iMac and FCP Question

[Rey Ortega]

Originally Posted by Scott Anderson

Maxxing out your RAM is a good idea, especially if you plan on using Motion at all.

I can relate... My system bogs down a little when I get a little crazy in motion...especially when creating DVD Menus. I did Max out the RAM on my Imac, but it still chugs on complex layering effects. Has anyone experienced an efficiency difference between After Effects and Motion? How's the taxing on RAM between the two?

Rey Ortega

[Jeff Sayre]

Originally Posted by Matt Throop

Yeah, I'm on the Apple store right now, and I'm considering the G-Drive 500Gb external hard drive.

Anyone have experience with this drive?

Matt:

I have a 250Gb G-Drive with FW400 and FW800. It is a wonderful, reliable drive. FW800 is very fast!

[Scott Anderson]

Firewire 800 is great - I use the PHR-100ACB MacAlly external drive enclosures at work. Unfortunately, there's no FW800 on the iMac.

I'm a long-time After Effects User, and I can tell you the workflow is quite a bit different than Motion. Motion is all about real-time design, throwing stuff up against the wall to see what sticks. After Effects is all about keyframes and precise control. There are ways to speed up previews: RAM previews, wireframes, and turning down resolution for realtime performance. These days, working in DV resolutions is close to a realtime process, depending on how many layers and effects are applied. So AE Really isn't a huge RAM hog, unless you want to preview several minutes of a composition in RAM, which really isn't AE's worflow, anyway. It's never been a problem for me.

That being said, AE is a very mature, full-featured compositing and Motion Graphics package. You can do tons of things in AE that Motion won't have for years, if ever. Unfortunately, AE won't be a Universal Binary until at least late '06 or early '07.

[Matt Throop]

Scott, that's a good idea, but is it easy to do? (This is regarding your first post)

Thanks for the input everyone!

[Scott Anderson]

Originally Posted by Matt Throop

but is it easy to do?

Here's the sequence - you need a small phillips screwdriver, and the directions are in the box, along with the Firewire and USB cables.

1. Remove 2 screws from enclosure case - slide off housing.

2. Unpack hard drive. Set drive jumper to Single/Master. On a Western Digital drive, remove jumper completely (on directions).

3. Screw sillicone stoppers into drive, plug in data & power cables.

EDIT: (I forgot to tell you to remove the bag of sillica gel included to keep the enclosure dry during shipping, but that would probably become obvious)

4. Put housing back on enclosure, screw closed.

5. Plug firewire into Mac. Turn on drive. Run Disk Utilities to format drive.

6. Your new drive mounts onto the desktop!

That's it - no fancy computer skills needed, and you've saved yourself a bundle.

[Matt Throop]

Thanks. I'll try my best with that. Also I'm on my locate computer shop's site, and they have external harddrive enclosures, and I'm guessing the hard drive would have to be SATA. I found this hard drive.

Samsung HD401LJ 400GB 7200 Sata3G 16MB

Would that work?

Here is my locate computer store's site.

www.bestbytecomputer.com

If you could point me in the right direction for the correct enclosure and hard drive.

Sorry about all the questions. I'm pretty new at this stuff.

Thanks again.

[Scott Anderson]

Nope, you don't need a SATA drive. Not for the MacAlly enclosure, anyway. You need a IDE interface, sometimes called ATA. Something like this:
Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JB

Here's the MacAlly Product page:
PHR-100AC

Your local computer store carries a similar enclosure that also needs an IDE drive, but I have never used a Vantec enclosure, so I can't speak to its quality:
Vantec NST-350UF NexStar HD Case U2/1394

[Matt Throop]

Thank you very much!

[Rey Ortega]

Originally Posted by Scott Anderson

I'm a long-time After Effects User, and I can tell you the workflow is quite a bit different than Motion. Motion is all about real-time design, throwing stuff up against the wall to see what sticks. After Effects is all about keyframes and precise control. There are ways to speed up previews: RAM previews, wireframes, and turning down resolution for realtime performance. These days, working in DV resolutions is close to a realtime process, depending on how many layers and effects are applied. So AE Really isn't a huge RAM hog, unless you want to preview several minutes of a composition in RAM, which really isn't AE's worflow, anyway. It's never been a problem for me.

That being said, AE is a very mature, full-featured compositing and Motion Graphics package. You can do tons of things in AE that Motion won't have for years, if ever. Unfortunately, AE won't be a Universal Binary until at least late '06 or early '07.

Thanks for your insight.

[Glen Elliott]

Matt did you end up going with the iMac? It's a fantastic buy- I'm in the process of swiching to an all Mac workflow. I've already invested in a 2.16 ghz 15" Mac Book Pro w/ 2 gigs of ram, and a Mini with 1 gig ram and 100 gig hd upgrades. It's amazing how well EVEN the Mini handles SD content! Btw, I even have Shake installed on the Mini.

I purchased my girlfriend a 20" iMac a few months back for her b-day and I've been jealous ever since. In some ways I wish I had got the iMac over the Mac Book Pro! Especially with the existance of iLugger bags, ect- that make it possible to transport the iMac easily.

If your looking for any FCP studio training material I'll have a bunch for sale soon as I finish it. PM me for details. Oh and good luck with "your" switch as well.

[Matt Throop]

No, I haven't Glen. Hopefully I should tomorrow! I'm pretty excited.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Glen Elliott

I purchased my girlfriend a 20" iMac a few months back for her b-day and I've been jealous ever since. In some ways I wish I had got the iMac over the Mac Book Pro!

Ahhh Glen, the things we do for love, huh? ;-)

-gb-

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

Ahhh Glen, the things we do for love, huh? ;-)

-gb-

Hey well I can't say it was COMPLETELY an un-selfish purchase. lol... I spend a lot of time at her place. Having a Mac available rather than her horrid E-Machine tower is a plus.

Interestingly enough she works from home and requires a PC computer to do her job. I installed XP via bootcamp for her and she boots into XP ONLY for work. She LOVES the Mac. I never even had to show her how to navigate and do functional things in OS X. It's all so intuitive.

[Glen Elliott]

Originally Posted by Matt Throop

No, I haven't Glen. Hopefully I should tomorrow! I'm pretty excited.

Matt, just a word of caution. I spend some time siking myself up about the WWDC (World Wide Developer's Conference) today reading all the rumor articles floating around.

Rumor has it the iMacs may get an upgrade soon to the Core 2 Duo processors! I'd hold off for at least a week before you pull the trigger.

Personally I'm buying the biggest badest Mac Pro (tower) that is released. Hopefully it'll be released simultaneously the week of WWDC. If it is I'll be owning one NEXT WEEK!

It'll be my 3rd Mac in 3 months. (MacBook Pro> Mac Mini> Mac Pro) :)

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Glen Elliott

Matt, just a word of caution. I spend some time siking myself up about the WWDC (World Wide Developer's Conference) today reading all the rumor articles floating around.

Rumor has it the iMacs may get an upgrade soon to the Core 2 Duo processors! I'd hold off for at least a week before you pull the trigger.

Personally I'm buying the biggest badest Mac Pro (tower) that is released. Hopefully it'll be released simultaneously the week of WWDC. If it is I'll be owning one NEXT WEEK!

It'll be my 3rd Mac in 3 months. (MacBook Pro> Mac Mini> Mac Pro) :)

Did you do know that you can install Compressor on each Mac in your network and create a render farm?

-gb-