HDV project on aging G4 at DVinfo.net

Nick Rothwell · January 28th, 2007, 01:12 PM

I'm about to start a lengthy project In May. But there was no money left in our budget to upgrade our aging Dual 867mhz MDD G4 with an Ati 9800 and 2GB ram. If we are using HDV, I understand the render times will be long, but other than that, what issues might be run in to?

Chris Leong · February 13th, 2007, 07:13 PM

Nick
I'm asking more or less the same questions here...

The concensus seems to be that although FCP will work (and is said to work by Apple) on a G4 with 1GHz and 1GB RAM, in my very recent experience, this config usually results in the dreaded dropped frames, out of sync audio, and crashes, generally reminiscent of the old SCSI Voodoo days.

I have an older G4 with 1 and 1, and even though it's worked DV SD footage just fine, and loaded HDV off a M10U deck into FW400 without problems, and plays back the clips enough for logging, as soon as I went to edit there were problems with dropped frames and audio.
And I'm just doing a cuts only assembly right now, no renders...

People on other threads here seem to be saying Mac Mini core duo or iMac 20 core duo as being the best bangs for the buck as far as FCP HDV goes.

Otherwise an older dual 2.0 G5 PowerMac would be good if you want the expandability, plus they usually come used and maxed out these days...

I'm still waiting for a current Mac/FCP guru to weighh in on this for me, but as far as I know, this is the best way to go.

The other alternative if you don't have a lot of heavy editing to do (I have), is to go FCE instead and stay with the CPU you have. Again, I don't really know a lot about this, since I've spent most of my time on an Avid and a KEM, but if you check the rest of the threads, this seems to be the gist of what's been going on.

HTH
YMMV etc.
Cheers
Chris

William Hohauser · February 13th, 2007, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick Rothwell

I'm about to start a lengthy project In May. But there was no money left in our budget to upgrade our aging Dual 867mhz MDD G4 with an Ati 9800 and 2GB ram. If we are using HDV, I understand the render times will be long, but other than that, what issues might be run in to?

You should be able to get by. Those render times are going to be a killer.

January 28th, 2007, 01:12 PM	#1
Nick Rothwell Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: St.Catharines, Canada Posts: 33	HDV project on aging G4 I'm about to start a lengthy project In May. But there was no money left in our budget to upgrade our aging Dual 867mhz MDD G4 with an Ati 9800 and 2GB ram. If we are using HDV, I understand the render times will be long, but other than that, what issues might be run in to?

February 13th, 2007, 07:13 PM	#2
Chris Leong Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Los Angeles CA USA Posts: 507	G4, FCP and HDV Nick I'm asking more or less the same questions here... The concensus seems to be that although FCP will work (and is said to work by Apple) on a G4 with 1GHz and 1GB RAM, in my very recent experience, this config usually results in the dreaded dropped frames, out of sync audio, and crashes, generally reminiscent of the old SCSI Voodoo days. I have an older G4 with 1 and 1, and even though it's worked DV SD footage just fine, and loaded HDV off a M10U deck into FW400 without problems, and plays back the clips enough for logging, as soon as I went to edit there were problems with dropped frames and audio. And I'm just doing a cuts only assembly right now, no renders... People on other threads here seem to be saying Mac Mini core duo or iMac 20 core duo as being the best bangs for the buck as far as FCP HDV goes. Otherwise an older dual 2.0 G5 PowerMac would be good if you want the expandability, plus they usually come used and maxed out these days... I'm still waiting for a current Mac/FCP guru to weighh in on this for me, but as far as I know, this is the best way to go. The other alternative if you don't have a lot of heavy editing to do (I have), is to go FCE instead and stay with the CPU you have. Again, I don't really know a lot about this, since I've spent most of my time on an Avid and a KEM, but if you check the rest of the threads, this seems to be the gist of what's been going on. HTH YMMV etc. Cheers Chris