iMac & Software packages

[soma]

Hi - this may be more of a UK question though I guess experiences from other countries could help; I'm close to purchasing the new 24" iMac (possibly spec'd up depending on the following query) but also Final Cut Studio and Logic Pro 7. Comes in at a rather hefty fee as you can well imagine. I don't currently have any type of Mac magazine in front of me at the moment (I'l wait till the iMac upgrades have been included) but I'd like to ask what the possibility is of a company offering such a package but with discounts for doing so?
Many thanks.
soma

[DMBand0026]

Probably not much. However, some AppleNova users have had success with phoning in their order (as opposed to ordering off the web) and somehow obtaining discounts that way. I figure that it never hurts to ask. If you're in education (higher education student or educator/administrator) there are education discounts available.

[Fahrenheit]

Yeh I would give Apple UK a call. Alternatively, try CanCom UK or somewhere, and see if they will give you a discount? eBay is also an option for software (finding the legal stuff is the problem)

[soma]

I've actually contacted the broadcast supplies company whom I purchased my camera from - they've laid a very attractice quote on the table...if I can get away with the stock graphics card for using HDVideo I'll save a fair amount - the price for FCP is good also.
Thanks for your replies, I'll let you know how I get on.

[DMBand0026]

Your graphics card will have no effect, positive or negative, on your HD video editing performance. It's all HDD speed and RAM. If you want to be able to edit HD video well, get as much RAM as possible and a big, fast HDD.

[soma]

Thanks - I'm certainly plumping for the top speed model (2.33ghz) but have considered the 250gb Hard Drive with a view to purchasing a seperate hard drive later on - it's been suggested to me that having a seperate drive will increase performance...alongside FCP studio I'll be running Logic Pro.

[Fahrenheit]

Just make sure you really need that extra few Mhz.

[soma]

Well...I'm really not sure if I do...I can't presume with my current know how whether editing HDV (hopefully natively on FCP via the next release!) will be fine with the lower speed (2.1)...but I guess I intended to do this with the previous iMac and now this is core 2 duo - help!!!

[soma]

So in your folks fine opinions am I really going to require the faster speeed? There's a fairly considerable price difference between the two (£170) and as I mentioned before I'll mainly be using this for music production and HDV editing - I can't quite work out how the processor speed will affect this. I'll go for 2gb ram at this stage by the way.
Thanks.

[torifile]

Editing video will be undoable on the 2.16 ghz computer.