Redcine system requierements on a Mac

[Rodrigo Lizana]

I´m just trying to figure out what kind of Mac editing system do we need in order to work with Redcine@4K and FCP2. Everybody keeps saying 3Ghz quad or eight core but...(Rob ?)

- Is really that necessary to have the fastest MacPro or say a dual 2.6 will do the work fine ?. (I used to work with DVCPROHD and HDCAM, both higher data rate than Redcode I believe, in an old G4...
- Would the "on board" raid system (w/ raid card) Apple offers will be good enought for 4K ?.
- Memory ?
- Just to get an idea, how much would it take to downconvert 1 hour of 4K@24fps Redcode to DVCPRO HD or Digibeta ?.

It would be good to have an official word about this, (hopefully in a sticky)or some certification...Don´t want to set up an expensive system and find out later that it was too much for the job or worst, not good enough for it.

Regards

Rodrigo

[Rob Lohman]

Graphics card is one thing that's important, and for the moment we advice ATI on OS X (NVidia on Win). Since you are high up on the list I wouldn't necessarily buy something today since Apple may introduce new stuff or updates and we will have had more time optimizing and testing to see which configurations work better.

That being said.... whether something is necessary depends on what resolutions you plan to work at, what you output format you want to render to, how much footage you have to process and how much money you can spend (or write off).

Bigger tends to be better especially in the long haul. While we don't tax all cpu's fully at the moment this can only get better. However, for some people it might be better to get two 4-core systems than a single 8-core for example. All depends on what you want to do.

I don't think the on board Apple raid is fast enough to handle 4K 10-bit dpx or 16-bit tiff in real-time (assuming you have an application that can process these in realtime, for REDCODE the RAID is probably fast enough [I would guess at least 60 MB/s, sustained]).

Memory mainly depends on how many applications you plan to run side by side. If Apple is going 64-bit with their Final Cut Studio then it may be more beneficial to have more memory when their next OS comes out this month. I would probably fit at least 2 - 3 GB, maybe more if you're running a lot of apps at the same time.

The problem with "certification" or specs and such is that the software is a big state of flux right now (should be better in a couple of months). So if you don't need to buy now I would wait a bit before you do so. You'll at least get the new 64-bit OS from Apple ;)

For down convert speed it will also depend on if you select the ultra high quality or if a slightly lower quality but much faster decode would be acceptable, for example. Lots of variables....