I have $5,000 and need an HD editing rig

[Zillax0rz]

I'm a life long PC user and transitioning to the Mac since it's industry standard. I'd like to get a Mac Pro to use for HD editing and I have $5,000 to purchase a system. I must purchase within the next week; can't really wait or I may lose that $5,000.

That said, what are some things I should specifically keep in mind? Things like... amount of RAM, storage, go with two 8 cores of 4 cores, should I buy RAM/HDD elsewhere to save money, etc.

Please help this ignorant PC numbskull understand the power of Apple.

 

[artalliance]

I'm a life long PC user and transitioning to the Mac since it's industry standard. I'd like to get a Mac Pro to use for HD editing and I have $5,000 to purchase a system. I must purchase within the next week; can't really wait or I may lose that $5,000.

That said, what are some things I should specifically keep in mind? Things like... amount of RAM, storage, go with two 8 cores of 4 cores, should I buy RAM/HDD elsewhere to save money, etc.

Please help this ignorant PC numbskull understand the power of Apple.

What kind of HD are you doing?
i hope you already have a heavy-duty RAID because that alone will pretty much eat up your budget if you are trying to do any of the high-end HD formats.

 

[CHROMEDOME]

Buy your hard drives from Frys or Newegg, Ram from maybe new egg or some other place but none from apple.

I would get the ATi 1900 and probably upgrade to the quad 3.0. Its up to you if you wanna spend the money for the 8 core, its faster though but its also a lot of money.

 

[zap2]

Where would the 5K go if you don't spend it soon?


Get a 3.0Ghz 4 Core Mac, 1TB harddrive and atleast 2G RAM(both 3rd party), a 23'' ACD and some software for editing.


Or wait for the LED Apple displays!!

 

[artalliance]

Buy your hard drives from Frys or Newegg, .

not if you are doing uncompressed HD at any point.
Then you need a full-fletched RAID.

 

[Zillax0rz]

What kind of HD are you doing?
i hope you already have a heavy-duty RAID because that alone will pretty much eat up your budget if you are trying to do any of the high-end HD formats.

We'll be importing footage from Sony HVR-V1Us and HVX200, working with 1080 30p probably.

 

[trainguy77]

We'll be importing footage from Sony HVR-V1Us and HVX200, working with 1080 30p probably.

So do you have something to store the data with yet? IE a RAID system?

I don't do HD video editing or anything but if i wanted to get alot of space and a mac pro for under $5000 I would buy a stock mac pro. $2,499.00 I would then go ahead and buy one of these: http://www.wiebetech.com/products/rt5.php Connect it via esata. Which is 1699.95. Then load it with 5 750gb drives which would total about $1245. Yes that is over $5000 but if you wanted you could drop to smaller drives or less drives. Then you would also want to buy extra RAM.....BUt this is just from 10 minutes of checking the net. I have never touched that RAID enclosure so no idea if its good or not. Depends how many GBs of space you want...

 

[Zillax0rz]

So do you have something to store the data with yet? IE a RAID system?

I don't do HD video editing or anything but if i wanted to get alot of space and a mac pro for under $5000 I would buy a stock mac pro. $2,499.00 I would then go ahead and buy one of these: http://www.wiebetech.com/products/rt5.php Connect it via esata. Which is 1699.95. Then load it with 5 750gb drives which would total about $1245. Yes that is over $5000 but if you wanted you could drop to smaller drives or less drives. Then you would also want to buy extra RAM.....BUt this is just from 10 minutes of checking the net. I have never touched that RAID enclosure so no idea if its good or not. Depends how many GBs of space you want...

That's a lot of money for an external enclosure. How many HDD bays are in a Mac Pro? Do I really need something like that to run RAID?

 

[diehardmacfan]

no u dont

just go for the quad 2.66 or 3 ghz machine with the ati radian

get 4 gigs of ram from a third party supplier

and get 4 750 gb hdd's from newegg

and there is a under 5000 price tag

 

[trainguy77]

No you don't have to just one option if you need that much space. But how much video will you want to store? The cheaper route is to do what diehardmacfan said and buy 4 750gb drives and just keep them separate or software RAID them. Then if you run out of space you can always buy external enclosures that are much cheaper then the one i pointed out. However i don't know how much space you need as I don't do HD video editing...

 

[killr_b]

no u dont

just go for the quad 2.66 or 3 ghz machine with the ati radian

get 4 gigs of ram from a third party supplier

and get 4 750 gb hdd's from newegg

and there is a under 5000 price tag

You forgot monitor and software.

Stock Mac Pro: 2,500
FCS: 1,300 uh, ships in May…
23" ACD: 900
RAM: OWC has a rebate program
So, about 240 more.
2x750 drives: I recommend Newegg though others may recommend somewhere less expensive, but only by 20- 30 bucks at most.
So, another 500 for HDs. Leave that other bay open 'till you can afford more.
I also don't think you'll need an X1900. Way better cards will arrive and you'll be happy you waited.

Soooo, I see about $5,500 right here, and don't forget tax and a FW cable and the fact that neither of those cameras shoot 1080/ 30p. They do 1080/ 24p or 1080/ 30i.

 

[Zillax0rz]

So, another 500 for HDs. Leave that other bay open 'till you can afford more.
I also don't think you'll need an X1900. Way better cards will arrive and you'll be happy you waited.

Soooo, I see about $5,500 right here, and don't forget tax and a FW cable and the fact that neither of those cameras shoot 1080/ 30p. They do 1080/ 24p or 1080/ 30i.

1.) What cards are you referring to? Do Macs accept any PCI-E video card these days?

2.) I'll admit, I'm entering uncharted territories when it comes to HD recording, but I've seen 1080/30p referenced many times for the V1U.

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/minisites/HDV1080/HVR-V1U/progressive.html

Am I missing something?

 

[trainguy77]

1.) What cards are you referring to? Do Macs accept any PCI-E video card these days?

It has to be a mac compatible card as macs run on EFI not a BIOS. Also drivers need to exist. Currently there is only 3 cards that work natively with the mac pro. But more will come out as time goes on.

 

[PianoPete]

People have been having issues with the X1900. Personally I wouldn't touch the card.

 

[netdog]

Get a 3.0Ghz 4 Core Mac, 1TB harddrive and atleast 2G RAM(both 3rd party), a 23'' ACD and some software for editing.

You are going to need more RAM than that for 4 cores.

 

[brooker]

The new Hitachi 1TB drives are hella fast - as fast as or faster than the 10k raptors. A raid 0 array of 2-3 of those in a MP would do the trick. Keep the OS and apps on the stock drive. Back up just the necessities to tape or external, if you don't keep your original HD media.

You will need a balanced system. You could probably save a bit by signing up as an Apple Developer. I ordered an 8-core MP, set up with a good amount of third party ram (OWC) and drives (newegg) for just a hair over $5k. As pointed out above, that doesn't include software or monitor tho. get a dell or hp monitor (same panel as apple, generally costs less).

Happy shopping!

 

[Pressure]

Are you talking about Uncompressed High Definition video-editing?

4GB of ram is a bare minimum and at least 4 hard disk set up in RAID0! An Uncompressed 1080i footage requires 120MB/s and three 750GB hard disks can deliver around 176MB/s.

You will be able to play one HD stream with this setup.

While this setup could work, you should definitely consider getting an external disk array with multiple disks.

Since you will be editing HD content I strongly suggest getting a screen that actually can display the full image together with the software GUI.

 

[trainguy77]

People have been having issues with the X1900. Personally I wouldn't touch the card.

I own the x1900 no problems with it at all. There was problems when it first came out though.

 

[Chaszmyr]

I'm not saying you won't be able to get something, cuz you will... But if you don't already have nice displays, then I'd say $5k isn't really enough for an HD editing rig.

I think a 30'' display would be of huge benefit, but you could do it with a 23'' or 24'' display. Really though, I'd get a 30''. If you are on a tight budget (which you will be), I'd get Dell's 30'' display to save money.

8-core Mac Pro is really the perfect HD editing rig, but it's costly, and any Mac Pro would do.

You're going to want RAM, 4gb or so, and you'll not want to buy it from Apple cuz it's cheaper elsewhere, but it's still not cheap.

HD video takes up a lot of space... You will definitely need to add some hard drives. Again, you can buy your hard drives somewhere other than Apple to save money, no problem.

In order to do real time editing, you need a good video card. It's true that people have been having issues with it (myself included), but it's the only real option unless you can afford the Quadro, which you can't.


So back to my original point. If you have $5k, thats all you're going to have, and you need the rig, then go ahead and buy what you can afford. I'd get a Mac Pro with quad 2.66ghz processors, an x1900, Dell's 30'' display, and then add whatever RAM and hard drives you can. Neither than RAM or the hard drives the machine come with will be good enough initially, but if you have to skimp, those are what youre going to have to skimp on since they are the most easily upgradeable things.

 

[tuartboy]

I think a 30'' display would be of huge benefit, but you could do it with a 23'' or 24'' display. Really though, I'd get a 30''. If you are on a tight budget (which you will be), I'd get Dell's 30'' display to save money.

I highly suggest getting 2 Dell 24" monitors instead of 1 30". This way you could have a full 1:1 HD monitor and put the timeline and palettes on the other. It would cost about the same but provide more flexibility.

So do you have something to store the data with yet? IE a RAID system?

I don't do HD video editing or anything but if i wanted to get alot of space and a mac pro for under $5000 I would buy a stock mac pro. $2,499.00 I would then go ahead and buy one of these: http://www.wiebetech.com/products/rt5.php Connect it via esata. Which is 1699.95. Then load it with 5 750gb drives which would total about $1245. Yes that is over $5000 but if you wanted you could drop to smaller drives or less drives. Then you would also want to buy extra RAM.....BUt this is just from 10 minutes of checking the net. I have never touched that RAID enclosure so no idea if its good or not. Depends how many GBs of space you want...

That is way too much for an enclosure like that. Take a good look at this article before investing in an external raid. Very cost effective and you could hit 3.5Tb of raid 5 storage with the controller card for the price of the other enclosure alone.

 

[Zillax0rz]

All right, here's where I'm at...

- Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
- 8GB (4x2GB) (from OCW)
- 2.5TB 7200rpm (3x750, 1x250)
- NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB
- Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP Wide-Screen
- One 16x SuperDrive
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module
- AppleCare Protection Plan

TOTAL: $4756.97

The actually budget cap is $4,800. I could drop a 750GB drive for a Radeon 1900XT and worry about storage again when I need it. I mean, 1.75TB should be okay for the first project, right?

 

[smokeyrabbit]

All right, here's where I'm at...

- Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
- 8GB (4x2GB) (from OCW)
- 2.5TB 7200rpm (3x750, 1x250)
- NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB
- Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP Wide-Screen
- One 16x SuperDrive
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module
- AppleCare Protection Plan

TOTAL: $4756.97

The actually budget cap is $4,800. I could drop a 750GB drive for a Radeon 1900XT and worry about storage again when I need it. I mean, 1.75TB should be okay for the first project, right?

AppleCare is just an extension to the basic 1-yr warranty. You can purchase it anytime during the first year, so you don't have to get it right away if you'd like to save on that.

 

[SilentPanda]

I don't see any video editing software in your set up. You might want more than iMovie... Unless of course you already have the software.

 

[Cromulent]

People have been having issues with the X1900. Personally I wouldn't touch the card.

The ATI card has been absolutely flawless for me since I got my Mac Pro.

 

[Zillax0rz]

AppleCare is just an extension to the basic 1-yr warranty. You can purchase it anytime during the first year, so you don't have to get it right away if you'd like to save on that.

Ah, that's very good to know. Does Apple remind you at all or anything? That'd be a good amount of savings.

The budget was meant to not include software, but I appreciate the suggestion.

Anyone else disagree with my choices thus far? Anything I should be aware of that, as a Mac noob, I'm forgetting?