Macbook Air for light video editing?

[UFMatt]

Hi all,

I'm currently using a late-2008 standard aluminum Macbook, and it's been getting more and more sluggish as time goes on. I'm toying with the idea of getting a new laptop, and am trying to decide which would be best for me. I'm mainly using my laptop now for schoolwork (work processing galore), forum/web browsing, video watching, and editing some GoPro videos. I know my current macbook bogs down when loading up and editing videos, so I was wondering if a Macbook Air could handle this (I'm not using FCP or anything like that, just GoPro's stock software and another called RaceRender) without issue? I obviously hang on to my computer for a long time, so I'm not opposed to spending a bit more to have it stay useful and relevant that much longer. Thanks in advance.

Matt

 

[Boyd01]

I was using Final Cut Pro 6 for professional video work on my 2008 15" MacBook Pro and upgraded to a 2011 13" i5/4gb/256gb MacBook Air. It was a big upgrade for me at the time. The 13" MBA screen had the same number of pixels, so all my window sizes and desktop arrangement transfered perfectly.

CPU was about twice as fast but the SSD made the whole machine seem much, much faster than that. It ran FCP 6 really well and also Logic 9. Last summer I upgraded to a 2013 11" i7/8gb/512gb MBA and it's even better and faster with longer battery life. I am still using Final Cut Pro 6 on this machine. I don't do much video work anymore, so this machine really meets my needs fine. I connect to a big monitor and thunderbolt drives at home.

So for what you describe, I think even the base model i5/4gb would be fine although I am not familiar with the apps you mention. But the base MBA will be somewhere around 2x to 3x faster than your 2008 core2 duo machine. You will see even more impressive speed gains if the software makes use of the i series burst mode. If I rip a one hour movie in handbrake it takes about 90 minutes on my 2008 MBP. The same thing takes less than 15 minutes on my MBA, even when I am running iTunes and browsing the web at the same time.

 

[UFMatt]

Appreciate the response Boyd, that's what I figured. Things like GoPro Studio and RaceRender aren't very intensive applications, with GP Studio just being used to clip, color correct, add music, etc. (much more user-friendly than FCP for someone who doesn't know what they're doing) while RaceRender is simply to combine data files and overlay them on video files for car racing vids. Now to wait for someone to run a good 0% financing deal on one of the new machines...

 

[MikeVera]

Macbook Air's actually have fairly descent single-core performance due to turbo-boost. Light video editing can definitely be done on the MBA.

 

[Boyd01]

Now to wait for someone to run a good 0% financing deal on one of the new machines...

You could look into Bill Me Later at B&H Photo: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/Payments.jsp

 

[2IS]

Macbook Air's actually have fairly descent single-core performance due to turbo-boost. Light video editing can definitely be done on the MBA.

Most video editing programs are very well threaded, the turbo boost won't be much of a factor since all the cores well be well loaded, but I agree that light video work can be done on an MBA

 

[MikeVera]

Most video editing programs are very well threaded, the turbo boost won't be much of a factor since all the cores well be well loaded, but I agree that light video work can be done on an MBA

Very true! I just wasn't sure how multi-threaded Go Pro's basic video editor was.