New 13” MBA for video editing

[KeithPratt]

Clearly, the Air's limitations of storage space, connectivity, and rendering speed are not attractive to professional video editors under deadline. I'm just curious to know what is possible with a little time and ingenuity.

You pretty much know the figures now. It's for you to judge whether it's enough for your plans.

Two points: one, performance takes a significant hit when the drive approaches capacity; and two, you always need more (space, in this case) than you think.

 

[Pete A]

You pretty much know the figures now... performance takes a significant hit when the drive approaches capacity.

I don't know how much space is required for temporary render files (relative to the transcode files) to avoid a significant performance hit. (Is it more space than the transcodes consume? less? about the same?) If I understand correctly, the other types of files don't require space on the internal disk during editing. (Input files can be deleted after transcoding, and output files can be written to USB disk.)

If you don't know the answer, no problem. I just thought you might, since you warned me to leave room for render files. How much room?

 

[KeithPratt]

If you don't know the answer, no problem. I just thought you might, since you warned me to leave room for render files. How much room?

How long's a piece of string? Usually less than transcodes, but it's entirely dependent on what you do during editing and can vary wildly. Have a read of this.

 

[Pete A]

How long's a piece of string? Usually less than transcodes, but it's entirely dependent on what you do during editing and can vary wildly. Have a read of this.

That's what I wanted to know. Thanks very much, Keith.

 

[hsilver]

render files

In considering hard drive space usage, render files aren't temporary. They accumulate everytime you render a clip or clips in timeline and take up as much space as an equivalent clip of the same duration. You can easily get to a point if doing, say, color-correction with FCP where the renders take up as much space as the sequence. With redos and adjustments you can build up a huge number of files. You can delete them and re-render so there is only the latest render files associated with your sequence to use hard drive space more efficiently.

 

[musique]

Camera to consider

One thing to consider is a relatively new (this year) camcorder from JVC (GY-HM100U). It's either a low end professional camera or a high end prosumer camera. I think its list price is around $4K.

The thing about it is that it records natively in one of the FCP formats. This means that you can simply copy the files to your hard drive and begin editing.

Just a thought, but this might be useful for you.

Good luck.

 

[baypharm]

Can I get away with the maxed out MBA for Final Cut and iMovie projects or will I need to get the 15” MBP? I would mention the 13” MBP but I’ve read that it really isn’t much better than the latest MBA.

Also, if I get the 15 inch MBP, is it worth getting the SSD? The price hike to get a comparable sized SSD ($750 to match the 256GB of the Air) seems like daylight robbery.

I should mention i'm not video editing for clients, just for fun.

Of course, and you don't even need to max it out. Remember that computers and iMovie 10 years ago could edit home video....