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video editing (FCE)-G5 Powermac or C2D blackbook?

E

Emrtr4

macrumors regular
Original poster
I just purchased an HC7 camera with a lot of accessories and will be doing some work editing this summer (my family travels a lot and the camera will be on our trips, but I want to get aclamated to the camera with smaller independent projects).

I am going to be upgrading from my 15 inch G4 to a new MBP around this Christmas (maybe later) but my mom has a one month old Blackbook C2D with 1 gig of ram (I didn't opt for two because it was not bought at an apple retailer and for her needs its not necessary). My neighbor has a G5 (X1800 Graphics card, 2.5ghz duel processor, 3 gigs of Ram, 500 gigs storage). I have access to both machines, which will be faster for editing in FCE?
Thanks
 
I'm assuming that you have the most recent version of FCE. Then it will be close I think but the MacBook should do better, but you will want an external drive and a larger screen.
 
I have a 21 inch Gateway that is less than half a year old (1680X1050 resolution, DVI, 1000:1 contrast) and a 160 gig Lacie firewire800/400/usb2.0, and a Plextor 16X DVD write external drive all hooked up to my powerbook, but they will be good with any computer, I know the Powermac has the best overall specs, but if I remember correctly that 2.0ghz core 2 duo will eat the G5 for breakfast.
 
Emrtr4 said:
I know the Powermac has the best overall specs, but if I remember correctly that 2.0ghz core 2 duo will eat the G5 for breakfast.
Click to expand...

Yes it does, but all of the tests that I have seen they both have equal ammounts of RAM, so I am not sure if the extra RAM in the G5 will make up for it or not, maybe someone else who knows a bit more about this than me can help you more.
 
It depends on how seriously you plan to do video editing. The G5 is still a pro machine with high-end graphics card (for Motion), tons of RAM and huge HD (can be two easily). It also has FW 800 and 400 ports, more inputs/outputs and can drive two big and quality displays.

Yes, C2D will probably render/encode slightly faster, but MacBook isn't really ment for this type of work. They have a pathetic screen (small, awful viewing angles, poor color reproduction), only 1 FW400 port, slow and low-capacity HD, Intel graphics.

If you plan to do serious work, get G5.
 
eXan said:
If you plan to do serious work, get G5.
Click to expand...
If you read the orginal post, Emrtr4 was asking which should he use until he gets a MBP:

a) his neighbour's G5
b) his mum's MB

One reason I recommended him using the MB was out of convenience - although I would advise upping the RAM.

The main factor that the MB's gpu will impact adversely will be in an app like Motion - ironically, when Creative Mac did its tests it found that the MB was a lot quicker than the G5 in this.
 
thanks for the advice guys,
yea I think the Macbook would be better with the processor, but the problem with all of these tests is that the machines had two gigs of RAM, my mom only has one, while my neighbor has three. I would rather spend the money that I would spend on the RAm on video editing programs, like buying motion in the future, ect... the reason is of course the macbook has 1 gig of RAM in 2 512 modules right now, so I would have to buy 2 1 gig sticks for a laptop which is several hundred $$$.

I think I am going to go with the G5 (plus it will be a lot faster transfering to my external drives, and also I already know my mom would start bugging me for using her macbook, so the neighbor may be the more convinient option.
 
Emrtr4 said:
I think I am going to go with the G5 (plus it will be a lot faster transfering to my external drives, and also I already know my mom would start bugging me for using her macbook, so the neighbor may be the more convinient option.
Click to expand...

The PPC architecture is not dead. It's still wise to buy a PPC mac.
What display are you going to use? How many too, Dual or Single?
 
I have a 21 inch Gateway monitor (1680X1050 resolution) and my neighbor has a 23 inch ACD that is hooked up to the G5 that I might be able to use also, so in other words either one or two very high-resolution displays.

Of course, the Macbook could run both too, but the X1800 graphics card in the Powermac would be very nice!
 
I would say the G5 without a doubt.

You would need a scratch disk what ever you do. On the G5 this is no problem, just stick a second HDD inside it. On the MacBook it would require an external FW drive. That would mean daisy chaining the HDD and the camera together on the same bus. Not a recommended solution. If your planning on working in HD (as I am sure you are) you will want a lot of hard drive space. The G5 just offers more flexibility in this department, unless you are will to go the whole eSATA route.
 
If you intend to do anything which is compute intensive for extended periods of time (like video compression), keep in mind that a MB or MBP will get very hot and the ventilation fans are rather under-powered compared to a G5 or Mac Pro tower machines which are designed to keep cool under high compute loads.
 
Emrtr4 said:
… also I already know my mom would start bugging me for using her macbook, so the neighbor may be the more convinient option.
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I meant to ask about your mum’s patience! As the benchmarks I posted showed, in terms of doing editing, the 2.5gig machine may be faster but only very marginally and the deciding factor had to be convenience. In any case – enjoy and good editing!

gray1 said:
If you intend to do anything which is compute intensive for extended periods of time (like video compression), keep in mind that a MB or MBP will get very hot and the ventilation fans are rather under-powered compared to a G5 or Mac Pro tower machines which are designed to keep cool under high compute loads.
Click to expand...
Good point – although more than a few MB/MBP users do use their machine for hours on end for video editing, not something I would be particularly keen on but there you go…
 
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