i normally use our 24″ iMac when doing any sort of video editing these days. i’m definitely not taking it to costa rica with us, but i am bringing my black MacBook. it’s the very first one they came out with, so it’s not the fastest computer they offer right now. but it’s not the slowest either.
my question is this… do you think that the MacBook is a powerful enough computer to do some editing in Final Cut Express?
our plan is to finish editing the rasputina documentary that dawn filmed earlier this year, but we’re considering a new MacBook Pro for the task. i just wonder if my older MacBook is powerful enough for it to not be annoying and can we save the expense right now. we’re not doing any rendering, just editing.
so any of you video nerds out there have any advice?
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I’m running FCE on a 2007 iMac and a 2009 Macbook Pro, and if you really are just editing and not doing things that require a lot of rendering, I think you’ll be fine. Of course, Apple has some great prices on refurb Macbooks right now.
Is your media on an external drive? I’m assuming it’s Firewire and not USB correct? Do you need to do any capturing, or is all footage captured already?
So…many…questions!
all the footage for the documentary has been captured onto an external firewire drive already. it’s just editing, and we have most of it done already.
we’ll also be shooting new stuff for D&Dtv down there, so i’ll be doing some capture and exporting, but those are small manageable videos.
DREW!
Your MacBook Pro is MORE than powerful enough. The beauty behind editing is that the computer is pretty much just keeping track of in and out points in terms of time code and clip names. The only thing to really help you out additionally is hard drive speed. Am I right that you shot it in SD, as well? That would be even better. If you shot in HD there may be more times you will need to render your timeline for proper playback, but it will be perfectly useable.
I’ve used my MacBook Pro as the entire Discovery Channel graphics department for full seasons of TV shows in HD and never had a problem. You will be safe and sound editing on an old or new MBP.
BILL!
i have an older MacBook, not Pro… and we shot it in HD
I’ve done some video editing on an old 1.8ghz and it worked ok…but not good by any means. I wouldn’t want to edit a big project on it.
I’m assuming that you are going to have a ton of footage taking up a whole lot of hard drive space and I can’t imagine the hard drive on that old thing is very big. Editing from an external drive is not an option. Plus, if you shot everything in HD, I don’t think that it will handle it at all.
My advice would be to get a new macBook Pro. You won’t have to waste time plowing through hours of video on a slow machine, ripping your hair out in frustration and waiting for it to crash. Find a good refurb from macofalltrades.com or lowendmac.com. They usually have some good deals.
The last thing you want is to fry your computer when your are in Costa Rica. I don’t think that they have an Apple Store!!
d.free, why would you think that editing from an external is not an option? that’s what i’m doing now on my iMac. it’s a firewire drive that’s faster than the internal drive.
I don’t know what he means. External drive (FW800/400 or even a USB2 drive) is the best solution for HD editing on a laptop. You shouldn’t use the internal drive because it’s usually much slower (5400 rpm vs. 7200 rpm) and your OS keeps reading and writing it at the same time and hogging the bandwidth.
I edit with FCP and run it on a MBP and I’ve never had any problems with the speed of the external drives. Never. Not even the USB drives.
Drew, I edit on an old MacMini with FCP. No problems. You should be fine.