can a macbook pro make for a decent GH1 editing platform?

H

harzig

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It's basically all in the title… i have the opportunity to get a maxed out 13-inch macbook (2.53Ghz) for a decent price. this would allow me to get a lot of editing done while traveling this summer – only question is: will the machine be able to handle it (conversion, hi-res editing, color grading)?
thanks for your input!
 
harzig said:
It's basically all in the title… i have the opportunity to get a maxed out 13-inch macbook (2.53Ghz) for a decent price. this would allow me to get a lot of editing done while traveling this summer – only question is: will the machine be able to handle it (conversion, hi-res editing, color grading)?
thanks for your input!
Click to expand...


I use an older MBPro 17", don't know about the MB 13". The Pro line still has Firewire, which was important to me. The Wife got the new MBPro 15"....

For the longest time I used an iBook of 2005 vintage... but that was for SD projects, using my DVX100.

I would imagine that for a camera that is using SD cards, the MB would be ok, just if you do fancy editing that requires major rendering... let it run over night....

Color grading. I calibrate my screen, but I'm not absolutely worried about minor color deviations. The Wife goes berzerk on such things, but she sends a lot of stills to labs, so there's more of a reason for matching. We use to have a CRT calibrated, but these days she's ok with the Apple Display, and on her 15" it seems to be 'ok', just she has to slightly adjust for the screen being slightly darker than her usual print vendor output.
 
I edit most of my GH1 footage on a first gen intel iMac and a white Macbook from 2007. You'll be fine.
 
thanks for the responses so far.
first time i heard of the elgato tool. seems odd that i should need a piece of hardware to accelerate conversion, but i'll look into it. right now i use VoltaicHD. elgato converts to h.264, right, but wouldn't the prores formats be preferable, qualitywise?
 
How much RAM does the MB have? I've got a 15" MBP (2.53 GHz + 4GB RAM) and it's very quick - well up to all the video and image editing from my GH1. You may find the 13" screen a bit small for a lot of picture work - but if you're planning on using it while travelling this summer, that's an obvious trade-off. Make sure you've got (or get) the latest iLife for iPhoto '09 and iMovie '09. A good-sized internal drive would be a big asset too - if you need or want to upgrade it, go for a 7,200 rpm to maximise performance. And if the MB is one of those that has Firewire, even better - useful for fast back-ups, and other things too - but not essential. Have you tried it for yourself yet?
 
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