New Macbook for Video Editing?

[snake8]

I was hoping for a iMac refresh today, but obviously that didn't happen Anyways, with the spec bumps on the new Macbook I have to admit it looks pretty attractive, especially with Retina, thunderbolt, and USB3.

The question I have though (bare with me I'm not super-spec smart). How would handle HD video editing? I'm looking at doing editing with a lot of cuts, transitions, and a fair amount of effects.

I couldn't help but notice in a lot of the pictures on the apple website it shows Final Cut Pro X. Which brings me to my next question, with FCPX I know its supposed to render while you edit, so would this mean a Macbook with FCPX would mean no waiting for rendering?

Thanks for any help!

 

[fs454]

Honestly, better than anything else on the market, save for an SSD-equipped 12-core Mac Pro costing upwards of $5500.

You're going to be able to see a full 1080p image within the viewer window without any scaling down, and the SSD will be blazing fast, as well thunderbolt I/O for any external drives you have.

Personally, I am selling my 8-core Mac Pro and my 11" Air and consolidating down to this notebook.


As for rendering, it'll be very, very fast. Have you used FCPX? What it does is allow you to keep editing while it renders/conforms footage in the background seamlessly anytime you aren't doing anything intensive. This notebook is currently the flagship professional machine for Apple and you can bet that it is equipped to rip through video like butter. I'd get the 16GB RAM model though, as in a few years you're going to be wishing it was upgradeable.

 

[snake8]

Honestly, better than anything else on the market, save for an SSD-equipped 12-core Mac Pro costing upwards of $5500.

You're going to be able to see a full 1080p image within the viewer window without any scaling down, and the SSD will be blazing fast, as well thunderbolt I/O for any external drives you have.

Personally, I am selling my 8-core Mac Pro and my 11" Air and consolidating down to this notebook.


As for rendering, it'll be very, very fast. Have you used FCPX? What it does is allow you to keep editing while it renders/conforms footage in the background seamlessly anytime you aren't doing anything intensive. This notebook is currently the flagship professional machine for Apple and you can bet that it is equipped to rip through video like butter. I'd get the 16GB RAM model though, as in a few years you're going to be wishing it was upgradeable.

Ok thanks for the advice! I'm currently running on an OLD power pc Mac Pro (at least 7 years, I lost count), and have become frustrated trying to edit even regular definition footage (HD just causes my also old version of Final Cut to crash).

If what you say is the case I might get one of these and a cinema display so I can get an iMac type screen and still enjoy the portability of a laptop. I guess the computer/programs crashing/freezing/spinning-death-wheel and render time were my major concerns though.

 

[boybrown]

The question I have though (bare with me I'm not super-spec smart). How would handle HD video editing? I'm looking at doing editing with a lot of cuts, transitions, and a fair amount of effects.

I couldn't help but notice in a lot of the pictures on the apple website it shows Final Cut Pro X. Which brings me to my next question, with FCPX I know its supposed to render while you edit, so would this mean a Macbook with FCPX would mean no waiting for rendering?

Thanks for any help!

The new retina MBPs come with only Flash Drives which can't be good for use as a scratch disk with the amount of reads and writes on an SSD. However, if you also purchase a RAID drive in addition to the already $2200+MBP for use as a scratch disk in addition to all the amazing new features mentioned in the Keynote yesterday, results for HD video seem overwhelming.

Also, due to extreme budget, I use a 2008 MacBook Pro with 8GB ram and 750GB 72rpm hard drive and the results for HD video aren't as bad as I thought. Check out my youtube channel, link in the signature, for an idea.

With all the new updates featured in the new retina MBP's, the results seem exponentially upward than what I'm dealing with right now.

 

[marvguitar]

If you are doing HD 1080p this computer will more than enough, even overkill...I predict RED 4K playback at 1/4 Res to be very smooth in Premiere. FCPX will absolutely crush 1080p with the new retina macbook pro.