As I'm about to take the plunge and order a Mac G5, it's high time I updated my obsolete Iomega Buz capture card (I presume there aren't any OSX drivers and suspect it may not run under Classic)
However, I use an SVHS-C camcorder and even if I switch to DV I still have many, many hours of footage still to be captured and edited, so I need an analogue converter for the G5.
I'm very tempted by the capabilities of the Matrox RTMac, but worried that it seems heavily geared towards Final Cut Pro users, and I much prefer Adobe Premiere.
I see from the Matrox site that the RTMac supports Premiere 6.0. But does anyone have experience of using it. And will it also work with Version 6.5?
Backtracking a little, I wonder whether I'll actually need the real-time capabilities of an RTMac when I get a 2Mhz dual-processor G5. It's very expensive, and I've managed to get by with absurdly long rendering times on a G3 266Mhz for the last 5 years.
Can anyone tell me just how much difference an RTMac makes when editing on a very fast machine? My longest renders are when I use Boris Graffiti for titles, and on my slow-coach machine I've waited four hours or more for a 20-second sequence to render.
Presuming I went for a straightforward converter instead, is the Formac Studio TVR a good choice?
Many thanks...
Welcome, Brian. Just a few comments in reply here from me - not a definitive answer, I'm afraid:
Note that Premiere's days on Macs are numbered, with Premiere Pro not going onto Macs at all in the face of FCP and FCE, and so you can expect Adobe's support for Premiere Amateur ( 
) to fade away over the coming months.
The RTMac is having a rough time justifying its existence on OSX with fast Macs - mine sits turned off in my Dual 1.42GHz G4, while Matrox try to make stable OSX drivers for FCP that don't hang my machine. I don't know if Matrox are even bothering with drivers for Premiere in OSX. Anybody?
Even when the RTMac for FCP does work, I don't feel the RT effects make much difference now - the card only really gives analogue I/O - which I suppose is what you want - and a second desktop monitor. However, I would go for an analogue<->FireWire bridge here like a Hollywood Dazzle/Formac Studio etc if buying again.
I hope your dual 2MHz G5 is up to it.
Do also look here at the Matrox RTMac OSX beta user forums. A lot of good and bad experiences here. Worth bookmarking.
quote:Originally posted by BrianH:
...heavily geared towards Final Cut Pro users, and I much prefer Adobe Premiere.
Whoa! Far from me to tell you what to do, but I find that statement a bit hard to chew. You prefer Premiere over FCP or you know Premiere and not FCP? I switched to the mac because of the bad media-management and instabillity issues with Windows/Premiere 5.1. After 1 week felt like getting your eyesight back after beeing blinded for several years. My productivity soared...
Well, you do as you like of course, but unless you plan to use windows-based hardware in the future I strongly recomend you give FCP a second look... 
quote:Originally posted by mooblie:
I hope your dual 2MHz G5 is up to it.
2x2GHz G5's should be fast enough i guess.
Hi Brian
Here is a thought for you.
I too had a lot of SVHS material, so when I bought my Mac G4 with FCP 3.0 I also bought a Sony TRV-240 Digital 8 Cam, which has analogue and DV in/out and an analogue to DV convertor built in. This cost me £340 new. I just connect up my Panasonic NVS-88E to the Digital 8 on pass through and capture straight into FCP. After the edit I record back by firewire to the D8 for archiving. Works a treat. I also have the advantage of a great little digital cam with a very good 2.5 inch LCD. I weighed up the Canopus convertors etc, but after reading an article in Computer Video, where they said the TRV-240 would be worth buying just to use as a deck, I thought it made much more sense. The cam is now a year old and has been 100% reliable. This would also work fine with the G5 as it has firewire in/out.
Thanks Porky. Sounds like good advice. Stil waiting for the exceedingly slow wheels of the Alliance & Liecester to approve my remortgage, so I haven't even ordered the G5 yet.
Do please ensure, though, if you go the Digital8 route, that the model you buy actually has the necessary capabilities - Sony seems to have pulled them off of recent models!
Bob C
...or maybe deliberately buy an older model (a couple of years old maybe from eBay etc.) that should be a bargain, with either DVin already, or the ability to be DVin enabled.