RED my imac!

[Rob]

Anything I can do to get my imac (2.8ghz, 4gb ram) and FCP (6.0.5) to work a bit faster with RED footage? I have converted to apple pro-res already and lowered the RT settings, but it's still pretty slow. Any advice?

 

[Snow R. Shai]

No Big Upgrade

No Big Upgrade

Hi Rob,

What hard disk are you using ? An external USB drive can be slow.
Using the internal hard disk for footage is not recommended.
You can plug a fast external FW800 RAID0 to maximize your hard disk speeds.

Keep your system running slim. No added dashboards, system add-ons etc.
Keep your system hard disk at least %30-%40 empty.
Don't install software you do not need.
Close all other applications when editing [inc. dashboard].

 

[Ben Holmes]

Hi Rob. You are using an external drive? I think the best FW800 drives on the market are the G-Tech range. You'd need an minimum of a G-Drive connected via FW800 to make ProResHQ run on any system. Other than that, you should have no problem playing back ProRes footage at HD resolutions. I regularly run ProRes HQ on a MacBook Pro using one of these - you can edit fine.

 

[Tim Fassnacht]

shouldnt this be moved to workflow....

 

[Rob]

That's great advice Snow and Ben. Much appreciated. Regarding your comment Ben, about the MacbookPro, I had that exact set up going on my iMac and it was ok, but still a bit on the slow side. Especially when playing back in HD. I hope this isn't too stupid a question, but what is it that a MacbookPro has that an iMac doesn't? As far as I can tell, mine should be faster, but it's not. Thanks again.

 

[Joyfool]

the most crushing variable thus far for me has been the amount of data stored on my drives. Everything slows to a crawl when the drives reach 90% full. I agree w/ Snow regarding keeping them tidy with 30-40% free space. This has proven true for both my stand alone USB, FW, and RAID configs.

Cheers