My school media program is now upgrading it's G4 9500. It will be running FCP, and already has 2 SCSI drives. It only has 128mb ram. I told my teacher to buy Jaguire so the FCP can run on it.
With a $500 budget for upgrading, what should I suggest to her to buy? I think more ram will work, but don't know how much I should get. Previous experience only, please.

if you want to do anything serious with it get more ram.....the more the better.....especally if you are doing alot of layers of graphics and filters....I have 768mb on my machine.....I would recomend that you have at least 512mb

do you have a G4 also? And if we got 512 MB RAM, how slick is the rendering, I mean do you run FCP and not have to wait in realtime?
Also, can anyone suggest a good graphics card?

i dont have a g4 but trust me......its just the rule more ram means better for video........you might also want to check out www.matrox.com and look at the RTMAC if you want to do more real time stuff

I've got a G4 with 1 GB RAM, running FCP in Jaguar.
I would definately say run out and buy a 512 MB ram chip first, foremost. If you're gonna do any compositing, buy a second 512 MB RAM chip. Otherwise, spend the rest to buy Jag and a second 7200 rpm IBM dextar harddrive.

Only buy a better video card if you want to play 3d games or do 3d modeling. I bought a cheap radeon 7200 card for a second monitor, but it's not any good for 3d stuff.

hope this helps
joren

quote:

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Originally posted by FANTAZMAGORIC:
i dont have a g4 but trust me......its just the rule more ram means better for video........you might also want to check out http://www.matrox.com and look at the RTMAC if you want to do more real time stuff

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thanks for the info. I'm telling her to get 512 mb ram, with the Jaguire OS. We already have multiple displays. You say that a grapics card is'nt recomended for video editing?

FCP doesn't do anything realtime. Every effect, transition and cut I ever made with it HAD to be rendered out before I could see what i'd done.

Premiere may not be so industry standard, but at least I can see what i'm doing.

If you truely insist on FCP, then I say get Avid Xpress DV since the user interface is muchos the same but you don't have to wait for it!

Richard.

FCP, along with Premiere, doesn't do full quality RT effects, no matter what they claim. That doesn't mean you can't "see what you're doing." I turn RT effects off so I can see what I'm doing, full quality. I left Premiere because I'm faster on FCP--even though I turn all the RT effect rendering off. When I can execute the technical side of editing faster, this leaves more time for creative decision making. I'm not saying Premiere is bad. I'm saying judging whether Premiere is better than FCP or Xpress based on its RT capabilities is missleading.

Regular video cards will not speed up FCP (plus,G4s come with very decent video cards already!). The only card that will help with RT effects is the Matrox card (RTMac), but from what I've read, they are still very buggy (and $1000 or $500 for the old model). Plus, their RT effects are run through the RCA output on the video card, which means you still have to render when outputting via Firewire. That's why I decided I could live without one. If someone else has other experiences, speak up.

joren

rjpurves, Final Cut Pro CAN do realtime effects, but only if you have a G4. So if you are running it on a G3 you wouldn't be able to use realtime effects. Also, I wouldn't recomend Xpress DV, it doesn't have quite as many features.

FCP doesn't let you do FULL QUALITY RT effects. Have you seen what they look like? Especially the 3-way color corrector. What's the point of color correcting if you can't see what it's going to look like? I'd like someone to explain this to me. RT effects in FCP is a "bell and whistle" put on the side of the box to sell units. I've been a loyal FCP user since before Apple bought it.

RT effects shouldn't be a factor considered when buying low end (sub $5k) NLEs. I haven't played with xpress's RT capabilities, but I'd be surprised if they could do full quality (DV-NTSC) RT effects through the CPU. I know they claim to, but I doubt it. Someone let me know.

joren

Cyos: FCP did not do ANY realtime effect on either my or my collegue's G4 computers.

Hell, i'm now running a new 12" G4 867Mhz Powerbook with 256Mb RAM and my colleague is running an older G4 400Mhz with 512Mb RAM.

I still think FCP should do it, but it doesn't.

Richard Purves
One Man Band
omb@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.omb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

you are running a little light on memory, but check in preferences and make sure there's a good amount of RT cache allotted. This is what controls RT effects.

You are running FCP 3, right?

joren

To be honest, we've both given up on FCP 3. It was a pain to install, a pain to work with and the no RT was the final straw.

They need to make it more user friendly, rather than keep copying Avid. Mind you, it's hardly suprising considering most of Avid's engineers went to Apple to develop FCP.

Richard Purves
One Man Band
omb@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.omb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

It's too bad to hear that. Granted, I'm not the most objective person as I've been using it predominantly for almost 4 years. But when I crossed over from Premiere, I found the learning curve much gentler than everyone warns about. I use different Avid s every once in a while, along with some other outdated NLEs that have to run on pre-G3 powermacs, but I'm so much faster on FCP. These days, all the consumer NLEs are all borrowing so much from each other, they all work about the same (like you said ab o ut FCP v Avid--but if there was no FCP, there'd be no Avid Xpress).

So, too bad FCP failed you. I've been happily working with it and plan to continue whenever I have the option. Hopefully another NLE will be less problematic.

joren

Ohh, and FCP was not created by Apple. Apple bought it and released v1.25 around 1999-2000. (but I think you knew that)

Actually ... I didn't!

Anyway, i'm waiting until both FCP and Premiere release their next versions.

If the rumour mill is true, then Premiere 6.5 will be the last Mac version out ever ... and then i'll HAVE to move to FCP. I hope it isn't.

Richard Purves
One Man Band
omb@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.omb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/