New MacRumors member help with video editing

[Jbgloss]

Good morning,

I am new member here and don't know why I did not find this place before. Quick about me. I started a podcast a few years ago on a PC and had it run up to number 1 in my iTunes category. I migrated to a Mac Book Pro and started using Garage band. It has been amazing for me. I have since gotten into youtube videos and vimeo. I usually get around 5 -10 thousand views. I have been using iMovie. The podcast has been top 5 for 4 years and the business grows daily Thank you APPLE!!

Garage band and iMovie have been amazing to start my business as well as the CPU. My issue is I need to upgrade the quality of everything that I am doing. Audio and Video. Garageband is sufficient, but with the type of camera I am moving to I need to move up to Final Cut.

I know there are many experts on here and I need some help and appreciate it big time.

I am purchasing the Cannon XF100 this week as it is coming out this week -

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/733533-REG/Canon_4888B001_XF100_HD_Professional_Camcorder.html

I am going to be doing my Youtube/Vimeo and Live broadcasts with this.

I am borderline technical - enough to put hard drives and ram in etc...

I have a few questions

1. I have been looking at bumping up to the Mac Pro 2.93 with an SSD for Boot and a few 2 TB drives. Grab those from MacSales.com. Grab 32 GB of Ram and 2 Displays. Just build out a nice workstation. The issue is this looks to be around 8-9K I am not to sure on how RAID works and if I should go that direction. But, this is where I could use some thoughts??? Most of my video will be clips of 5 - 15 minutes. Though I may be doing some of my seminars. I have a pro video person who does my major stuff. I just need to be able to do my stuff quickly and on the run. I also LOVE this stuff

The other question is should I wait for the refresh?? Or just go with the Westmeres?

I guess part 2 would be, since I am going to be using Photoshop, Logic Studio, GarageBand, and Final Cut (Motion etc...) Could I get buy with an iMac or a new MacBook pro and up the ram in it.

I don't need portability in fact as part of this new spend I am looking to buy an Air for travel. I already have my old Macbook Pro which runs fine. I also have an iPad and iPhone 4 for travel so I am pretty good to go.

ANY thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Even building the MacPro with third party RAM and SSD, etc with camera I am looking at 13-14K with Software. That is a huge chunk of change and I want to make sure I am making the right decision with that.

Thank you so much in advance. I hope to join the ranks that can help people one day as I go on this next journey to learn these higher end tools.

JB

 

[Hellhammer]

I think you would be fine with 3.33GHz 6-core Mac Pro. You said you have an office rat that can do the major stuff (what computer BTW?) and 5-15min clips aren't that long.

Or another option is to get 2.4GHz 8-core refurb for 2969$ and then buy two 6-core CPUs for it. X5650 (2.66GHz) goes for around 650$ each and you can then sell the original E5620s for 300$ each or so. The total price of the 2.66GHz 12-core would then be around 3700$ plus RAM, HDs and SSD(s). That over 1000$ savings.

Or get 2.66GHz 12-core refurb for only couple of hundreds more.

RAID 0 is pretty easy and handy. Just use Disk Utility. It will in theory double your read and write speeds which should speed things up. This also allows you to get cheaper drives such as Caviar Greens, which are slower but in RAID 0, they are faster than a single Caviar Black for example.

 

[Jbgloss]

Thank you

Hellhammer -

Cool pic, I am old headbanger 41 years young!!

Thank you for the help - I am currently running a MacBook Pro - 2.2 - 4GB 667 Mhz DDr2 SDRam.

I don't want to overspend if I don't have to!!

If I go Dual Apple Displays any issues with the machine you are discussing.

Thanks

 

[Hellhammer]

Hellhammer -

Cool pic, I am old headbanger 41 years young!!

Thank you for the help - I am currently running a MacBook Pro - 2.2 - 4GB 667 Mhz DDr2 SDRam.

I don't want to overspend if I don't have to!!

If I go Dual Apple Displays any issues with the machine you are discussing.

Thanks

I asked this to be moved to the Mac Pro forum as there are plenty of people who can help you more than I can as they actually work with Final Cut and other apps you mentioned.

Any Mac Pro should run dual ACDs fine but again, whether you should go for the 5770 or 5870, I can't help you with that one. There are several regular lads that hang in the MP forum who really know their stuff, I can only give general advice when it comes Final Cut and stuff, not very detailed one

 

[Jbgloss]

Thank you!!

Thank you -

 

[Pressure]

How complex are the videos? Are we talking multiple layers and lots of effects?

If you do not want to post an example of the kind of work you do, you can PM me. That would make it a bit easier to guesstimate what your needs really are.

I'm running a dual screen setup with Apple Cinema Displays on my Mac Pro for editing commercials and instructional videos.

Ask away.

 

[initialsBB]

I agree with Hellhammer, the 6x3,33 Mac Pro will be a great machine for you and much more affordable. The 12 core machines are impressive beasts and stunning for Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, but you have to be able to justify the cost of the processors alone !

My advice would be get the 6 core Mac Pro, and spend money on getting an SSD for the boot partition (OS X and applications), another one as a work/scratch volume, and the last two drive slots for 2 or 3 TB HDDs. RAIDs are great for speed, but it is not backup and SSDs alone offer ample bandwidth for your needs. In terms of RAM, either go for 4x4GB, which is great, or 3x8GB, or even 4x8GB, which is stellar.

It goes without saying that RAM, hard drives, and SSDs should not be purchased from Apple but rather from a retailer such as OWC.

You should be aware that the Canon XF100 shoots MPEG 2 long GOP video, which is less than optimal for frame accurate, real time editing. Depending on what you do to your footage, even with a 12 core machine, this kind of footage can prove problematic once on the timeline.

I don't use Adobe Premiere CS5, but the reports I have seen indicate that the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine is much more efficient when editing MPEG2 long GOP and MPEG4 rushes... but only when used in conjunction with one of three Nvidia graphics cards available for the Mac Pros. Word on the street is that the next version of Final Cut Studio will address this issue, but no information has come from Apple about this, and we are already long overdue this update.

Personally at work I choose one of two options: a) short on time or very short project, in which case I grin and bear the hassle of long GOP media and just edit directly the footage in the timeline; b) more prep time, I transcode the footage into ProRes 422 HQ, then edit with that as ProRes is great in Final Cut Pro Studio.

 

[Jbgloss]

Great info!!

Pressure here are my normal videos

http://www.vimeo.com/user5974593/videos

http://www.youtube.com/morningcoach

As you can see I have a professional wrapper around my video. I just shoot. I now put in iMovie and compress.

My professional stuff is much better http://www.passions2profits2011.com that was done by my video guy .

I am trying to bring my personal video quality up to that standard. I am not doing commercials, etc...

Intialsbb: I am also not 100% on the Cannon XF100 I am open to other cameras that can give me quality and it is easy to use.

BTW Pressure- I interviewed Steffan Engels from Denmark for one of my last shows, he broke the marathon recored by running 365 marathons in a ROW!!! Amazing
Here is the interview - http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/morningcoach-com-profiles/id362332623

Thank you everyone for the help!!!!!

 

[IphoneGeek7]

this helped me too!