I current have a standard def miniDV but looking to upgrade to HD. I typically shoot 2-3 hours of video on vacation then edit down in iMovie. With SD a couple hours+ of video unedited seems to be close to 30GB and my 2.1Ghz MacBook Pro runs that just fine. I have 2 external drives, a 500GB FW800 and 250GB FW400 (not that it really matters). How much space does HD video take up compared to SD and is HD much more taxing on your processors than SD? Will my MBP with 3GB of ram edit ok or tank?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Space needed to edit HD and how will a MBP do?
- Thread starter CMD is me
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
from what I've read, HD is 200mb per minute. I think that your mbp should be able to handle it. I'm about to get an HD video camera myself, check out the thread I started for more info. https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=5694766
The file size depends on the HD format and the software you will be using. For example, native HDV files are similar in size to DV files (about 13gigs per hour), but iMovie and FCE can't edit native HD files (FCP is the only Apple app that can). iMovie and FCE transcode the HDV footage into the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) upon import and IIRC AIC is around 40gigs per hour. Native HDV editing is very CPU intensive so don't expect to be able to render and/or export files as quickly as you did w/DV. AIC is much less CPU intensive and should render and/or export much quicker than native HDV, but still not as fast as DV.
Lethal
Lethal
A MacBook Pro does just fine with ProRes. But honestly, I'd look into a copy of FCE if you plan on ingesting hours of footage - it handles media and large timelines much better than iMovie.
"HQ" ProRes is 220Mbps, which is roughly 100GB per hour. "Normal" ProRes (145Mbps) would be about 65GB per hour. At the very least, I'd recommend a good external 500GB FW800 drive for your media/scratch.
sorry to highjack this thread I have a base current gen 2.4 with 4 gigs of ram. I got a Cannon HF-100 HD camcorder. It shoots in avchd I plan on shooting 8 hours of video. Is a 250 gig portable hardrive going to be enough for a scratch disk for FCE. 
sorry to highjack this thread I have a base current gen 2.4 with 4 gigs of ram. I got a Cannon HF-100 HD camcorder. It shoots in avchd I plan on shooting 8 hours of video. Is a 250 gig portable hardrive going to be enough for a scratch disk for FCE.
No, unless your media files will be a different disk. Realistically, you'll need about a 500GB hard disk if it will serve as both your media and scratch. Also, it's important to have a 7,200-rpm drive that connects over FireWire. Avoid USB hard drives for editing.
I'm good there. I have a 500gb LaCie FW800. How much available space do I need to keep open for editing?
Also, how large are the final HD files when you save them for AppleTV viewing?
well I have a 250gig firewire external its a laptop drive 5400rpm it needed to be portable. I can't bring my regular external firewire hard drive.