Best Mac For HD Production?

hi there.
planning to purchase a new mac (either a laptop or a desktop).
was wondering which ones have professional video cards already installed in them, that would be suitable for working with HD material.
thanks in advance.

Audio is generally moving from an analog to digital source then back out to analog. The card/ AD converter is the interface in this analog/digital/analog stream.
Most consumer/ prosumer video is digital from the beginning (ie that is what cameras record) and the capturing of this video (DV, DVCPro, DVCAM, DVCProHD, HDV and the like) is largely one of moving the ones and zeros that make up the images from the camera to the computer. It is a data transfer, not an analog/digital conversion, and you do not need any third party card interfaces to make it happen.
Certain formats (eg AVCHD) are a file transfer (not a tape based capture) and require a bit of software to convert it from the highly compressed mpeg based structure to an editable format. Other formats such as HDV (a long GOP compressed format) can be captured in its native format over firewire. However, and this is where things start to get complicated, the use of certain 3rd party i/o cards will allow a user to capture HDV as ProRes422 - a much better format for editing. The Card will not IMPROVE the quality of the original image, it will simply convert it from a PIA format to one that works very well with a Mac of suitable capabilities.
Beyond HDV, there are numerous professional formats that are not supported for input/output in FCP via firewire or direct connect to the camera file transfer. While FCP will edit the material once acquired, you need an interface (card or external device) to make the connection to the acquisition device (tape deck, camera, etc) and turn it into an editiable format that FCP will be able to manipulate.
Beyond acquisition, there are a range of tasks cards are designed to accomplish. Some cards will only deal with output/viewing, some are bare bones, some are a swiss army knife of format interchangeability, some will only deal with esoteric formats that a consumer video person will never need.
The key questions are:
What format are you shooting/acquiring and on what media?
How do you intend to edit it?
What is the deliverable and on what media?
Good luck,
x

Similar Messages

Best Mac for music production

So i decided to get a Mac finally,
but i'm not sure which one...
i will use it only for DJ'ing (using Traktor / Abelton) and producing electronic music (using Cubase)
i suppose i need at least 8GB for this,and a SSD flash drive,
but i'm not sure which processor i need..
what do you think?
and would you recommend upgrading immediately to 16BG ?
thanks for the help

It is always recommended that you max out your RAM if you can afford it. Purchasing RAM from Apple is expensive. It's best to purchase from a 3rd party vendor that has lifetime warranties on their RAM.
As for your other concerns, go to your local AS and play around w/the Macs you are interested in. Bug the sales staff w/all of your questions & concerns. They will be more than happy to assist you.

Best mac for ae6?

what is the best mac for ae6?

While I prefer Macs to PCs, I would suggest that unless/until Apple updates their MacPro line, you will get significantly better bang for your buck with a PC. Windows 7 is actually a great operating system and it works really well with Adobe products, so don't worry about the platform not being stable. Lenovo and HP both make great workstations.
If you are dead set on a Mac, Rick's advice is spot on.

What is the best mac for me? (budget: 1299$)

What is the best mac for me? I will use it for:
- Game programming and development
- School research
- Word proccessing
- Presentations
- Programming in Java
- Programming in C++
- Programming Iphone games and Objective-C
- Gaming
So can you tell me as fast as you can, my budget is 1299$

FYI: Macs are not gaming machines.
PERSONAL OPINION: Nothing beats Microsoft (PCs) and/or Sony when it comes to gaming. Macs can play games. However, if you are a gamer, get a PC.

What's the best Mac for running Final Cut Pro X?

Title says it all. What's the best Mac for running Final Cut Pro X? I'm not looking to make a feature length hollywood film. But I'd like to be able to edit video without lag.

Yes. Begin with the fastest processor / graphics card / and as much RAM as you can afford. (As all three will become obsolete over time.)
I started from scratch. I have a 27-inch iMac with a 3.4 G Intel Core i7. (currently the fastest processor for an iMac) I also ordered the best graphics card--AMD Ratheon HD. I ordered 16G of RAM, but recently added more RAM to equal 24G. (OWC makes good after-market RAM for iMACs.)
Last, I ordered a flash drive / SATA hard drive combo. (250G on flash / ITB on SATA). The OS and all of my applications run off the flash drive. (for fast start up!)
I put all of my media and FCP projects onto the SATA hard drive.
Now, I had the option to order a 2TB SATA. But, I realized I can always buy more external storage as I edit more and more projects. ALSO! FCPX is GREAT when it comes to editing projects on external drives! I can segregate an entire project and its media files onto a removeable drive. I simply launch FCPX, plug in the drive and--poof!--I'm ready to edit. It sees the project and the media right away. When I'm done editing, I can then send this drive to another editor (also using FCPX) or attach it to my MacBook if I want to edit the same project in the field.
This has worked for me. I wish you luck.

What is the best Mac for gaming?

Ok so as the title says, I was wondering what is the best Mac for gaming, I would like to play at least some old games which I have laying around the house when I'm at the airport or whatever. I read that macs are not that good at gaming but they do work at some degree :P
Also I was wondering, me and my friend were arguing why is a Mac not considered a PC. I my arguments where that a PC means it has all that nasty, heavy, big hardware, with all the cards and stuff and that a mac just has the slick monitor with some stuff in it :P and a keyboard/mouse. His arguments were that even if macs only have the stuff mentioned above, it should still be considered a PC since it is afterall a Personal Computer.
Thanks a lot and hopefully you'll settle my argument and aswear my question.

Best computer for gaming is always the one with the highest specs. But generally speaking, a base macbook does ok. The major piece you need to increase FPS on a mac is a video card though, so generally the Pros or iMacs will be a better choice.
Your friend is right, PC = Personal Computer. Mac's run the exact same hardware as a PC, just run different OS's. But its a term that got misplaced with windows in the flame wars of every forum post. P.S. Mac pros are a tower with no screen, just like the traditional windows ones.

Best Mac for my money...

I'm currently using a Mac Pro 1,1.
Processor 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Memory 16 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB & a GeForce 8800 GT
Storage 3 1.5 TB 7200rpm disks (not raided, honestly don't know much about RAID...) and 1 2TB Time Machine HD
Running Lion.
I also own the first unibody 17inch MacBook Pro but suing FCP on it is like kicking myself in the face. It works but it's not fun, it's great for other stuff though.
It's a great machine, but it's obviously old and underpowered. FCX works but it's a slooooooow process doing much of anything in it. So I have a couple options right now given yesterdays updates, etc.
1) Buy a new Mac. So lets say I have between 2-4 grand to spend. Whats the best bang for my buck here? Can I keep my old Mac Pro and use it to cluster render? Do I get a new Mac Pro (I understand even the "new" ones are still old machines basically) or get a iMac or the newest Macbook Pro and an external monitor?
2) Upgrade the processor in my Mac Pro 1,1. I can get the Xeon 5365's for about 3-4 hundred on ebay. Hatter mentioned this might be a good thing despite having 3 or 4 local techs tell me I'm crazy to even consider it.
3) Just trudge along till a revamp of the Mac Pro comes out. I mean, I'm making it but time is money and I know I could be working faster than this, although I guess I don't really know how much faster a new Mac Pro will make FCX move.
I'd appreciate any feedback, you guys rock.

>one of the CS5 suites
Well, if the OP doesn't have $$ for a new computer, I doubt there is $$ for CS5 Production Premium, and certainly not CS5 Master Collection
As far as CS4... I really don't think it will run very well on that computer, since my previous computer was similar and would just barely run CS3
That computer is certainly not going to be able to edit HD video very well, if at all, and will be slow (see my 1st reply) even with SD video
I still think Premiere Elements is a better choice
And, to the OP
Read Harm on drive setup http://forums.adobe.com/thread/662972?tstart=0
- click the embedded picture in Harm's message to enlarge to reading size
- you need AT LEAST 2 drives for video editing, 3 is better
- some HD formats work better with (require) RAID
Read Hunt on Partitions http://forums.adobe.com/thread/650708?tstart=0
A link with many ideas about computer setup http://forums.adobe.com/thread/436215?tstart=0
And even more hardware discussion http://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere/hardware_forum
Read Bill Hunt on a file type as WRAPPER http://forums.adobe.com/thread/440037?tstart=0
What is a CODEC... a Primer http://forums.adobe.com/thread/546811?tstart=0
What CODEC is INSIDE that file? http://forums.adobe.com/thread/440037?tstart=0
Old or Used Software http://www.emsps.com/oldtools/ Or http://www.retrosoftware.com/
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1636890 warns about buying from eBay

The Best Mac For Gaming

Hi Everyone. I'm sure this topic has come quite a bit, so I'll try to make as short to the point as I can.
Basically, I have a 2008 black MacBook, and I have recently have gotten into computer gaming. It turns out that my graphic card is horrible for gaming, and I cannot upgrade it.
Of course, I still want to stick with Macs, so I'm thinking about getting an entire new Mac, and I have a few specific questions.
Is it better to get a new Mac, or is there some way to upgrade my current Mac that I do not know about?
If I must get a new one, out of all the Macs, which one is the best for gaming (except the Mac Pro cause that is to expensive)?
Is there speculation of any new Macs coming out in the near future? Basically, should I wait to get a new one?
Currently, I'm thinking about getting the 13' MacBook Pro sometime in the next month or so before the student discount goes out.
Thank you in advance for all your help. I really do appreciate it.

Lamb,
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Currently the best Mac with the exception of the Mac Pro is the i7 iMac. It offers the most processing power and most powerful GPU. That would probably be your best bet as your current machine with the exception of maxing out the RAM and installing a different HD is about all you can do. The i7 iMac once configured is also not upgradeable with the exception of the RAM. If you want upgradeability and power the Mac Pro is the only Mac alternative.
BTW per the Terms of Use in these forums we cannot speculate on new Apple products or their decisions on current products. You can find the TofU directly to your right.
While the 13" MBP is a fine machine it's not really considered the best alternative for gaming, if you want a MBP rather than an iMac then your best bet is probably a i5 15" MBP.
Regards,
Roger

Best practices for development / production environments

Our current scenario:
We have one production database server containing the APEX development install, plus all production data.
We have one development server that is cloned nightly (via RMAN duplicate) from production. It therefore also contains a full APEX development environment, and all our production data, albeit 1 day old.
Our desired scenario:
We want to convert the production database to a runtime only environment.
We want to be able to develop in the test environment, but since this is an RMAN duplicated database, every night the runtime APEX will overlay it, and the production versions of the apps will overlay. However, we still want to have up to date data against which to develop.
Questions: What is best practice for this sort of thing? We've considered a couple options:
1.) Find a way to clone the database (RMAN or something else), that will leave the existing APEX environment intact? If such is doable, we can modify our nightly refresh procedure to refresh the data, but not APEX.
2.) Move apex (in both prod and dev environments) to a separate database containing only APEX, and use DBLINKS to point to the data in both cases. The nightly refresh would only refresh the data and the APEX database would be unaffected. This would require rewriting all apps to use DBLINKS though, as well as requiring a change to the code when moving to production (i.e. modify the DBLINK to the production value)
3.) Require the developers to export their apps when done for the day, and reimport the following morning. This would leave the RMAN duplication process unchanged, and would add a manual step which the developers loath.
We basically have two mutually exclusive requirements - refresh the database nightly for the sake of fresh data, but don't refresh the database ever for the sake of the APEX environment.
Again, any suggestions on best practices would be helpful.
Thanks,
Bill Johnson

Bill,
To clarify, you do have the ability to export/import, happily, at the application level. The issue is that if you have an application that consist of more than a couple of pages, you will find yourself in a situation where changes to page 3 are tested and ready but, changes to pages 2, 5 and 6 are still in various stages of development. You will need to get the change for page 5 in to resolve a critical production issue. How do you do this without sending pages 2, 5 and 6 in their current state if you have to move the application all at once??? The issue is that you absolutely are going to need to version control at the page level, not at the application level.
Moreover, the only supported way of exporting items is via the GUI. While practically everyone doing serious APEX development has gone on to either PL/SQL or Utility hacks, Oracle still will not release a supported method for doing this. I have no idea why this would be...maybe one of the developers would care to comment on the matter. Obviously, if you want to automate, you will have to accept this caveat.
As to which version of the backend source control tool you use, the short answer is that it really doesn't matter. As far as the VC system is concerned, you APEX exports are simply files. Some versioning systems allow promotion of code through various SDLC stages. I am not sure about GIT in particular but, if it doesn't support this directly, you could always mimic the behavior with multiple repositories. Taht is, create a development repository into which you automatically update via exports every night. Whenever particular changes are promoted to production, you can at that time export form the development repository and into the production. You could, of course, create as many of these "stops" as necessary to mirror your shop's SDLC stages, e.g. dev, qa, intergation, staging, production etc.
-Joe
Edited by: Joe Upshaw on Feb 5, 2013 10:31 AM

Best Practices for APO Production Support

What are the best practices needs to be adopt for APO Production Support? in DP, SNP, PP/DS, CIF, APO-basis, APO -ABAP area?

I know this is not the standard way to reach you, but you answered a question long back about /SAPAPO/AMON1 - Alert Monitor. Can this alert monitor be configured to show up in the universal worklist (UWL) in the portal? if so would these alerts show up in the alert inbox of the uwl just as other sap alerts do? (the other alerts i speak of are those referenced here (http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04s/helpdata/en/3f/81023cfa699508e10000000a11402f/frameset.htm).
Or are these alerts two totally different types of functionality with the same name (ARERT) ?
Thanks
Ted Smith

What's the best Mac for Photoshop?

I daily work on layered photoshop files, up to 10 (ten) GB. I currently have a G5 with 8 gb of ram. I finally can afford to upgrade to a faster computer and need to figure out if the 8core 2.93GHZ at $5,899 is the best buy for me. The 8 core 2.26GHZ is $3299. For an additional $2500 I would need to know that I will get at least 15% increase in speed. I remember back in the day when I picked out the fastest g5, when I later compared it to a slower G5, the difference in speed was barely noticeable, and when I upgraded to 8GB of RAM I discovered that photoshop could only take advantage of 2 GB.
Does photoshop benefit from 8core vs 4 core?
Will an 8 core 2.26ghz be faster than a 4 core 2.93GHZ when working in photoshop?
Is there something new coming out, so I would benefit from waiting with my purchase?

I work on big files, tho not that big.
For many of the time-critical things I do in Photoshop seem to be single-processor, so even tho I have an 8-core machine, often only one is being used. This includes things like flatening and saving. So I am not sure that (unless you have other programs running) you would ever see an advantage to more than 4 cores.
What I do notice when I work with big files, is that I keep a copy of Activity Monitor open, and whenever the green sector in memory goes to zero, my computer becomes unusably slow, and I usually reboot. I don't understand memory managment on the Mac, but whatever "inactive" means, it really means "swap yourself to death". So I have 14GB of RAM on my computer, and I usually don't run out even when dealing with big files. But I know that 8GB would not have been enough. Photoshop may not use more than 2GB, but it and the OS can cache materials and when those caches get too big, my computer comes to a halt. With your files, you may find 32GB to be useful.
What I have done is to burn a CD or DVD with one big psd/psb file and walk down to my local Apple Store. The machines there don't have much RAM, but you can get some feeling for 4 cores vs. 8 cores. Reboot them before you do anything.
One thing I would strongly recommend you do not try is what I did with my old G5--install a RAID. It only increased opportunities for losing files, and while it certainly sped up many file operations, I don't think any Photoshop operations were affected at all.
A

Best Mac for fast video encoding?

Wondering which Mac may be the best choice for fast (at at least faster) encoding of video files and creation of disc image and then burning a dvd disc. I'm doing home videos with my digital camera, about 50 minutes long.
On my Dual 1ghz G4 PM, it seems to take forever, maybe 6-8 hours. Anyone know or can quess how long it takes for the new iMac Core 2 duo versus a low end Mac Pro?

on my antiqué hard/software (450Mega!Hz, 1GB RAM, 10.3.) combo, iDVD encoding needs 8 - 10x of the length of project... (1h project= 8h encoding)
sooo, to improve speed:
* make sure, you're within specs of iApps - avoid compressed material, stay with .DV encoded video, .aiff encoded audio, .pic encoded stills...
* make sure, you have at last 10 - 15GB free on internal drive (ext. doesn't matter for this issue)
* make sure, all project data are located on internal drive
* … if not, make sure ext. drive is firewire connected and formatted to "MacOsExtended/hfs"...
* avoid other CPU/harddrive consuming tasks, as ripping CDs, rendering 4D animations, Spotlight indexing...
I've seen überMacs, Intel quads/4GBRam, encoding in less then realtime...
if you don't need fancy iDVD menus, playout movie (=realtime...) to some DVD/Harddrive standalone as from Pioneer (<<link to commercial website!), my 520 does the (hardware accelerated) encoding/burning of 1h video in about 5-10minutes...

Best mac for FCP

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Would anybody be so kind and tell me what is the minimal set up I would need for FCP? I'm not a professional and would be using it for dabbling rather then serious work. Would Mac Book be sufficient? How much memory would I need?
Best
Slon

check this out Sion, this is your best bet for
consideration of requirements
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs.html
Thanks Andy,
Much appreciated
Slon

Need help finding the best Mac for gf

hi I need help finding the best desktop. I am looking to buy MAC for gf.
she uses final cut program question is does the GB/RAM/STORAGE matter on performance?
She has a 2009 Apple computer I want to upgrade her to a new one
I Dont know much when it comes to specs. She edits tons of videos and pictures.
what's recommended for a video/photo editor that's good in performance ?

Pro consumer might go with iMac even.
Final Cut Pro latest benefits from dual AMD graphics.
Video is one animal, graphics a much different.
Great site full of performance, buying and configuration ideas:
MacPerformance Go to the main topics
I think you need to get clear on budgets. start with mid range and add all the options and can spend $4,000 or $7,000.
Go to the Mac Store and do some looking and Google for reviews of software, hardware of course.
Barefeats
Rumors Pro
Visit the forum for FCP-X would be a place to start.
Final Cut Pro X

The best MacBook for video production

Hello,
I want to start working on video production (from camera shooting to video editing and compositing).
As a first step, mobility is very important, so I want to know what is the best MacBook to start with (best price/performance ratio)?
Also is Final Cut Studio package all I need for video production?
Thanks!

Have you ever worked with video before?
What software do you intend to use? What formats will you acquire, edit, output?
Do you intend to make money from this or is it a hobby?
If you intend to make money from your efforts, do you have a capitalization plan and have you talked to your banker? Do you have a business plan in place that has been vetted by knowledgeable people?
Head down to your local library and pull anything you can find in the business section regarding starting a small business then read what ever you can get your hands on about video production. Then, walk over to the public access channel and sign up for one of their "intro to video" sessions.
Honestly, the speed of the laptop is the least of your concerns.
On the other hand, if this is just a way to play, purchase whatever you want.
x

Best Mac For HD Production?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for