MacBook Pro - tricked out or Mac Pro for FCP 7?

Is your laptop an early 2011? If so, I have the same setup. I upgraded to 16 gigs of RAM and dropped in dual SSD's (removed the optical drive). I previously used FCP7 and Motion on my 8 core MacPro. When I got this new machine I upgraded to FCPX and Motion 5 and never used FCP7 again. FCPX is much faster on this machine, renders and export are faster too.

I think the challenge you're facing is that you are using 32 bit software. They're newer counterparts are significantly faster due to 64 bit usage. Your current software can't even use all the resources you have in that notebook. Instead of paying so much more for new hardware, why not spend substantially less and upgrade your software? I believe even without an SSD upgrade you have perfectly capable hardware.

Also, just to give you an idea of how much I use it, I'm cutting a kids TV show weekly on my notebook using FCPX and Adobe Premiere Pro.

samcraig said:

All good points and to be considered. The only "liability" is that many videos get re-produced with updated stats about our company. So if I switch to FCPX, I'm pretty sure I'd have to recreate all those videos from scratch, no? Last I read - you couldn't open FCP7 files in FCPX - and those that did some sort of jury-rigging found it "easier" to recreate vs what actually transpired from the import. Is that still accurate?

For new stuff - I agree - just concerned over my many legacy files...

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That was the case when FCPX first arrived but now you can use 7toX to open your projects in FCPX.

I agree with 4god, upgrade your software first, there is only so much life to be squeezed from poor old 7 now.

I also need to deal with many revisions to old projects however, if they are simple I stay in FCP7, otherwise I import an XML to Premiere. If you do alot of motion graphics and titles I would suggest looking at Adobe, it's now a much more coherent bunch of production software than FCS ever was.

Given the age of hardware in Apple's towers, and the fact that Cook said new ones (whatever that means) would be coming this year makes me hard pressed to recommend buying a Mac Pro right now.

Thuc5dides said:

I also need to deal with many revisions to old projects however, if they are simple I stay in FCP7, otherwise I import an XML to Premiere. If you do alot of motion graphics and titles I would suggest looking at Adobe, it's now a much more coherent bunch of production software than FCS ever was.

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Funny, I actually use Premiere CS6 sometimes to cut then XML over to FCPX for finishing (and sometimes vice versa). Motion 5 is pretty good for a quick graphic but I agree, the Adobe suite is most definitely worth a look - especially Creative Cloud...what a deal. I pay more for cable than the Creative Cloud.

I really wish that there was a NLE that merged the good features of FCPX and Premiere Pro. IMHO that would be the perfect NLE.

FCPX is not hard to learn

I personally would rather have a slower spec'ed xeon processor than a higher spec'ed i7 simply because even though the i7 is faster it will throttle overtime whereas the xeon will just keep on chugging along

Lil Chillbil said:

I personally would rather have a slower spec'ed xeon processor than a higher spec'ed i7 simply because even though the i7 is faster it will throttle overtime whereas the xeon will just keep on chugging along

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Huh? I'm not sure what you mean.

MisterKeeks said:

Huh? I'm not sure what you mean.

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The i7 is a consumer part where as the xeons are more server based. So the xeons are designed to keep plugging away for years, being a bit more resilient. I dont know how much that works out in real life though.

To the OP, FCP 7 cant use more than 4GB of RAM or more than 2 (?) cores I believe (correct me if I am wrong) so there would not be much point in getting a pimped out Mac Pro because FCP7 cant use all those resources. FCPX scales with hardware so it will make the use of all of the RAMs and as many cores as you can throw at it

All hail FCPx.....

iMovie and FCPX look identical but trust me the both work differently. iMovie is a great software for learning the craft of editing. FCPX has more to offer and Apple have improved the software tremendously. Lets just say very much easier than working in FCP-7.
In the end of the day each person to his own preference

The second I dropped 16GB into my Macbook Pro i5, FCPX ran as smooth as can be. I thought about throwing in a SSD but honestly I haven't had a "need" to yet .. not saying that I won't do it anyway LOL

FCP 7 will run plenty fast on the MBP and a Mac Pro won't speed it up a lot. FCP X is a completely different story and a 12 core Mac Pro will obliterate any MBP at rendering in FCP X. Motion 5 you should get similar performance between MP and MBP with the exception of having a nice desktop GPU in the Mac Pro such as a ATI RADEON HD 5870. Honestly wait for new Mac Pros and then get one of them, they will be faster at FCP 7 and especially FCP X or any other program for that matter.

MacBook Pro FCPx

Switching over to FCPx, real world as I just did it about 8 months ago, has made me a faster editor in actual editing speed from a human perspective and from a machine perspective. Once you get past the thought that FCPx is iMovie on steroids and all the other various complaints you read about online you will realize that most of these posts come from people that simply don't want to learn something new. I spent about 3 hours on Lynda.com taking the FCPx course and I was able to edit that same day, since then I have never went back or missed FCP7.
We have a client that we shoot the same events for each year and I have gone back into our time logs from the previous year and have noticed, to my surprise, that we are editing on average 20% faster than the previous year on FCP7. Some projects are even faster. FCPx represents a new way of thinking while editing and from a production, meeting deadlines, and making a profit perspective this has been one of the best investments my company HAS EVER MADE. I sold all our FCP7 packages and I am happy I did.

The recommendations for MacBook Pro here will all help speed up FCPx, it is MUCH faster than FCP7. We had FCP7 on a Mac Pro and FCPx on a MacBook Pro and the MacBook Pro was usually faster even though the Mac Pro was a much more robust machine.

My $.02