G5 ETC - WHERE TO START?

O.K. just did the Moviola Immersive training course for our company for FCP Advanced. Now need to buy equipment.

Please advise what I need immediately to start besides G5, Monitor, Capture Card and HD Deck, Final Cut Pro Program.....we need to buy everything on-line out of state and have it shipped....

I already have Altec Lansing Speakers and Sub-woofer I can use from my PC.

We are looking on Amazon. We will need to be connected to the internet.

Thanks.
Jane

You feel good about putting it together yourself? If not go with a VAR. Have them put together a turnkey solution. You get support along with them putting it together so all you have to do is plug and play. Yes, its more but so is your down time.

Thanks. What is VAR? (we are from the UK not sure all terms!)

Who do you recommend? We don't want to put it together ourselves - have no clue, and no time!

Oh. Are you or will you be living in LA? VAR means Value Added Reseller

Not sure why you want to go out of state though. Amazon is real cheap I admit but you may find it cheaper to have a VAR such as ProMax in Irvine CA. put the thing together for you. You can go down and pick it up and avoid shipping costs.

We are in LA. But it will be purchased from the UK, and we don't want to pay the tax. Promax is too expensive. Already looked there.

Amazon seems the best. Need a HD deck though, and some other peripherals, but not sure what else other than what I listed.

Have a tech guy to put stuff together. But wanted to get through a place that offer tech support. Promax only offers 3 months. They want $495 to assemble, $395 for 3 months, and so on. Not in our budget.

<<Have a tech guy to put stuff together. But wanted to get through a place that offer tech support.>>

Assuming this is your staff tech guy (maybe I'm mistaken,) you need a tech who knows video setups. He should be able to outfit a system, dial it in, explain it, and support you.

The decision of what G5 itself isn't a tough one at all if you're doing HD. You want the Quad 2.5 with 4 gigs of RAM.

As to the HD deck, there's a world of difference between high-end (D-5) and low (DVCPro-HD.) What format will you work in? You'll have to decide what you need. This will also determine your needs for storage and a capture card.



- Justin Barham -

G5 Quad, if you are going to be doing a variety of formats. 4 additional GB or RAM memory. At least one additional SATA drive in the G5 but depending on the formats you might need a RAID setup for disk storage. Of course an LCD monitor and you might want to add the 7800GT video card, but then the G5 must be purchased from an authorized reseller. Now add the rest of the stuff you mentioned.

im a little bit worried about your overall direction.

you say "HD Deck" then you mention "Altec Lansing Speakers and Sub-woofer I can use from my PC" this is kind of a missalignment in approaches if one were to ask me.

if you are planning on doing anything "HD" even if its HDV (a format i consider the "8track tape" of video) monitoring your audio on some wonky consumer grade 3 piece speaker system is the wrong way to go. first of all, shine the subwoofer. thats going to give you a false impression of your sound. unless you plan to do true surround mixing, just get you a good PAIR of active studio monitors (mackie, alesis, event, tannoy - even m-audio)

i wonder if you might tell us a bit more about what kind of work you plan to be doing, so we might giude you down the right path. as the responses ive read here are all over the board...