Setting Up (or upgrading to) A New Final Cut Studio 2 System

[Ben Balser, ACT]

So what exactly do you need to run FCS2? I could just rattle off the list of system requirement specs off of Apple's site, but that wouldn't really "answer" the question in a realistic manner. In this thread, we can address the "reality" of this issue. Here are some issues to consider as we get started:

1- What do you plan to do with it, professional broadcast, hobby, event, what sort of work and deliverables will you need?

2- What do you hope to be doing with it 3-4 years from now?

3- What is your budget?

4- What extra hardware will you need to interface with it (cameras, printers, scanners, etc)?

Budget is the first thing most people think about. With enough resources, we'd all get the biggest, baddest, most full blown, most expensive system Apple is selling at the moment of purchase. But, that's not usually the case.

Considering your budget, there's more than just the Mac "box" you'll need, so we'd have to balance out the system in a wholistic manner.

To start this discussion off, I'll say that the Mac Mini, MacBook, and Air are simply out of the question for FCS2, period! Next, I'll say a MacBook Pro and iMac are "OK", but have drawbacks. Third, I'll point out that hard drives and RAM are much cheaper from Other World Computing, and super easy (and safe) to install yourself even if you've never opened a computer before in your life. I'm a retired IT engineer, trust me on this one.

So, what are your concerns, limits, dreams? Let's get a good dialog going to help folks out in getting up and running on their first Final Cut Studio system, or to help out those looking to upgrade.

[Kirk Leonard]

I am currently running FCS2 on a dual 1.8 G5. I upgraded my video card, added RAM and a second internal hard drive just for video files. Working with SD footage is not a problem with this system. However, working with HD is a different story. The system really has a hard time keeping up with HD workflow and crashes quite frequently. So much so that I have decided that I will no longer work in HD until I can get one of the new 8 core Macs. I would also like to see Apple make Blu-ray drives available not only for burning BR discs but for archiving my client's video. I too, feel like digital distribution will be the way folks will acquire their media content but at the same time, I think people like to have something they can hold in their hands. We live in interesting times indeed!

[Ben Balser, ACT]

Now when you say "HD", what codec? Not all flavors of HD are the same. HDV is horsepower hungry. DVCPRO-HD isn't.

Blu Ray, I'm about to send out an email about it, and I'll post the info here. But don't get too worked up about it, there are legal tangles that may make it "legally" unfordable even for wedding videographers. More to follow.

[Adam Corvin]

We are looking at adding storage to our setup. We currently have about 3GBs of video shot over the summer. Here's what I've come up with:

Norco 12 bay 3U SATA HD Rackmount Storage - I've seen a couple of external SATA boxes but this came highly recommended from Directron and only $800.

I'm looking at a RocketRAID 2314MS with mini-SAS controller card with mini-SAS to eSATA cable. It got pretty good reviews from BareFeats.

Any suggestions or comments on the equipment?

[Ben Balser, ACT]

My question would be, why do you need eSATA, or RAID? If this is for simple storage, those are expensive solutions. For "storage" I'd look at a Quantum LTO-3 tape system. You just buy more tape. And there are various cataloging applications that will work with it. But you could just label your tapes, and make a spreed sheet in Numbers to catalog your tapes manual for next to no money.

If it's to store footage for editing, again, what format are you using that needs more than Firewire drives? If it's not uncompressed footage, these are expensive solutions, unless you have massive amounts of footage and want the redundancy of these systems. Then, I'd look at the Quantum LTO-3 again as your backup/archive system. I feel you'd get more product for your dollar that way.

[Adam Corvin]

A little about the company I work for: One of the areas of the organization I work for provides housing, food, and connects groups with sites around the city based upon their needs. During the summer we have between 300 and 450 students come to help in the city. We travel around to all the sites the groups are at and shoot video. At the end of the week the video is presented.

All of the video this summer was shot and captured in AVCHD. It was all logged and tagged by group and other searchable criteria. During the year we attend conferences around the country and show a custom video at our booth. In the past years (we've been doing this for about 10 years now) it included lots of spreadsheet with tape log data.

What we are interested in doing is setting up a dedicated server that handles the media. We currently have 1 workstation that does all the work but next summer we will have 4 workstations that handle different parts of the process and one director that finalizes everything.

[Ben Balser, ACT]

You may want to look into some of the software cataloging solutions that work with a Quantum LTO-3 drive. Or massive storage arrays as you mentioned with Final Cut Server. Final Cut Server will handle archiving of media, and the workflow between all the members of your team very nicely. Plan to attend the FCSvr one day seminar in Lafayette I have planned on September 13th. I'll also be doing FCSvr consulting in addition to all the other consulting I do beginning of August. It's a pretty awesome solution. There is also rumors of a third party creating a solution for FCSvr to run with a Quantum tape archive system. Also, FCSvr will run on Ethernet, but xSAN is highly recommended. For the shear amount of work y'all do, it may be worth the investment.