I am new to Macs but, I am going to need to buy one soon. I am going to purchase Final Cut Pro 7 and I was wondering if IMac is the way to go, or should I spend more on a Mac Pro? There are some budget constraints for myself, but I would look at all options. I will be handling all forms of digital video. Thank you for your answers.

An iMac is designed to handle up to an including most forms of HD video, so I would say that should be sufficient with one caveat -- if you are going to get into the digital effects and 3D and motion graphics that require a lot of rendering, you are going to want the Mac Pro. The difference in rendering times is astonishing.

Thank you Chas, I was thinking about the rendering times. I appreciate that you took the time to answer my question.

Cheers to you. :)

Are you going to be offline editing only? (no colour correction for broadcast, intense motion graphics, etc.)

What is the end-purpose?

iMacs are wonderful machines for edit assist or even offline edit stations - we have used them on a few shows.

But when it comes to Uncompressed HD, the ability to monitor your work on a broadcast-accurate screen, flipping between Illustrator, AfterEffects and FCP, rendering a feature-length film into mpgeg2, etc, etc then the MacPro REALLY starts to shine.

Can you describe a bit of your workflow? Like what type of camera, how the footage comes in, what you plan to do with the footage (edit/correction/graphics) then how you plan to output it (web/DVD/BlueRay/broadcast tape)?

and really understand final cut first - i'm looking at the final cut studio 2 version as there isn't a huge difference (for me) in terms of new features, yet you can find sealed FCS2 for half (or less) of the new version.

The workflow "Suite Edit" is:

CAMERAS: ‘tapeless.’ Mostly Sony XDCAM, either SxS or SDHC (with SxS adapter) using Log and Transfer. Some tape footage as well. Footage is captured and archived to hard drives—for now. Eventually all archiving will be on tape. Archiving HD are 5400 rpm and inexpensive.

EDITING: Final Cut Pro 7 and all the applications of the suite. Motion will be used extensively. Colour too. Editing hard drives are RAID 5 and minimum 7200 rpm.

OUTPUT: Broadcast: via Matrox MXO2 to tape (Beta), and hard drives depending on the preferred method of the broadcaster. The majority is for web based on demand and will be encoded from FCP to H.264 via Matrox CompressHD PCI card. We will also be creating DVD as well. Even though we shoot and edit in HD, it is unlikely we will burn Blu-ray. It is to slow and (from what I read) it probably won’t exist in 3 to 5 years.

The workflow "Suite Edit" is:

CAMERAS: ‘tapeless.’ Mostly Sony XDCAM, either SxS or SDHC (with SxS adapter) using Log and Transfer. Some tape footage as well. Footage is captured and archived to hard drives—for now. Eventually all archiving will be on tape. Archiving HD are 5400 rpm and inexpensive.

EDITING: Final Cut Pro 7 and all the applications of the suite. Motion will be used extensively. Colour too. Editing hard drives are RAID 5 and minimum 7200 rpm.

OUTPUT: Broadcast: via Matrox MXO2 to tape (Beta), and hard drives depending on the preferred method of the broadcaster. The majority is for web based on demand and will be encoded from FCP to H.264 via Matrox CompressHD PCI card. We will also be creating DVD as well. Even though we shoot and edit in HD, it is unlikely we will burn Blu-ray. It is to slow and (from what I read) it probably won’t exist in 3 to 5 years.

Hope this explains it and thank you for the input.

My company is currently in the middle of a show shot on XDCam - the extra cores in a Mac Pro go a long way when it comes to rendering (and if set correctly) outputting.

Are the hard drives external or internal to the computer? A Mac Pro can support 4 drives but can not do RAID 5 without extra hardware (eg. a Mac Pro RAID card, a card from CalDigit, etc.)

What is the footage being edited on now?

Additionally if you're planning to use the Matrox card you *have* to use a Mac Pro as the iMac does not have any available PCI slots (or any that a user can use).

Given that workflow Mac Pro without a doubt.

Thank you all for the helpful answers. Now I will wait to see if the Mac Pro upgrades are coming as rumored!

The workflow "Suite Edit" is:
EDITING: Final Cut Pro 7 and all the applications of the suite. Motion will be used extensively. Colour too. Editing hard drives are RAID 5 and minimum 7200 rpm.

OUTPUT: Broadcast: via Matrox MXO2 to tape (Beta), and hard drives depending on the preferred method of the broadcaster. The majority is for web based on demand and will be encoded from FCP to H.264 via Matrox CompressHD PCI card. We will also be creating DVD as well. Even though we shoot and edit in HD, it is unlikely we will burn Blu-ray. It is to slow and (from what I read) it probably won’t exist in 3 to 5 years.


Well, there's your answer right there. No PCI cards in the iMac...

Based on your SxS workflow, you might want to look at a previous-gen MacBook Pro as an ingesting & assistant editor station. Hook up a mouse, keyboard & monitor and you've got a pretty killer little system with BUILT-IN SxS card reader.

Hook that up via gigabit ethernet to a RAID5 NAS for data storage/redundancy and cut on a MacPro with internal RAID 0 for speed. Just make sure you keep a copy of your projects & media on the NAS incase something goes wrong with your internal RAID... 'cause given enough time, it something will. :)

I know that you didn't solicit advice on software/staff, but FWIW, get someone who KNOWS Color ;) It's a bit of scare for people expecting an "Apple" product, and unless you're doing something very advanced, a few filters in FCP can do the trick. Either that, or leave yourself PLENTY of time to experiment with Color and a REAL broadcast monitor, not just a computer screen hooked up to your Matrox box.

Good luck, and have fun! :D