Macbook or a "normal laptop?"

MatthewC

MatthewC

Well-known member
Hey DVXusers. I'm sort of in a dilemma.

I'm about to go to film school for one year at CAPP College in North Vancouver.
I've always been an avid Windows user, avoiding Macs as much as possible.
I'm fairly fluent with Adobe Premiere Pro and use it exclusively.

Now my school wants to teach me Final Cut Pro in my first year. I'm considering the possibility of buying a Macbook so I can edit at school and home without any issues.
I figure that for $1200 or whatever I plan to spend, that I could buy a Windows laptop or a Mac laptop, but video editing wise a $1200 Mac laptop would definitely be better for video editing than a $1200 Windows laptop. True? False? Thoughts please.

What would the recommended minimum be? How well are they for video editing on lower priced models? I'm new to this Macworld and I'm fairly certain its the way to go , but I'm going to miss my poor Adobe Premiere Pro. I'm looking for any advice regarding this rather broad subject matter.
 
MatthewC said:
but video editing wise a $1200 Mac laptop would definitely be better for video editing than a $1200 Windows laptop. True? False? Thoughts please.
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Well, we all know that this thread will de-evolve into a Mac/PC war, but this statement isn't true. For $1,200 you can get a very nice PC laptop. I don't think Mac recommends the Macbook for video work, rather it wants you to have the Macbook Pro which is $2,000 starting price.

What are you editing? SD DV footage?
 
If you think you are going to need a Mac laptop, then go for a refurbed Macbook Pro, the added resolution along with Bus speed and video ram will help you be more efficient and is a better value, imo
 
Gotta be proficient on both platforms. I use both, have a PC and Mac laptop. Final Cut is a very good program. I migrated from Premiere on Windows.

Also, the new Premiere works on Mac so buying a Mac laptop is a no brainer. One machine, both programs. Win/Win situation....er Mac/Mac.
 
Isaac_Brody said:
GWin/Win situation....er Mac/Mac
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awesome.

for some reason i always forget about that, and if you own premier for the PC only at the moment, theres always bootcamp too so you can still use your Premier for PC if you have it. you dont need to purchase all new softwares
 
Isaac_Brody said:
Gotta be proficient on both platforms. I use both, have a PC and Mac laptop. Final Cut is a very good program. I migrated from Premiere on Windows.

Also, the new Premiere works on Mac so buying a Mac laptop is a no brainer. One machine, both programs. Win/Win situation....er Mac/Mac.
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That's excellent. My only concern with a cheaper Windows laptop is the crappy video card, that's not going to help out very much at all. Most Macbook pros, even refurbished, seem to be over my budget. It's not worth it to get just a regular Macbook.
 
MatthewC said:
That's excellent. My only concern with a cheaper Windows laptop is the crappy video card, that's not going to help out very much at all. Most Macbook pros, even refurbished, seem to be over my budget. It's not worth it to get just a regular Macbook.
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Most NLEs don't use the video card, so it won't affect editing. Visual effects apps tend to use it, though.

But you can usually put together a screaming laptop for hundreds less than the base model Macbook Pro.
 
A regular Macbook is fine if all you're going to edit is DV over firewire. I can do it on my wife's 600 MHZ G3 ibook. Any kind of HD editing is probably do-able on the MacBoook but will be a hassle (long render times, jerky playback).
 
I have a regular Macbook and it cuts DV, and HVX 720P footage just fine. No long render times or jerky playback.
 
I dont have a macbook , but a friend has a Core 2 Duo White Macbook and he has had no problems editing the 720p footage we shoot for him on his projects. Just max out the ram. Remember Macbook's dont have video cards either, just shared integrated graphics
 
Nic Aragon said:
I dont have a macbook , but a friend has a Core 2 Duo White Macbook and he has had no problems editing the 720p footage we shoot for him on his projects. Just max out the ram. Remember Macbook's dont have video cards either, just shared integrated graphics
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Agreed. I used to edit with FCP on a MacBook and it is a screamer. Lack of a video card means no Color, Motion, or Magic Bullet but for FCP it works flawlessly.

See here for benchmarks:

http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=43717
 
One detail to mention in the MacBook vs. PC laptop discussion.... if ever you intend to do live capturing to your NLE in the field, or even some backup chores, the MacBooks supply nice, reliable bus power for FW drives. I don't think any other notebooks do that... so even if running under windows, you can have a nice, small, stable, fast external drive solution...
 
Think of it this way - What do most Mac users have in common? They were former PC/Windows users at one time, one way or another (for work, school, etc.).

Have you ever heard of a native Mac user switching to PC unless they absolutely had to? Probably not a coincidence.

Once you go Mac, you never go back.
 
Greg Bartlett said:
Think of it this way - What do most Mac users have in common? They were former PC/Windows users at one time, one way or another (for work, school, etc.).

Have you ever heard of a native Mac user switching to PC unless they absolutely had to? Probably not a coincidence.

Once you go Mac, you never go back.
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Amazingly, I have never owned a PC or even used one for more than half a day...My first computer was an Apple IIc, followed by a Mac Classic, then a G3, G4, G5, and now a MacBook Pro. I have actually logged more hours on a TRS-80 I monkeyed with when I was in grade school.
 
ullanta said:
One detail to mention in the MacBook vs. PC laptop discussion.... if ever you intend to do live capturing to your NLE in the field, or even some backup chores, the MacBooks supply nice, reliable bus power for FW drives. I don't think any other notebooks do that... so even if running under windows, you can have a nice, small, stable, fast external drive solution...
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They will supply bus power for USB drives.
 
David Jimerson said:
They will supply bus power for USB drives.
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Yes... but in my experience such setups have been much flakier and slower than bus-powered FW drives (so many of the USB buspower drives need to be plugged into two USB ports to grab enough power, also, and depending on where the ports are on the computer the whole setup can get very awkward and prone to disconnection...). I've used 7 different brands of bus-powered FW drives without a problem, but have had many issues with USB bus-powered drives... sad, of course, as they're cheaper and I'd like to use 'em for backup, but the risk of crashing the system has proven too high!
 
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