[X4U] Mac Pro fresh updates?

[zapcat]

On Jun 16, 2010, at 8:03 PM, Joe Sporleder wrote:

> I can see myself upgrading to Final Cut Express or Pro down the  
> road as I gain more knowledge in this area. Its been a pleasant  
> change of pace, considering my professional career using Macs for  
> the past 17 years has been in newsprint. Would a Mac Pro have much  
> advantage over its smaller Mac family members?


On the one hand, the Mac Pro with FCP or FPE would offer you realtime  
processing and editing (this in the case of, say HD footage you have  
a dissolve and the Mac Pro would play it right away, lesser macs  
would have to render the transition before you could play it back  
smoothly.

on the other hand...I've edited a fair amount of video on a G4 Mac  
Mini — to the distainful gasps of several people on the FCP forum.  
("Dood, really" was one comment I got).

IOW, I have done LOTS of work which you "are not supposed to be able  
to do" on a G4 Mini.

So, the lesser Macs,can in fact handle the work. The Mac Pros do it  
faster. How much faster versus how much more money you'll spend is an  
equation you'll have to evaluate for yourself.

While it sounds like your business is evolving toward more types of  
media, it doesn't sound like you're going whole hog after  
video...you're just now encompassing that work.

I have done some pubs work...not like a Shopper-style pub, but mo def  
more than 24 pages, and while a larger monitor is better than  
smaller, I don't see any special advantage to having multiple large  
monitors when you figure in the dollars.

In my work, I like to be able to zoom in/out as fast as I need, and  
to be able to view a meaningful percentage of my document as I work  
on it.

Having some array of multiple large monitors sounds like overkill to me.

you figure the Mac Pro will cost you $3K. Factor in RAM. FC Studio is  
I think about a thousand; FCE is in the 300 range, and there is no  
upgrade path to FCP*, so you might want to think about how serious  
you're going to get about video before committing.

So, rough numbers, you're in it for about $5K so far, not counting  
monitors. When I think about money like that, I get a little dizzy  
and woozy.

;-)


zc

*when last I checked..this may have changed.