moondragon Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 Hey all, I'm thinking about building a hacintosh specifically for FCP... does anyone have a build they can send me or info on mobos and cpus they've used and are running FCP without too many problems. Cheers, Moon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSO Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Must use the QX6700 instead of Core 2 Duo. Speed just doesn't make sense on 2 of my Core 2 Duo 1 mac & 1 hac Then just choose a Mom for your need, I would suggest get one with onboard Firewire. I've got my qx6700 running faster than my Mac Pro 2x 3Ghz Xeon. Somehow I think you should try Premier Pro 2 before dive into FCP. Because if you use FCP you'll have to spent lots of time seeking with the right frame as my last topic question. There's no sequence detection (as of Pinnacle Studio/iMovie/Premiere Pro) Get yourself at least 2GB of DDR2 800mhz CL4 Memory. Anyhow 4GB+ Ram doesn't really make any different if you only edit 2/3 track in a same time with 2GB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rez. Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Eveything in my sig works just fine in final cut pro. I'd take yhXDEV's advice and up the ram though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kle500 Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Must use the QX6700 instead of Core 2 Duo. Speed just doesn't make sense on 2 of my Core 2 Duo 1 mac & 1 hacThen just choose a Mom for your need, I would suggest get one with onboard Firewire. I've got my qx6700 running faster than my Mac Pro 2x 3Ghz Xeon. Somehow I think you should try Premier Pro 2 before dive into FCP. Because if you use FCP you'll have to spent lots of time seeking with the right frame as my last topic question. There's no sequence detection (as of Pinnacle Studio/iMovie/Premiere Pro) Get yourself at least 2GB of DDR2 800mhz CL4 Memory. Anyhow 4GB+ Ram doesn't really make any different if you only edit 2/3 track in a same time with 2GB. Well, you are exactly the person i want to ask some questions. I've made a simple but compatible Hack, and i have no problem with any of the FCS suite. I would like to know if you see any real difference between MacPro and your Hack, not in render speed, but in overall performance and behavior. Is the Hack as Snappy as the MacPro? Scrolling through timeline is as snappy as in macPro? Because i haven't worked with FCP in a real MAC, during Capture, does the capture preview is of low quality and playback jerky? I mean only the preview and not the final capture. Why you choose that 7800? Do you do games also? Or you see difference (Better), between the Hack and the MacPro? I work a lot on DVD Authoring, After Effects (i know it's not UB), Photoshop (CS3), and less in FCP, but i have no other experience on other machines (Real Macs), how they feal. I see you also choose CL4 800mzh modules, isn't that overkill? I am trying to learn from people who have access to Real Macs, what's their overall opinion. Regards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSO Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Well, you are exactly the person i want to ask some questions.I've made a simple but compatible Hack, and i have no problem with any of the FCS suite. I would like to know if you see any real difference between MacPro and your Hack, not in render speed, but in overall performance and behavior. Is the Hack as Snappy as the MacPro? Scrolling through timeline is as snappy as in macPro? Because i haven't worked with FCP in a real MAC, during Capture, does the capture preview is of low quality and playback jerky? I mean only the preview and not the final capture. Why you choose that 7800? Do you do games also? Or you see difference (Better), between the Hack and the MacPro? I work a lot on DVD Authoring, After Effects (i know it's not UB), Photoshop (CS3), and less in FCP, but i have no other experience on other machines (Real Macs), how they feal. I see you also choose CL4 800mzh modules, isn't that overkill? I am trying to learn from people who have access to Real Macs, what's their overall opinion. Regards. 1 mac pro with 2x Xeon and 4GB RAM + 7300GT (All Stock) it's nothing compare to this qx6700 with 7800GTX + 2GB Super Tarded (or Re-*) RAM The mac pro is just sad and I'm forwarding it to my wife as a movie, email, conference station. I've touched over 300+ mac G5/Pro they are just jokes....if you had read my posts and screen shots, you'll see the qx6700 can easily beat the big quad core without any overclocking. CL4 is nothing over and it's sort of what you need for video editing. Because 1 lag can really stop your thinking, and you'll just miss something you really have to get rid of(If you're this serious). I don't game on my Mac side because it's just time wasting. You'll never get as good performance on a OS that use GL for Interface i.e. Linux with Beryl/Compiz\OS X they can't Vsync..on games Too bad I don't know any mac screen to video capture softz. Otherwise, I would really want to show you how suck a mac pro compare to a lazy built system.... FCP5 with my spec is smoother than it's on 2x Xeon Duo Core (Quad Xeon ...from Apple) Somehow...I think using FCP5 is time wasting too. Especially it couldn't edit your mastered MP2 files with multiplexed Audio Tracks.... Compare to Adobe Premiere or Pinnacle Studio....It's just another sad appz like Apple's Aperture.. After all, QX6700 + those spec can really say bye to a fresh Mac Pro and save $10 from your utilities.. I've 3x QX6700 Built, my sig is just 1 of them. others are running Pure Linux and Windows XP only. This one is just for Testing & OS X. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kle500 Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 (edited) Great reply! Some questions though. Why you choose 7800GTX, over say.... a 7600GT or 7600GS ? Any particular reason? Can you tell us your HDD configuration? what System HD you use? I tested my Hack with a Raptor 74 i have on another XP machine, and the response in everything is at least 30% better than with my current HD401LJ Samsung. I am about to purchase a Geforce card, but i really don't know if i gain anything in Photoshop, FCP, DvdSP, AfterEffects. I am on the Onboard GMA950, which i think is ok, but a test i made using Photoshop CS3 in both Osx86 and XP, using different HDD but exactly the same models, showed that the XP refresh and redraw is way better than in the OsX. For example, moving quickly a picture with the hand tool (in 300% magnification) the redraw in XP is better. I tested with the same Onboard GMA950, same HDD, same Resolutuion, same Refresh rates (CRT Mitsubishi). Edited March 4, 2007 by kle500 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondragon Posted March 4, 2007 Author Share Posted March 4, 2007 hey yhXDEV, aagree with you on the Premiere except the school i go to has FCP so I kinda need to stay with it but I dont want to spend a fortune on Mac hardware. Can't decide on the mobo... i keep looking at the hardware list but each board seems to have problems... I'm going a little nutz hehe you're build looks WAy cool but a bit pricey for my budget Moon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kle500 Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 hey yhXDEV, aagree with you on the Premiere except the school i go to has FCP so I kinda need to stay with it but I dont want to spend a fortune on Mac hardware. Can't decide on the mobo... i keep looking at the hardware list but each board seems to have problems... I'm going a little nutz hehe you're build looks WAy cool but a bit pricey for my budget Moon Please tell us how much are you willing to spend, cause it does make tremendous difference. To keep you informed, although i am sure you already know, video editing is a Hard Disk and CPU Dependant. The faster the HDD, and also having many drives for temp and swap, the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondragon Posted March 4, 2007 Author Share Posted March 4, 2007 well I'm basically upgrading my current system....so I need a new mobo and cpu... i have 2xSeagate 400gb SATA drives and I think my current 2gb memory is DDR or DDR2 so I might be able to use those too. I'd like to spend about $500 on Newegg.com to upgrade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Telefunken Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 What about those quad core processors like Q6600 in an Intel D975XBX2 desktop/workstation board? Does the Q6600 perform better than Core 2 Extreme? Especially in H264 encoding using Compressor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonokti Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 yhXDEV what do you mean by sequence detection? for it to split the file as it captures? FCP under Mark has DV Start/DV stop Detect the capture file is still one file but it creates segments. I used both FCP 5.1 and Premier Pro2.0 I find FCP workflow a lot faster Premier Pro requires a lot more rendering even for 3 way Color Correction. Premier Pro is great if you have a Matrox card for Real Time. Hopefully, the next version of premier has more real time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khid Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 I'm amazed that people are saying Premiere is anywhere near better than Final Cut Pro. It's so behind in updates it's ridiculous. No MXF/DVCproHD support what-so-ever pretty much removes it from being a candidate in this day-n-age. That said, I will check out the poster's setup as far as cash goes. I really don't want to purchase a Mac just for FInal Cut Studio 6, to be honest. But Nab is on it's way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zulu.Walker Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 Working now on a few music vids for our local MTV station, one complaint with FCP5 is the lack of auto scene detection which I have grown fond of on my Avid Media Composer (2yrs Adobe, 5+yrs Avid, now on FCP). My overclocked rig works well although I do feel that I need a bit more RAM to make things much faster. My 7600GT works well, I doubt I'll need a Quadro for this. I still miss Avid's color correction, probably the best IMHO. PS. Auto scene detection works by analyzing the tape's TC and upon detecting a break, automatically subclips it to easily determine different shots/takes/angles. Much easier to sync for multicam editing and for other purposes you might need. Premiere is still a little boy with growth problems. It's still an infant even after progressing through so many version changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSO Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 Working now on a few music vids for our local MTV station, one complaint with FCP5 is the lack of auto scene detection which I have grown fond of on my Avid Media Composer (2yrs Adobe, 5+yrs Avid, now on FCP). My overclocked rig works well although I do feel that I need a bit more RAM to make things much faster. My 7600GT works well, I doubt I'll need a Quadro for this. I still miss Avid's color correction, probably the best IMHO. PS. Auto scene detection works by analyzing the tape's TC and upon detecting a break, automatically subclips it to easily determine different shots/takes/angles. Much easier to sync for multicam editing and for other purposes you might need. Premiere is still a little boy with growth problems. It's still an infant even after progressing through so many version changes. It depends what you have.. If you have a AVCHD Camera FCP5 has nothing to do with it.( Now is APR 4, 2007 ) If you have a lot of Multimuxed MP2 files, FCP5 will only take your video, or you'll have to seperate video and audio with extra stepZ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zulu.Walker Posted April 5, 2007 Share Posted April 5, 2007 No problem with multimuxed MP2s, just want to see my whole tape without logging already subclipped and ready to be synced, I don't have much time logging as I am a "one-man studio" Well I'm still using an Avid workflow for my FCP projects, so I might need to change the way I work to make full use of FCP's capabilities. Still haven't cut long enough with FCP to really get accustomed to the way it was supposed to be used. I still like FCP a lot though, I can also multitask while capturing video unlike Avid that has to be left alone while you digitize all your hourloads of {censored}. A wrong click and everything stops. I just hate what windows does to perfectly good NLEs. The old PowerMac Avids were even easier to work with, without all the advanced features as with all NLEs now, but those were some of my fastest edits yet. Offline though... no decent mid-ranged online NLEs in the 90s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zulov Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Any of you guys experience dropped frames on your hackintoshes? I am trying to run FCS2 and FCP as well as Qtime are stuttering and dropping frames - and my system should be able to handel it no problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSO Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 Any of you guys experience dropped frames on your hackintoshes? I am trying to run FCS2 and FCP as well as Qtime are stuttering and dropping frames - and my system should be able to handel it no problem. Try Leopard. I've much better experience while video editing compare to the old days using Tiger (Although Ihaven't experience any lag ever. You might also try to remove some codec that cause lags i.e AVC1 Per*an Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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