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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Mac set up

Usually there are two mindsets. a) get the best of everything top of the line. b) get the minimum that works.

And both work.

I think a very reasonably affordable system is not a 12 core mac, but at least an 8 core intel mac desktop with 16 gigs of ram. Final Cut Studio will provide you both editing and color solution. A black magic card pumping into a regular flat screen LCD monitor will give you "real world" look at what you're working on.

That plus some hard drives to play back the footage should work. (oh and a regular monitor - get a big one.)

You could also try the adobe method with Premiere instead, but that is a whole different conversation of which you can definitely find threads.
 
Welcome Aaron. Not sure what you are shooting, or what your role is ...
but you mention a "few" Red cameras. Unless you need extras for rental
I would consider getting 2 in the beginning and investing more on post
production.

The reason I say that is that it's fairly hard to build an optimal/complete
post production setup for $11,000. Remember that in optimal circumstances
you would have a good Mac Pro, color-correct monitors, editing software,
and there's a lot more you could add like a Rocket, etc.

But maybe post production won't be your specialty, and you just need
"good enough" for the occasional clients. Again, I don't know your biz ...

Here's a thought:

There are some Mac sellers on Ebay who offer custom Mac Pros,
pre-loaded with a lot of software (and genuine license keys). One I know
of offers Mac Pros with Final Cut Studio, Adobe CS5, Aperture, etc. I
actually priced out an 8-core Mac Pro with him for $6700, including all the
software.

Keep in mind, this is a highly reputable seller in the US -- that have
almost 100% positive feedback. So it's definitely not a scam.

So your budget could look something like this:

- Mac Pro 8 core with FCP + Adobe - $6700 (both great with Red footage)
- Red Rocket Refurbished - $3000
- HP DreamColor Monitor - $1800 (not the best, but most affordable color
correct option)

This comes pretty close -- $11,500 and would be a very solid setup.

Again, it's hard to say without understanding your business -- also there
are people on this board with far more technical savvy/experience than
I have.

I would also search for Jeff Kilgroe (one of the moderators) and read his
many posts on Mac technology/setups. He's so informative, you could
literally turn his posts into a book.

You may even be able to PM him for specifics, though I'm sure he's very
busy.

Hope that helps,

Anthony
 
Thank you Anthony, that was very helpful. I already have some good monitors for coloring. So I would really just want to beef up a mac, I was thinking of the two quad core, 32 gigs of ram, and getting a drobo drive to edit with about 8 TB of space. I have all the software I'll need so that's okay. I have been working in Avid media composer and FCP for years now. I just dont know red workflow yet.

I think I will go with two red ones. And a nice FCP system. Though I am really just a DP not an editor. So it would really be only for the clients who require it. I am a new to LA dp so I am looking for anything I can get atm.
 
Aaron Champion said:
Awesome, thank you. So I dont really need a rocket or breakout
Click to expand...

Yes I do think you need a rocket, unless you're willing to let your computer
be transcoding for days at a time :-P

But seriously, it sounds as though you're going to be working a lot if you're
getting two cameras -- and if you're shooting at 4k, the transcode times can
be pretty significant without a Rocket, even if you have a super-powerful
Mac Pro tower.

You can get a certified refurbished one for $3000 -- if that fits better in your
budget.

Anthony
 
As for disk - you can do yourself a big favor by filling your remaining 3 drive bays inside the Mac Pro with three 2TB, WD Caviar Black 7200 RPM SAS drives. You then use Apple's DiskUtility to set them as a Striped RAID array and you'll be amazed at the performance improvement of have three drives performing your I/O (and you get 6TB of server-grade storage for <$600).

I do this on all of our test rigs and the I/O performance is excellent (~360MB/sec sustained - 450MB/sec burst). That kind of I/O can really make a big difference in day to day I/O operations.

Of course, if your budget will allow you to get a true SAS RAID Enclosure, you can improve on those numbers a bit, but it will all depend on your budget.

HTH,
Tim
 
Tim Jones said:
As for disk - you can do yourself a big favor by filling your remaining 3 drive bays inside the Mac Pro with three 2TB, WD Caviar Black 7200 RPM SAS drives. You then use Apple's DiskUtility to set them as a Striped RAID array and you'll be amazed at the performance improvement of have three drives performing your I/O (and you get 6TB of server-grade storage for <$600).

I do this on all of our test rigs and the I/O performance is excellent (~360MB/sec sustained - 450MB/sec burst). That kind of I/O can really make a big difference in day to day I/O operations.

Of course, if your budget will allow you to get a true SAS RAID Enclosure, you can improve on those numbers a bit, but it will all depend on your budget.

HTH,
Tim
Click to expand...

great advice! I'll look into that! Thank you!
 
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