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Posted by nobody special on 03/17/07 22:52
If you want to run FCP, a mac is your only choice, PC's don't run it.
A mac with the brand new Intel chips can run PC-Windows programs as
well as FCP, but you have to understand, that's a custom version of
FCP that will only run on that particular CPU setup and not on any old
power pc mac.
No Windows PC is going to run any version of FCP however. (Adobe
Premiere is now again dual-platform, but you want to look out for
which version of the OS and processor it is set up for.)
As far as your mac hardware choices, let me say that for someone who
is only dabbling at this point, it would save you a lot of money to
get an older non-intel powerPC chip mac or even (gulp!) a used/
refurbished mac from some place like smalldog.com or Shreve systems,
both sources have a geat rep for service and offer warranties. Macs
actually hold their resale comparatively well, and compatability with
apps and hardware up and down the product line stays pretty good. You
are still getting a powerful platform on a 1 or 2-year-old machine,
FCP and Motion are going to work fine on it, but you will be paying
way less than new. That's money you can throw at a better camcorder,
or add-ons like the highly recommended Apple Motion, photoshop, and
maybe an audio program like Peak or Soundtrack.
Understand I'm not evangelizing for the mac here, you can certainly do
a similar deal with pcs and older versions of Vegas, Avid, Premiere,
etc. and have yourself a ball editing with a powerful system, it just
won't be FCP like you specified. The guys that have to have the
bleeding-edge hardware are spending 90 percent of their money wad to
get that last 10 pecent better performance, because they need it for
network-level work. At the level of what you suggest you want to do,
you will have more than enough horsepower to be happy for quite a
while as you learn, and if you get the itch to upgrade later, the
upgrades will be less expensive too.
The reason not to edit off an imac or the mac mini or their laptops is
not anything to do with the monitors, or even the processors, but the
chassis is too small to add on more drive space, and for any kind of
serious editing, you want a dedicated media drive. You can go with
external firewire raid drives or single drives if they are fast
enough. Regarding monitors, I have been editing off the largest
macbook pro lately, and while it certainly has the power, I still need
external drives, and the large screen on the laptop is still too small
for my aging eyes; I would not want to edit off the laptop every day,
but only for short occasional use in the field.
Here's what i would suggest for your needs:
I would suggest a one to two-year-old mac tower system with one, or
perferably dual processors, all the RAM you can afford, a gig or more
is good, long as it all matches and is within spec, and a very fast
media drive either mounted in the tower or external via firewire. Get
the latest version of the OS it came with, and pay for quicktime pro
as well, that's dirt cheap. You can start with FCP Express, which is
the same as a full verson of Final Cut, but half the price, just
limited to DV footage only, and a few of the most esoteric functions
you'd likely never need, disabled. Once you've mastered express and
feelt he need ot push it up a notch, an upgrade to FCP Studio will be
affordable.
Even less expensive: some folks enjoy the free imovie HD, which shares
a lot of features with FCP, but is a more basic program. Numerous
after-market add-ons that add in advanced featuers are available for
around $25 or so per feature set, you can pick and choose a la carte
what funky wipes and other effects you might want to add. Should you
decide to bail after some time, the mac will still fetch about 60
percent of it's original price until it's more than 5 years old.
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