What is the best system if you are to use Final Cut Pro 6

[JediPM]

I am about to embark on a career in editing with Final Cut Pro. I am starting to shop around for systems, but if I ask 5 people I get 10 different answers. iMAC sounds good for those with a budget, but I want to make sure FCP will run efficiently with it.

Also, if I want to buy an external hard drive for a MAC do I need a special drive or does any hard drive work on a MAC? I have been a PC user for the better part of a decade, so this is a big change for me, but very welcomed.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks


Mark

[Frobozz]

The iMac, Mac Pro and Macbook Pro will run FCP very well. You may want to consider two monitors. Lots of RAM is the most important add on. As for hard drive I suggest getting a Firewire 800 drive if you can afford its somewhat higher cost. Otherwise I suggest Firewire 400 over USB 2.0 on a Mac. I've purchased hard drives and RAM for my Macs from Otherworld Computing (www.macsales.com).

[edDV]

It would depend if you will be limiting yourself to DV/HDV formats. If you intend to operate in an uncompressed Pro SDI environment then a Mac PRO is required primarily for the disk system and PCI card expansion, not CPU speed. You can only get to fast internal discs and/or RAID with internal drives or with multiple eSATA, fibrechannel or SDI external connections.

My advice, learn on an iMac and upgrade when you get the big project that will finance your Mac Pro.