Which Macbook Pro requirements for Final Cut Pro 7

[stoneuser]

Hi everybody,
i would like to buy a Macbook Pro to start an activity of editing HD videos of 30 minutes more or less. To better explain the souce files, i'm talking about fulla HD video of a Canon 5D mark II.
Since my budget is a bit low i was thinkin to start from a used mac book pro, like for example :
MacBook Pro 17"
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed 2.8 GHz
Bus speed: 1066 MHz
hard disk: 500 GB
DVD-R/CD-RW Superdrive
Video board NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT and GeForce 9400M
Risolution: 1920x1200
VRAM: 512MB GDDR3
Webcam: iSight
Port: Ethernet: Gigabit
USB: 3
FireWire: 1
June 2009
What do you think about it? Will be able to do such work? Any suggestions? I rather prefer a laptop for ligistic reasons.
Thank you in advance for any answer and suggestion

 

[cgbier]

Save some money for an external drive (min. FW800).

 

[stoneuser]

Save some money for an external drive (min. FW800).

So with the above mentioned Macbook Pro and an external drive as you suggest i could work fine?

 

[WestSt]

So with the above mentioned Macbook Pro and an external drive as you suggest i could work fine?

It'll fly with FCP7 (unless you are doing 10 layers, 4K video, heavy compositing, or something?). Really heavy Motion or Color projects might give a bit of rendering time as well. Are you on deadlines that won't allow time for rendering? If not, have a meal, some sleep, or call a good friend

 

[stoneuser]

It'll fly with FCP7 (unless you are doing 10 layers, 4K video, heavy compositing, or something?). Really heavy Motion or Color projects might give a bit of rendering time as well. Are you on deadlines that won't allow time for rendering? If not, have a meal, some sleep, or call a good friend

Are we talking about minutes, hours? I mean i have no deadlines so tight but it will happen that i could work a few hours each day so waitin too much time leads to more days to finish the whole project

 

[cgbier]

I'm editing with FCP 6 on a 2007 2.4 GHz iMac. One generation older than your dream machine. It is not really a race horse, but runs fine.
Motion and Color a bit slow, but workable.

Rendering? That's making money while you sleep.

----------

BTW, my stuff is normally 1/2 broadcast hour long. That won't even bring your MBP to sweat.

 

[WestSt]

Are we talking about minutes, hours? I mean i have no deadlines so tight but it will happen that i could work a few hours each day so waitin too much time leads to more days to finish the whole project

30 secs, 5 min, several hours - it all depends. But for several hours we are talking REALLY HEAVY stuff. In short: don't worry about it! As mentioned, with "normal" work, FCP7 will fly on the MBP specs you listed.

But don't take my word for it. Cgbier is a pro (I'm a hobbyist), and he's managing well

 

[careypo]

I would recommend adding a Matrox MXO 2 mini with thunderbolt adaptor for external monitoring to a television. $540 very well spent.

 

[Zwhaler]

All those specs and no mention of RAM??? Don't use less than 4GB or it will be pretty painful. Also the biggest help for FCP 7 would be an SSD.

 

[cgbier]

I'm not a pro. I just was lucky enough to find a job that pays me for my hobby.

Don't worry too much about rendering time. Before you go to bed, send your stuff to Compressor and build the batches.
If you don't care much about disk space or distribution export it directly to quicktime. Takes only a couple of minutes.

 

[arjen92]

All those specs and no mention of RAM??? Don't use less than 4GB or it will be pretty painful. Also the biggest help for FCP 7 would be an SSD.

If I'm correct, FCP7 is 32 bit and uses about 2.5 GB of your RAM, nothing more. 4 gigabyte should be more than enough.

I run FCP7 on my iMac with 4 GB RAM, no problem at all.

About the SSD, that's fun for booting your mac and software, but you don't need an SSD to run FCP7 smooth. He's better off with an external drive for the footage. They're cheaper and you get a lot of space.

 

[cgbier]

If I'm correct, FCP7 is 32 bit and uses about 2.5 GB of your RAM, nothing more. 4 gigabyte should be more than enough.

You're right, but don't forget that the OS and other background services also need RAM.

I have been editing on my old MacBook with the standard 2GB RAM. Upgrading to 4GB was like changing from a Yugo into a Porsche.

 

[stoneuser]

Thank you guys,
your suggestions are very helpful for these my first steps!
Actually i'm also considering to buy a new mac. The purpose is the same, using FCP 7 for editing HD short movies.
Well which are not the minimum but the good requirements to work fine in a brand new mac book pro?
Let's consider as first step to star this new discussion, the basic 15" mac book configuration
Intel Core i7 quad-core a 2,2GHz
4GB di SDRAM DDR3 a 1333MHz - 2x2GB
500GB - Hard Disk Serial ATA a 5400 giri/min
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
widescreen MacBook Pro 15"
Is this enough or shhould be increased Hard disk speed ?