Movie Editing
Hi there, I currently have a 12 inch iBook with an 800MHz G4 and I've used iMovie to make a couple of movies for school and at home. I want more though. I want to get Final Cut Express HD and know that I need a new computer. I was wondering if a dual G4 Powermac would be good. I don't want to spend more than $2500 Canadian on the hardware and software. I can get the software at a student discount though, so it shouldn't cost me very much. The system I wanted to get was the 1.42GHz dual G4 with mirrored drive doors. I wanted to put in 2 gigs of RAM and as much hard drive as I could for holding content. I have a few of questions:
1) Is this system going to be good for using Final Cut Express HD for editing videos?
2) What would be the most hard drive space I could have in the system?
3) What would be a good capture card to use for capturing video games? What I want to do is to create machinamas, which is using video games to make movies. I want to hook my Xbox up to my mac to be able to record what I play. I know there are capture cards and external hardware devices. Which would be best for being able to play and record video games, I don't really care about capturing or watching tv.
4) FInally, I currently have a 17inch CRT monitor with my Windows machine. Will this monitor be ok for video editing? It's max resolution is 1280 x 1024. Should I be looking for a widescreen monitor at all, like the Apple Cinema Displays?
Any help with these questions is greatly appreciated.
# 2 Re: Movie Editing
Originally posted by IsThisOneTaken
Hi there, I currently have a 12 inch iBook with an 800MHz G4 and I've used iMovie to make a couple of movies for school and at home. I want more though. I want to get Final Cut Express HD and know that I need a new computer. I was wondering if a dual G4 Powermac would be good. I don't want to spend more than $2500 Canadian on the hardware and software. I can get the software at a student discount though, so it shouldn't cost me very much. The system I wanted to get was the 1.42GHz dual G4 with mirrored drive doors. I wanted to put in 2 gigs of RAM and as much hard drive as I could for holding content. I have a few of questions:
1) Is this system going to be good for using Final Cut Express HD for editing videos?
2) What would be the most hard drive space I could have in the system?
3) What would be a good capture card to use for capturing video games? What I want to do is to create machinamas, which is using video games to make movies. I want to hook my Xbox up to my mac to be able to record what I play. I know there are capture cards and external hardware devices. Which would be best for being able to play and record video games, I don't really care about capturing or watching tv.
4) FInally, I currently have a 17inch CRT monitor with my Windows machine. Will this monitor be ok for video editing? It's max resolution is 1280 x 1024. Should I be looking for a widescreen monitor at all, like the Apple Cinema Displays?
Any help with these questions is greatly appreciated.
widescreen is nice
get an analog/digital converter box like the canopus advc 110 (hooks up through firewire)
i would recommend a G5, but if your budget only allows for a g4, you'll be ok.
DV is about 13GB per hour, so get lots of hard drives!
# 3 Re: Movie Editing
Everything ipodandimac said and:
One word: RAM...whatever you do, get as much ram as you can afford, not sure but my guess would be a dual G4 (1ghz+) with 2 GB ram is faster than a dual G5 with 512.
Also, consider a FW drive and maxing the ram out in your iBook, it wouldn't be great, but plenty of people did editing on G3 powerbooks, and it must be faster than that. And a moble unit can be very handy sometimes
# 4 Re: Movie Editing
Thanks for the replies guys. I have another question. On ebay, there is an auction for a dual 1GHz G4, with 1.25 gigs of RAM and 140GB hd. Also, it has a 17 inch apple cinema display and a few extras. Would this computer with 2 gigs of RAM and as much hd be a good choice as well, compared to the dual 1.42GHz? Also, I just checked the auction again and the model is only a firewire 400 mac. Is there a card I can get to upgrade it to firewire 800? Again, thanks for all the help.
