[MacDV] FCP HD - humbling a dual 2GHz G5 with filters...

[Richard Brown]

With distributed rendering coming to other Apple softwares, perhaps 
subscribers to this list could join me in recommending Apple design a 
new "X" product to go with the Xserve and XRAID boxes... namely 
"XRender" -- a blade type Unix box which has but one function - being a 
render farm, configurable in processor pairs, 2 at a time, allowing up 
to 16 or even 24 processors per box. Yes these would be ultimately very 
expensive boxes, but growing by 2 CPUs at a time would cushion the 
blow.

I suggest this as I painfully watch my dual 2GHz G5 take HOURS per 
MINUTE to render some complex filters over mere DVCAM video. 
Specifically, 16 bit processed color and blur filters from Digital FIlm 
Tools' 55mm package. While the results are amazing, the time required 
brings the dual G5 to its knees - nowhere near enough power to process 
these filters with any degree of speed.

As FCP-HD yearns for prominence - speed, or even real-time rendering 
would be a huge boon to those using some of the more exotic filters 
available today.

Perhaps with the graphical improvements of Tiger, many of the filters 
will "go native" for speed improvements, but rendering in 16 bits will 
likely still be a number crunching nightmare, quite necessary with 
graded tones susceptible to banding in lower bitrates.

Increasing the CPU horsepower is the right solution for many a task in 
FCP, Compressor, and a host of third party software offerings.

You can make suggestions at 
http://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutpro.html

Thanks for participating,

Richard Brown