The current gen "Retina" MacBook Pro's are actually faster then the current Mac Pro's (which are horribly out of date and long overdue for replacement).
Dude: "You just drag and drop"
Me: "I can't use a copy command?"
Dude: "I have no idea, you just drag and drop"
I render a 10 minute full HD .mp4 fill (from camera (.mp4 format), edited in Premiere Pro) in about 20 minutes with Adobe Media Encoder.
I didn't try it myself.
But an new generation iMac is most probably what you want. There is no need for internal PCI slots no more.
Thunderbolt isn't just the faster "FireWire"!! -> http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html (Matrox is a partner for the thing, so should work)
Don't become a Mac hater because you tried a very old (I know it's new from the shop) Mac Pro. Here in Europe the thing is even banned from the market.
Don't buy a retina MacBook. That's overpriced hype. I just got a new MacBook (bottom of the range 13 inch, i5 cpu, just the internal INTEL hd4000 gpu, 16GB ram (way overkill, but fun! I can make a temporary RAM HDD which blows even the fastest SDD out of the water), normal 5400 RPM HDD). Got it for around €1000.
I render a 10 minute full HD .mp4 fill (from camera (.mp4 format), edited in Premiere Pro) in about 20 minutes with Adobe Media Encoder. That is with normal HDD and no ThunderBolt PCI expansion. Plenty fast for me.
Mac are running intel chips now days? I'm guessing the hardware would not be too far from a generic PC?
I render a 10 minute full HD .mp4 fill (from camera (.mp4 format), edited in Premiere Pro) in about 20 minutes with Adobe Media Encoder.
and that is still bloody slow !
I never understood why this encoding is so slow on computers .... come on, the simplest camera that can shoot AVCHD costs well under 300$ and encodes in real time after all....
I have a matrox RTx-2 and that thing flies through encoding... provided you capture the source video end let it decompress while capturing... computers aren't up to decoding , manipulating re-encoding on the fly apprently... that RTx is basically a virtex FPGA from Xilinx with an embedded PowerPC processor in it... all bolted onto a PICx card.
The same goes for that Matrox card that dave is talking about. its a small card with merely 1 chip on it. : poof realtime H264 encoding... and here you have quadcore cpu's racing at 3 GHz and they can't cope...
I didn't try it myself.
But an new generation iMac is most probably what you want. There is no need for internal PCI slots no more.
Thunderbolt isn't just the faster "FireWire"!! -> http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html (Matrox is a partner for the thing, so should work)
Don't become a Mac hater because you tried a very old (I know it's new from the shop) Mac Pro. Here in Europe the thing is even banned from the market.
Don't buy a retina MacBook. That's overpriced hype. I just got a new MacBook (bottom of the range 13 inch, i5 cpu, just the internal INTEL hd4000 gpu, 16GB ram (way overkill, but fun! I can make a temporary RAM HDD which blows even the fastest SDD out of the water), normal 5400 RPM HDD). Got it for around €1000.
I render a 10 minute full HD .mp4 fill (from camera (.mp4 format), edited in Premiere Pro) in about 20 minutes with Adobe Media Encoder. That is with normal HDD and no ThunderBolt PCI expansion. Plenty fast for me.
Wow those things look awesome! They are pretty darn expensive though, the Pro version is $799 and the cheaper ones about 500bucks... Hopefully some other companies will make equivalent products for a bit more reasonable price.
Well, I did it, I bravely entered an Apple store today
Me: "Where's your Mac Pro, I want to try Final Cut Pro"
Dude: "Over there Sir"
Me: "No, that's the notebook, I want the desktop"
Dude: "Oh, I think we might have one right over there in the back"
Me: "Ok, so how do I use Final Cut Pro"
Dude: "What's that?"
Me: "It's video editing software"
Dude: "I'll have to see if a technology training specialist can help you with that."
Me: "Ok, thanks. I'll have a go myself while I wait. Now, how do I copy these files from my USB stick to the hard drive"
Dude: "You just drag and drop"
Me: "I can't use a copy command?"
Dude: "I have no idea, you just drag and drop"
New specialist dude arrives.
Dude: "I highly recommend you don't get the Mac Pro desktop"
Me: "Why?"
Dude: "It hasn't been updated in a long time, and it's just not recommended as a new system"
Me: "But I need to install a PCI accelerator card"
Dude: (has actually heard of the matrox card, impressive) "Ah, ok, that's the only reason you'd want one.
Me: "So how do a I copy these .MTS video files from my camera into Final Cut"
Dude: "You can't do that, it has be in the original card format"
Me: "You're kidding right? I can't just copy and drop a .MTS file onto the timeline"
Dude: "Nope, it's always been that way, it's silly"
Me: "That's almost a show stopper. How about this .MP4 file?"
and to cut it short, the MP4 file worked, Final Cut Pro edited stuff like I expected it to, and Compressor did seem to have a Constant Quality H.264 render option.
So we started rendering my 10 minute H.264 MP4 file (with no edits, just a single clip on the timeline) with same specs as the input file and default "High" for constant quality setting. And we watched the progress bar creep up and up I gave up at the 30 min mark when it still wasn't half way, and it said 39min left.
Me: "This is your top of the line Mac Pro right?"
Dude: "Yep, fully optioned up"
Me: "Is it always this slow to render"?
Dude: "Yep."
Holy crap.
No wonder the Matrox CompressHD card boasts that it takes Final Cut Pro up to "real time" rendering, it had bloody well want to!
For reference, to render and transcode the same 10 minute video on my current system, would take <20min total, for both steps in the process.
And I have a nothing special i7 notebook.
So it looks like, at best, a $3000+ Mac Pro with $330 Final Cut pro and a $500 Compress HD card would probably come out the same speed as a relatively high power cheap i7 system running $80 Vegas + free Handbrake.
Fail.
Sorry sorry all you Mac and FinalCut Pro fanboys.
Don't know why it's so slow. But dedicated hardware should make a difference, otherwise why does it exits?
Mac are running intel chips now days? I'm guessing the hardware would not be too far from a generic PC?
Yes (it's been 8(?) years till they start using Intel inside) and yes.
And yes I believe the Premium price for Apple is justified. Been using Macs and "normal" PC's. Apple build quality is exceptional good, I find the OS a lot easier to work with than Windows (or Linux). And they keep there value more than a "normal" PC. Just sold my old White MacBook (2006 model, Intel core2duo 2.2ghz, 4GB ram) for €250 (a little on the low side compared to other MacBooks on the market here).
I didn't try it myself.
But an new generation iMac is most probably what you want. There is no need for internal PCI slots no more.
Thunderbolt isn't just the faster "FireWire"!! -> http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html (Matrox is a partner for the thing, so should work)
Don't become a Mac hater because you tried a very old (I know it's new from the shop) Mac Pro. Here in Europe the thing is even banned from the market.
Don't buy a retina MacBook. That's overpriced hype. I just got a new MacBook (bottom of the range 13 inch, i5 cpu, just the internal INTEL hd4000 gpu, 16GB ram (way overkill, but fun! I can make a temporary RAM HDD which blows even the fastest SDD out of the water), normal 5400 RPM HDD). Got it for around €1000.
I render a 10 minute full HD .mp4 fill (from camera (.mp4 format), edited in Premiere Pro) in about 20 minutes with Adobe Media Encoder. That is with normal HDD and no ThunderBolt PCI expansion. Plenty fast for me.
Wow those things look awesome! They are pretty darn expensive though, the Pro version is $799 and the cheaper ones about 500bucks... Hopefully some other companies will make equivalent products for a bit more reasonable price.
I agree a little to pricey for my wallet at the moment. I believe there are some other developers working on it at the moment. Hope this makes the prices drop a bit in the near future.
Dave, please send me in some way this raw video.
I render a 10 minute full HD .mp4 fill (from camera (.mp4 format), edited in Premiere Pro) in about 20 minutes with Adobe Media Encoder. That is with normal HDD and no ThunderBolt PCI expansion. Plenty fast for me.
Unfortunately, at 1000 euro + $500 for the external box + $500 for the matrox card, it is more expensive than just building a PC and throwing raw CPU power at it; to which if is still too slow, then you could throw in the matrox card.
Come on Dave, where's the love?
So it looks like, at best, a $3000+ Mac Pro with $330 Final Cut pro and a $500 Compress HD card would probably come out the same speed as a relatively high power cheap i7 system running $80 Vegas + free Handbrake.
Fail.
Sorry sorry all you Mac and FinalCut Pro fanboys.
This is why I suggest setting yourself up a Lee-Nooks solution, command-line encoder usb-stick portable setup.