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Can a 12" PB handle FCP?

Hey all,

I just bought a 12" PowerBook and I'm planning on doing some editing (just DV) on it as well. I was wondering if any of you who edit on your 12" PB have issues with capturing video with an external firewire drive, since you'd have to plug your camera into the back of the external hard drive... Any comments?
 
JoshRtek said:
I was wondering if any of you who edit on your 12" PB have issues with capturing video with an external firewire drive, since you'd have to plug your camera into the back of the external hard drive.
Click to expand...
I had no trouble at all capturing DV this way, going back to my 12" 700MHz G3 iBook two and a half years ago. Any modern PowerBook and decent FW hard drive will do fine. The FW hard drives I've used that way were generic do-it-yourself types with Oxford 911 bridge chipsets.
 
JoshRtek said:
Hey all,

I just bought a 12" PowerBook and I'm planning on doing some editing (just DV) on it as well. I was wondering if any of you who edit on your 12" PB have issues with capturing video with an external firewire drive, since you'd have to plug your camera into the back of the external hard drive... Any comments?
Click to expand...

You shouldn't have any problems, although there are rare instances where 2 devices just don't like to be daisy chained. But those are fewer and far between as the tech has matured.


Lethal
 
New purchasing plan:

I've been checking out the upgraded 14-inch iBooks. I can save about $A700 compared to a 12-inch PB with SuperDrive.

CPU specs are pretty close to the same, but with half the video RAM (although a newer technology card helps to offset this).

On the plus side: a larger screen, more keyboard real-estate, better battery power. Then I invest the $700 wisely and wait for the Intel Mac PB next year, and I have a nice little iBook for schlepping around on a day to day basis after that. :cool:

Now am I missing anything that makes the iBook a bad idea for video?
 
xrayzed said:
New purchasing plan:

I've been checking out the upgraded 14-inch iBooks. I can save about $A700 compared to a 12-inch PB with SuperDrive.

CPU specs are pretty close to the same, but with half the video RAM (although a newer technology card helps to offset this).

On the plus side: a larger screen, more keyboard real-estate, better battery power. Then I invest the $700 wisely and wait for the Intel Mac PB next year, and I have a nice little iBook for schlepping around on a day to day basis after that. :cool:

Now am I missing anything that makes the iBook a bad idea for video?
Click to expand...

The only thing I would mention is that w/o the hack the iBook can only mirror to an external monitor. But if you install the "span hack" then that takes care of that problem.

If you are looking for a just a stop gap to hold you over until the MacIntel's arrive this looks like a better deal than the 12" PB.


Lethal
 
It will rock!

A 12" PB with full ram (1.25GB) and his 1.5Ghz G4 will do more than well, is a very fast computer, and now they have the 5.4K rpm HD so it will run very smoothly. FCP doesnt need video card son dont worry.
I use a Rev C PB 17" that almost the same than PB 12" in Hardware, but you will certainly need the extra room. And external Display is absolutely necessary.
But the computer is fast enought even for big proyects. You may want a External HD.
 
LethalWolfe said:
If you are looking for a just a stop gap to hold you over until the MacIntel's arrive this looks like a better deal than the 12" PB.
Click to expand...
Bingo.

And don't buy the RAM from Apple. EVER. Right?

The external HD is on The List, and my trusty 17-inch LCD will be used for editing.

My work here is complete. Thank you all for your help.
 
xrayzed said:
puckhead193: I've considered FC Express, but am strongly leaning towards FCP for a few reasons: 24fps capable, timecode displays, better colour correction tools, and it's bundled with Soundtrack Pro & Motion.
Click to expand...

sorry to rehash this, and it may have been just a typo... but fc pro doesn't come with motion or soundtrack pro. for that you have to buy the fc studio... which is 1299 vs 999 for fc pro alone.

just wanted to make sure that was clear.
 
I have mixed opinions about this. A PowerBook will do it but you will be spending a lot of time waiting for rendering. During this time, your PowerBook will become a toaster oven and be pretty much non-useable. FCP will be taking all of your processor and anything you want to do at the same time will hinder its processing progress.



aussie_geek
 
aussie_geek said:
I have mixed opinions about this. A PowerBook will do it but you will be spending a lot of time waiting for rendering. During this time, your PowerBook will become a toaster oven and be pretty much non-useable. FCP will be taking all of your processor and anything you want to do at the same time will hinder its processing progress.
Click to expand...
Then don't sit around while it's rendering. Let stuff render when you're away from your desk. If you must preview stuff that needs rendering, hit option-P. Changing something, rendering it, changing it again, rendering again, etc etc is a waste of time. Make the change, preview it with option-P if you must, and move on to the next edit.
 
jelloshotsrule said:
sorry to rehash this, and it may have been just a typo... but fc pro doesn't come with motion or soundtrack pro. for that you have to buy the fc studio... which is 1299 vs 999 for fc pro alone.

just wanted to make sure that was clear.
Click to expand...
Understood - I simply meant to compare FCE to the FCP part of the FCS package.

[/acronym hell]
 
jelloshotsrule said:
sorry to rehash this, and it may have been just a typo... but fc pro doesn't come with motion or soundtrack pro. for that you have to buy the fc studio... which is 1299 vs 999 for fc pro alone.

just wanted to make sure that was clear.
Click to expand...

And you get DVD Studio Pro as well
;)
 
I've taken the plunge and placed an order for the new 14-inch iBook, with +1GB of RAM, a LaCie Porsche 250GB external hard drive, and the Final Cut Studio suite.

The new model hasn't actually made it to Australia yet, but is due early-mid next week, so I should have it by next weekend.

The only downside is that I won't have a lot of time to play with it much as we're going to Canberra to meet some friends that weekend. Fortunately one of the people we are catching up with is a Mac-head IT specialist, so I can tell my wife I'm only bringing my gear along for technical advice.

Who knows - she might even believe me.

Thanks one more time for the advice.
 
Sadly, Apple handicaps the iBook line (slower bus, slower ram, two year old video cards) so that the Powerbooks will still sell. That, and they are missing a few really nice I/O features and abilities.

The iBook will work out I imagine. There are just a couple of things I dislike about them. I just couldn't justify saving $250-300 when I was already spending over a grand - so I shot for the Powerbooks.

The good news is that it's pretty durable - unless you drop it with the LCD open, or, if the point of impact is the LCD panel. The iBooks are a little more forgiving when it comes to wear and tear. However, my advice is that you purchase a specialty carrying case, made especially for notebook computers and the accessories you'd need for it.

I suggest ebags.com for a backpack.

And it goes without saying - max out your ram.

Remember - import all of your raw DV footage to your external drive. Otherwise, FCP saves it in your Documents folder. There are settings you must configure before you start importing and exporting movies.

The worst part about Apple notebooks is the slow Hard Drives. You will notice a significant decrease in render times with your external. Also, when you get the money - buy a second, and maybe even a third external to use as backup. Or, if you have another computer - dump all of your work files onto it. Have some sort of backup routine. You will hate yourself for losing work. Save yourself the trouble and spend some extra cash to ensure the safe-keeping of your work.

Oh - and last but not least: Never drink or eat anything around your computer that doesn't have a cap. If you can't knock it over without it spilling - don't set it down anywhere near it. I know from experience that sometimes - you just need that caffiene fix to keep you going during an all-night edit session. I've had four friends ruin their powerbooks by knocking over juice, water, coffee, etc.

I guess it's really just common sense.

Don't be an idiot, and your computer will survive.
 
xrayzed said:
I've taken the plunge and placed an order for the new 14-inch iBook, with +1GB of RAM, a LaCie Porsche 250GB external hard drive, and the Final Cut Studio suite.
Click to expand...

Sorry I'm late to this, but you'll probably want to replace that LaCie drive sometime in the next year. You're very smart to be getting an external drive to house your media, but LaCie's are some of the worst drives out there. I've never worked with one that lasted longer than 18 months without failing/needing serious repair.

On a separate note, does Australia broadcast on PAL or NTSC? Either way, one of the best investments you can make is to purchase an external monitor. Then you will be able to edit while watching accurate video and accurate video/audio sync. I occasionally use my 12" PowerBook to edit using an external monitor; it's really the only thing that makes editing on such a small screen possible.

best of luck.
 
I bought my 14-inch iBook last week. Learning to think in a Mac-way has been interesting for a Windows user. Much less futzing about. I keep feeling like I'm overlooking something. :D

So far it's fuuuuuuun.

I'm finding FPC much easier to work with than Adobe Premier. The manuals are excellent, and the interface just makes more sense to me.

I had a temporary problem the first time I ran FCP. The program detected the Mini-DV footage via Firewire (daisy-chained through the external HD), played it fine, but wouldn't capture it.

After quitting and re-loading it worked just fine. No dropped frames or other problems. Odd.

A Mac user I know said he had the same problem with iMovie the first time he ran it. A friend of his thinks it may be something unique to PAL systems (BenJolene: yes, Australia broadcasts on PAL) and FCP. Have any other PAL users had any similar issues?

I haven't heard anything bad about LaCie's until now. The idea of all my files dying in a horrible HD disaster is - disconcerting. :eek:

As for the broadcast monitor, I'm planning on doing the basic assembly on my LCD, and then borrowing a monitor for final colour correction.
 
Rod Rod said:
Then don't sit around while it's rendering. Let stuff render when you're away from your desk. If you must preview stuff that needs rendering, hit option-P. Changing something, rendering it, changing it again, rendering again, etc etc is a waste of time. Make the change, preview it with option-P if you must, and move on to the next edit.
Click to expand...



OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!


OPTION-P!!!!

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

I CAN PREVIEW W/OUT HAVING TO WAIT!!! WOOOOO!!!

This was the main thing bugging me when I switched from Premiere Pro.

Thank you so much... I can't believe it took me 3 years to figure that out...
 
Progress report (if anybody cares):

FCP is a great program, and it works fine on the iBook. Obviously the iBook screen is limited for detailed work, but playback in the viewer is perfectly acceptable, and for organising clips, setting in and out points, etc, it works fine.

I think the manual is excellent - all four volumes of it.

Only two minor hitches so far.

One is a complete lock-up the other night. I'd be splitting an hour long file into a series of sub-clips, and I think the constant shuttling backwards and forwards overloaded the memory, the hard drive, or both. Complete freeze, requiring a hard re-boot.

(Apologies to the die-hards, but yes, Macs crash too. ;)

Thank god for autosaving. I'd only lost about 10 minutes of work.

The second hitch is a bit odd. I deleted a sequence and my canvas and timeline windows disappeared. Using command-2 and command-3 to bring them back didn't work, and they were greyed out in the "Window" menu item. I can't find anything in the manual about this, and the only way I can get them back is by opening a new project.

Is this unique?

Apart from these two issues all is going swimmingly. great piece of software, and the machine is perfectly satisfactory. Only wish I'd switched sooner.
 
Sadly, FCP has been known to lock up the computer, more often than is appreciated...

I set my 'autosave' to every minutes. Learned that lesson the hard way.

Also, I've had a LaCie drive die on me (in the middle of a film). However, this had to do with sub-par power-outlets frying the circuitry - the fault of the school I was editing at. Thankfully, LaCie fixed the drive for free - and was able to recover all of my data.

I promptly went out and purchased my first Powerbook so that I wouldn't have to rely on somebody else's setup.
 
xrayzed said:
The second hitch is a bit odd. I deleted a sequence and my canvas and timeline windows disappeared. Using command-2 and command-3 to bring them back didn't work, and they were greyed out in the "Window" menu item. I can't find anything in the manual about this, and the only way I can get them back is by opening a new project.

Is this unique?
Click to expand...

Canvas and Timeline are only open so long as you have a sequence open. If you delete your only (or only open) sequence, they will close. Open another sequence or create a new one to get those windows back.
 
xrayzed said:
I think the manual is excellent - all four volumes of it.
Click to expand...

Oh, yeah. I love the FCP manuals. It's also nice that the box they come has a good, sturdy handle on top of it. Just incase you need to beat off an intruder or something. :)


Lethal
 
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