Apple Final Cut Pro User Manual

1

Uncompressed SD Editing
Using Final Cut Pro

This document outlines the recommended system components and setup for optimal
performance of uncompressed SD editing using Final Cut Pro.

Editing in high data rate formats such as uncompressed SD can stress all aspects
of a computer system. This means it is important to make sure that each system
component is adequate in order to achieve maximum overall system performance.
These components include the computer, RAM, and disk storage subsystem. For this
reason, the following hardware is suggested in order to achieve the maximum
performance for uncompressed SD editing.

Hardware

•

1 x Dual 2.0 GHz or faster Power Mac G5 with at least 1 GB of memory. The system
should be configured with either the ATI Radeon 9800 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Ultra or later graphics card.

•

1 x 2.52 TB Xserve RAID. The Xserve RAID should be built using the CTO option with
upgraded RAM on the controllers to at least 512 MB.

•

1 x Apple Fibre Channel PCI Card
1 x Apple ProIO FireWire capture/playback device or equivalent PCI capture/

•

playback card (such as AJA Io, Kona SD, or Pinnacle CineWave)

Software

Mac OS X version 10.3 Panther or later

•

•

Final Cut Pro 4.1 or later
Apple ProIO drivers v1.0.2 or later

•

•

QuickTime 6.4

1

Hardware Setup

Once you have properly installed all the pieces listed earlier, follow the steps below to
configure the Xserve RAID hardware component.

Setting up your Xserve RAID

Once your Xserve RAID has finished its initial drive indexing after being powered on for
the first time, and all lights are green, do the following:

1

Connect an Ethernet cable to the RAID controller (either one or both).

2

Connect each of the Fibre Channel connectors on the controllers of the Xserve RAID to
the connectors on the PCI Fibre Channel card installed in the G5 computer.

Important:

channels are in use.

3

In Applications > Utilities, open Disk Utility. Select and drag both volumes of the Xserve
RAID into the RAID window and build the RAID set, creating one volume. This volume
should now appear on the desktop.

4

In Applications > Utilities, open the RAID Admin utility.

5

Locate and select your RAID from the given list, then click Create Array. If your Xserve
RAID is not on the list, click Add System, and select it from the Xserve RAIDs found on
the network.

6

Set up both sides to be RAID Level 5. Let the RAID be constructed.

7

In the RAID Admin utility, select the new RAID, then click the Settings button for the
RAID and log in to allow you to view the current settings of the RAID.

8

In the System tab, change the system name to a unique name.

9

In the Fibre Channel tab, set both the upper controller and lower controller speed to
Automatic.

10

In the Performance tab, set both the upper controller and lower controller Write Cache
to Enable and the Read Prefetch to 8 stripes.

11

Click OK to apply all the changes.

12

Quit the Admin utility.

Make sure both Fibre Channel cables are properly connected and both

2