Final Cut Pro on Macbook. in the Vimeo Technical Help Forum

Chris Stamm 2 months ago

I searched the forums for this and couldn't find anything germane.

I can't seem to get a straight answer from anyone about this.

How well does Final Cut run on a Macbook? Good enough?

Dudes at the Apple store were pretty adamant about holding out for a Macbook Pro if was going to be editing.

Suggestions? Experiences editing with Final Cut on a Macbook? I'd like to save 1,000 dollars if possible.
Alex Gollner 2 months ago

It depends on where your footage is coming from. If it is DV, you'll be fine with a MacBook. I've had no problems editing DV and DVCPRO HD with Final Cut Pro 6 on an old Powerbook 1.25 GHz G4, which is a lot less powerful than a MacBook. I still use it to digitise HDV onto a hard drive while I edit away on another computer.

If you want to edit HDV on it, you _might_ need to transcode to DVCPRO HD. Slower Macs sometimes have problems with complicated edits using HDV. HDV can be your acquisition codec, AIC or DVCPRO HD can be your editing codec.
Stephen Lewis 2 months ago

How do i convert 1080i60 footage that his HDV to DVCPROHD? (Can I do it with Final Cut EXPRESS?)
Thanks!
Alex Gollner 2 months ago

In Final Cut Pro, you can click the footage or a sequence in the browser and export as DVCPRO HD. I don't have Express, but I think it doesn't work with DVCPRO HD. In FCP you can transcode into AIC on capture if you like. Compressor can also be used to transcode to other codecs.
Cristiano Betta 2 months ago

I have a 4th gen 4GB Ram Macbook and I must admit, when I edited HDV a few weeks ago it was slow. The solution though for most issues is to do an offline edit (in a lower res) and then after editing do one output to a full res file. Works like a charm.
Petr Tomicek 2 months ago

The difference between Macbook and Macbook pro are as following:

1)Lower processor speed - most important thing when working and encoding video.

2)Lower processor cache - same as above

3)no dedicated graphic card - not sure how much effect this has, however I think I read somewhere that final cut uses the nvidia/ati graphics card to speed up effects and stuff

4) smaller screen - people get macbook pro for editing because it has bigger screen and you can get up to 17 inch high resolution screen (can display full HD).

There are few things I can say. Macbook pro is designed for professionals, audio or video, in mind, it is also a reason why macbook will never get all the advantages listed above. You will be able to edit on macbook, but the experience will not be as pleasant as on macbook pro.

If you want a cheap Macbook pro, I recommend looking at apple website for refurbished units, they appear time to time and mainly at the time when new generation/upgrade is made available. The new generation is expected sometime in the summer.
Chris Stamm 2 months ago

Thanks all!

I am still totally torn.