Upgrading a G4 Powermac for HD video

fernandos1 · #1 July 21st, 2007, 09:30 AM

Hi, I have an Apple Power Macintosh G4 1.25 DP (FW 800) (M8840LL/A). I added 2GB of Ram and it has the standard 4X AGP ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card with 64 MB of DDR SDRAM.

When I go to iMovie to transfer HD video from my video camera, iMovie can handle but it captures the video at a slower speed usually 50% or less. Sometimes it freezes altogether if it is a long clip I am trying to capture.

So here's my questions:
1) Since my RAM is maxed out, would getting an upgraded video card solve my problem or do I need to upgrade the computer?
2) If the solution is to get a new video card, what do you recommend? I have a 23" Apple Display with the ADC connector.

Thank you so much.

JeffCGD · #2 July 24th, 2007, 12:01 AM

Neither of your proposed solutions are likely to help much, as your issues using one of these older machines probably have more to do with internal bandwidth and/or drive access and available space. Working with High Definition footage needs a LOT of drive space, preferably on a dedicated drive or disk partition to avoid slow access times from possible file fragmentation (which can occur is you are just writing to your system disc/partition). Also, if you are capturing (and if there is processing to import the content into iMovie), you may find the limited bus speed (166MHz compared to an almost ten-fold increase in G5 and Intel machines), is an issue. If you are able to copy the content from your camera to your hard drive directly, before importing to iMovie, you 'may' find any slowdowns/hangs are reduced since it's reading from a faster internal drive.

If you are intending to do a LOT of HD editing, it may be time to consider a newer machine, or maybe a second hand G5. Your old machine is still a good workhorse, but is increasingly not up to the task of handling high throughput data.

fernandos1 · #3 July 24th, 2007, 01:35 PM

Thank you very much. Any suggestions as to where I can find used G5s? They seem to go for almost as much as a new Intel one. Is there a reason for this?

Qion · #4 July 24th, 2007, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fernandos1

Thank you very much. Any suggestions as to where I can find used G5s? They seem to go for almost as much as a new Intel one. Is there a reason for this?

A lot of it has to do with the fact that they're still professional class machines. eBay will have the lowest prices short of working a miracle on Craig's List. If you'd like to do it without the hassle of PayPal or the insecurity of eBay, PowerMax.com will let you trade in your G4 for credit towards a new G5.

Also, the current iMacs are very good machines. The 24" with an NVIDIA card would be great for high-def editing as far as I'm concerned.

You really, really want a new computer for this. Don't invest in a machine that isn't made to do your job.

EDIT: Check out the upgrade link! http://www.powermax.com/home/tradein.html

fernandos1 · #5 July 27th, 2007, 10:19 AM

Thanks for your help. Since I don't have a lot of money to spend and I am only using the computer for non-professional work (family videos and pictures), would a G5 Dual Processor 1.8Ghz or 2.0Ghz be sufficient? I've seen those going for about $800 to $1000.

Qion · #6 July 27th, 2007, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fernandos1

Thanks for your help. Since I don't have a lot of money to spend and I am only using the computer for non-professional work (family videos and pictures), would a G5 Dual Processor 1.8Ghz or 2.0Ghz be sufficient? I've seen those going for about $800 to $1000.

They are great HD machines.