good MAC upgrade for 24p & FCP HD?

[Joseph Andolina]

What is recommended for my 1.4 dual processor G4 to upgrade my video card in working with FCP HD and 24p footage shot from my XL2? I notice stuttering and stop and go look in the time line while watching or even when logging b4 capturing the 24p footage. The final output to DVD looks fine. (I had posted endlessly about having problems with smooth playback thnking that what I was seeing in Final Cut was what I was going to see on the DVD., but that's not the case. The footage seems to have the right amount of motion blur & film strobing.) Although I haven't tried to print to video to see the results that way to see if the problem also prints to tape. so far
it's just on my computer I see the problem, even if I'm looking at a Quicktime converted file of the output on Quicktime player. So it seems my Mac is not handling something correctly, perhaps a buffer problem?

I do have a little over 1gig in ram memory (two 512's and thinking of upgrading to at least 2gig total since i want to be able to use Motion software). I'm not sure of the video/capture card, but it was the one that came with the computer when I originally bought it.

Joe

[Rhett Allen]

It sounds like you have a severly fragmented hard drive. Buy bigger faster hard drives, or better yet, install an internal RAID card and a couple of fast drives. The extra RAM can help a little but what you are describing sounds like hard drive lag and not a problem with your graphics card.


edit: sorry, forgot to address your statement about using Motion, faster hard drives won't help you there, only for the stuttering video playback. See Boyds post below for tips on future proofing your Mac for advanced Apple software like Motion.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Do some research before putting money into your G4 if you want to run Motion. I just got a copy and it's impressive but it really taxes your system. I see it bog down on my dual G5/2.5ghz with 2.5gb of RAM. After reading the Motion forum at apple.com I was convinced that Motion on the G4 is a losing proposition, and this was a big factor for me upgrading to the G5.

Be sure you read the specs which Motion requires for the graphics card, there are not a lot of options that are supported on the G4. By the time you upgrade your RAM and graphics card you'll have sunk a bunch of $$$ into your G4 and will still have a machine that runs Motion slowly. You may also have similar problems with the upcoming upgrade for FCP HD.

It's unfortunate, but if you want to use the high end software that Apple keeps introducing then you're going to have to upgrade hardware every couple years. The rumor sites are all talking about the next generation of Macs having quad processors which will make my G5 obsolete within another year! ;-)

[Joseph Andolina]

thanks guys for your responses. I will definetly take in consideration of all said. Crazy thing this world of editing and computers, aint it?!!!! The way it goes thus far, I might have to lag behind in keeping up with this madness for awhile :) Hold off on Motion, and just deal with looking at un-smooth running 24p footage thru my computer for a bit, as long as the output to DVD is okay like it is right now. anyone got a winning lotto ticket to share out there? :)

Joe

[Dave Perry]

Joseph,

Sounds like a hard drive issue to me as well, but I don't think you need a RAID for DV. I use a Mac Mini with FCP HD and an external LaCie and have no studdering. Used the same drive with FCE on my old iBook G3 and no studdering either.

As for Motion, you and I are both out of luck. I use it at work on our dual 2 Ghz G5 and to tell you the truth, Motion still has some work to be done on it. It crashes every once in a while, nothing major, and it has audio issues.

I would take a look at LiveType. I have recently discovered a lot of things you can do with it that are very "Motion" like. It's a good app for those of us who can't use Motion right now.

[Joseph Andolina]

thanks guys...