MBP for HD Video editing-is this good enough!

[san001]

Hi

I am after getting a Mac Book Pro 2011 15" Intel 2.53ghz i5
> 8GB RAM 500GB Hard Drive
> SuperDrive DVD-R

Will this be ok to edit family HD videos (I currently use a PC which has to first convert AVCHD files to MPEG, then after editing, takes hours to render.

Any advice appreciate

 

[Macman45]

It'll work, but it's not going to be fast..adding extra RAM may help a little but to be frank, the I5 is going to work hard, and you'll notice the fans ramp way up. It also depends on the length and the quality of the videos, but honestly? It's going to take time.

 

[san001]

Thank you for your reply.

What would you recommend instead?

 

[pinholestars]

The real question is cost. If you're getting a good deal, it'll be fine, especially for home video editing. Would you want to run a production studio on it? Probably not.

 

[san001]

I am getting this for £799 + VAT which seems good.

My family video's i always edit in HD and per DVD are around 1 hour long, however my current PC takes forever even to transfer the file to MPEG, i just wanted to make sure i would not be going backwards or sidewards with a Mac Book Pro.

 

[ChrisA]

Hi

I am after getting a Mac Book Pro 2011 15" Intel 2.53ghz i5
> 8GB RAM 500GB Hard Drive
> SuperDrive DVD-R

Will this be ok to edit family HD videos (I currently use a PC which has to first convert AVCHD files to MPEG, then after editing, takes hours to render.

Any advice appreciate

It will work fine. Final Cut Pro X allows you to start editing even while the camera files are being converted. (no point in buying an Apple Mac unless it is so you can use FCP) Also FCPX allows editing downsized "proxy" files. 8GB RAM is OK but more RAM always helps. Also you will cil up 512GB rather quickly even if you only shoot 30 minutes of video a week. With FCPX editing can be fast but rendering will still take time (but you don't have to be in front of the computer while in renders.)

The Retina MBP is better because of it's solid state disk and better graphics. I can't think of any use for a DVD burner on a machine used for editing HD video.

You will also need a few external hard drives for keeping the video that don't fit on the small SSD and also for the backup copies

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I am getting this for £799 + VAT which seems good.

My family video's i always edit in HD and per DVD are around 1 hour long, however my current PC takes forever even to transfer the file to MPEG, i just wanted to make sure i would not be going backwards or sidewards with a Mac Book Pro.

How do you put HD video on a DVD? I think you must be down-converting, that is compressing HD down to SD. That is always going to take time. The better compressors are slow and make two passes over the video

In an Apple system you'd keep the HD video in HD and then move it to a TV set using Apple TV and your home WiFi. Either that or buy a BluRay burner.

 

[sjschall]

15" Intel 2.53ghz i5
> 8GB RAM 500GB Hard Drive
> SuperDrive DVD-R

Those are my same exact specs, and mine's a 2010. I edit HD video all day no problem. Yeah it gets hot and slow on big exports and when trans-coding huge batches to ProRes, but it chews through it and doesn't give up. I say more than fine for what you described.

 

[hvfsl]

If you can afford it, I would also get one of the Crucial 480GB SSDs for £180. Will make a big difference in performance.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BQ8RHJ2/?tag=ho01f-21

 

[mBox]

We've been using a 2009 Uni 17" for R3D editing in Avid and FCPX for years now.
Thats RED 4K res files.
Using a few Gtech mini 1TB drives for field use via firewire.

 

[e1me5]

You don't need an SSD unless you want to boot extra fast or for the apps to launch really quick. Just buy a big external HD, either Firewire or Thunderbolt to place all your video files in there and use it as a scratch disk. Doing this you will allow your mac to work much better and efficiently.

Also, if you are going to use a Pro app to edit, I suggest you to convert your video files to Apple ProRes, as this is the best format to edit video on a Mac. They take quite a lot of space, but you can delete them when you are done. Just don't delete the original files.

 

[puckhead193]

You don't need an SSD unless you want to boot extra fast or for the apps to launch really quick. Just buy a big external HD, either Firewire or Thunderbolt to place all your video files in there and use it as a scratch disk. Doing this you will allow your mac to work much better and efficiently.

This!

Your MBP should be fine. I would add more RAM but for home video's your'll be fine. I edited 1.5-2 hour sequences daily and had no issues on my MBP

 

[talmy]

Bit confused about the OPs system spec -- isn't that the top end quad-core i7 of that time?

I've got a late 2011 15" MBP, 2.4GHz i7, 8GB RAM, and a 1TB hybrid drive I swapped in. I generate about 2 hours of lecture video in an evening consisting of 2 hours of 1080P AVCHD video from a camcorder and another 2 hours of screen capture. I cut this in FCPX using the Multicam feature and render 2 hours worth of 720P 10FPS video (to keep file sizes down). The whole import - edit - render process takes under 2 hours. Obviously if it were lots of short clips the editing time would be larger, but this should give an idea of the performance.

I got a big speedup when I went from a 2009 MacBook to this MBP, a second big speedup particularly in my editing productivity when I went from iMovie to FCPX (and added the multicam capability -- it was tedious before) and the latest 10.1 FCPX gave an unexpected speedup as well.