G5 for Final Cut Studio 2
by James Eckhouse
on
Jun 28, 2008 at 11:18:10 pm
Finally switching from Avid Express Pro on my PC to FCut.
About to buy a friend's G5. Never had a Mac before.
Wondering if a G5 with Intel Dual 2.5, 8 gigs ram
will be sufficient for smallish projects using Final Cut Studio 2
Any help on this will be hugely appreciated!
Thank you,
James
Re: G5 for Final Cut Studio 2 by walter biscardi on Jun 29, 2008 at 12:33:10 am
[James Eckhouse]"Wondering if a G5 with Intel Dual 2.5, 8 gigs ram
will be sufficient for smallish projects using Final Cut Studio 2
Any help on this will be hugely appreciated!"
You need to clarify this machine. A G5 runs the PowerPC Processor. The Intel processors are on the Mac Pros.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: G5 for Final Cut Studio 2 by Phil Balsdon on Jun 29, 2008 at 1:06:11 am
Either way G5 Dual or Mac Pro Intel it should work fine for your "smallish projects" requirement.
I'm running the full FCS2 (including Motion and Color) on a G5 Dual 2.7 with 4.5Gb RAM. Occasionally I use the second internal E-Sata drive as my media drive but most of the time it runs fine on Firewire 800 external RAID. Motion runs a little slow but is okay if you follow all the rules.
Most of my work is with Uncompressed 8 bit PAL, DV PAL or HDV 720p which I import as Apple Pro Res SQ.
Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
http://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/
Re: G5 for Final Cut Studio 2 by Arnie Schlissel on Jun 29, 2008 at 1:08:56 am
You can definately run FCS2 on a G5 dual 2.5 (PPC). I run it on one myself. You'll probably want at least 4GB of RAM, & try to find an ATI X800 graphics card (they'll be very hard to find).
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
http://www.arniepix.com/
Re: G5 for Final Cut Studio 2 by James Eckhouse on Jun 29, 2008 at 2:43:10 pm
Thanks all for quck response.
Machine I am looking at is dual 2.5 G5.
(Now realize that is before the Intel chip)
Has 8 MEGs of RAM which sounds quite decent.
the Vid card is a RADEON ATI 9600 (seller says it has 256MEGS)...
Is that adequate?
(At this point I'm working with "smallish" DV projects. Docs shot with XL2's. Assuming I might need something added to the system if I move into HD)
Regards, James
Re: G5 for Final Cut Studio 2 by walter biscardi on Jun 29, 2008 at 3:04:46 pm
[James Eckhouse]"Is that adequate?"
More than adequate. We were still cutting one-hour HD Documentaries with our G5 Dual 2.0 until we retired that machine last week with our G5 Quad 2.5. I used that Dual 2.0 for almost 4 years cutting everything from short documentaries to network HD broadcasts. It will render slower than the current machines, but you can run Studio 2 just fine on there.
[James Eckhouse]"(At this point I'm working with "smallish" DV projects. Docs shot with XL2's. Assuming I might need something added to the system if I move into HD)"
That would be an AJA Kona 2 or a Kona 3X, PCI-X cards. I actually am about to sell my Dual 2.0 that includes a Kona 2 card. If you're interested in that card, just email me off forum. It's more or less the same specs as the Kona 3X except it can't do the HD Cross Conversion.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: G5 for Final Cut Studio 2 by James Eckhouse on Jun 29, 2008 at 8:20:34 pm
Thanks Walter - very reassuring.
should probably wait on adding the Kona. Imagine it will take some time to retrain my PC/Avid addled ancient brain to Mac/Fcut format.
Enjoyed your site. Molly clearly overqualified...
Best, James
Also, go into the Creative Cow Store and pick up Shane Ross' "Getting Organized in Final Cut Pro" DVD. Excellent strategies for working on a myriad of projects within FCP.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: G5 for Final Cut Studio 2 by David Cooke on Jul 1, 2008 at 4:05:15 am
All G5's with sufficient ram will work fine. A good graphics card is
quite helpful, I'm on FCP 6.0.3 Quad 2.5 PPC, 16gigram, and still
haven't installed the XT1900 card I bought months ago. Been super
busy and still have the stock card the G5 came with. Knock on wood,
never had a problem, BUT I am only editing mini-dv footage right now.
Re: G5 for Final Cut Studio 2 by Caite Adamek on Jun 30, 2008 at 5:00:45 am
G5 suits my editing needs. However, a warning: if you are considering editing Red Camera projects in the future, you will need an Intel Mac to run the Red software.
