Pro 4K Video Editor reviews the new 15" MBP

[Deanster]

Says it blows the doors of similarly spec'd machines from other makers, at least with FCP X.

I've said it several times here, but IMHO, having insane I/O and an SSD that's starting to push towards the range of DDR2 RAM speeds should make these MBP's really amazingly fast in real-world use.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/thomas-grove-carter/one-professionals-look-at_b_12894856.html

"No matter what you think the specs say, the fact is the software and hardware are so well integrated it tears strips off “superior spec’d” Windows counterparts in the real world."

Much remains to be seen about how the new MBP's work in the real world, but I think a lot of the 'they're not pro' folks will end up eating their words.

Now, the 'they're hella expensive' people - there's no argument there. They're hella expensive, fo shizzle.

 

[swester]

Says it blows the doors of similarly spec'd machines from other makers, at least with FCP X.

Considering FCP X only runs on Mac OS, how can you make a fair comparison? Sort of a silly review, if you ask me.

 

[Deanster]

"How long does it take to do your work?" seems like a pretty reasonable pro metric to me?

 

[kevinkyoo]

No, it's not. The software has gotten to the point where it runs ridiculously well on these machines, even on the MacBook (There are videos showing how well the MacBooks edit 1080p or 4K videos).

But that's extremely limited in how other people use them. What if my work doesn't use Final Cut Pro X? Compared to Vegas Pro and Premiere Pro, it's extremely limited in its usage. If your line of work only requires of you to copy and paste, as well as drag timelines, then sure, FCPX will work for you.

My work requires me to edit together case videos that are already in 3D, then take hospital scans of 2D images and integrate them into these 3D clips. No way I can easily do that with FCPX, and I've accustomed myself into using Premiere Pro for those, although Vegas Pro is just as good.

So yes, if you want to chain yourself to mediocre "pro" apps, then of course any of the new MacBook computers will do well. But to denote this as a "pro" machine as if the rest of the "pro" market uses Apple apps is an exaggeration.

Also, taking reviews from sites like Huffington Post and The Verge is a joke.

 

[MH01]

When FCP X runs on windows or windows machine run OS X he might have a proper comparison .

From my experience a hackintosh tears strips off a Mac Pro.....

For the right people these will be great machines...especially the ones still doing video on macs...a dieing population

 

[Deanster]

No, it's not. The software has gotten to the point where it runs ridiculously well on these machines, even on the MacBook (There are videos showing how well the MacBooks edit 1080p or 4K videos).

But that's extremely limited in how other people use them. What if my work doesn't use Final Cut Pro X? Compared to Vegas Pro and Premiere Pro, it's extremely limited in its usage. If your line of work only requires of you to copy and paste, as well as drag timelines, then sure, FCPX will work for you.

My work requires me to edit together case videos that are already in 3D, then take hospital scans of 2D images and integrate them into these 3D clips. No way I can easily do that with FCPX, and I've accustomed myself into using Premiere Pro for those, although Vegas Pro is just as good.

So yes, if you want to chain yourself to mediocre "pro" apps, then of course any of the new MacBook computers will do well. But to denote this as a "pro" machine as if the rest of the "pro" market uses Apple apps is an exaggeration.

Also, taking reviews from sites like Huffington Post and The Verge is a joke.

Understood. Premiere is clearly a more-complete tool, I don't know Vegas at all, other than by reputation.

And... if Premiere is that much slower on better hardware, you have to question what the F Adobe is doing, right?

I'll be eager to see how Premiere runs on the new MBP's. I run both FCPx and the full Adobe CC suite (though I really mostly just use Lightroom/Photoshop/Premiere/InDesign), and in general it's pretty good 'ware. There's no universe where it's ok to get beaten by 7x on higher-spec hardware for something as basic as an h264 export, though. Simply no excuse in the world.

At some point we either need to say that the MacBook Pro is insanely fast, or that Premiere is insanely slow.

Agreed about huffpo also, but... We're all just grasping for information, given how few real-world reviews there are of the not-yet-released models. As soon as there's another review from another site from someone with hands-on use of a new 15" MBP, I'm sure it'll be posted. In the meantime, HuffPo's write-up from a video editor is the best we have to work with, right?

 

[kevinkyoo]

Understood. Premiere is clearly a more-complete tool, I don't know Vegas at all, other than by reputation.

And... if Premiere is that much slower on better hardware, you have to question what the F Adobe is doing, right?

I'll be eager to see how Premiere runs on the new MBP's. I run both FCPx and the full Adobe CC suite (though I really mostly just use Lightroom/Photoshop/Premiere/InDesign), and in general it's pretty good 'ware. There's no universe where it's ok to get beaten by 7x on higher-spec hardware for something as basic as an h264 export, though. Simply no excuse in the world.

At some point we either need to say that the MacBook Pro is insanely fast, or that Premiere is insanely slow.

Agreed about huffpo also, but... We're all just grasping for information, given how few real-world reviews there are of the not-yet-released models. As soon as there's another review from another site from someone with hands-on use of a new 15" MBP, I'm sure it'll be posted. In the meantime, HuffPo's write-up from a video editor is the best we have to work with, right?

Adobe uses the NVIDIA GPU for rendering. Given that Apple has gone with AMD again, it'll be extremely slow. Funny how they show PP during the demonstration.

I'm sure people will enjoy the MBP's, and this person's review was okay. But for my and many of my colleague's usages, we've already thankfully moved onto built PC's.

 

[Deanster]

Agreed. Everyone I know who does video for a living moved to Premiere on Windows either shortly before or shortly after the trash-can Mac Pro arrived, realizing that Apple just wasn't providing what they needed, and they're working off built 12-core+3x GPU PC's (or whatever they need), and are lugging around giant gaming laptops with desktop GPU's inside or just traveling with their desktop workstations in Pelican boxes.

Apple's total neglect of the true high-end - which honestly is all video at the moment, nothing else presents meaningful challenges to modern computers - is remarkable to me.

This doesn't seem like a tough group to service (box filled with RAM/CPU/GPU/IO), but Apple's clearly uninterested.

it creates a somewhat interesting situation for people like me, who do these tasks occasionally, but nowhere near full-time - I go back and forth between being able to have my needs met by an iPad Pro or 12" MacBook about 70% of the time, to really needing a MacBook Pro/iMac about 25% of the time, and for the last 5% I really wish I had a video workstation.

I've learned to just accept that 4K video exports are best done before I go to bed, and just pray they run smoothly.
[doublepost=1479080540][/doublepost]

Adobe uses the NVIDIA GPU for rendering. Given that Apple has gone with AMD again, it'll be extremely slow. Funny how they show PP during the demonstration.

I'm sure people will enjoy the MBP's, and this person's review was okay. But for my and many of my colleague's usages, we've already thankfully moved onto built PC's.

The one thing I'm confused about here is how FCPx ended up beating Premiere so badly?

Neither laptop has a dGPU, I wonder if FCPx handed it off to the iGPU, where Premiere just runs on the CPU alone unless there's an nVidia dGPU? I'd truly love to know more about this if you have the info?

Which kind of brings us back to your original point - lots of people don't have a choice of what hardware/software combo they're running, and if Premiere only runs well with an nVidia dGPU available... that's pretty limiting.

 

[jjjoseph]

Says it blows the doors of similarly spec'd machines from other makers, at least with FCP X.

I've said it several times here, but IMHO, having insane I/O and an SSD that's starting to push towards the range of DDR2 RAM speeds should make these MBP's really amazingly fast in real-world use.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/thomas-grove-carter/one-professionals-look-at_b_12894856.html

"No matter what you think the specs say, the fact is the software and hardware are so well integrated it tears strips off “superior spec’d” Windows counterparts in the real world."

Much remains to be seen about how the new MBP's work in the real world, but I think a lot of the 'they're not pro' folks will end up eating their words.

Now, the 'they're hella expensive' people - there's no argument there. They're hella expensive, fo shizzle.

Final Cut Pro x is not a professional video editing program. AVID and Premiere are the only ones that can be used in professional video and post facilities.

 

[jackoatmon]

Final Cut Pro x is not a professional video editing program. AVID and Premiere are the only ones that can be used in professional video and post facilities.

This is officially the most i-have-no-frickin-idea-what-i'm-talking-about comment of the week.

jjjoseph, lemme guess: you've never worked in video before.

 

[Deanster]

Final Cut Pro x is not a professional video editing program. AVID and Premiere are the only ones that can be used in professional video and post facilities.

The guy who wrote the article, who is a full-time video editor, appears to disagree, as do many many pro video and post facilities.

That said, I'd agree that Premiere and Avid are the clear industry standards. But 'only ones that can be used'? No, not even close.

 

[jjjoseph]

The guy who wrote the article, who is a full-time video editor, appears to disagree, as do many many pro video and post facilities.

That said, I'd agree that Premiere and Avid are the clear industry standards. But 'only ones that can be used'? No, not even close.

I've been doing post for 20 years. Final Cut Pro X can't be used in pro environments, which 90% are shared media and shared storage. Final Cut Pro X can't be used in pro facilities for these reasons. Anyone Pro or Not can dump media into their laptop cut something and export it. If you program can't be used in a standard established work flow that all pro facilities use. It's not Pro. Every Final Cut Pro X project my company has the pleasure of finishing. Features. Tv shows. Shorts. We finish about 20 Final Cut Pro x projects a year. They all Have to be recut to get on television or digital upload. I have more direct knowledge of tv and film finishing than anyone on this forum. Final Cut Pro X is not Pro.

 

[kevinkyoo]

Agreed. Everyone I know who does video for a living moved to Premiere on Windows either shortly before or shortly after the trash-can Mac Pro arrived, realizing that Apple just wasn't providing what they needed, and they're working off built 12-core+3x GPU PC's (or whatever they need), and are lugging around giant gaming laptops with desktop GPU's inside or just traveling with their desktop workstations in Pelican boxes.

Apple's total neglect of the true high-end - which honestly is all video at the moment, nothing else presents meaningful challenges to modern computers - is remarkable to me.

This doesn't seem like a tough group to service (box filled with RAM/CPU/GPU/IO), but Apple's clearly uninterested.

it creates a somewhat interesting situation for people like me, who do these tasks occasionally, but nowhere near full-time - I go back and forth between being able to have my needs met by an iPad Pro or 12" MacBook about 70% of the time, to really needing a MacBook Pro/iMac about 25% of the time, and for the last 5% I really wish I had a video workstation.

I've learned to just accept that 4K video exports are best done before I go to bed, and just pray they run smoothly.
[doublepost=1479080540][/doublepost]

The one thing I'm confused about here is how FCPx ended up beating Premiere so badly?

Neither laptop has a dGPU, I wonder if FCPx handed it off to the iGPU, where Premiere just runs on the CPU alone unless there's an nVidia dGPU? I'd truly love to know more about this if you have the info?

Which kind of brings us back to your original point - lots of people don't have a choice of what hardware/software combo they're running, and if Premiere only runs well with an nVidia dGPU available... that's pretty limiting.

Beats me. Apple's ability to crush rendering times with their below-average tech still baffles me, amazes me, and makes me sad as to think what would be if they bothered updating to actual pro parts

 

[Deanster]

I've been doing post for 20 years. Final Cut Pro X can't be used in pro environments, which 90% are shared media and shared storage. Final Cut Pro X can't be used in pro facilities for these reasons. Anyone Pro or Not can dump media into their laptop cut something and export it. If you program can't be used in a standard established work flow that all pro facilities use. It's not Pro. Every Final Cut Pro X project my company has the pleasure of finishing. Features. Tv shows. Shorts. We finish about 20 Final Cut Pro x projects a year. They all Have to be recut to get on television or digital upload. I have more direct knowledge of tv and film finishing than anyone on this forum. Final Cut Pro X is not Pro.

I'm sure you're speaking from your experience, and thanks for bringing that expertise here. However, you should also know that there's plenty of people using FCPX for broadcast and film work.

here's just one list... http://fcpx.tv/Pages/professionals.html

Mexico's Azteca TV network does 1200 shows/year in FCPX. NBC uses it in-house... and on and on.

Again, I'm agreeing that Avid/Premiere are the most-common, industry standard products, by a wide mile.

I'm ONLY arguing with your all-or-nothing stance that they're the ONLY formats used in pro facilities. It's simply not true.
[doublepost=1479084029][/doublepost]

Beats me. Apple's ability to crush rendering times with their below-average tech still baffles me, amazes me, and makes me sad as to think what would be if they bothered updating to actual pro parts

Sure looks like Adobe supports AMD GPU acceleration on Macs, and has since 2013.

https://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/adobe-premiere-pro-cc-and-gpu-support/
http://www.amd.com/en-us/solutions/software-partners/adobe/solutions

 

[kevinkyoo]

I'm sure you're speaking from your experience, and thanks for bringing that expertise here. However, you should also know that there's plenty of people using FCPX for broadcast and film work.

here's just one list... http://fcpx.tv/Pages/professionals.html

Mexico's Azteca TV network does 1200 shows/year in FCPX. NBC uses it in-house... and on and on.

Again, I'm agreeing that Avid/Premiere are the most-common, industry standard products, by a wide mile.

I'm ONLY arguing with your all-or-nothing stance that they're the ONLY formats used in pro facilities. It's simply not true.
[doublepost=1479084029][/doublepost]

Sure looks like Adobe supports AMD GPU acceleration on Macs, and has since 2013.

https://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/adobe-premiere-pro-cc-and-gpu-support/
http://www.amd.com/en-us/solutions/software-partners/adobe/solutions

Interesting, last one I used for editing was the 2012 model. From what I've heard, these rendering times aren't as close to those by NVIDIA

 

[malu05a]

The guy just magically Got the MBP 15" before everyone else. And unlike others was not forced to take down his review.
He might be honest but that is a big bag of bias right there.

 

[jjjoseph]

The guy just magically Got the MBP 15" before everyone else. And unlike others was not forced to take down his review.
He might be honest but that is a big bag of bias right there.

Yeah, maybe the guy is writing an insider FLUFF peace in the hopes that Apple gives him a full time job.