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Buying my first Mac tomorrow...advice?

Stang68

Stang68

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Hey guys,

Tomorrow morning at 10 I am going to be the proud new owner of a SR MBP.😀 I am sooo excited to finally be rid of Dell and evil Microsoft. I am planning on getting the high end 15". I am going to be editing A LOT with Final Cut Pro and I have pruchased a Lacie Rugged External Drive to store all of my video on while editing. I am a media production student in college and they told me to get the Lacie drive. It is 120gb. My question to you guys is, what else should i get tomorrow. What else is necessary when buying your first mac? I have a mouse but it plugs into a USB port and since the MBP only has 2 of them, i am thinking of going bluetooth. What other accessories do you think I should consider?

Thanks guys!

-Stang68
 
A bag would be good of course. Being a media productions student, do you have to plug your laptop into any of the schools TVs, or projectors? You would have to buy the appropriate adapters if so...
 
o yea, i forgot to say that i have a bag which should be decent enough. As far as plugging into monitors at school, I dont think that is required and they probably have the cables in case we need to do that. Thanks, though.
 
Mice are obsolete. Don't worry about the bluetooth/no bluetooth option. Get a Wacom Intuos3. It's great for getting into all the little nooks and crannies in FCP.
 
Maybe a USB hub? I have my iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, USB Mouse dongle and camera lead connected to a USB hub and a Apple Wireless Keyboard. All connected to my MBP, I prefer the Keyboard so much to the MBP's one just because its easier and I don't have to worry about sweat patches on the hand rests.
 
Since you're a student, you need to look cool carrying it around. I suggest the Sling Pack (http://goincase.com/products/detail/sling-pack-cl55025). 😎

Other than that, I honestly wouldn't get a bunch of accessories. Use your current mouse for now until you decide you need to free up the USB port. Just get things as you need them.

Though if you're going to use it as your main machine, some kind of cooling stand would be a good idea.
 
I don't see why you can't use a USB mouse. Your external hard drive should be FireWire anyway. USB 2.0 does look faster than FireWire 400 on paper, however in real life USB 2.0 drives are a bottleneck, especially if you're going to do video editing.

And if the new MacBook Pro has FireWire 800, get a FireWire 800 drive! 😀
 
Stang68 said:
Hey guys,

Tomorrow morning at 10 I am going to be the proud new owner of a SR MBP.😀 I am sooo excited to finally be rid of Dell and evil Microsoft. I am planning on getting the high end 15". I am going to be editing A LOT with Final Cut Pro and I have pruchased a Lacie Rugged External Drive to store all of my video on while editing. I am a media production student in college and they told me to get the Lacie drive. It is 120gb. My question to you guys is, what else should i get tomorrow. What else is necessary when buying your first mac? I have a mouse but it plugs into a USB port and since the MBP only has 2 of them, i am thinking of going bluetooth. What other accessories do you think I should consider?

Thanks guys!

-Stang68
Click to expand...

Like stated, a USB hub could take care of the problem of only 2 ports. I am a bit shocked though that you only got a 120GB external hard drive. Especially since you are planning on "editing A LOT with Final Cut Pro". This is nothing when it comes to video editing. Congrats on the MBP though.
 
AppleCare at some point if you can afford it. I'd wait a while before buying a USB hub to see if you need it.
 
for a bluetooth mouse, get the logitech v270. half the price of the mighty mouse and its way better. plus its silver so it will match the mbp perfectly.

i have two of them and they're great. batteries last a good two months before needing to be replaced.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104003


Also, 120GB is really not that much for a video scratch disk. DV takes up 13GB an hour, so you'll only be able to fit like 8 hours of raw footage on there. And make sure your hard drive is at least Firewire 400, but 800 is preferable.
 
If editing is going to be one of your main uses, I would strongly think about getting an external monitor

zioxide said:
Also, 120GB is really not that much for a video scratch disk. DV takes up 13GB an hour, so you'll only be able to fit like 8 hours of raw footage on there. And make sure your hard drive is at least Firewire 400, but 800 is preferable.
Click to expand...

Very true, but as Stang68 is a college student, he's most likely going to editing short films.... not that you can ever have enough storage!
 
the thing is, i cant get a bigger external bc thats the one i had to get for school and also bc this one does not need to be plugged into an outlet for power. That will be great for when i edit in the library or other places like that. Thanks for all the comments guys! Keep 'em coming!
 
Stang68 said:
the thing is, i cant get a bigger external bc thats the one i had to get for school and also bc this one does not need to be plugged into an outlet for power. That will be great for when i edit in the library or other places like that. Thanks for all the comments guys! Keep 'em coming!
Click to expand...

BTW, video editing could be very slow on an external USB 2.0 drive if the video is large file size. On most USB connections you get maybe 20mb/sec reads (and that's from a POWERED usb drive)
 
Stang68 said:
Hey guys,

Tomorrow morning at 10 I am going to be the proud new owner of a SR MBP.😀 I am sooo excited to finally be rid of Dell and evil Microsoft. I am planning on getting the high end 15". I am going to be editing A LOT with Final Cut Pro and I have pruchased a Lacie Rugged External Drive to store all of my video on while editing. I am a media production student in college and they told me to get the Lacie drive. It is 120gb. My question to you guys is, what else should i get tomorrow. What else is necessary when buying your first mac? I have a mouse but it plugs into a USB port and since the MBP only has 2 of them, i am thinking of going bluetooth. What other accessories do you think I should consider?

Thanks guys!

-Stang68
Click to expand...

Umm, if you're editing video you might want to get Final Cut (whatever version). Is your school going to provide it?

I agree with what everyone here has said. If you wanted to save a few bucks and it's not too late you might want to consider the ADC student discount instead of the regular student discount. You can save a significant amount which may help get other bits and pieces for your system.

Get applecare with your student discount.

I've been trying to decide between the high end 15" mbp and the high definition 17"... Leaning towards the 17" :\
 
yea, im getting final cut for free (thank god) but i think im too late for the other student discount thing. Applecare is definitely being purchased, though.
 
If you're going to be spending a lot of time editing on FCP, I'd definitely suggest a 23 or 24 inch external screen. I like mice too. With an external keyboard. Seems to defeat the purpose of a notebook, but when you're editing, you're not going to be doing it at the library or at a coffee shop. You're going to dig in and work for HOURS at a time.

The guys who are editing on their little notebooks (using the notebook hard drive) with their coffee and berets...

And yes, somebody else pegged it correctly. You're going to need a helluva lot more HD space than 120GBs. We're using over a Terabyte for every 2 or 3 projects. Sometimes for 1 large one, but that is rare. 1/2 a terabyte should be fine for a couple small or 1 medium sized project.

Are you going to need a video camera soon?

Best of luck! Welcome to the "fruit tribe" friend.
 
p.s.- we run G-tech exclusively. Never had one fail on us. 2 LaCie drives have failed on us. One was our archiving drive. Everything was lost.

Don't skimp on hard drives. One failure and you'd pay triple to get your stuff back. If it wasn't worth getting back, why was it taking up space on your HD?
 
i see what you mean. But i think 120gb will be fine bc each project for class is about a measly 8 mins long. And when im done with each one, its gonna get deleted. The thing is, when i make one of my "short films" on my own, they usually turn out about 45 mins long!😛 So, i might end up with a bigger hdd, who knows? As for the external display, i am really considering that.

btw, i have a sony handycam mini dv, so it does the job for when i shoot my own films, but the school also has some decent cameras. If you guys want, you can check out my latest film at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2409690066929850325&hl=en

Hope you enjoy! Its just a typical college comedy haha
 
the lacie rugged is uber expensive per gig!!! i think you might regret it in the future; if you're editing, most likely it won't be off bat for long periods, and if you're near an outlet, it really doesn't matter if the drive needs to plug in or not does it? also, you'll be amazed how fast 120 gigs will get eaten up, even for shorts, even on dv. but i guess if you're using it on a per project basis you should be fine.

edit: also, it looks like the rugged 120gb is 5400 rpm.... i wouldn't use that as a scratch disc. seems like the only rugged running at 7200 is the 100gig.
 
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