Is a 3.06ghz imac realistic for Motion &/or After Effects

[HunterGather]

Is it realistic to run Motion 3 and or After Effects on a maxed out iMac editing/creating DV and HD video?

Or would it still be a pain?

 

[JesterJJZ]

You might want to consider a Mac Pro. Stuff like Motion can benefit from a decent video card and lots of RAM...especially if you make the jump to HD. If you were just doing DV I'd say it'd be fine, but for HD you'd want something better.

 

[aki]

ive done motion in DV on 3.06 ghz 4gb imac and its great

havent done any hd work much yet - only simple title animations - but for that its fine and final cut works great with hd

macpro is always better of course

depends a bit on how serious your motion projects get

but im very happy with the performance for what i do

 

[HunterGather]

Thanks for the responses.

For now, i just wanted a good machine to practice and create stuff for a portfolio of sorts to show off work.
But a mac pro is really out of my price range.

So a 3.06 is fine, yeah?

And a slightly unrelated question.

Is the macbook capable of functioning well when editing HD video?

Nothing huge. Obviously not to run things like MOTION or AE, but for portable use, it would be cool to be able to use Final Cut Express to work with HD video and not have to get a macbook pro.

Thanks!

 

[MacAgent84]

Running Motion and After Effects with SD video on that machine is great! There is no comparison to a PC with similar hardware specs and similar software. But, if you are going to be editing HD material, it depends on exactly how much memory per second the files would be, but you will definitely notice a strain on the machine.

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[argos4000]

You might want to consider a Mac Pro. Stuff like Motion can benefit from a decent video card and lots of RAM...especially if you make the jump to HD. If you were just doing DV I'd say it'd be fine, but for HD you'd want something better.

Lol. I would prefer to keep the iMac-I like the screen. Mac Pro would be cool though... But if you don't really want to customize it and all, then just get an iMac.

 

[NightSailor]

Video Editing with iMac

Is it realistic to run Motion 3 and or After Effects on a maxed out iMac editing/creating DV and HD video?

Or would it still be a pain?

If you can hang on a few more months, and pick up a bit better processor in a machine that can handle more RAM, it would be worth the wait.

I find the magic number for memory is 8GB. Perhaps 10-12GB would be better. I have 16GB in my machine and never use half of it. I've been waiting for a MacBook that could handle 8GB--and it is here! Yippie.

But, on the other hand, people are selling iMac is with 8GB of Ram in Amazon right now. So it may be that you could get by with the iMac you mentioned. It all depends on what formats you are editing. I think you would find that this iMac would work ok for you. If you can wait a few more months, you might find the updates make for a better machine. If you are into editing uncompressed video, there is no question you need a Mac Pro and even that will be breathing hard.