cheapest Mac for FCP

ciencin

ciencin

Well-known member
So came the day when my beloved Adobe Premiere cant fill my needs any more :( And as much as I hate to leave it, a transition to FCP is needed (need to be editing 5D mkII & ex3 footage which I hear does not work so well on pc's)

So my question is what is one of the cheapest macs I can get to run FCP? (of course I'd like the mac to run fcp without lagging too much as well, it doesnt have to be very fast just as long I can edit 720/25p footage without pulling my hair out due to it crashing every few mins...)

Thanks,
Michael
 
Eventually there should be a sticky that explains system requirements and ideal systems for FCP as these questions often come up.

Though the article above is very informative, it is slightly dated. And it doesn't answer your question very well.

As a temp editing system I've been using a new Mac Mini 2.53ghz. I've been cutting a short film shot on the 7d at 1080. *The footage is on a hard drive 7200rpm firewire 800. I've now used the mini to cut 2 48hr film fest films plus this film all 1080 7d. It works just fine. (also using FCP 7 and editing using pro res)

Now the mini is the cheapest to buy new. If I was in your shoes and was considering it, I'd purchase it from Bestbuy which should give you a 14 day window to return if not satisfied. Buy it, test the heck out of it with your footage to see if it fits your needs. If it don't just return.

Also, one can buy refurbished macs off apples site which give decent discounts yet come with the year warranty.
 
Yeah, I've been eyeing a Mini now that my Macbook Pro is on the fritz. I wouldn't have considered it before, but now that it has a FW800 port, 2 core processor and a real graphics chip (no integrated crap), and can do dual screen, it's very tempting. On paper it's better than my 3 year old Macbook Pro and I've been editing fine on it.
 
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