Hello,
I recently purchased a new iMac 2.93 Intel Quad Core i7 computer.
Today I purchased the FCS 3 update software to upgrade my FCP 6.0 etc currently running on my old G5 dual 2ghz PowerMac.
I could swear that someone mentioned that either Color or Motion software do not work on the new iMacs. Can anyone tell me if this is true or not?
Are there any other quirks an iMac might have with the FCS upgrade?
I'm running OS 10.6.5 with 8 gigs of RAM.

Thanks in advance!

Chris

Yes, Color will run on an iMac in single screen (as opposed to dual screen) mode. It's pretty cramped to use Color that way, but it will run. You do however need a three button mouse i.e. one with a scroll wheel.

Color will run just fine on that iMac. It might render a bit slow and your choices are limited in how you can output to an external monitor, but the actual functionality will be fine on there. Always remember, you cannot trust that little Preview window inside Color for actual color grading. It's not an accurate image.

In lieu of a three button mouse, I'd recommend a Wacom Tablet for use with Color. Takes a little getting used to but I find Color works a lot faster with the tablet because you can jump around the interface faster and it's more useful for drawing shapes and curves.

Of course, adding a Tangent Wave control surface will make you even faster.

Hi, Walter, good to see you here. The issue with running Color on non-optimized graphics cards is the immense lag when you are stacking on color correction layers. That's the biggest drawback. If you can stand the lag and longer render times, you will be fine. Aside from that, I have noticed that certain color fx nodes seem to be a bit more unpredictable (it's either I didn't understand the nodes too well or it's the side effect of tapping into openGL for a garden variety of GPUs).

With the lag in mind, you may prefer a 3 buttoned mouse. Otherwise, the tablet is great, or better, get a Tangent Wave.



www.strypesinpost.com

strypes Wrote:
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> Hi, Walter, good to see you here. The issue with
> running Color on non-optimized graphics cards is
> the immense lag when you are stacking on color
> correction layers.

Well most of the new iMacs do come with very good ATI graphics cards. On our 27" iMacs the performance of Color is similar to the Mac Pros. The Mac Pros render faster obviously, but actual grading performance while working in the application is very similar and snappy. I do have 8GB of RAM in the iMac and that does certainly help.

Now if Apple didn't go changing the ethernet port on all the new iMacs, I would actually be outfitting four of our edit suites with them. They're that good now. But unfortunately the ethernet has been crippled with the new cards preventing us from using our ethernet SAN with them.

Can you hook up a broadcast monitor to Color? Does Color work with the Aja iohd?



www.strypesinpost.com

You have to connect a broadcast monitor in order to use Color correctly.

An AJA IoHD does work with Color but in SD only. This is a limitation of Color, not the IoHD. Color can only send SD out via Firewire so you can't use that box for HD playback from Color.

We tried a Matrox MXO rig at one point but could not get it to work on our iMac correctly. So the best I can suggest is to go ahead and use Color on your iMac and then take your project to a shop with a proper broadcast rig to finish.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com