Mac Pro for HD and Video? (M$ convert)

I'm looking into purchasing a Mac Pro, I've priced out the system via the Apple Online Store and it comes to about $10,015.

I have a lot of Hi8 video (mostly auto racing footage) on 100+ tapes that I want to convert and store off on a remote (and some local on the 2 TerraByte worth of space) USB drive.

I'm primarily a Windows XP person (software developer) and used to save the footage to AVI's (about 4GB size per tape). It is a Sony camcorder -- I don't have any HD content yet, but plan to have some in the future.

Primary usage of potential Mac Pro is:

1. Video editing HD and some 480
2. Music composition (primarily for the video compositions)
3. Graphics editing for my web site

The questions:

1. Is this enough to do what I need?
Mac Pro Intel Xeon Quad core 3Ghz
8GB RAM
ATI X1900XTX video
4 X 500MB drives
30" LCD (not really relevant)

2. What version of Final Cut do I need? Can it read AVI format?

3. What is the best web graphics creation software?

4. What is the best audio creation software? (I'm used to Sonar 5/6)

5. Do I need the Fibre channel RAID card?

Yes, I'm a soon to be Mac owner that has spent most of my life working in the M$ Windows domain -- it has taken a long time (20+ years) but I'm finally over the junk that M$ is producing lately. With Intel's injection of hardware to the Mac line-up they have become a serious platform for me.

Any opinions on the above?

Thanks, Rob.

P.S. I have not given up the Windows platform as it still is the primary source of revenue for me and most likely will be for some years.

1. Is this enough to do what I need?
Mac Pro Intel Xeon Quad core 3Ghz
8GB RAM
ATI X1900XTX video
4 X 500MB drives
30" LCD (not really relevant)

yes, its more then enough, way more...

2. What version of Final Cut do I need? Can it read AVI format?

you need FCP 5.1 (universal binary). yes you can read avi files but these need to be rendered to DV or other FCP working format (FCP will take care of it once you import the footage in timeline)

3. What is the best web graphics creation software?

adobe suite will do everything you need on graphics part (spring 2007 UB is coming)

4. What is the best audio creation software? (I'm used to Sonar 5/6)

logic pro form apple

5. Do I need the Fibre channel RAID card?

if you plan to use Xserve raid then yes.

Yes, I'm a soon to be Mac owner that has spent most of my life working in the M$ Windows domain -- it has taken a long time (20+ years) but I'm finally over the junk that M$ is producing lately. With Intel's injection of hardware to the Mac line-up they have become a serious platform for me.

Any opinions on the above?

Thanks, Rob.

P.S. I have not given up the Windows platform as it still is the primary source of revenue for me and most likely will be for some years.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for the response. I will do some more R&D. Don't think I need Xserve and I'll just archive footage to large USB based drives -- I assume Mac Pro will work with just about any USB 2.0 hard drive?

Can the Mac Pro read and/or convert NTFS partitions?

How well does the WindowsXP compatibility work in the Mac Pro?

Thanks, Rob.

Rob A. said:

Thank you for the response. I will do some more R&D. Don't think I need Xserve and I'll just archive footage to large USB based drives -- I assume Mac Pro will work with just about any USB 2.0 hard drive?

Can the Mac Pro read and/or convert NTFS partitions?

How well does the WindowsXP compatibility work in the Mac Pro?

Thanks, Rob.

Click to expand...

HI
If I were you I'd use Firewire 800 drives. its espeially usefull when large files lke video files are involved, the speed is doubled over USB. meny FW800 drives have tripple interface (USB, FW400 and FW800). it makes them very ersatile. and yes Mac Pro will work with NTFS and FAT32 (windows) formats.
you can easyly reformat the drive using Disk Utility app that come with every mac.

windows works just fine on Mac Pro (via apple boot camp or paralells Desktop)

Agreed TOTALLY with Mac-simus. Go Firewire and especially FireWire 800 for your external drives. The Speed especially with FW800 will be well worth it working with large Video files.

I think USB 2.0 will work fine for offline storage -- it'll be just to archive material as all the "Current" stuff will be on the primary internal drives.

Thanks for all the info -- looking forward to my Mac.

Cheers, Rob.

Can I ask for an advise here too?

I would like to buy a Mac Pro so I can use both PC and Mac. My main poiont is to use it for watching HD movies and also downloading movies. I know that iMac can do that too, but iMac always get hot when you leave it on for a long time. I'm looking to leave it on 24 hours, does Mac Pro okay with that? Can someone also advise if the GeForce 7300 is okay to play HD movies? I"ll connect it with a HD Projector.

Rob A. said:

Thank you for the response. I will do some more R&D. Don't think I need Xserve and I'll just archive footage to large USB based drives -- I assume Mac Pro will work with just about any USB 2.0 hard drive?

Can the Mac Pro read and/or convert NTFS partitions?

How well does the WindowsXP compatibility work in the Mac Pro?

Thanks, Rob.

Click to expand...

OSX can work with Fat32 no problem. However it can only read an NTFS volume and not write to it.

CT2 said:

Can I ask for an advise here too?

I would like to buy a Mac Pro so I can use both PC and Mac. My main poiont is to use it for watching HD movies and also downloading movies. I know that iMac can do that too, but iMac always get hot when you leave it on for a long time. I'm looking to leave it on 24 hours, does Mac Pro okay with that? Can someone also advise if the GeForce 7300 is okay to play HD movies? I"ll connect it with a HD Projector.

Click to expand...

I leave my MacPro on a few days at a time and not only is it completely quiet, it generates very little heat, if any at all. I walk into the room and you'd never know a computer was running. But the DVD drive is freakin loud.

Where will you be aquiring your HD footage? Bit-Torrent, Apple store? The 7300 works great for me but the only HD footage I've watched is the 1080p content from Apples website. But plays flawless.

rgkgraphix said:

I leave my MacPro on a few days at a time and not only is it completely quiet, it generates very little heat, if any at all. I walk into the room and you'd never know a computer was running. But the DVD drive is freakin loud.

Where will you be aquiring your HD footage? Bit-Torrent, Apple store? The 7300 works great for me but the only HD footage I've watched is the 1080p content from Apples website. But plays flawless.

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for your reply, I just want someone to confirm that the graphic card can play HD okay, yea will download it from Bittorrent.

A few more questions:

What audio comes with the Mac Pro and how good a quality is it? Assume analog output to any 7.1 surround?

For Audio on the M$ side I've been using Creative Lab X-Fi Elite Plat Pro (good for a games and pretty good for audio creation) -- also used to EMU 1820m for higher quality. What does the Mac Pro have to offer?

Does Mac Pro come with FireWire 800?

As far as HD content -- is there really some I can buy and run on the Mac Pro that doesn't run into all kinds DRM issues?

Thanks, Rob.