Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Dimitri96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
0
My retina mac pro mid 2012 has a quad core i7, 2.6Ghz, 8GB of RAM ,GeForce GT 650M, Standard VRAM: 1 GB. Can someone pls tell me why does my mac sucks at making video. I use imovie HD (in mac OS X) and Sony Vegas (in Window 8) and it runs really slow. Imovie HD keeps freezing everytimes i put in an audio track while Sony Vegas doesnt run very smooth when i put in 2 or 3 more video ?? 
pls help me cuz i bought this for university and i swear my mom will kill me if I ask her for another laptop :(:confused:
 

Sirmausalot

macrumors 65816
Sep 1, 2007
1,135
320
Your computer is fine for editing video. However, there are a multitude of potential issues. My first advice is to take a video editing course. One issue is that you may be trying to run media from your internal drive. It should ALWAYS be on a FAST external drive connected via USB3/Firewire or Thunderbolt. The computer is fine, you just need some training, more than can be offered here.
 

CaffeinatedNoms

macrumors member
Jun 8, 2014
73
1
Northeast England
iMovie HD isn't really industry grade, and if the university is using Vegas it's because Sony are paying them to do so (I know this because I also attended a Sony funded media centre).

You could try using something that's an actual industry standard, such as Avid, or Final Cut, both of which have pretty good university discounts. As the poster above me said, you should also refrain from using your internal drive as your scratch disk, and instead use something plugged in either via FireWire or Thunderbolt (I should point out that a FW800 compatible drive is going to be a LOT cheaper, but will be slower than a Thunderbolt drive). Your external drive should be at least 7200rpm, or if you can afford it, flash-based. (as a comparison, your internal disk is 5400rpm... slooowwwww).

Hope that helped!
 

Dimitri96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
0
My brother has a Sony laptop and it can edit video without an external hard drive. I dont get it when my retina macbook (which costs alot of money) cant handle a simple video editing.
 

mojito

macrumors member
Aug 8, 2014
98
0
My brother has a Sony laptop and it can edit video without an external hard drive. I dont get it when my retina macbook (which costs alot of money) cant handle a simple video editing.

Don't think of it as the computer can't handle it, because it definitely can. I would look into trying out a different editing program. As people mentioned above, there's much better options than iMovie and Vegas. Try out Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere. These are more pro-level NLE's and you might have better luck with them on your MBP.
 

MartinAppleGuy

macrumors 68020
Sep 27, 2013
2,247
889
My brother has a Sony laptop and it can edit video without an external hard drive. I dont get it when my retina macbook (which costs alot of money) cant handle a simple video editing.

Your computer can easily handle it (if it had a Thunderbolt 2 port, it would have been fine with 4K editing!). I have a feeling it is to do with data access speeds that is making it feel slow (make sure you are using the purple iMovie rather than the gold icon).
 

Cloudsurfer

macrumors 65816
Apr 12, 2007
1,319
373
Netherlands
That computer should have no difficulty at all running an iMovie project from the internal SSD (you said Retina Mac, right?). There must be something else going on.

Do you have enough room on your drive? Is your memory pressure still in the green (in other words, do you have any other apps open during editing)?
 

austinpike

macrumors 6502
Oct 5, 2008
316
48
MN
There may be something going on with your software, but on the other hand you may just need to adjust your expectations of what is "slow." HD video files are huge and take a lot of bandwidth to process. It's not like editing still images or audio. Have you actually sat down and compared your speeds with your brother's Sony using the same files and doing similar edits? Once you start doing effects it is going to take time to process, no way around it.
 

Dimitri96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
0
I make a short and simple video (about 10 mins) of me playing L4D2, i dont need HD quality or professional, just a simple one :confused: . Btw, i try to use Adobe Premiere CS6 and it works just fine :rolleyes: (have no idea how). I think it might be the fault of the editing softwares or something...idk. I wonder when will i need an external hard drive for my mac? What does it for when my machine is capable of light video editing?
 
Last edited:

Dimitri96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
0
Your computer can easily handle it (if it had a Thunderbolt 2 port, it would have been fine with 4K editing!). I have a feeling it is to do with data access speeds that is making it feel slow (make sure you are using the purple iMovie rather than the gold icon).

Actually, I use the free Imovie HD (free on internet), i just dont wanna buy. This is the logo of it =>
imovie6logo-250w.png
. It worked just fine at the beginning (when there were only 3 or 4 video) but when i put in an audio track, it immediately freezed and i had to force quit the application. I dont need 4K but will my mac run faster if i use Thunderbolt?
 
Last edited:

MartinAppleGuy

macrumors 68020
Sep 27, 2013
2,247
889
Actually, I use the free Imovie HD (free on internet), i just dont wanna buy. This is the logo of it => Image. It worked just fine at the beginning (when there were only 3 or 4 video) but when i put in an audio track, it immediately freezed and i had to force quit the application. And what do u mean "Your computer can easily handle it (if it had a Thunderbolt 2 port" ? I have to buy a Thunderbolt 2 for my mac to make video now?!

iMovie is a free download from the Mac App Store and is a million miles ahead of what you are using. Are you running Mavericks?

----------

And what do u mean "Your computer can easily handle it (if it had a Thunderbolt 2 port" ? I have to buy a Thunderbolt 2 for my mac to make video now?!

Thunderbolt 2 is a port (like a USB port for example). You will have Thunderbolt 1. What I'm saying is, that lack of the Thunderbolt 2 port is all that is stopping you from doing 4K video (i.e I'm saying your MBP could easily handle 4K video editing with those specs).

The problem appears you are using old software and new hardware. That software was not optimized for the new hardware so it won't run very well. Get the newest version (free on the app store).
Click the apple icon on the top left of your Mac, then select "About this Mac". Tell me what version you are running (10.x.x bellow the apple icon). If it is 10.9.x, go to the App Store and download iMovie (free) and that will really increase your performance. It uses multiple cores over all previous versions as well as it importing video and audio instantly.

Click this link to Google then click on the first webpage: https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sour...espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=imovie+itunes+mac+app+store

Then if the app store doesn't open automatically, click the blue button that says open in app store.
 
Last edited:

Dimitri96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
0
iMovie is a free download from the Mac App Store and is a million miles ahead of what you are using. Are you running Mavericks?

----------



Thunderbolt 2 is a port (like a USB port for example). You will have Thunderbolt 1. What I'm saying is, that lack of the Thunderbolt 2 port is all that is stopping you from doing 4K video (i.e I'm saying your MBP could easily handle 4K video editing with those specs).

The problem appears you are using old software and new hardware. That software was not optimized for the new hardware so it won't run very well. Get the newest version (free on the app store).
Click the apple icon on the top left of your Mac, then select "About this Mac". Tell me what version you are running (10.x.x bellow the apple icon). If it is 10.9.x, go to the App Store and download iMovie (free) and that will really increase your performance. It uses multiple cores over all previous versions as well as it importing video and audio instantly.

Click this link to Google then click on the first webpage: https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sour...espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=imovie+itunes+mac+app+store

Then if the app store doesn't open automatically, click the blue button that says open in app store.

thank you so much for your advices. The version is OS X 10.9.4 (Mavericks) but the Imovie in app store is not free (it costs almost 15 $) I dont think i gonna buy that since my mac has Adobe Premiere. anw, can i use the Imovie HD (yellow)?http://en.kioskea.net/download/download-1238-imovie-hd#opinions
 

MartinAppleGuy

macrumors 68020
Sep 27, 2013
2,247
889
thank you so much for your advices. The version is OS X 10.9.4 (Mavericks) but the Imovie in app store is not free (it costs almost 15 $) I dont think i gonna buy that since my mac has Adobe Premiere. anw, can i use the Imovie HD (yellow)?http://en.kioskea.net/download/download-1238-imovie-hd#opinions

It should be free though. The yellow iMovie isn't bad but it is no where near the speed of the new one. How is Premiere working for you? Does it run fine?
 

Dimitri96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
0
Does the Thunderbolt 1 help speed up my laptop? The game i play(L4D2) runs a little bit slowly and got really lag only when i plug in my charger.

----------

It should be free though. The yellow iMovie isn't bad but it is no where near the speed of the new one. How is Premiere working for you? Does it run fine?

I make a short and simple video (about 10 mins) of me playing L4D2, i dont need HD quality or professional, just a simple one . I try to use Adobe Premiere CS6 and turned out it works just fine (have no idea how). I think it might be the fault of the editing softwares (sony Vegas and Imovie HD).
I wonder when will i need an external hard drive or the Thunderbolt for my mac? What does it for when my machine is capable of light video editing?
 

MartinAppleGuy

macrumors 68020
Sep 27, 2013
2,247
889
Does the Thunderbolt 1 help speed up my laptop? The game i play(L4D2) runs a little bit slowly and got really lag only when i plug in my charger.

It is just a port. Thunderbolt is just a better HDMI port for your computer. If you use an external display, that is what you use. That won't speed up your computer. If you really want to speed up your computer, you could first off do this:

Go to System Preferences, then Users and Groups, then click the Login Items tab. Un-tick all of the boxes. This will stop apps from opening on start up.

If your computer is still slow (which your should never be), a fresh install may be needed. This is when you re-install the whole OS (and it will delete everything, so you have to backup everything you need). It's a bit of a tricky job and you should only do it once looking into how to do it, but could be worth while.

----------

Does the Thunderbolt 1 help speed up my laptop? The game i play(L4D2) runs a little bit slowly and got really lag only when i plug in my charger.

----------



I make a short and simple video (about 10 mins) of me playing L4D2, i dont need HD quality or professional, just a simple one . I try to use Adobe Premiere CS6 and turned out it works just fine (have no idea how). I think it might be the fault of the editing softwares (sony Vegas and Imovie HD).
I wonder when will i need an external hard drive or the Thunderbolt for my mac? What does it for when my machine is capable of light video editing?

Your Mac should be capable of the most complicated 1080p edits. The problem is Sony Vegas is not been optimised for your Mac, and you are running an older iMovie.
 

Dimitri96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
0
It is just a port. Thunderbolt is just a better HDMI port for your computer. If you use an external display, that is what you use. That won't speed up your computer. If you really want to speed up your computer, you could first off do this:

Go to System Preferences, then Users and Groups, then click the Login Items tab. Un-tick all of the boxes. This will stop apps from opening on start up.

If your computer is still slow (which your should never be), a fresh install may be needed. This is when you re-install the whole OS (and it will delete everything, so you have to backup everything you need). It's a bit of a tricky job and you should only do it once looking into how to do it, but could be worth while.

----------




Your Mac should be capable of the most complicated 1080p edits. The problem is Sony Vegas is not been optimised for your Mac, and you are running an older iMovie.


"The problem is Sony Vegas is not been optimised for your Mac" ..so even if i use it via bootcamp It still cant work properly ?

----------

iMovie 6? Holy crap, that was written back in 2006!!! :eek:

There have been four new versions since then!
yeh i know lol I am new to mac and OS X. I had to download the old version cuz the new Imovie cost 14.99 $ and i dont want to spend money on editing sofware.
 

MartinAppleGuy

macrumors 68020
Sep 27, 2013
2,247
889
"The problem is Sony Vegas is not been optimised for your Mac" ..so even if i use it via bootcape It still cant work properly ?

----------


yeh i know lol I am new to mac and OS X. I had to download the old version cuz the new Imovie cost 14.99 $ and i dont want to spend money on editing sofware.

Just use Premiere Pro then. It's performance is around the same as the latest iMovie.
 

aristobrat

macrumors G5
Oct 14, 2005
12,292
1,403
yeh i know lol I am new to mac and OS X. I had to download the old version cuz the new Imovie cost 14.99 $ and i dont want to spend money on editing sofware.
Did you buy your Mac used, from a previous owner? If you bought it new, it should have opened the App Store for you and let you download iLife (including iMovie) for free.
 

Dimitri96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
0
Did you buy your Mac used, from a previous owner? If you bought it new, it should have opened the App Store for you and let you download iLife (including iMovie) for free.
LOL yes I bought a used mac =))))) Do u have any ideas how to download imovie for free? I mean how to have the iLife suite ???? I want to have it!!!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.