Which Mac shoul I get?

T

TheRoadKiller

Member
I'm trying to decide what Mac I should purchase to edit my movie. I'm using an HVX200 and shooting alot of 1080/24pA stuff for the movie, with some 720 thrown in for cranks. The two Macs I'm looking at are the Imac and MacBook Pro. The Imac specs are


  • 3.06GHz Intel Core i3
  • 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
  • 500GB Serial ATA Drive
  • ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MB GDDR3 SDRAM
  • 8x double-layer SuperDrive
  • Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
  • Magic Mouse
And the Macbook Pro specs are


  • 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  • 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
  • 250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
  • None
  • Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide
  • None
  • SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

Both cost 1199, and I'll be running Final Cut Studio for editing. Also, is the upgrade to an 8GB worth it? Or is 4 GB good enough? Obviously, the Macbook pro has a smaller screen (13 inches compared to 21) but I want the one that will be faster and better for editing. Any advice is much appreciated, thanks.
 
I believe if you check the benchmark tests on those two models you will find the Imac i3 performs faster. This may be better for demanding 1080 HD footage, but I think both will handle it. I'm using a PowerMac dual G5 2.5 ghz and 720 edits fine...1080 is sluggish.

If it were me, using either of the above, I would edit footage from a faster external drive rather than the 5400 rpm internal drives...this may be the one bottleneck for certain HD footage.
 
I've found the MacBook setup to be more versatile due to it's portability. Regarding large screen concerns, do you have a large HDTV? You could connect to that via HDMI.
 
mentatDUKE said:
I've found the MacBook setup to be more versatile due to it's portability. Regarding large screen concerns, do you have a large HDTV? You could connect to that via HDMI.
Click to expand...

I have a 22 inch Vizio so that would certainly do. I guess what I'm mostly concerned about is if the graphics chip is good enough to handle FCP rendering and filters.
 
DGW said:
I believe if you check the benchmark tests on those two models you will find the Imac i3 performs faster. This may be better for demanding 1080 HD footage, but I think both will handle it. I'm using a PowerMac dual G5 2.5 ghz and 720 edits fine...1080 is sluggish.

If it were me, using either of the above, I would edit footage from a faster external drive rather than the 5400 rpm internal drives...this may be the one bottleneck for certain HD footage.
Click to expand...

Gotchya, yeah it'd be good to have an external drive to help the system run faster.
 
Without doubt the imac is going to be faster.

What do you want faster or more portable?
 
Noel Evans said:
Without doubt the imac is going to be faster.

What do you want faster or more portable?
Click to expand...


Hmmm...The portability thing does seem nice but with trying to do a feature I probably want more fast to have shorter render times. Is editing from a portable hard drive still needed for the Imac or could I save on the comp without too much trouble?
 
I love my MBP, I can grab it and go without a need for a power cord and still get a few hours (3+) of editing on it without the need to find an outlet. Of course it isn't nearly as fast as that iMac will be, but I have never really had any speed issues. I work from a few WD passports, not the best option but they work really well for on-the-go projects so I can access things from the road. Basically comes down to what Noel said about the portability/speed considerations

Adam
 
If you go with a desktop you are going to get much more power for your money. And I hate to say this cause I will probably get flamed, but if you go with a PC on top of that you'll spend even less. Although you use FCP, so that probably isn't an option. I just built a Core i7 950 with 8gb of ram and a Nvidia GTX 460 for 1200 bucks... love it. Editing HD video has never been so smooth! Scenes that took 35 minutes to render in after effects on my Core 2 Duo, now take about 2 minutes on my i7.
 
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