Hey I have done some searching and havent been able to find an answer to a dire question. Has anyone tried to run Final Cut Pro (4 or 5) on an ibook 1.33 ghz. I would really like to know if it performs great, is usable, or runs like molasses. Thanks a lot for the input.
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FinalCutPro on ibook?
- Thread starter TaKashMoney
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yes it will run but you will need an upgrade on the ram to make it worth while,
external HDD is a must also
external HDD is a must also
I run it on my Mini (see sig) and it behaves reasonably well. I mean as far as interacting and doing work it is responsive. Not so great for RT effects and render times, but I use it for personal projects, so I just do the renders at night or other down times.
I bring my iBook to school with me every day to edit the morning announcements for the next day. It's the same one you have, with 1GB of RAM. I set it down, plug in a USB hub and the firewire to the deck and its hooked up to 2 Lacie HDs, video deck for TV viewing and exporting, Soundsticks, and mouse and keyboard. I edit them every day and it runs extremely well.. I use about 4 video tracks.. They shoot on a desk in front of a blue screen, I chroma key that and place them in a 3D news room we had on a CD in the class, and in that room I photoshopped what is supposed to be an LCD on the back wall and that is filled with green so I chroma key that and in the layer under that I place a stock animated movie of the blue rotating earth thing that is the theme for the announcements to give the whole thing an overall dynamic look. On the fourth track I put the bottom right "4" logo I made and for a 3 minute announcement it takes maybe 20 mins to render. Today was about 2:30 and it only took 15 mins to render approx. It's not fast compared to my PowerMac.. it probably could have been done in 5 mins on it, but it's definately doable. It doesn't slow down to a crawl or anything like that, and the render isn't even unbearable or anything, just a few minute wait. I usually set it to render after 3rd period (when I edit) and when I come back 5th it's all done and I can export to tape.
I attached a screenshot of my FCP layout that was taken for the school website ... www.whschools.org
Edit: It definately helps that I capture to a 7200RPM 250GB LaCie HDD and all the files are stored there and I just open the .fcp file and edit and everything is saved on the hard drive. I do the same with the TV show we do (on the other HDD) and that way I can take it home and edit/render on the PowerMac because that's shot entirely on a blue set so that would kill me for render times. I did a one minute clip today with a few tracks of chroma key and it took about 8 minutes... at home it would take 1-2.
I attached a screenshot of my FCP layout that was taken for the school website ... www.whschools.org
Edit: It definately helps that I capture to a 7200RPM 250GB LaCie HDD and all the files are stored there and I just open the .fcp file and edit and everything is saved on the hard drive. I do the same with the TV show we do (on the other HDD) and that way I can take it home and edit/render on the PowerMac because that's shot entirely on a blue set so that would kill me for render times. I did a one minute clip today with a few tracks of chroma key and it took about 8 minutes... at home it would take 1-2.
Attachments
![anouncements[1].jpg](/data/attachments/34/34379-20460a68cae752ab0e69c2416f45b5a6.jpg)
Responded in your other thread - but here it is again
I'm running FCP5 on my iBook from time to time, since I'm gradually working my way through the lessons in Diana Weynand's FCP5 training book and it's nice to have at-hand for ad-hoc lessons here and there.
It looks like 'mikemodena' has a lot more day to day experience with his iBook setup - ext. hard drive's definately the key.
I'd say if you've already got hold of FCP then go for it, if you're going to invest in Final Cut Studio (as Pro's not available seperately anymore) then I'd seriously consider moving up to a refurb 15inch PBook or maybe a MacBookPro, so you have the optional PC-card slot for an extra FW400/800/SATA channel - allowing you to grow it into a capable mobile editing machine.
I'm running FCP5 on my iBook from time to time, since I'm gradually working my way through the lessons in Diana Weynand's FCP5 training book and it's nice to have at-hand for ad-hoc lessons here and there.
It looks like 'mikemodena' has a lot more day to day experience with his iBook setup - ext. hard drive's definately the key.
I'd say if you've already got hold of FCP then go for it, if you're going to invest in Final Cut Studio (as Pro's not available seperately anymore) then I'd seriously consider moving up to a refurb 15inch PBook or maybe a MacBookPro, so you have the optional PC-card slot for an extra FW400/800/SATA channel - allowing you to grow it into a capable mobile editing machine.
lilstewart92 said:I run FCP and FCE on my iBook all the time... runs great.(1.5GB RAM)
Just curious... how come you use FCE and FCP? Why wouldn't you just use FCP?
I'm a college student directing my own independent films for competition on Pinnacle Liquid Edition (using Avid previously). I am a recent switcher with the iBook being my first purchase and fell in love. My friend has a copy of FCP4 and I was just curious about the performance on my machine. iMovie definitely doesnt cut it. Anyway thanks for the advice.
TaKashMoney said:
I think you'll be fine. I'm used to using a PowerMac for most things and even when I use the iBook I don't think of it as being unberable. Definately use a faster spinning external HDD (7200RPM) and make sure to capture to that, never capture to the HDD your OS is on.
I've had a good experience using FCP 4 on my iBook 1.2 with 1 GB memory, using an external 7200 rpm drive.
I had a horrible experience using iMovie to do a large project on the same machine.
In my case, FCP was much less demanding on the system than iMovie was.
The project in question was a feature film in case that helps. Lotsa footage and cuts.
I had a horrible experience using iMovie to do a large project on the same machine.
In my case, FCP was much less demanding on the system than iMovie was.
The project in question was a feature film in case that helps. Lotsa footage and cuts.