need some advice

Peter Osinski · June 7, 2008

ok so sometime between this coming winter and next summer I am going to be making the switch to HD. Obviously for a soon to be college graduate thats going to cost me a lot of money so I need to plan this well in advance. I have some problems figuring out my work flow and I was wondering what you guys thought.

As far as a professional client based environment goes I am sure I will be able to work around most of my problems but I am basing this work flow around my primary interest and goal of making surf movies.

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Right now I have an hp pavillion zv6000 which I think may have the right slot for dumping p2 footage but I am not positive. It has a gig of ram and a 2.4 ghz processor. It will be 4 years old with no warranty, it runs kind of hot, is heavy, and uses so much power I cannot use it with a car power adapter.

I am planning on buying a mac pro. Probably the base level version with 2 gigs of ram and the dual quad core 2.8ghz processor.

I plan on getting either the hpx170 or the hmc150.

HPX170:

pros:

flip mode

delete last file

uses p2 cards (reliable)

12 frame rates

focus assists and image monitoring

can be used in premier or final cut pro

better image quality than avchd? ( i wonder if I could even tell the difference between this and the hmc150's professional mode)

cons:

uses p2 cards (expensive)

requires the dumping of footage onto a laptop

bad for shooting in the water (p2 problem again)

HMC150

pros:

very long recording times

full frame recording (i heard dvcpro hd only does 1440 by 1080)

24p, 60p available

relatively inexpensive media (sdhc cards)

does not require footage dumping anywhere near as frequently

cons:

don't know if avchd will be comparable at all to dvcprohd or will look less professional

can't be edited in premier cs3

media may be less reliable/durable

they say there is a 23 m/b per second speed but it looks like the max on the 16gb hdhc card is 20 mb/s

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Ok so thats how I feel about each one (and shows I have done some research). The next issue is computing.

If I got the hpx, i would probably have to buy a new laptop in addition to the mac pro for p2 offloading, unless I used my current laptop which would be cumbersome and Im not sure would even work. With the hmc150 I have enough recording time to wait until I get home from a trip, or I could just spring for another sd card easily.

I would prefer to edit with final cut pro, but I also need photoshop, illustrator, and after effects.

As is, ppro cs3 does not support avchd. So if I got the hmc150 I would have to buy both the production premium suite from adobe and final cut studio 2 to get all the other programs I need as well as an editor that can handle the footage (you cannot buy final cut pro on its own as you know).

Also, I hate motion and the way its set up, and dvd studio 4 does not prepare content for blu ray.

If I got the hpx I could get the cs3 production premium and be set.....but....it seems more places I would see myself working use fcp and I would not be able to work at home with cs3 and not final cut studio.

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I have come up with the following possibilities, tell me if you think of some others or reasons why this wouldnt work...

1

HPX170 5500

Adobe cs3 599 (education discount)

Mac Pro 2800 (education discount)

PC Laptop 700 (after selling my current one)

16gb p2 850

total 10,450

2

hmc150 4500

adobe cs3 599