I’m about to purchase a Mac Book Pro 17"
 

I’m about to purchase a Mac Book Pro 17” laptop and put FCS2 on it and use this as my main editing machine. I don’t have the luxury of both a MBP and Mac Pro tower so the MBP I think is the way to go. In Australia if you don’t use Mac and FCP for some reason you are not seen as the real deal and this is making it hard to apply for jobs within the industry. I have to say that I’m getting cold feet in purchasing the MBP, there seems to be a lot going on with Apple’s new line of products and I’m not sure that this will affect me or not.

I have been PC based from start till now and can get the job done and honestly I cannot see any difference with an edit done from a PC NLE or an edit done from Mac FCS, if there is a difference someone please show me the way.

Questions:
Is Fire wire still on the MBP?
Can I get a full preview out to another monitor to view my edited movie? What adaptors do I need.
I need an external drive, any suggestions? Remember I’m a PC guy
Which version of FCS should I be looking for and what upgrades are necessary to be edit ready?

I’m sure there are other things I have not mentioned here feel free to comment.

Nick

-Yes, fw800

- yes, but you'll need some sort of adapter.

-I prefer enclosures that take internal hard drives screwed into removable trays. That way you can expand your storage.

-FCP Studio2 has everything you need.

If your looking to save money I'd suggest a refurb iMac 24" or the previous version of mb. I think laptops are expensive and aren't optimal for video editing but ppl here seem to like them.

I think it comes down to what you want from it. If you're doing a same-day edit on a wedding video, then the MBP is great. You're using smaller form-factor cameras usually, and speed and portability are your primary needs. If you want the ability to use a wider range of cameras with high-quality features like hd-sdi, you need the ability to add and upgrade, which you can't do on a laptop: enter Mac Pro.

Decide what is going to suit your needs best. Personally, since I don't edit on location, and I want upgradeability, I prefer the tower-- even though I don't have one yet... =)

Nick, I am in the same situation as yourself. I was holding off for last weeks announcement from Apple but I have found it has further clouded the issue in terms of what the new range offers compared to the "old" range.

I was going the 17" route too but the new MBP has little value in its upgrades (IMO) compared to the old one. When you compare the prices too it's crazy. New MBP are $4499 ($Aus) compared to picking up a brand new "old" model that some dealers still have in stock for about $3799 ($Aus). This was how I looked at it:

NEW Vs Old
- High res screen standard Vs Standard screen
- 4mb RAM (DDR3) Vs 2mb (upgradable to 4mb)
- 320 mb hard drive Vs 250mb hard drive

Both still have the same CPU and graphics, they don't get the update like the 15". The 17" didn't get the trackpack update either and still looks the same (apart form the standard gloss screen which you do have the option of going matte).

Is the new one worth $700 more for what it is offering? I really don't know. That $700 would buy the upgrade in RAM for the new "old" machine and leave me with some more to put towards an external drive.

Is the 15" machine better? Loss of high res screen and gloss only screen are my only concerns. Though as a trade you get a newer graphics card and CPU.

Help........

If you edit in HD (High Def), i sugest the mac pro.. I have an Mac Book Pro 2.4 GHz and fr DV edit is perfect, very, very fast, but using Apple Pro Res for example, the edit workflow is acceptable (i use an external firewire 400/usb2.0 hd... and i know is one cause of the slowness), but the render for H.264 or HDV fulll HD is kinda slow....
I'm now making a render test of 4 minutes edited apple pro res full hd to HDV, and it taking like 35-40 minutes.... Its too long..! One 4 core or 8 core will be better for HD... but for SD, i think the MCP i great..

Well I’m going to bite the bullet and get the MBP 17" next week.
Have spoken to Apple Sydney and ordered the thing.

It will be hard coming from a quad core pc system using Vegas into FCS on a dual core.
Will be interesting in render times and also playback preview. I'm not to sure if I should capture in native HDV from my Z1 or do I capture in Prores?

The work around will be a challenge in getting this right so having this forum is a blessing.

Nick

Did you keep the gloss screen or spec it for the matte screen?

Going for the matte screen Andrew and the faster hard drive 7200. Apple said that it will take a week for them to sort it out. Hope i'm making the right purchase.

Nick

Did they have matte screen machine on hand for you to compare the two at the Apple Store? (I'm assuming the City store as opposed Chatswood?)

Yeah City store. I was in there a few weeks ago and at that time they had both matte & gloss and the gloss was really unusable, the matte is best. I rang Apple and placed an order as the upgrade or change in drive & screen needed to be put together.

[ I'm not to sure if I should capture in native HDV from my Z1 or do I capture in Prores?
Nick[/QUOTE]


i recently bought the last generation 17" MBP, 7200, 4 GB, 2.6 GHz, and i think it works extremely well! i capture and edit in native HDV and only render pro rez, and it seems pretty quick and looks great. all pro rez would take up a lot of space, and i think there would be compression involved... i've read staying native is best unless you do a lot of CC, but i may be wrong...
also, i am using a Lacie 'Rugged' external (7200) with FW 800. very mobile, fast, and so far no problems (except i wish i bought a few more of them!)

Thanks Brian,
At this stage I dont even know what prorez really does on the Mac platform only from what I have read here on this fourm.

On PC I capture HDV from the Z1 and edit HDV on the timrline then I render from the time line to MPEG-2 for DVD thats it.

Seems Mac has a long way around things? is this true.

Nick

Look at using the ExpressCard/34 slot for eSata connections. Faster than firewire. I run software RAID O for cache and scratch files from this type of connection. OSX raid 0 works well, and drives are so cheap that it doesn't cost much. Anyone know the max number of physical drives OSX can run as a single volume?

Remember that macpb have the smaller EC/34 slot. It's too bad they didn't put the bigger express slot in the 17 inch model.

Considering macbook pro memory limitations, video will need a lot of scratch space. But on a Mac Pro, I would first put money into ram.

Do some searches on intermediate codecs for macs. It's about maintaining quality and speed of edits. You'll want to make deliberate workflow decisions or you will waste time and quality.

i just took the plunge n went for the old 15" MBP too. Looking for a scratch disk (Lacie or WD ....) esata or FW800 option. I'm a PC guy too n know nuts about FCPS2. Can anyone here guide me on the fastest workflow for EX1? I know about the capture and edit portion but the 422 thing till DVD render is a mystery to me still.

How does this intermedia codec work? After editing, can we render directly to mpeg2 stream? What is this 422 Pro Res thing about?