Editing in HD on a MacBook Pro

[Ferdi Willemse]

Hi guys,

I recently (2 months ago) upgraded my PC for about 2700 euro. I now found out that I'm really tired of Microsoft's OS. In desperation I even bought Windows Vista, which I really shouldn't have...

Anyway, I'm editing everything in HD, which works pretty well on Premiere Pro 2, but I'd like to give FCP a chance. There is also a big chance that I might be leaving this country maybe this or next year to go and live in Siberia. It might be handier to have a MacBook with me instead of a PC.

What do you guys think? Is a MacBook Pro capable of editing HD footage pretty fast? Or should I stick with my Intel QX6700 Quad Core w/ 4GB ram on Windows software?

If I decide to switch to a MacBook now, I might still get some money for this PC.

Thanks in advance!

 

[soulslinga]

i just switched from a desktop PC running Premier to a macbook running FCP.
my desktop had 2gbs of ram, 800 GB Sata Raid 1, Pentium 4 - 3.0ghz, radeon 9800 pro gfx card.
Now i have a 17 inch macbook pro with 3gbs of ram - and it blows my pc out of the water.

Having used both programs its my opinion that fcp produces sharper images -- you'll notice if you compare a dissolve created in Premier to one In FCP, fcp is nicer.
The same with speed changes. FCP has more features and more ways of accomplishing the same things.
FCP is also less buggy.

If you're editing HD on the road, hard drive space is your biggest enemy.
i would HIGHLY recomend offline editing, that way you can probably keep most of your footage on your laptop with no external. A full tape will take up a few gigs of space rather than dozens of gigs. Read about it here:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/offline_rt.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/media_manager_fcp_4_balis.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/FCP_4_trim_dang_it.html

 

[NoahK]

If we're talking HDV or DVCPROHD- absolutely with a good external drive like a G-RAID or G-RAID Mini. With uncompressed HD- that you want a desktop Mac for me.

Noah