Final cut studio on the 2010 mbp

[allupons]

Hey. I was wondering if many here had much experience using final cut studio(2009) on any of the new macbook pros. I was recently looking to upgrade from my 4 year old macbook pro for improved use with final cut. Does they still heat up into the 90 C heat range when rendering? Are the render speeds significantly improved from a core 2 duo? How much faster is the core i5 mobile vs the core i7 mobile (I am looking mostly at the 17" model). Any first hand experience on these questions and the general performance of final cut on the new macbook pros would be greatly appreciated. I am asking mostly because I am trying to decide between the recently updated and portable macbook pro solution vs the i7 imac. While i know the i7 imac has much more processor, the lack of the express port means no esata and thus seemingly bigtime storage issues for HD video.

Any help/advice on these issues would be greatly appreciated!

 

[spinnerlys]

Firewire 800 offers enough speed (65 to 70 MB/s) to accommodate HD video and its editing, as most HD video is being edited with some kind of codec.

HDV uses 7 to 14 MB/s (720p and 1080i/60), ProRes 422 uses 11 to 27.5 MB/s (720p and 1080i/60), so if you don't need the portability and don't edit more than 3 to 4 streams at once, you might be fine with the iMac.

i5 vs. i7

Btw, if you have some kind of fan control application, you can spin up the fans during intensive SPU usages and get temperatures of around 70° to 80° C.

 

[allupons]

Thanks for the info. I am more worried regarding the fact that I have about 5 internal drives and a card reader that I would have to daisy chain on the fw800. I imagine that would cause some serious slowdown.

Regarding the 2010 macbook pros though, anybody have any experience running either fcs or cs5 on them? Do they generally feel very snappy, or are they sluggish feeling due to being mobile processors? Thanks again for any info.

 

[spinnerlys]

At work we had up to seven drives daisy chained to one Firewire port and there was no slow down.

 

[johnnymg]

Hey. I was wondering if many here had much experience using final cut studio(2009) on any of the new macbook pros. I was recently looking to upgrade from my 4 year old macbook pro for improved use with final cut. Does they still heat up into the 90 C heat range when rendering? Are the render speeds significantly improved from a core 2 duo? How much faster is the core i5 mobile vs the core i7 mobile (I am looking mostly at the 17" model). Any first hand experience on these questions and the general performance of final cut on the new macbook pros would be greatly appreciated. I am asking mostly because I am trying to decide between the recently updated and portable macbook pro solution vs the i7 imac. While i know the i7 imac has much more processor, the lack of the express port means no esata and thus seemingly bigtime storage issues for HD video.

Any help/advice on these issues would be greatly appreciated!

FWIW, xxpresscard esata seems to be a bit trouble-prone. I've been looking for a reliable esata system and haven't been convinced there is one yet. Still looking though if anyone has any suggestions.

Another alternative storage option is to install a second 7200 HD in the optibay. Use that drive for the real-time video file storage and then backup externally via USB of FW. That's how I have setup my 2009 MBP when using FCS.

I've also done real-time (single video channel) FCP editing to a USB external drive but suspect that you would need to go FW800 for anything more serious.

Yes, FCP does feel "snappy" on my MBP.
JohnG

 

[Sirmausalot]

Why do you need five drives? I usually use one FW 800 RAID drive for each project. Do you need access to all of that media all the time or can you consolidate? Or simply hook up the drives you are actually using at the time.

If you do daisy chain, the chain will run at the speed of the LOWEST peripheral anywhere on the chain, even at the end. I read recently that some older FW cameras run at 100MBPS even though they use a FW 400 port.

I occasionally use FCS2 on my 13" Macbook Pro. 2.2 processor. It's just okay, I'd be happier with something faster.

I don't think you'll have any problems running the suite on the laptop, but steer towards the best hardware you can afford.

Thanks for the info. I am more worried regarding the fact that I have about 5 internal drives and a card reader that I would have to daisy chain on the fw800. I imagine that would cause some serious slowdown.

Regarding the 2010 macbook pros though, anybody have any experience running either fcs or cs5 on them? Do they generally feel very snappy, or are they sluggish feeling due to being mobile processors? Thanks again for any info.