

[Bob Jackson]

Originally Posted by Mitchell Lewis

I use and almost identical set up as you are looking to purchase:



We use Final Cut Studio 2 and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium (need to upgrade to 4) I've never missed not having 16 GB. Most software won't utilize more than 3 or 4 GB. Don't waste your money. :)

You will probably find that 4GB of ram is really all you will ever need.
I don't think FCP can use more than 2.5GB of ram. That seems to be the max on my MBP 15" late 2008.

[Keith Moreau]

It's BPAV folder, which is the native format that is stored on the Sony Flash Memory cards.

Actually, one of the small complaints I now have, and this is probably not Sony's fault at all but Apple's fault, is the need to wrap the EX1 codec files at all as quicktime files in order to use them in Final Cut Pro. Obviously there isn't any transcoding or other processing done to the files, they just need the Quicktime wrappers added to the files.

However, this requires a somewhat time consuming wrapping and copy of the files from the native XDCAM EX to MOV. This results in another copy of the files, and as is noted above, not necessarily compatible with other NLEs. It would be a lot more convenient for FCP to just use the native files. Obviously it's very possible, the Mac version of the XDCAM clip browser can read them with no problem. Apple, if you're listening, make FCP read native XDCAM files -and while you're at it, native AVCHD too!

[David C. Williams]

I'd say it's a marketing decision to not support open standards by Apple. They make their money by being proprietary, or they would disappear over night.

There is a plug-in for OSX that adds MXF read function. Calibrated{Q} MXF Import for OSX

[Mark Slocombe]

This is what our Mac dealer says - it's a revelation!! :

Hi Mark,

Please take a look at the following document:

Maximum memory usage in Final Cut Pro is 2.5 GB

I reckon we can utilise the additional RAM by creating a RAM disk, where Final Cut can use this as an accelerated scratch disk increasing performance...

So the only advantage jumping from 16GB to 32GB is to have more applications open simultaneously or to increase the size of the RAM disk.

[Ed Kukla]

What if you are shooting stock footage with an EX?

You need to edit down your raw footage and store it on drives or DVD's. When it's time to deliver a clip to a buyer what do you deliver? What files do you actually store?

[Mike Chandler]

I think it may help to look not just at what FCP alone is using. When a render in
After Effects can chew up 15 gb of RAM: Adobe After Effects 7 vs 8 (CS3) on various Macs

and with memory so cheap, I tend to agree with this:

"How much memory?
For the MP09, all users are advised to go immediately to 16GB (8 X 2GB)— it’s a small fraction of the system price (10% or less), and there is absolutely no sense in spending $3300 - $6000 on the Mac Pro, then skimping on a few hundred dollars of memory."
Macintosh Performance Guide: Reviews ? 2009 Mac Pro Nehalem ? Conclusions

[Mitchell Lewis]

I wish this were true. But in reality, I've never been able to get more than 3GB of RAM usage out of After Effects. Maybe this has changed with CS4 (I'm using CS3). Dunno...

[Mike Chandler]

Sounds like your experience is different, Mitchell, but this is what Barefeats found on an 8 core mac running CS3:

"The big news with After Effects CS3 is that it's not only written in Universal code (native for both PPC and Intel Macs), but it has a special feature called "Multiprocessing" which is enabled in Preferences. There is a check box that enables "render multiple frames simultaneously." When checked, AE spawns a process for each core called "aeselflink" and grabs up to 3GB of real memory per process. It's like creating a "render farm" within a single Mac.
We used the TotalBenchmark project by Brian Maffitt to "exericise" After Effects CS3 on four of the top performing Macs. Not only were all 8 cores "cooking" in the top Mac Pro, but 1.5GB of real memory was dedicated to each process -- or a total of over 15GB in use out of 16GB available!" Adobe After Effects 7 vs 8 (CS3) on various Macs

"We decided to experiment with this feature using the TotalBenchmark project by Brian Maffitt. Part 2 took 355 seconds to render on the 8-core Mac Pro with Multiprocessing "OFF." It only took 168 seconds to render with Multiprocessing "ON." Multi-Processing on the 8 Core Mac Pro

[Paul Cronin]

I have 16GB or ram and a few weeks 4GB went bad. So for a week I has 12GB and notices a big difference in render times. You can set up the machine if you use color, motion to use most of the ram. Ram is so cheap I would go with at least 16GB.

[Mitchell Lewis]

My mistake. I don't use the Multi-Processing function. It has some negative effects that come with the additional render speed.

1) Delay in doing RAM previews. This is a big pain while you're working on a project
2) Uses all the system resources while rendering. So you can't really use any other programs while it's rendering.

The solution would be to work with multi-processing turned off and then turn it on to render. But in my situation, it is kind of a pain to remember and it really doesn't make that big of a difference in shortening your render times.

You results may vary from mine. :)

[Craig Seeman]

FCP can save edited file to .MP4 for use in other NLEs.

I believe there will be an FCP solution obviating the need to rewrap MP4 to MOV.