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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 :)

Imacs for Redcode!

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Ryan S

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So, Apple refreshed the iMac, Mac Mini, Macbook (not pro) and mouse today. The new iMac is a pretty sexy machine- Quad-core up to 2.8Ghz, up to 16GB DDR3 RAM, Up to 2TB HDD.

Seems like a pretty sweet low-budget Rediting solution!

http://www.apple.com/ca/imac/

Thoughts?
 
Hi!
I was just trying to find something that would light my mind about this new imac, considering editing with FCP some redcamera footage. I also would like to know if a laptop macbook pro could do it? If I work abroad this would be the best option for the logistic...

Thank you,

Vanessa
 
I've edited some intense stuff on a 2.4 GHZ 2GB ram macbook pro. It took FOREVER but it worked. The 4 minute video took 19 hours to render in After Effects.
 
Just checked out the apple frontpage on those new imacs; i usually scoff at anything besides the proline; but i gotta admit those are pretty sexy lil machines!
 
I've just retired an almost 3-year-old MBP (2.33GHz Core2 Duo, 2GB RAM) and it has worked quite well to cut a lot of RED projects. It is slow when it comes to the rendering aspect. Replaced it with a new 17" 3.06GHz w/ 4GB and it's quite a bit better. I don't mind working on it at all.

The new 27" iMacs with the i5 CPUs should be very capable systems for this sort of thing. The quad-core especially. Not a Mac Pro, but under $3K for a quad-core with 8+GB RAM. Still expensive compared to knocking together a PC yourself, but not bad at all. The $1699 dual-core 27" looks like a hot deal. Especially if you have a Mac Pro that you could offload rendering tasks too.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
I've just retired an almost 3-year-old MBP (2.33GHz Core2 Duo, 2GB RAM) and it has worked quite well to cut a lot of RED projects. It is slow when it comes to the rendering aspect. Replaced it with a new 17" 3.06GHz w/ 4GB and it's quite a bit better. I don't mind working on it at all.

The new 27" iMacs with the i5 CPUs should be very capable systems for this sort of thing. The quad-core especially. Not a Mac Pro, but under $3K for a quad-core with 8+GB RAM. Still expensive compared to knocking together a PC yourself, but not bad at all. The $1699 dual-core 27" looks like a hot deal. Especially if you have a Mac Pro that you could offload rendering tasks too.
Click to expand...

Doesnt this use the Notebook harddrives? Arent there BUS limitations versus tower drives?

Bene waiting for your expert opinio here Jeff... and of course only ONE FW 800 port and no e-sata so no RAID capabilities.... close but no Cigar imho
 
The iMac uses 3.5" hard drives, same as the Mac Pro or any other normal desktop system. Unfortunately, it only holds one drive. On the original 24" iMac, it could hold two drives and a common hack was to pipe the second SATA port out to connect an eSATA device. It wasn't fully eSATA compliant, but it was a nice option. This is not an option on the new iMacs or the ones that just preceeded them. :(

No bus limitations on the internal HDD or optical drive. But it's just one HDD.

IMO, this is the biggest flaw with the iMac is the lack of good external storage connectivity. If they would just give us two eSATA ports, it would be great. I can live with one FW800 port. After all, that's what we live with on the Mac Pro -- one up front and one in the rear, but they're actually shared on the same bus. So it's the same as using the single port on the iMac or MBP with a FW800 switch.

I'm seriously thinking of picking up a 27" dual-core as a family computer and it can double as a secondary display for my MBP.

All things considered, I think the iMac is perfect for what it is. But I also think Apple needs an offering between the iMac and the Mac Pro. They need to bring back something like the old Cube. Give us a compact quad-core desktop system with two PCI-E slots, the ability to hold 2 x 3.5" HDDs or 4 x 2.5" HDDs and a single optical drive. It would sell like crazy, but then again I think that half of the people who are buying Mac Pros would downgrade to a system like that.
 
FWIW - I have been working on a feature film using my 15" first generation MBP single 1.83. I use a sonnet FW800 card since the first gen didn't have FW 800. 2 X 2TB drives running 720prores HQ. No real problems except when I occasionally open the project on another machine--then when I come back to my MBP the project gets funky. I had to create new project and copy assets into it.

Otherwise no issues. I do keep my MBP nice and tidy and without lots of extraneous apps odd codecs, etc. I run a second Dell 24"" monitor as well.

Knock on wood!!!!!

Chris
 
Also to add to the above, on the MBP -- both my old one and the new one -- an external HDD is an absolute must. I typically use a CalDigit eSATA card with a CalDigit S2VR unit. It's a bit older, but is a hardware RAID and nice and speedy for offloading, editing, etc.. Works very well. I'll configure one as RAID-0 for editing or working out in the field if the data is already backed up. For offloading or more critical tasks, I configure as RAID-1. The drives are easily swapped from the rear, so it's also handy for making duplicate HDD copies while offloading in RAID-1 mode.
 
I'm definitely gonna get one of these. I was wonderin if there was any way to get a RED Rocket™ to work with it though. It's even harder than the MBPs because of the lack of an express card slot, but it'd be nice if there was a way.

Peter Majtan! Think of something! Maybe a pocket rocket lite or something. Pleeeeeease!
 
Jerrod Cordell said:
I was wonderin if there was any way to get a RED Rocket™™™ to work with it though. It's even harder than the MBPs because of the lack of an express card slot, but it'd be nice if there was a way.
Click to expand...

Good luck with that. I guess Apple must not include high speed connectivity like eSATA or even ExpressCard because they don't want them to compete with the Pros?
 
good lord. 16gigs or ram

render times for 3k must be gloriously quick on that.
 
Hi guys,

What about the limitation that FCP gives for Color as: "For rendering of 4K files and DPX: a graphics card with at least 512MB of VRAM". Most of the new iMacs have 256mb as the older ones and MacBookPro, no? Anyone experienced any problems with that? Is it a real limitation?

Thanks in regard.
 
Well, if you're getting one of the new Quad Core iMacs (and if you're using this primarily for editing and crunching REDCODE, that's probably what you want anyway), it comes with an ATi 4850 card standard. 512 MB of VRAM. So, no problems there in terms of specs.

As for running into problems with less VRAM while rendering 4K, I can't help you there.
 
I think that half of the people who are buying Mac Pros would downgrade to a system like that.
__________________
- Jeff Kilgroe

I just couldn't agree more and am simply left wondering if the Mac Pro with a single I7 2.93 is possibly the best Mac buy for a current upgradeable "base" system since the dual CPU basically doubles the price too? Thoughts?
 
Thanks again for your comments Jeff! I think I see you've already answered my question in another post (I just read) on Mac Pro and will stay away from a single quad core as well.
 
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