Is a Powerbook enough for 1080i?

A

aquafox

Active member
First of all, thanks for a great forum (to which I've become addicted).

My question is this: I'm planning on buying an Apple Powerbook G4 1.67 GHz with 1 GB of memory and ATI Mobility Radeon 128MB graphics card. With Final Cut Studio, will this setup be powerful enough for editing DVCPRO HD, when I buy the HVX200 next year? The Apple website has recommendations for editing HD but they seem to be mostly talking about HDV and it has been said here and several other places, that DVCPRO HD is not as processor-intense as HDV's GOP-form is.

I'd like to get some kind of a definitive answer to this before I place my order. For storage I have several LaCie d2 Firewire800 drives, so that shouldn't become the bottleneck.

Thank you in advance for any light you can shed on this subject!

(Also, does anyone know of any updates on the subject of P2 problems with Powerbooks?)
 
that configuration should be near the minimum requirements for FCP4.5 (or FCP5) but you will find a lot of areas will suffer especially rendering, multiple layers and general sluggishness. I have read somewhere here that editing DVCPRO HD might be less of a taxation than HDV.

If you want to do editing and are under budget, get a G5 based system at the minimum if video is going to be one of your main uses. iMac G5 or better yet a dual G5 would be far far better. Also, OS X and many current and future apps have already been optimized for G5.

Apple is going to Intel next year because it couldn't get a G5 cool enough for the powerbook and the PB is very out of date in terms of processing power.

I'm sure Apple will fix the P2 issue by the time HVX200 is on the market thru an update to
OS X or FCP. Good luck.
 
Is the difference between G4 and G5 really that considerable?

I need a laptop - I was just hoping to edit with it too. Guess I'm out of luck :(

Thanks for the answer!
 
No, your not out of luck. The fact of the matter is the G5 is a marvel of engineering, with that said it's all depends on what your needs are. If you need portability go G4 if you need performance go with the G5.
 
I can confirm this last message - you are absolutely not out of luck.
I am working on exactly the same PBG4 configuration with an internal
100 GB HD and the ATI Radeon 9700 with 128 MB Vidao RAM. At home
I have a Cinema Display attached, on the go I use the 15" PBG4 display.
Works like a charm. Using the FC Studio combo, I am fully satisfied with
the performance. To test how it will work with DVCProHD material, I
converted some footage from Apple HD gallery over to DVCProHD and
guess what, there were no problems whatsowever. As was stated earlier
in this thread, the CPU probably has a lower workload to cope with then
with MPEG2 encoded material due to the intraframe structure of DVCProHD
which is, from its very concept, based on DV technology.
Look further only, when you really need it. Until then the Intel Powerbooks
might be on the market already.

Good luck!
Peter
 
just to add a note: wouldn't an offline edit on fcp with a powerbook work very very good, smooth, and relativey fast?

It is an extra step, but if its a huge project and what you really need is a rough cut, it seems like this would work best w/o demanding too much from your powerbook.
 
It all works fine for 720p footage. When it comes to 1080i, you will get loads of dropped frames and the clips won't play smoothly.
I have the same configurations as well, and I get it to play 1080i, but not as smooth as 720p.
So, my advice will be get a G5 to do it. Maybe, next year Apple will release a laptop with a processor capable of doing that.
But right now, it just doesn't work.
 
i agree with idvfilms...if you need portability then you go with G4. I'd wait until the 3rd week of Sept for a potential modest performance boost on the powerbook. if you dont need portability as much then the G5 will offer a better performance boost. Doing HD editing on PB G4 might require more horsepower than SD.
 
Rasquachemedia said:
just to add a note: wouldn't an offline edit on fcp with a powerbook work very very good, smooth, and relativey fast?

It is an extra step, but if its a huge project and what you really need is a rough cut, it seems like this would work best w/o demanding too much from your powerbook.
Click to expand...

Bingo. Do an offline edit, realtime everything, then go online with only the clips and effects you absolutely need.
 
Thank you all for your answers! It's a load off my mind :)

Though I wrote 1080i in the topic I think my needs will really be more in the DVCPRO50 and occasionally 720p-zone. If I need 1080 I can always do what you suggested - do the online someplace else where they have G5 :)

Thank you so much!
 
While we are at it, i am considering going for a G5 POWER MAC but i still dont know what sort of setup to go for. How much RAM is sufficient to edit DVCPRO-HD 1080p in realtime? i dont think i'd be going over 7 layer of effects in any case for the sort of work i do, will a 2GB do a fair job?
 
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