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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 :)

27 inch iMac with 5K footage?

P

Peter Szivolt

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hy guys,

I was wondering if the 27 inch iMac is strong enough to handle the 5K footage with Final Cut Pro? Any idea from R1 owners?:-)
Peter
 
It will work. I could handle 4K on my old 2006 2.33GHz dual-core Macbook Pro. It wasn't a speed demon and rendering was often best left for a Mac Pro, but it was do-able. The new iMacs are great machines and much more powerful. My current Macbook Pro is up to the task -- 3.06GHz CPU w/4GB RAM. Performs best with an eSATA drive system to work from, which is a problem because...

The downfall of the iMac is the lack of high-speed external connectivity. No SAS or eSATA, without hacking your system. Just a single Firewire-800 interface...
 
I have the old MacBook Pro 2.2 intel core due proc.
So you say that the newer MacBook Pro does the job...? I want to be mobil as much as it's possible with the Scarlet S35 as i'm always traveling. Would you recommend the strongest MacBook Pro for editing Scarlet footage if my point of view is to be mobil...? Could be an better solution then the iMac.
 
What is the point of editing 5k footage on a 2560x1440 display or for that matter a laptop?

Really you can work with any camera and a proper online offline workflow. Proxies are your friend.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
It will work. I could handle 4K on my old 2006 2.33GHz dual-core Macbook Pro. It wasn't a speed demon and rendering was often best left for a Mac Pro, but it was do-able. The new iMacs are great machines and much more powerful. My current Macbook Pro is up to the task -- 3.06GHz CPU w/4GB RAM. Performs best with an eSATA drive system to work from, which is a problem because...

The downfall of the iMac is the lack of high-speed external connectivity. No SAS or eSATA, without hacking your system. Just a single Firewire-800 interface...
Click to expand...

Thanks Jeff. Have just bought the iMac i7. I haven't had a chance to test it yet. However, from the specs and your comments it seems to be an ideal midrange choice.
 
Got my iMac i5 27" 4 GB RAM (Standard Config) last week. This machine is really fast, export 2280x960 ProRes 4444 from Redcine X:

iMac i5 1:25
MacBook Pro 2.53 1:40

i7 should be around 10% faster.
 
For use with REDCODE you guys will definitely want the i5 or i7 CPU options. But you still have to consider the iMac for what it is and also what it is not. The external storage connectivity, or lack thereof, does become a huge issue.

Andrew's point about proxies is also something to consider. However, various post and editing tools are becoming a lot better at dealing with native REDCODE files. Even with its quirks, I still cut several projects under Adobe CS4 on that old laptop without using proxies. It would have taken longer to try and generate usable proxies than it did to simply use the R3D files natively. Adobe CS5 promises to be a lot better. The native support for QT-wrapped R3Ds in Final Cut isn't half bad for performance either. I have not used the Adobe CS4 workflow in some time as it has not been updated. It is still quite buggy compared to other solutions and has no support for build-20 Color Science, let alone support for the latest REDcolor, REDgamma and 4.5K. I'm eager to see what CS5 brings us and what other new solutions pop up at NAB. We should see a lot of new toys over the next few weeks.
 
Ye, you are right. But to be honest, it's look's like there is not much of companies are prepared to display 5K footage. Especially which i can take with me as an laptop. I want to much, but this is normal after an DSMC 5K Scarlet camera.... :-) I will end up shooting in 3K with it til somebody comes out with better display resolution for the newer MacBook Pro if i'm traveling. Anyway, even the Planet Earth series hasn't reach the 2K quality with their HDCAM and VariCAM cameras.... End production in 2K should enough for natural purpose for anybody:-)
 
Peter Szivolt said:
I will end up shooting in 3K with it til somebody comes out with better display resolution for the newer MacBook Pro if i'm traveling. Anyway, even the Planet Earth series hasn't reach the 2K quality with their HDCAM and VariCAM cameras.... End production in 2K should enough for natural purpose for anybody:-)
Click to expand...

I would suggest to shoot in best possible resolution - 5K - and to store the 5K files and render them to lower rez and edit that lower rez for now. If your computer capabilities rise you could rerender your feature in 5K
:crazy:
 
The Core i7 iMac we have is doing 1/4 proxies fine with 4k footage coming in from flow controlled, Jumbo framed 1Gb ethernet from GraniteSTOR. I hope it handles 5K, too. I also use MXO to monitor the timeline with audio synchronized from MXO's audio out.
 
Gerald Menclik said:
I would suggest to shoot in best possible resolution - 5K - and to store the 5K files and render them to lower rez and edit that lower rez for now. If your computer capabilities rise you could rerender your feature in 5K
:crazy:
Click to expand...

Yep, that's how i thought to do, but most of the final product ends up on 2K anyway. Of course i will keep the RAW 5K... It's so funny to make the plans already and the Scarlet is nowhere yet :-(
 
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