System Requirements for FCP5.1 with HDV and DVCPROHD at DVinfo.net

Andrew McAllister · August 21st, 2006, 10:52 AM

Hi All,

I'm going to be starting on a new project shortly, and I'm wondering whether I need to upgrade my hardware. I'm currently on a G4 DP 1.0 GHz, 1.5GB RAM, Radeon 9800, with a 240GB ATA RAID 0 as my video drive.

I understand that the hardware requirements for HDV are more significant and that Apple says:

"HD features require 1GHz or faster single or dual processors (authoring HD DVDs requires a PowerPC G5 or Intel Core Duo processor)"

But what is the real performance like on a G4? Is it usable? Do you get frequent dropped frames?

I'm slightly reluctant to jump to Intel until Bitvice is a Universal Binary, amongst other things...

Thanks,
Andrew.

William Hohauser · August 21st, 2006, 07:22 PM

Quite frankly, the difference between a G5 dual 2g and an Intel dual core 2g is enough that I am now doing all my HDV editing on my MacBook Pro until I can afford a Mac Pro tower. I can't see that you'll be able to do much beyond simple cuts on a G4, dual or not. The render times on the PowerPC chips are very long for HDV.

You can always export the finished project back to the G4 to render in BitVice.

Andrew McAllister · August 22nd, 2006, 06:12 AM

William,

Thanks for your reply. As I suspected really. I appreciate the help.

Andrew.

August 21st, 2006, 10:52 AM	#1
Andrew McAllister New Boot Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 6	System Requirements for FCP5.1 with HDV and DVCPROHD Hi All, I'm going to be starting on a new project shortly, and I'm wondering whether I need to upgrade my hardware. I'm currently on a G4 DP 1.0 GHz, 1.5GB RAM, Radeon 9800, with a 240GB ATA RAID 0 as my video drive. I understand that the hardware requirements for HDV are more significant and that Apple says: "HD features require 1GHz or faster single or dual processors (authoring HD DVDs requires a PowerPC G5 or Intel Core Duo processor)" But what is the real performance like on a G4? Is it usable? Do you get frequent dropped frames? I'm slightly reluctant to jump to Intel until Bitvice is a Universal Binary, amongst other things... Thanks, Andrew.

August 21st, 2006, 07:22 PM	#2
William Hohauser Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: New York City Posts: 2,650	Quite frankly, the difference between a G5 dual 2g and an Intel dual core 2g is enough that I am now doing all my HDV editing on my MacBook Pro until I can afford a Mac Pro tower. I can't see that you'll be able to do much beyond simple cuts on a G4, dual or not. The render times on the PowerPC chips are very long for HDV. You can always export the finished project back to the G4 to render in BitVice. __________________ William Hohauser - New York City Producer/Edit/Camera/Animation

August 22nd, 2006, 06:12 AM	#3
Andrew McAllister New Boot Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 6	As I Suspected... William, Thanks for your reply. As I suspected really. I appreciate the help. Andrew.