Mac Pro thoughts/ G5 to Mac Pro workflow

Hello to all,

Are any of you using a Mac Pro yet? Any thoughts on the Mac Pro? I have to set up a new system within the next 2 weeks and I'm a little hesitant about purchasing a computer recently released. The group?s feedback is always helpful.

The project coming up, dictating that I purchase a new system, is a multi-cam shoot shot on DVCPro50. The new system comes into play because I've moved over an hour away from Los Angeles and the commute is KILLING me! LOL! My plan is to do the capturing/rough edits at the home office and then take the work, via an external drive, to the production office to finish up the work, work with the director, online, output, etc.,.... Currently, there is a G5 at the production office with a Decklink Extreme card. I am going to move the G5 to the home office and set-up the new Mac Pro at the production office. Any thoughts, suggestions on this workflow and the new Mac Pros would be greatly appreciated.

Also, on Apple's website this is the suggested configuration for the Mac Pro:

Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" processors
4MB shared L2 cache per processor
1.33GHz dual independent frontside buses
1GB memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive1
16x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

Aside from adding a Decklink Extreme PCI card, do any of you have other suggested configurations?

As always, thanks so much!
Peace,
Lisha
www.badamitv.com
"We want your shorts!"

Lisha,

It's just a little too early to get really specific aboout the MacPro. Not many out there yet. I do know that BlackMagic is still working on a UB driver for their products.

If you do get a new MacPro, I would suggest you pay the exxtra $350 for the ATI X1900XT video card. It is nearly as good as the Quadro from Nvidia and lots cheaper. Next you would need to utilize the internal disk drive bays and add at least one or better more drives for the DVCPRO 50 capture and edit duties.

If you are thinking about using any of the current SATA RAID controller cards, they are also awaiting UB drives updates. No one knows when HighPoint and Sonnet will get around to those updates.

Still too early to tell on the Mac Pro. As far as capture products go, I don't suggest adding any Blackmagic products - period. Aja products are already Mac Pro available with it's IO line and will have it's Kona3, LHe & LSe available at the end of the month. Aja's Tech Support is second-to-none and the Warranty is the best in the business (3 Years).

...but that's just me

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

ok we have 29 2.0 ghz mac pros so far we have one with a firewire recognition problem but thats it, the last of them went in wed. or so, and we have a school wide brake for a week coming soon, but still it's the craziest time of the last two months and so far theres no problems directly related with the computers (a few with deep freeze but thats a different issue) except for the fire wire issue.

they are blazingly fast. we had some one rendering down a 4k sequence. though slow as hell it was still waaaay faster than a g5 doing a similer task

Ok... where are you going to school that bought 29 Mac Pros?

brooks institute of photography, we were going to get intel imacs, but then wwdc came along and we decided a machine as fast as the quads (in theory) for several hundreds cheaper. mind you they are as based out as you can get...but the best thing is, I really want to take the 29 boxes into one our sound stages and build a box fort! it would be awsome.

but we're finally getting rid of our very old g4 lab (we still have another one but it's newer) so thats 1 mac pro lab, one g5 lab one emac lab and one g4 lab, with g5 in several private post rooms...hell I pay 4 grand every 2 months...I better have access to mac pro's and hvx's

Thanks Joey!!!

As I mentioned, I will be working between the 2 systems --setting up the project/capturing rough cuts on the G5 and then additional editing/online/efx/audio on the MACPro -- or whatever new system I set up. Does it matter if the G5 has the Blackmagic Decklink Extreme PCIe card and the MACPro has a card from AJA? Melrose Mac said that as of 2 days ago Blackmagic is now ready to run on the MACPros. :-) Still looking into that one! I will check out AJA!

Thanks so much,
Lisha

Hi Lisha

I have worked with both Blackmagic and AJA products - there is little to choose between them except a few options and price (compare the specs on their websites).

I have a Blackmagic DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 PCI-X at home and often work on an AJA Kona 3 at a local post house.

I haven't had any issues (so far) with either. Both are fantastic quality.

Ben



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

I just got a MacPro 2.66 1GHz Ram (the stock MacPro) and really like it. No problems, everything works, and it's built like a work of art (only that's useful). i've added 3 additional internal hard drives, and i swear it took less than 5 minutes to install all of them. SATA 2 speed is good - between 4-5 minutes to move a 14+GB file between non-raid drives.

i'm still waiting on my version of FCP 5.1 so i can't speak to running that, but making iDVD disks is reasonably fast. boot and shutdown times are ridiculously fast.

in truth, i thought it would be a bit faster than it is, but when I increase the RAM to about 4GB i expect that will improve a lot. overall i'm very happy.

HarryD