Buying a new machine ...

Hello All,
I edit a bi-weekly 26 minute show using Final Cut Studio and take in footage of 3 cameras shot on DV cameras against green screen and external graphics (PNGs and .mov etc). There are then 3 separate backgrounds to be keyed-in. As you can imagine, the timeline is pretty busy.
At present I am working on a 6Go iMac which takes quite some time to render all of the above. As I get to the end of each project, my machine invariably coughs up the message 'insufficient memory', to which I close FCP and restart the iMac. Upon restart, all seems to be well. It's the inconvenience factor that winds me up.
There has just been an injection of cash as far as a new budget is concerned and I am looking to purchase a new machine - a Mac Pro. Looking at the options available in the Mac Store, here's what I think I should order:
8-Core
16Go Memory
1 x 1To disc (bay 1)
1 x 1To disc (bay 2)
ATI Radeon Graphics card
I have a non-Mac monitor which takes a feed from the DVI output.
Naturally, I am looking to speed up the entire process and wonder (along with the increased memory) if the ATI graphics card will do the trick. Is there anything that I've missed or something else that you would include - and why?
I look froward to hearing your comments.
sp

Buy your hard drives yourself? skip Apple's over-priced.
ATI is fine and good bargain actually (in Apple kingdom) @ $US200.
Ah, as to your freezes etc, I really hope you don't just do restart, but instead, boot from another hard drive, and run Disk Warrior (or other 3rd party: TTPro 5/DG2/etc).
8-core with 6 x 2GB or 6 x 4GB RAM.
Buy minimum memory or Apple's is up to you.
There is even 4-core 3.3GHz (single processor) as $US1200 BTO extra, maybe faster is better; or you need 8-core (16 threads or logical processors). FCS and esp. Compressor 3.x is fully optimized for hyper-threading.
How does 2.26GHz x 8 compare to 3.3GHz x 4?
Wait a couple weeks or so and see what 2010 may offer? could be dual 6-core "Gulftown" is out soon.
And never over look the Apple Store Specials - refurbished Apple units.

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Are there any options for other than to buy a new machine which I was not expecting do to for another couple of years or so. I like my MacBook. It was purchased 1/2007.
That seems to be a bad answer for all pre-2008 MacBook users who were used to using the mail function and now can't. I don't need the other features of mountain lion.

Apple has tightened its requirements for this OS upgrade, and some older Macs— even ones that qualified for Lion — won't make the cut for Mountain Lion.
The general system requirements are straightforward:
OS X v10.6.8 or later
2GB of memory
8GB of available space
Apple also lists which models support Mountain Lion:
iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
Xserve (Early 2009)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
So it appears you Cannot run Mountain Lion on that machine.
Hope this helps

I'm buying a new machine and I have 2 options of Graphics cards

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Only one of those, the Quadro 2000, is listed on the system requirements page as a card that After Effects will use for the GPU acceleration on the ray-traced 3D renderer:
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/tech-specs.edu.html
See this page for details of how After Effects uses the GPU:
http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2012/05/gpu-cuda-opengl-features-in-after-effects-cs6. html

Add RAM or buy a new machine? Need advice please.

Hello,
I am asking this question for a friend who owns a 5 year old iMac. It only has a 500GB hard drive, and it is almost full (475 GB are in use, and we recently had to dump some items because it had reached it's limit). It has the factory-installed 8GB of RAM, but there are two empty slots which can hold 4GB each (or a grand total of 8GB of additional RAM, for a total of 16GB of RAM).
He also is a HUGE user of iTunes, and he has a 1.5 TB external drive that contains all of his iTunes files (we have iTunes set to automatically place all iTunes files onto the external hard drive so that it does not take up hard drive space on the iMac).
He is running OS 10.8, Lion (and wants to upgrade to Mountain Lion).
So, here is my question.....Will adding 8 GB of RAM make this machine "faster"? This machine has gotten very, very slow over the last year. When you launch any application, you get the spinning beach ball for a few minutes and then eventually, sooner or later, the app will come up. But everything moves very slowly----everything.
I was thinking that if we added the 8GB of RAM, that would fix a lot of our slow problems. Am I correct here, or would this not do anything? I was wondering if a 5 year old iMac with 8GB of RAM even has sufficient power to be running Lion in the first place.
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smitty195 wrote:
Will a full hard drive slow down a computer? I was under the impression that it was RAM. This might be very important, because his hard drive is extremely full. Last week, he was getting messages that his hard drive was full, so we took lots of "stuff" out and put it into the trash can and deleted it.
Yes for a couple of reasons. OS X needs plenty of room to move around and work in, plus read and write becomes slower on that part of the hard drives platter.
At this point your friend really needs to backup if he is not already doing so and
1. Farm out his photo's, movies and/or music to an External HD, as per the following article's:
iPhoto '11: Move your iPhoto library to a new location
iMovie '11: Copy or move a project to an external hard disk
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
or
2. Have an Apple Authorized Service Provider replace the 500GB Hard Drive with a 1T or larger Hard Drive.

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I prefer using virtual machines for several reasons:
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- The virtual machine only takes up the room you need on the hard drive. Bootcamp uses a fixed size.
- VMWare and Parallels take care of the drivers.
- If you ever replace or upgrade your hard drive it is much easier with virtual machines. I have used Carbon Copy Cloner several times to increase the size of the hard disk.
- You can also use migration assistant to transfer the program and the virtual machine to a new computer without having to reinstall.

Buying a New Machine for After Effects

Can anyone give me some advice on what system to get for an After Effects, Maya and Photoshop user.
I am looking at Dell's and HP's and I would like to know what level of processors, how much ram and what kind
of video card etc. I would like to get a fast and reliable system without going overboard.

Thanks for the info. To let you know, I have worked with AE for years doing corporate and commercial work. The system I am on now is just getting old. (dual Zeon 2.40ghz with 2 GB of RAM, NVIDIA Quadro FX 500) My projects can get complex. The last job I did was in about 2.5 minutes long and took 3 hours to render. Lots of footage and several large photos to deal with. Many precomps and lots of effects. The RAM previews take up all my time. They are very slow. Also, my MAYA projects can get fairly complex too. Lots of textures and raytracing. My renders vary from approx. 1 minute to 40 minutes per frame. More and more my clients are asking for HD and my machine just can't take it. I feel like I spend my whole life waiting for renders, so I am thinking of spending 3 to 4k on a new system.(more if I need to)

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In synching ****...
Tried to synch iPad with several movies with a PC that turns out to have less memory than what we were synching.
Turned off synching of movies to try to help the situation...
WRONG!
Two of our purchased movies were deleted in the synch process.
We got them out of the PCs recycle bin but now how have them on the PC, but not on the iPad.
How do we (a) get the movies back on to the iPad and
(b) solve the longer-term issue of synching if the PC can't hold as much as the iPad does?

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Do I need to re-buy 10.7 Lion for MBP (if buying another new Mini with it on already)?

If I buy a new machine (probably a Mini for home-theatre use) with 10.7.x Lion on it, do I still need to re-purchase Lion for my current MBPro that currently has 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on it?
Reason being I'm thinking of buying a Mini in a couple of weeks anyway, so maybe I can wait until I get that (for my home use), and then also update my current MBP machine to Lion for free (instead of shelling out £21 immediately to download it from the Mac App Store today).
If yes, how do I then install Lion on my current MBP machine after buying the Mini with Lion on it?
Thanks in advance for your help.
(ps. I followed best practice and waited a while to upgrade; to both wait for the major issues to be fixed, and for software compatibility reasons.)

Here is the text of the separate licenses, taken from the OS X 10.7 Software License Agreement, which you can download from here:
http://www.apple.com/legal/sla
2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. Standard and Preinstalled Apple Software License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you obtained the Apple Software from the Mac App Store or under a volume license, maintenance or other written agreement from Apple, you are granted a limited, non-exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at any one time. For example, these standard single-copy license terms apply to you if you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple- branded hardware.
B. License from Mac App Store. If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License and as permitted by the Mac App Store Usage Rules set forth in the App Store Terms and Conditions (http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/) (“Usage Rules”), you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license:
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New machine + transfer account

Hello
i just bought the new g5 tower, middle size one.
i read apples info on transferring my account from my old machine to my new one, seems simple enough, but....
a fellow subscriber said i should do the following before i migrate the account to the new machine from the old one.
Make sure G4 has 10.4.3 on it and clone drive to the new PM G5 using Carbon Copy Cloner via Firewire Target Disk mode. The Migration Assistant may not copy all files -- like important invisible ones -- in some instances.
I have other questions:
my question is will this apple automated set of migration tasks also automatically deauthorize my purchased i-tunes account on old machine and reauthorize new machine?
we have 2 external hard drives. ive read tons on people losing data or not being able to connect to their drives after migration or upgrade. Should I just unplug them during transfer from old machine or leave them plugged in? or does it not mtter?
the old machine is a powermac g4 mdd.
im scared.
when i read the lower level (more in depth) details on migration it strated talking on a level that intimidated me. things like firmware & firewire upgrades, how do i know if im supposed to upgrade firmware or not and on which machine?
basically, i am in an overall quandry. maybe i should stop worrying about all the in depth stuff and just do it and save myself anightmare.
thanks
wayne

Well, there is no evidence at all that there are specific installs. In fact, in conversations with many developers, they have told me there is no such thing. If there are problems from clones, then the original was bad. It is not about risk, at all. This forum is replete with problems from Tiger installs. Is that evidence that Tiger is bad? Of course not. I have done at least 100 clones for clients, in this fashion, and have not seen one instance of a bad insatll, or problems, from cloning. I do all the work, and I know how. It does not matter from which machine, to what machine the clone is going, either.
Now, let's discuss licensing. because someone buys a new machine, and wants to clone his old Tiger to it, this is not a violation, at all. If both machines have Tiger (not the case here, of course). But, let me say this. It is getting downright obnoxious for people with no idea, nor any standing in the issue, to keep mentioning licensing. It is irrelevant to the question, in almost all instances, and makes the writer seem pretentious and a little sanctimonious.

I wanted to buy a new Canon EOS 7D mark ii, but my computer's OS is Windows Vista x64.

Will the Canon software install? I think it is the Canon EOS digital solution disk Ver 29.1.

I was using Vista x64 until last week, and I came to the determination that the new Canon software was not going to work with it. Finally, I threw in the towel. I contacted Microsoft, and the tech support guy _claimed_ that the machine could be upgraded to Windows 7, but that it would require premium support ($99 fee). I thought about it and then agreed. The charge was initiated, and then this guy spent five hours trying to get there from here. Finally, he threw in the towel, and it is not as easy as he had thought. Then I went around and around with the supervisor about this. At a minimum, they had to reverse the fee. They claimed that they couldn't do that, either. So, let's just say that Microsoft is not at the top of my favorites list. So, after thinking about it a bit more, I decided to buy a new machine with Windows 7 on it (not Windows 8). The new Dell machine was purchased and then installed. After a while, I was able to install the new Canon software and other software successfully. By the next day, I discovered some technical problems on the new machine. Basically, there was a fault on the motherboard. So, I had to get Dell tech support involved. They remotely worked on it for hours, and then they threw in the towel. I had to get the supervisor involved, and he would offer me the option of taking the entire computer back to the store to get a total exchange. That was unacceptable because of all of my time spent installing software. Now, Dell is skating out over the horizon, so they are not at the top of my favorites list. They did say that they could have a technician dispatched to my location to swap out the motherboard (leaving the hard disk intact). It just was not worth all of this trouble. I'll fix the problem myself. The only thing working right is the Canon camera with its software.

HT4926 If I download Final Cut Pro X, can I move it or re-download it to a new machine later?

If I download FCP X, can I move it to another machine later? I'm thinking of buying a new machine, but don't want to wait until then for the software.

Yes, FCP X is completely self-contained and you can copy it onto a memory stick, SD card or hard drive and put it on any computers you own.
It's worth keeping a copy on a DVD or SD card in case you ever "lose" your normal one as it's much quicker than downloading from the AppStore.

Upgrading to a new machine

I have an external drive for backing up my laptop and have been backing up with TM. However, I know I'm getting a new machine in about a month. Will I be able to continue my backups as a continuous stream where I left off?
I see two problems. First is that I'm probably going to change the name of the machine. Can I just change the folder name within Backups.backupdb to match?
Second, someone reported that a logic board swap caused the backup set not to be recognized
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1350465
This implies TM doesn't want to be fooled.
I could believe that TM doesn't want to make this easy today. But if there's no way to do this, then it's a serious design flaw. People normally upgrade their machines (particularly laptops) every 2-4 years, and saying that TM won't span an upgrade makes it a lot less useful (or will encourage people to hold off buying a new machine).

In order to continue using the external drive and existing TM backups you must use the same computer name for the new computer.

I'm buying a new MAC. How many machines can you associate with one CS Cloud account?

I'm buying a new MAC. How many machines can you associate with one CS Cloud account?

You can install the software on as many computers as you like.
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Hi, ive been backing up my computer to an external hard drive (with time machine). When i buy a new macbook will that hard drive put all my info on to the new computer?

hi, ive been backing up my computer to an external hard drive (with time machine). When i buy a new macbook will that hard drive put all my info on to the new computer?

When you boot the new machine for the first time, you'll be prompted to import your data from a Time Machine backup.

Hi. Good morning, I intend to purchase the Photography Photoshop program. The Rs 499/month one. I currently use an Mac Air. But intend to buy a iMac in about 2 months time. Will I be able to transfer this program or continue using this on my new machine?

Hi. Good morning, I intend to purchase the Photography Photoshop program. The Rs 499/month one. I currently use an Mac Air. But intend to buy a iMac in about 2 months time. Will I be able to transfer this program or continue using this on my new machine?

My eyes just glazed over...Please in the future break down each of your issues with paragraphs separated by two carriage returns. It would be much easier when trying to address your issues.
Go to Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Mouse
And edit your mouse settings to do what you want it to do.
Secondly, this is not the place to vent. If you have a complaint, there is:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
or http://www.apple.com/contact/
We are just end users here helping other end users.
Third, from my understanding, it would appear you are concerned about the noise the hard drive makes when it falls asleep? Why not put your machine in screen saver mode instead? Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Energy Saver turn off all Energy Saver settings, or set them to run Never.
Fourth, if your machine was purchased just a few days ago, you may still be able to get an exchange from the store, quicker than you can get a repair done. You may want to look into that possibility.
Fifth, it does appear you found the Logic forum. I would persist in asking there how to solve your technical issue with Logic regarding the audio. It may be you don't have to do anything special to the hard drive. Remember audio can be transmitted by wire, avoiding ambient sounds.
Good luck!

Buying a new machine ...

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