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techno99

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 23, 2011
23
0
I'm looking at purchasing either a new or refurbed 15 or 17 Macbook pro. One of its potential usages is for video editing. I have no experience doing this. I don't know what software I'll be using yet but basically I want to clip or splice HD (most likely 720P) video. My question is whether a refurbed base 15" Macbook Pro with the 6490 graphics ($1359) is sufficient or should I spring for either a new Macbook Pro with the 512M 6750 GPU ($1799) or a refurbed with 1G 6750 GPU ($1699). If I go for the 17", I'm assuming that a refurbed with the 1G 6750 GPU ($1949) wouldn't be noticably slower the a new one with the 6770 ($2499).

I plan on ultimately doing an SSD using an Optibay. Are there any issues with any of the above computers that I should be aware of?
 
Any of them are more than capable of editing 720p video...I can edit 2k resolution video on my 13" 2010 Core 2 duo macbook with ease...you'll have to render H264 which is where things can get slow...Refurbished means nothing in terms of performance.
 
Either will be fine

Either macbook pro will be fine. The video card will have very little effect on video editing, as that is done with the processor mostly. If we were talking about Nvidia video cards with CUDA then the extra oomhp from the video card would be worth it.

That being said, if you plan on using the computer for any games, or anything that will use the video card...get the newer machine. That 6490 is a turd.
 
That being said, if you plan on using the computer for any games, or anything that will use the video card...get the newer machine. That 6490 is a turd.

Other than games, where else would I notice the difference between the 6490 and the 6750/6770?
 
This is sorta of a side note..

for 1400 I'd be looking for a used Mac Pro for video editing. user replaceable graphic's 4 or 5 drives etc...

Am I the only one?
 
Any suggestions for simple video editing software? As I said earlier, I'm mostly looking for cut and paste videos.
 
I use premiere pro mostly - not easy for beginners.

Apple's come with iMovie, which is very easy to use.
 
Any suggestions for simple video editing software? As I said earlier, I'm mostly looking for cut and paste videos.

Simple = iMovie. For a bigger feature set go with Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro's a bit out of my league complexity wise but I get along fine with FCP X. It was a small jump from FCE 4, which i used before. That said it's a lot more feature packed but i don't need all of them as my interest in video editing is purely as a hobbyist.
 
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