iMAC and FCS Compressor Speeds

[priom]

Hey guys,

I've been using Final cut on my macbook pro for the last couple of weeks and well...the compression times on compressor takes like forever, literally 6-7 hrs for a 3 min clip. Then again have the older macbook pro (not the ones that came out in may here in australia) so i only have 2gb ram and core 2...

Question is, I am thinking of getting the new iMac's the 27inch one thats 2199 here in australia.
it has 4gb ram, 3.06ghz core 2 duo and ATI HD 256mb GDDR video card. Would this system be good enough to do compressing with lets say a lot of effects/filters much quicker than the 6-7 hrs i'm getting...hopefully for like 20-30 min clips or maybe more since I'll be doing some shorts with my friends and family here.
If not, can you suggest which areas to upgrade on? I'm fairly sure using FCS normally should be much much faster than the speed i'm currently getting, but i'm mainly concerned about the FCS's compressor's compressing speeds.

(i'm sorry if this question has been asked, i did a bit of searching but couldn't find this exact question).

thanks

[cgbier]

It will, but your Compressor time will still be about 3 times the length of the original.
If you are not BD but only Vimeo or Youtube, this nifty little gizmo will do a lot for your render time.

[priom]

thanks alot cgbier

also, would the quad core 2.66ghz i5 speed things up even more? I'm fairly sure core 2 duo is faster when only working with single tasks but quad core is slower than the core 2 in single tasks but much faster when multi-tasking (like having something open in the background while also doing FCS work)

or is it still much faster either way? because the 2600 dollar iMac also comes with the 512mb video card...which would help alot with motion and color.

[cgbier]

There are benchmarks around on the web... if a couple of minutes is worth the extra money for you, go for it.
I'm using a lowly '98 2.4GHz with the 9400 GPU. Not many problems with Motion (besides the anemic 4GB RAM I have). Don't use Color though - I'm a videomaker

[priom]

hmm thanks for the help. it's helped me make my decision, i think the extra 400 isn't worth it if it's only a minutes worth of differences and if motion works well with your 9400 (which i'm assuming is 256mb) i'm sure the ATI HD one that comes with the standard 27inch is sufficient enough.

thanks alot!

[cgbier]

Depends on what you are doing in Motion. For simple compositions it is good enough. I ran into trouble with some particles the other day though.

I'm sitting on the fence with the 27" screen. While I think it is gorgeous, I don't always like working on my 24" screen (it simply is too big sometimes). I'll buy an iMac later this year, but would rather go with a beefed up 21.5", and get a separate screen from the price difference. And I'm not too fanatic about the change from 16:10 to 16:9. I do a lot of graphics work (newsletters, posters). There the more squarish 16:10 has advantages.

[priom]

hmm yeah i see your point there. I was actually at first considering the 21.5" so i went and tested them out to see which one I feel more comfortable with. But the big screen sure did impress me...although i can understand that it will get annoying sometimes - so i'll check out differences in price and all for a maybe 8gb 21.5 inch and extra 27" monitor.
I just do simple sfx on motion nothing over the top.
But yeah still, I'll probably go for the 27inch - And since i'm getting an iMac i was thinking of like spending a fair few cos i know apple updates their products really fast adn all...dont' want to have to upgrade again in the next 3-4 years or so.

[cgbier]

dont' want to have to upgrade again in the next 3-4 years or so.

Our media department still works with G4 and 5 towers. They just got their first 8-core recently. I know folks who edit XDCam on first generation DualCore MBP.

The need for upgrades is coming more from Apple's (or Dell's) marketing machine than from a real need. Computers are that powerful today that software is actually limping behind.

[priom]

that would be good for me then - i can settle with the standard 27" - might go check it out some more tomorrow, and also run FCE they have on it and test it out and if i like, i'll buy it ^^

[cgbier]

I use FCE at home on an old plastic MacBook. Janke has the same setup. If you don't need Motion (there's a cheap replacement) or Color, FCE is all you'll ever need to edit. Majority of FCP plug-ins work perfectly well in FCE.
Only thing I miss sometimes is the 3-Wheel Color Corrector... about my favorite tool in FCP.

[priom]

Only thing I miss sometimes is the 3-Wheel Color Corrector... about my favorite tool in FCP.

that is very true...i love the 3-way color corrector...best thing about FCP but yeah I already own FCS (rich parents = expensive stuff) but yeah i'm running it on one of the old macbooks...it's good but rendering gets annoying as i have to wait like 10 mins for rendering of a lot of filters and compressing takes a long long while

[cgbier]

Rich parents - sigh!

[Janke]

Ask your rich parents to splurge on a new, powerful MacPro...

[priom]

haha i'm not at 'pro' level yet. but I'll get one much later on when I'm more confident using FCP and improved my skills at it. I'm still a learning student at films MacPRO will just have to hold up a while longer before it becomes part of my possessions.