Final Cut and Mac Mini, iMac, Macbook, Mac Pro?

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

The 20" iMac only has a resolution of 1680x1050 versus the 1920x1200 of the 24" model. You get nearly 30% more screen with the larger model & when using FCP the more screen space that you have the better which is why so many editors use multiple screens.

My work around for this is to use the miniDVI port to run a second monitor at 1440 x900 for my bins. My main monitor has Canvas, Viewer, Timeline and the Toolbar while ALL bins are on the second monitor. Works great for me as I like my bins removed from my workspace. My NEXT edit bay will have three monitors: one for Canvas and Viewer, one for timeline and one for bins. Not personally a fan of one monitor, regardless of how big/how much resolution. Again, your mileage can (and probably WILL) vary.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

My work around for this is to use the miniDVI port to run a second monitor at 1440 x900 for my bins. My main monitor has Canvas, Viewer, Timeline and the Toolbar while ALL bins are on the second monitor. Works great for me as I like my bins removed from my workspace. My NEXT edit bay will have three monitors: one for Canvas and Viewer, one for timeline and one for bins. Not personally a fan of one monitor, regardless of how big/how much resolution. Again, your mileage can (and probably WILL) vary.

I agree that multiple monitors are desirable but the OP made no mention of that & I honestly think that the extra $300 for the 24" over the 20" is money well spent for a system to be used for Final Cut.

[Shaun Roemich]

Nigel: I agree but I offer that for $300, you could get the miniDVI to DVI adaptor and a second monitor and have significantly more real estate AND a more useful "landscape" formatted screen setup. If the second monitor is used exclusively for bins, it really doesn't matter how accurate the colour is. Only that it is sharp and easy on the eyes. IF that $300 was ALL the extra cash available, either would be a good solution, DEPENDING on how you like to set up your windows in FCP.

[Thomas Smet]

I have used FCS2 on the Nvidia 9400 video chipset and it worked great. Of course better hardware will always be faster but to get a barebones edit system you really don't need a massive amount of horsepower.

The thing I found interesting is that FCS3 now says you cannot use the integrated video chipsets even if they are Nvidia. Well actually it just says integrated not supported. I talked to a guy at a Apple store and he told me FCS3 wouldn't even run on the Nvidia 9400. I asked him if he was sure and he said yes. I then went around the store to check out the lower end systems to see if any of them had FCS3 installed. Sure enough a 24" Imac with only the Nvidia 9400 had FCS3 and everything ran great. This even included Motion which seemed to run just as fast as Motion from FCS2 on the same sort of system. Of course non of the 13" MBP or the Mac Mini had FCS3 installed so I couldn't check those but pretty much everything is equal there except for the cpu.

So I'm not sure why Apple is saying integrated video is not supported. They may just be generalizing to cover the Intel integrated video or it could be so people buy better machines to run FCS3. After all a NLE is only as powerful as the system you put it on.


Edit: Nevermind. Now that I checked the Apple specs again it says Intel integrated gpu not supported. The Apple store guy didn't see that I guess.

[Jonathan Betz]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

I am amazed that you are indifferent to screen resolution

Actually, I'm not indifferent to screen resolution, I just understand this difference well and wanted to get information about the other aspects of the computers. I figured if I didn't say that I would just get a lot of responses telling me that I need the higher resolution screen without addressing the other issues. But thanks for starting this discussion of multiple monitors. It's interesting to see how others set up their workspaces. I am primarily interested, however, in the other components of the computers like graphics capabilities and processor speed.


Thanks for all the responses from everyone. This is a lot of really helpful information and will hopefully allow me to make a more informed decision once the new Macs are released (assuming they will be).