Any Suggestions for best hardware set-up for 3 seat FC Studio 3?

Hey All,

Preparing for long awaited equipment upgrade and am looking for suggestions for best hardware. Will be 3 seat Editing Suite that is producing two 30 minute episodic Branded Entertainment shows in 1920 X 1080. 8 core vs 12 core? Best Network Storage Hub? And so and so on.

Will be running FCP Studio 3.

Thanks for any suggestions.

It's not a great time to buy, as there is uncertainty about what's coming up next year. There are rumours of new model macPros, or perhaps EOL on MacPros. Although, if they can the MacPros altogether, maybe now is a great time to buy.

Thanks as always Jude,

Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of waiting.
Due to impending start of 2nd 30 min. Program
& need to go to Full HD for current show.

So, no real choice other than making the move now.

Also, Lion or Snow Leopard for FCP 7/Studio 3?

Thanks again.

Ah, then the wisdom has always been to buy as much computer as you can reasonably afford, as it will last longer and perform better for the job at hand. Full HD needs a lot of grunt, but can be done (slowly) on most MacPros, so your options are wide open.

I'm on Lion running Studio 3 and it's fine, but SL was also fine. I don't like the new thing in Lion where you can't save in some applications, like Pages and Numbers, but in FCP there is little difference between the two OSs.

What are you shooting on? And what codec are you delivering? Or what kind of tape? Have you got IO solutions or storage you need to match?

Hi Jude,

Shooting on Sony HVR-Z1U's, had been producing current show in a "faux" wide screen (DVCAM setting on Cameras) Output from FCP as DV/DVCPRO NTSC. This was for when Broadcast Station was broadcasting in 4:3 SD, but they have recently switched over to Broadcasting in Full 1080 HD, thus the need for us to make the change as well.

Looking at purchasing preowned Panasonic AJ-HD1400 for output to DVCPRO HD Tapes.
I imagine Cameras will be set to HDV, and using Apple ProRes codec in FCP.

Storage is a major concern to me, as well as making sure that the "hub" can be accessed by all 3 seats. Looking at OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 RAID at 8.0 TB, but not sure that may be the right solution.

Further imagine that the Mac Pros will need 32GB RAM, and possible solid state drives in at least 2 to speed rendering. Any thoughts on these matters?

Any suggestions greatly welcomed.

HDV should be no problem. I've been cutting that easily since the G5 days, in fact, I think the G4s could just about manage it too.

Converting to ProRes is a good idea though, since it removes the awkward long GOP situation and reduces the pressure on the processor even further. The only thing is that the file sizes for ProRes are larger - especially in HQ. I cut for broadcast on ProRes SD and for web/corporate/government jobs on LT to save space, since we are constantly filling drives and HQ is overkill (in my opinion) for any of these jobs, especially if you're starting with HDV.

I'm not sure about the DVCPro end, since I've only used the SD incarnation years ago, but if that's what the station requires, then that's what you get.

You could always just leave the footage on the internals of the MacPros and network the computers with a big fat pipe? Hoping other people will chime in here with good RAID and server solutions, since that's not my area of expertise.

As for the RAM, again I think you'd be fine with less. HDV isn't 'full' HD. It's very compressed, and once you're in ProRes, you can cut it on a Mac Mini, if you want to, albeit slowly. In fact I have a couple of jobs here on my emergency iMac that I bought last week stock standard off the shelf (2.7 GB Intel Core i5, 4GB ram) that are HDV 108050i converted to ProRes and it's working fine. Slower than my MacPro, but still quite workable, so that should give you an idea of how low-weight the codecs are.