iMac and FCP Question
 

Hey everyone,

I'm about to buy my first Mac, and I'm really leaning towards an iMac.

I know the specs I'll get for an iMac, and I'm getting the 21" inch screen one.

Which are...

- 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
- 500GB Serial ATA drive
- ATI Radeon X1600/256MB VRAM

Now I'm using an Canon XL2, and I'm just curious if iMac will run smoothly when I'm editing, and using real time effects?

Thanks for your time.

- Matt

From those specs it isn't clear... is this one of the new Intel coreduo iMacs? Or is it a G5 iMac? Or a G4 iMac?

If you're using a new Intel iMac then you'll fly through any kind of standard definition video. In fact, some tests indicate that they are a lot faster than the top of the line Power Macintosh G5's when it comes to Final Cut Pro rendering.

But even the G5 or G4 iMac will also probably be fine for your XL2. I have a dual 2.5 G5 Power Mac and realtime and multiple tracks work fine on it. I also have an older 1ghz Powerbook G4. The realtime isn't as good on that, but it works acceptably when I need something portable.

Let us know the processor specs on your machine and we can give you more specific answers.

Sorry, I was talking about the new iMac's. The ones with the intel chips.

Thanks for answering my question!

Hello,

Yep.. it will work great !! No problem.. I have one.. But i believe the screen is 20 inches, not 21 inches..

Yeah, I didn't know if it was 20 or 21 inches.

Thanks for your help.

I wanted to respond to this, if for no other reason than to confirm your selection. I have been a PC literally since their inception with all of our shows cut on Premiere or Avid. I purchased my first Mac Pro Notebook today for one of our shows, 2nd Unit he new and I have to tell you, before my experience today purchasing it, I didn't understand why Mac people were such zealots. I now know. The learning curve will be there, of course, but the quality, the performance, the product, the people and everything else, well, let's just say you're making the right choice. For those of you who have been following 2nd Unit on this board through it's first three episodes with Emmy winner George Dibie on lighting, cinematography and filtration for motion picture and television, I'll be anxious to hear what your comments are next week when the first show cut with FCP and Mac airs with Emmy award winning cinematographer and DP Jody Eldred of JAG and now NCIS fame.

It'll truly be a pleasure to join the Mac clan.

Thanks, I have been a PC editor since I started editing, just because I never had access to a Mac, but I should have the money for one by late July or early August. So I'm getting one. I have heard all great things. So I'm pretty excited.

I in sort of the same boat Jonathan. BTW, we met briefly at NAB during the DVINFO party. I asked about your HD because I ride one also. I got an iMac 20" a little over a year ago and it has been a pretty smooth ride with this system. Like you , it was my first Apple computer after being a PC guy from the days of the original IBM PC.

And just to keep you out of trouble with the Mac afficiandos, the correct term for your new computer is 'Macbook Pro'.

-gb-

I hope your purchase goes well. I have an Imac G5 20' with 2GB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive which I purchased about a year ago to work on DV projects. To date, I've had no problems with it, but the biggest concern I didn't address at the time was the amount of processing I needed for rendering and hard drives.

One thing I recommend is preperation for hard drives. Multiple hard drives can speed up the editing process and rendering. My system is a G5, but I'm sure going to the new Intel chips will help when it comes to efficiency. The key importance is get fast processing, hard drives with 7200 RPMs or better and lets not forget a powerful graphics card. I hope this helps.

Rey, I just bumped my Imac internal drive to a 500gb Seagate Sata II and moved the original 160gb drive to an external enclosure accessed via USB 2 at the moment. I can tell you it definitely helps having two drives for rendering and scratch disks.

I used a shareware program called SuperDuper to move the data from the original drive to the new drive(mounted in the enclosure). It worked flawlessly though it does take awhile to move all that data. I then swapped the drives around and put the 500gb inside the Imac and tested, and tested, and ran every application and opened as many documents and photos as could until I was satisfied that the move was golden. I then wiped the original 160gb drive(now in the enclosure) and set it as my FCP scratch and render disk.

-gb-

SWEEEEEEET!

Did it speed up render times? I'll have to give that a try. Thanks.

Thanks for all the responses. I have another few questions. Since I'll be getting a 500 GB harddrive with my iMac. Should I get a external hard drive? Also any recommendations for the external hard drive?

Thanks again.

Personally I would recommend a second drive for all your editing put all your capture files and render files on there and then anything you want to keep long term put on your internal drive as well as all your photos and project files and other personal stuff. This is the system that I use in my iMac and it works great. I ordered a maxtor one touch II 500 gig from the apple store when I ordered my iMac and it works great the only problem is that the drive only comes with a firewire 800 cable and the imac only has a firewire 400 port so you'll need a new cable. I have heard some good reports about G-Drives as well.

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?




Damn, I was going to get an Nikon camera. Haha. I guess I'll have to wait a bit longer for the Nikon.

I bought a refurb Intel iMac 20" a few months ago, and have had no problems that couldn't be pinned down to operator error. Maxxing out your RAM is a good idea, especially if you plan on using Motion at all.

The 500GB internal hard drive will come in handy, even if you're just working on DV footage. You'll be surprised how quickly you can fill that up, especially if you're a digital pack-rat like I am. Mine came with a 250GB internal HD, and by the time I copied all my archived projects and masters from my PC, I was already hitting the capacity of the drive.

I've already had one client provide me with an external HD to archive their project, and from now on I'll just build that into the cost.

I'm quite fond of the MacAlly enclosures. I've assembled nearly a dozen here at work, and had no trouble with them. You can get a Macally PHR-100AC Firewire 400/USB2.0 enclosure for $43 from newegg, and a 320GB WD Caviar Drive WD3200JB to stick in it for under $100. Installation will take you all of about 5 minutes.

The G-Drive is a bit of overkill for your iMac, as you don't have or need Firewire800 ports. Besides, you could go my route and have almost a Terrabyte (960GB) for $101 less ($429) than the 500GB G-Drive ($530). Or spring another $42 and have 1280GB. Now, I don't know if I'd daisy chain all these together at the same time, but I've run three at the same time, chained off one Firewire port, and had no dropped frames or other problems.

I'm jus' sayin'...

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

Matt:

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

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.

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

Thanks for the input everyone!

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.

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.

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

Thank you very much!

Thanks for your insight.

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.

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

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.

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-

So when will I know when they release the Core 2 Duo processors? I don't know any good real Mac websites for news, and such.

I'm guessing the new processors will be faster, and better for rendering then the Intel chips that are in Macs now?

Oh yeah! I planned on making my Mini a little sweatshop render worker after I get the Mac Pro Quad.