Is it just me, or does it seem that just as soon as I feel like Final Cut Pro and the Mac hardware has caught up with the size and demands video beckons for, something new in terms of video size (SD to HD) or video codecs (ProRes) comes along and takes what I thought was a fast machine, a real winner of a system, and literally brings it to its knees begging for more RAM and processor power. I guess it's just an endless cycle.

I have to admit, I have hated working in ProRes, mainly because it makes my media files huge, and it takes forever to render! I have found that using the XDCAM codec or sticking with DVCPRO has better served my purposes, especially since I primarly create content for the web.

So the next time I buy my next 24-core Mac and quietly assure myself that it will last forever, is precisely when we will begin to see the new DSLR cameras shooting raw imagery, which I feel isn't too far off from happening, especially after taking a look at the new Canon Mark 7D.

Thoughts? Digestions?

I have not worked a lot with XDCAM HD or DVCPRO HD. I have with HDCAM a little bit more. There are so many codecs and what nots and can be a bit confusing. I found this article a while back "When to stay in the native codec of the source, and when to convert to something else."

www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/when_to_stay_native.html

I have not worked a lot with XDCAM HD or DVCPRO HD. I have with HDCAM a little bit more. There are so many codecs and what nots and can be a bit confusing. I found this article a while back "When to stay in the native codec of the source, and when to convert to something else."

www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/when_to_stay_native.html

Ya, but HDCAM isn't a Codec necessarily, it's a tape format, right? You bring HDCAM footage in by either capturing it in Apple ProRes, or some other intermediate codec.

I agree Chris. I thought ProRes was going to be great, but I haven't been impressed with the file sizes, I've been more impressed with DVCPRO and XDCAM. But, DVCPRO then introduces some weird aspect ratio issues that you have to compensate for. I think, it is like we have always said: what is the majority of your footage. It you shot everything on XDCAM HD then edit everything on an XDCAM HD timeline and it will usually help. It doesn't help when your bouncing out to motion and color and then throwing magic bullet on top (which brings your machine to it's knees, all 16 cores), but the final product always looks incredible.

I haven't done TOO much with the new version of FCP 7, but they do offer 4 "levels" of ProRes, which is more like Avid and some of hte others do. They offer an "offline" or "proxy" version which is much smaller and allows up to 4 realtime streams on my older macbook pro, which right now can only push 1-2. Then when you are done you swap the proxies with the real deal and render. But I've even seen some comparisons with the top two tier ProRes and the qualities are remarkably similar, even thought their sizes are quite different.

And just as a note. If you get a 24-core Mac Pro and I'm still stuck on a 4-core, I will stand outside in all white as a matter of protest

Yes, HDCAM is just a tape format. There is also HDCAM SR, which is HDCAM but with 16 individual audio tracks. Then XDCAM HD is technically the codec that is shot onto the SXS Media, so in that case you could look as SXS card being the "tape". As in the P2 world, the P2 card is the "tape" and the format, or codec is DVCPRO. With HDV you can bring that in as straight HDV or with a Kona/Black Magic card you could convert that to something else at the capture level.

The new Apple Pro-Res light is much more workable than the original Pro-Res, it's what I am now encoding all my Canon Mark II 5D footage to for editing.

Hey Chris I took your advice and joined the user group. Now I need a little help. Our company purchased a new Mac with the Processor being two 2.26 Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon, and Memory being 12 GB 1066 Mhz DDR3, with three Internal Hard Drives of 1 TB each, and the Mac Hard Drive containing all the system stuff.
Anyway we did so because we are doing a lot more in HD. I thought this thing would fly through HD material but as I'm working with it this is what I'm running into. In Motion when I'm working in HD it just crawls along and doesn't play back in real time. Actually you could say it's "REAL SLOW TIME".
And in Final Cut when I'm rendering HD video it takes quite a bit of time. Especially when I'm rendering an HD clip I've done in Motion.
What do I need to do to take advantage of the processing and memory power this new Mac has???

What codec are you editing in? HDV codec? How are you ingesting the footage into Final Cut Pro. Codecs, especially HDV codecs can be taxing to Final Cut Pro. And 2.26 GHZ is on the lower end of the power scale when it comes to Apple's Mac Pro line up.

The codec I've been using for this particular project is Broadcast HD 1080i60. And then getting it into Final Cut I've been saving the motion file, importing that file into my Final Cut Project and then rendering the motion file on the Final Cut timeline. Is there a better way to go about this?

Here is an article that might help:

www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/when_to_stay_native.html