Video editing on new flash MBP

[leekohler]

trying to simplify my life. It's time to get a new computer. I need to replace my last rev G5, but I'm not sure I want to get a Mac Pro. Does anyone have experience using the new MacBook Pro for video? It seems like it would be OK along with an external drive. Let me know.

 

[aarond12]

What video format are you editing? That will give us a better idea of what kind of bandwidth you need for your external drive.

 

[leekohler]

I just started recently getting into this, so bear with me if this is not what you need. I have been editing 720p, 30 FPS video, H.264 (MOV).

 

[Dave Braine]

Any of the current Macs will be fine for what you want to do.

 

[mBox]

If you cant wait for a new Mac Pro then get an iMac or Retina.
I would like to see your face when you fire up FCPX on a Retina compared to FCP on a G5
We have one G5 left at work and its doing all the Filemaker pro data base stuff.
They lasted a long time those workhorses

 

[leekohler]

If you cant wait for a new Mac Pro then get an iMac or Retina.
I would like to see your face when you fire up FCPX on a Retina compared to FCP on a G5
We have one G5 left at work and its doing all the Filemaker pro data base stuff.
They lasted a long time those workhorses

Planning on getting a Retina. I'm not happy with the MPs as Apple has been ignoring them. I went to the store and tried the MBPr and the MP quad core. The MBPr loaded faster and indeed did everything faster. Yes, I had a happy look on my face. It's a game changer for sure. I'll be going with the Retina MBP. The G5 will become a server.

Thanks! And I'm glad I waited so long to buy new. I've always had towers and laptops. When the MBPr came out, I suspected I could do with out a tower. That'll be nice. I am tired of transferring files from my G5 to my Macbook to go meet clients. Now, I think I can keep it all on the MBPr.

 

[\-V-/]

Any current Mac with a dedicated GPU should work just fine for video editing.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

Sure, that'd be fine. I sometimes even edit HD video on my 11" Macbook Air, without problems.

 

[leekohler]

Thanks again, all.

 

[stangaroo]

trying to simplify my life. It's time to get a new computer. I need to replace my last rev G5, but I'm not sure I want to get a Mac Pro. Does anyone have experience using the new MacBook Pro for video? It seems like it would be OK along with an external drive. Let me know.

I work in television as a tech director DP and editor for Sony and CBS, used to work for MTV... have always used a laptop from powerbook G4 to the new quad core. Honestly the bottleneck for me seems to be inspiration and focus, changing up my location for work wether it's at a starbucks or on a balcony etc seems to be the best aspect for my overall productivity but that's just me. Also some clients need you to come to them if they want to shadow edit so mobility in my opinion outweighs the brute force that the towers have (that's their only advantage)

If you pair your macbook pro with a thunderbolt RAID you're in great shape. I'd stay away from retina for now though as the video card does most of the rendering and if it's busy trying to articulate a resolution of a screen 4 times higher than the standard macbook pro, you'll probably run into some issues with that.

On a side note I cluster the macbook pro with a quad core mac pro for larger jobs and it works very well. If the render job is a few hours plus I just process it on the tower to keep the macbook free for other work.

Most of my work is in 1080p using apples uncompressed codec if that helps

 

[leekohler]

I work in television as a tech director DP and editor for Sony and CBS, used to work for MTV... have always used a laptop from powerbook G4 to the new quad core. Honestly the bottleneck for me seems to be inspiration and focus, changing up my location for work wether it's at a starbucks or on a balcony etc seems to be the best aspect for my overall productivity but that's just me. Also some clients need you to come to them if they want to shadow edit so mobility in my opinion outweighs the brute force that the towers have (that's their only advantage)

If you pair your macbook pro with a thunderbolt RAID you're in great shape. I'd stay away from retina for now though as the video card does most of the rendering and if it's busy trying to articulate a resolution of a screen 4 times higher than the standard macbook pro, you'll probably run into some issues with that.

On a side note I cluster the macbook pro with a quad core mac pro for larger jobs and it works very well. If the render job is a few hours plus I just process it on the tower to keep the macbook free for other work.

Most of my work is in 1080p using apples uncompressed codec if that helps

Thanks, I mainly do 720p. I will be using this with an external display for the heavy lifting. It should be fine.