I know it has already been established that the macbook pro will work fine with ex1 footage for basic editing but i notice thats usually as far as the conversation goes. Im interested to know if anyone out there is editing 1080p hq footage along with magic bullet looks and maybe even some chroma keying in after effects on a macbook pro as a main editing system, or is this where the line is drawn and calls for a mac pro.

I ask the question because i now have the money for a new system, either a macbook pro or a new quad core system and of course i like the idea of saving a little cash yet not willing to compromise on performance. So knowing the type of work i intend to do (cut, colour correct, after effects) do you think i am asking a little too much from macbook pro or would this do the job?

I'm no expert on editing but I asked the same question of a bunch of people recently and they all told me that unless I was mainly an editor with a lot of serious compositing doing professional work as my main living, that for small scale activity the MacBook Pro's were extremely powerful; and more than enough power for me.

I've set it up on my desktop replacing my old G4 and it is driving a Dell 24". The biggest hassle is there are fewer inputs for drives and accessories so you might think about that.

I use an expresscard adapter with 2 eSATA plugs that can power as many as 10 eSATA drives each so that's pretty powerful.

Others could give more expert opinion though.

Lenny

Thanks Leonard, i would be curious to hear how your new system is working out for you. What type of work have you done with it and are you managing to get real time playback from hq footage? Im an amateur when it comes to external hard drives and things, i was hoping that 1 external firewire drive would be fast enough but i'm hoping to learn more about the other options out there.

Also how does your macbook pro compare to your old g5? Sorry for all the questions but you know what it's like before parting with several thousand £/$. :)

I ask the question because i now have the money for a new system, either a macbook pro or a new quad core system and of course i like the idea of saving a little cash yet not willing to compromise on performance.

Well, there's your answer - if you're not willing to compromise on performance get the Mac Pro - it's much faster than the MacBook Pro. That said the current MacBooks are significantly faster than most of the systems I've used for pro work over the past decade so it's certainly within their capabilities.

I just picked up a new 17" and I've been doing a mix of FCP & AE stuff for the past week, working mostly with HDV - cutting & color correction with at most a couple of layers at a time. I got the HD screen option and full-screen previews look great, even when doing real-time color-corrected previews. It's handled everything well although when previewing full screen I'll occasionally see it drop resolution during real-time previews on transitions between two cc'd layers - overall though it's been working well.

All my footage is currently running off either fw400 or 800 drives - I see little difference between the two in real world performance and find that with mpeg2-based codecs like HDV/XDCam the bottleneck is the processor rather than drive speed, at least in terms of multi-stream playback.

It's slowed down in one situation for me so far - an SD sequence with two HDV layers, both scaled, cropped and CC'd, one placed PIP over the other with drop shadow and a small bug in the corner on a third layer - this shows orange on the render bar and drops about half the frames during playback.

The one place it still falls short is compression. Multi-pass 1080p h.264 compression still takes at least 5-10x real-time. I haven't done any tests with HD on an 8-core yet but a friend was getting 176fps ripping DVD's with Handbrake, so I wouldn't be surprised to see HD getting close to real-time. I'm planning to give it a shot with the macbook as my primary editing system but if I find myself needing to do a lot more compression I think I'll end up getting a Mac Pro as well.

Evan, that was the kind of feedback i was hoping to hear, thank you. I know i have the money for a quad core but i was really hoping to use some left over change for hard drives, monitor etc but i really don't want to skimp on playback performance and what the machine is capable of.

Gents
The Mac is one basic platform for editing programs. Most all of them, including a G5, will edit XDCam footage.

The emphasis here is on "edit". That means cutting shots together. If that's what you're going to do (in the industry we call that "cuts, fades and dissolves"), then you're fine with any of them.

However, you start to add graphics, effects, titles, filters, transitions, multiple video layers, and...

this thing called "rendering" starts to crop up. The clips you modify will need to be rendered before they will play back (with aforementioned graphics, filters, looks, effects added).

This is where processing power and memory comes in. The faster machines will render, well, faster. Less waiting around to see what your tweaks did. More achieved per hour.

All of the machines will do what you ask, in the end.

My colleague just finished compressing a 20 minute piece shot in HDV for the web. He had multiple video layers and multiple filters/looks/effects.
On his maxed out 17" MacBook Pro, the compression took just under 6 hours, and that's from a Quicktime reference file...

On an Octo Mac with 8GB of RAM, that same render took just under 40 minutes.

Hello, i am considering to buy the new Macbook Pro 17" (WUXGA 1920x1200), 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM and 200GB 7200rpm hard drive.
My question is:
- Is the problem "only" the rendering speed or the working smoothness to.
I know rendering speed is one of the mos important feautures for buy a Mac or an other computer PC, but working smoothness, is for me veryimportant to

Alessandro Zumstein

i really don't want to skimp on playback performance and what the machine is capable of.

May I tip the balance the other way for a moment?

I do a lot of editing on-site, so I've used FCP in a PowerBook and now MacBook Pro for, egad, seven years? More? That's corporates, infomercials, candids, mini-docs, motion graphics. I haven't edited a music video yet, but I have graded them... on my MacBook Pro.

Now I'm shooting on an EX1, a MacBook Pro is even more essential, so I can offload cards to a working FW800 drive and a USB archive drive. As an After Effects jockey, rendering has always been a fact of life, so I don't stress the orange bars. In fact, the 'render wander' can be a good thing. We all need time to put the kettle on, read the paper or even take a meal or sleep on it. There are ways of experimenting in real time.

Of course, my work is mainly editing on location, so a big desktop Mac will never be part of my kit. I did have one for a while, but found the compromise of raw processing power and lots of ancillary equipment over being tied to one location too limiting, and ended up using it as an ingest station and render farm. With a MBP, I can edit anywhere and only need to 'Finish' (grading, audio sweetening) in the office. And that's just attaching monitors and audio to the MacBook Pro.

PS: I'll come clean - I'm paranoid about switching to a desktop Mac, just in case I become spoiled and addicted to the power like many of my colleagues. I'm like a biker who won't drive a car because being warm and dry may win over exhilaration.

Matt, thanks very much for you input, i really like how ypu put that and makes me want to investigate more. Because I'm still in PC land and currently using vegas my big concern is reltime playback from the timeline from fcp as im too used to this to work any other way. I understand that the final render to your finishing codec will take a while, im ok with sleeping while my machine does that but i really couldnt handle doing that to 'check my timeline'. In other words, lets say i just graded a music video with magic bullet on a 720p hq timeline, how would the macbook react when i want to view the entire piece back before a final render. Would i have to sit through hours of rendering just to see what it looks like? im a little unsure of how final cuts preview renders differe compared to the final render to a finishing codec, do they both take the same amount of time?

Daniel

Yes, as soon as you modify any clip, the timeline has a red stripe above the clip position and the picture says Unrendered. You can spot check stills frames from the clip but you can't play that clip until you render it. And this happens even with color grading, as you are proposing to do.

I don't know too much about Vegas and effects, but I do know that on Edius you don't have to do that. I haven't used Vegas with effects (cuts, fades and dissolves only)

Apart from that, personally I have both Mac and PC computers, around 8 in all, with another 18 at work, and as far as SxS goes I believe that it's more or less the same workflow no matter which platform you use.

I know that in the past the Mac platform has been preferred for doing AV but I think that's changing now. And I mixed one of the first Hollywood feature films on Pro Tools III, and cut on Hitchcock, Radius Edit, LightWorks and other NLEs before, so I do know what I'm talking about.

I understand that the Mac platform gives you FCP, which means Color, Soundtracks Pro, Compressor, DVD SP and the rest.

However, in scripted productions and in multi-seat TV shows, Avid is still on top and the prices are coming way down to compete with FCP.

Personally, I prefer to acquire/ingest SxS on a PC, back clips up on a NAS drive system, then I use Avid and Unity to do the bulk of my edits, and then take it all out to FCP for finishing.

FCP doesn't make any distinction between offline and online. It's all direct Quicktime file manipulation. Which is why I keep copies in PC and Avid formats.

HTH

Matt
Good on yer, mate!

On location I use an IBM T61 and Avid Media Composer. My producer partner runs a 17" MBP with FCP. If you're fluent in both, they work around the same. And agreed, if you're just cutting, both systems are mostly waiting for the monkey to push the buttons...

I love my bike too! But I do have a car. And one of those huge Dell 20" "laptops". I'm in Lala land, after all. They wouldn't take me seriously otherwise :-)

Cheers
Chris

Matt, thanks very much for you input, i really like how ypu put that and makes me want to investigate more. Because I'm still in PC land and currently using vegas my big concern is reltime playback from the timeline from fcp as im too used to this to work any other way. I understand that the final render to your finishing codec will take a while, im ok with sleeping while my machine does that but i really couldnt handle doing that to 'check my timeline'. In other words, lets say i just graded a music video with magic bullet on a 720p hq timeline, how would the macbook react when i want to view the entire piece back before a final render. Would i have to sit through hours of rendering just to see what it looks like? im a little unsure of how final cuts preview renders differe compared to the final render to a finishing codec, do they both take the same amount of time?

If you take it off safe RT and put it on unlimited RT you can play back magic bullet looks treated footage but at a very low res and v jerky

Agree with Phil but at that setting IMO the picture and the action's not worth watching. YMMV, of course.

unless i am mistake there isn't a play without effects option anywhere in fcp. I wish there was.

Yeah, you can go into each individual clip and uncheck its effects, in which case the red line goes away and you can then play the clip normally.

But there's no batch command (like "uncheck all effects" or "uncheck from in to out") yet, so you have to go into every clip individually and turn them all off, then on again afterwards.

Which I've done before... (sigh).

Maybe there's a scripting option I'm unaware of?

yeah uncheck all would be great as would play without effects which wouldn't effect the render. I am in the bad habit of playing with grade as I edit. Very slow way to edit that!

so do you rekon that unlimited rt switched on would play back 1080hq footage in realtime with magic bullet applied on say an 8 core 4gb mac? Or am i still subjected to pre-renders/choppy playback?

no chance!

I may aswell just get a macbook pro then, as the main thing i wanted to get was as close to real time previews as possible, but if im going to have to do pre-renders on clips anyway I think i can live with long render times when it comes to the final output. However, is there a major difference in time when you have to render clips for playback from the timeline when comparing a macbook pro and say an 8 core/quad core, or is the main speed difference seen when it comes down to the final rendering?

yes its a huge difference. about 7 to 8 times faster!

Don't get a Macbook just because everbody else has one. If you're not sure, use a PC and Edius or just stick with your Vegas. I believe they're announcing RT plugins soon, plus there's a set of Looks-like plugins available for Edius already. Plus Apple's sure to upgrade something or another soon - their rollouts are quite a few times a year these days, and I have current model pencils that last longer than current model computers or camcorders...

For what it's worth... I really wanted a Mac Pro, but decided to get the MacBook Pro... A. because I'll need it in the field, and I know I'll be more than happy editing on it for the next year; and B., because in a year's time, the next-generation Mac Pros with the new Nehalem processors (they're already being demo'ed and from what I gather they represent a huge step forward) will be out.
It's my plan to get one then (by that time I'm sure I won't need to take a laptop into the field to download clips - - that will seem so old-school by next spring)
Malcolm

Good points again, it's interesting to hear how people are managing their ex1 files on a macbook pro. Unfortunately it's not an easy task getting hands on 'try before you buy' experience due to some of the lengthy complex tasks that are required for this kind of work so i'm really relying on user feedback here to sway my decision. So far ive gathered that the macbook pro CAN do what i want it to but at the expense of being more than twice as slow as a mac pro. I know it's hard to comment if someone is only using a macbook pro or only using a mac pro, but for those who have or are atleast using both, how do you find the speed difference affects your workflow?

For what it's worth... I really wanted a Mac Pro, but decided to get the MacBook Pro... A. because I'll need it in the field, and I know I'll be more than happy editing on it for the next year; and B., because in a year's time, the next-generation Mac Pros with the new Nehalem processors (they're already being demo'ed and from what I gather they represent a huge step forward) will be out.
It's my plan to get one then (by that time I'm sure I won't need to take a laptop into the field to download clips - - that will seem so old-school by next spring)
Malcolm

My friend is actually waiting for the new design of the tower and monitors to come out before getting a mac pro. They are due a redesign just about any week now. Anybody have word on when or what is to come?

Good points again, it's interesting to hear how people are managing their ex1 files on a macbook pro. Unfortunately it's not an easy task getting hands on 'try before you buy' experience due to some of the lengthy complex tasks that are required for this kind of work so i'm really relying on user feedback here to sway my decision. So far ive gathered that the macbook pro CAN do what i want it to but at the expense of being more than twice as slow as a mac pro. I know it's hard to comment if someone is only using a macbook pro or only using a mac pro, but for those who have or are atleast using both, how do you find the speed difference affects your workflow?

its really only the grading that gets slow, mostly it works really well

In other words, lets say i just graded a music video with magic bullet on a 720p hq timeline, how would the macbook react when i want to view the entire piece back before a final render. Would i have to sit through hours of rendering just to see what it looks like?

You're going to see chosen frames frame by frame in full quality just like any motion graphics setup. Unlike most motion graphics, you're going to see a half or quarter resolution version to preview in real time.

The more effects you add, the lower resolution you're going to watch it in until it says 'no way am I going to do this in real time unless you render or I do it a pixel at a time'. That's when I put the kettle on (or more often open a nice bottle of something).

M. (opening a nice bottle of something)

FWIW, Guzzi 850 T3 for those who appreciate such things.

My friend is actually waiting for the new design of the tower and monitors to come out before getting a mac pro. They are due a redesign just about any week now. Anybody have word on when or what is to come?

I agree about the monitors, but the Mac Pro line is just renewed in january, I don't think they will renew it again any moment now...
And the old design is still very sexy and good, look at the design of the Macbook Pro/Powerbook. It hasn't changed in a very long time, because it's a good design, with a pretty timeless look.

unless i am mistake there isn't a play without effects option anywhere in fcp. I wish there was.

Other than un-checking the filters or duplicating the sequence and removing all filter attributes?

Maybe a bit like sawing your legs off to remove shoes, but they're only virtual legs after all.

I have a fiarly new MBP that is very nice. But I have to say that I rarely use it. My main system is a PC and uses Grass Valley Edius Pro Broadcast. Runs circles around my FCP set up for most things. I finally got Bootcamp and put Edius on the MBP

unless i am mistake there isn't a play without effects option anywhere in fcp. I wish there was.

Actually there is - to play back without filters go to Sequence > Settings > Render Control Tab and uncheck 'Filters' under "Render & Playback". Now everything on your timeline will playback as if it had no filters - unless it had been previously rendered, in which case it will play back the render instead.

In the RT menu on the left side of the timeline there are a lot of options as well which can affect your preview performance. If you select 'Play Base Layer Only' it will do just that and also ignore any filters on the base layer.

In the default mode 'Unlimited RT' will do its best to play everything back in real time, dropping first picture quality and then frame rate to keep up. However you can change the 'Playback Video Quality' and 'Playback Frame Rate' from dynamic to high-medium-low in order to force it to prefer one over the other. i.e. if you need to see full quality set video quality to High and leave frame rate on dynamic and you'll always see full quality but the frame rate will drop as you push more layers/filters.

I just did a quick test with some HDV footage on a sequence using the HDV 1080/24p preset on my macbook. I can get full quality playback with two layers (one scaled down on top of the other) with the 3-way CC on both.

If I add a third layer with CC the video quality drops, looks like it's maybe half vertical res - looks soft when previewing full screen but not noticeable in the canvas window at 50%. A fourth CC'd layer drops it down to half vertical & horizontal res - this starts looking blocky in full screen playback and begins to be noticeable in the canvas window @ 50% only on the base layer which isn't scaled.

At this point (4 layered, CC'd layers of HDV) playback is still at full frame rate and in my normal editing layout (with viewer & canvas @ ~40%) the resolution drop is completely acceptable while working - it only really becomes apparent when I enter full screen, full res preview mode. Overall at this point editing & navigating the timeline is perfectly smooth & responsive.

If I tell it to give me full quality preview I get about half normal framerate with 3 layers and maybe 1/3 with four layers. If I force it to render everything at full quality 30 seconds of timeline takes a little under 2 minutes (using the option to render to ProRes instead of back to HDV).

I'm converting a clip to ProRes now so that I can do the same test with it instead of HDV - theoretically this should take some load off the processor and improve the real-time performance.

Interesting results from the ProRes test - the playback quality dropped slightly with only two layers. Since ProRes is significantly easier on the processor than HDV I have to assume the important factor here is the resolution - prores is full raster vs. HDV's 1440 horizontal resolution. This probably means that XDCAM from the EX won't play back at full res with two layers as the HDV did for me.

ProRes HQ also bumped the data rate up to about 20Mb/s. All my previous tests with the HDV were running on a fw400 drive that was almost full - ~10gb left out of 700 - definitely a bad situation but as I mentioned before had little impact on the HDV tests. On that drive though a single stream of ProRes was the limit - running two streams started dropping frames badly; the drive was topping out at ~30Mb/s, leaving it 10 short of what was necessary for both streams. Moving it to a fw800 drive that was only half full gave me plenty of bandwidth for two streams (~40Mb/s total) but choked on 3, topping out at 53Mb/s or 7Mb/s short of what was needed.

So this confirms one thing - on a MacBook, if you are editing native XDCAM or HDV, fw400 is plenty and there's little reason for things like SATA cards and arrays. The bottleneck in terms of multi-stream playback is the processor and not the drives.

by unchecking render play does it lose any previous renders?

Evan, Are you on a MacBook or a MacBook Pro, and if the latter what are its specs?

- Lenny Levy

Just to add my 2 cents, I just would like to say that MacBookpro will give you something none of the other have, which is specialy usefull when working with an EX1 : the expresscard slot.

This means you can download the footage on it, while still shooting.

Then, the macbook pro have firewire 800, a better video card and a better CPU and of course a much much better screen (17" led backlite seems to be to avoid as it gives an ugly image - this was the case last time I checked 4 months ago).

The macbook is, I think, to avoid. Too small screen, not enough power and extensions.

The Macpro (or a hackintel :)) is a really good solution as it is highly extendable. By changing CPU, video card or haddrive you will be able to edit from SD to HDCAM. If you are just working on editing (at home), go for this.
If you need mobility, go for the macbookpro.

From my experience, having a macbookpro, you can fully edit XDCAM from EX1. Be sure to have footage on a external (3"1/2) firewire drive. 2"1/4 are too slow.

I'm ready to buy a MacBook Pro, but am wondering whether to get the glossy or matte screen? Which one works best for video editing, stuff we do, etc.

Evan, Are you on a MacBook or a MacBook Pro, and if the latter what are its specs?

These tests are all on my 17" MacBook Pro - just 2 weeks old so latest generation: 2.5Ghz core 2 duo, 1920x1200 HD screen option, nvidia graphics with 512mb video ram. Yesterday it had 2Gb RAM, today it has 4 - if I get some time I'll test again with the new memory but I don't think it'll make a big difference in FCP, I got it mostly for AE.

I just would like to say that MacBookpro will give you something none of the other have, which is specialy usefull when working with an EX1 : the expresscard slot.

This means you can download the footage on it, while still shooting.
(...)
The macbook is, I think, to avoid. Too small screen, not enough power and extensions.

Absolutely, I picked up the new MacBook Pro specifically for the expresscard slot - I'm planning to get an EX1 after I get back from NAB unless I find something significantly more compelling at the show. I've had a first gen macbook for a while but never bothered trying FCP on it - the screen is just way too small to be practical for work, and without the expresscard slot there's little reason to try to use it for most video work. Processor performance is good though - I use it with boot camp to run the Adobe Media Encoder for live flash streaming and it'll run all day at about 50% cpu.

I've been playing around with qmaster to distribute compressor jobs across 4 machines - my new Macbook Pro, my dual 2.0 G5, the Macbook and a Mac Mini (both 1.66Gh Core Duos). Watching the individual segments run the MacBook pro runs about twice as fast as the other three which all seem pretty evenly matched - although the mini only had 512mb of ram and the macbook 1gb and I'm upgrading both to 2gb today so it'll be interesting to see if they outperform the G5 now.

(17" led backlite seems to be to avoid as it gives an ugly image - this was the case last time I checked 4 months ago).

The 17" only got the LED backlight option with this latest generation, and then only if you get the HD upgrade - so if you looked at one in a store 4 months ago you probably weren't looking at an LED unless you' were looking at the 15". Even now they don't have them in stores - it took almost 3 weeks to ship mine. The LED is really nice - I generally run it at @ 50-60% brightness indoors and at full brightness it's actually pretty useable in direct sunlight (although the glare off the huge silver keyboard/palm rest area is a problem). The color and viewing angle is very good and there's no warm-up period when you first turn it on. It supposedly increases battery life as well - I haven't done any real tests so far but the worst time I've gotten so far was approximately 2.5 hours - that's with an HD h.264 encode running the CPU at 100% in the background while I was working in eclipse the whole time - even with the encode going on the machine was always responsive, impressive considering eclipse is written in java. Typical use seems to be giving me 3.5-4.5 hours.

I'm ready to buy a MacBook Pro, but am wondering whether to get the glossy or matte screen? Which one works best for video editing, stuff we do, etc.

I got the matte - the glossy looks better from a contrast standpoint but the large area of the 17" screen makes it very hard to avoid getting bad reflections in anything but a dark room.

[QUOTE=Evan Donn;854021]Actually there is - to play back without filters go to Sequence > Settings > Render Control Tab and uncheck 'Filters' under "Render & Playback". Now everything on your timeline will playback as if it had no filters - unless it had been previously rendered, in which case it will play back the render instead.]


Thanks Evan!
Is there a way to get that string of commands under a keyboard shortcut? That would be the best - I don't really fancy going through all that rigamarole every time I want to turn the red lines on and off --- apple R seems easier at this moment!

Also, to echo Phil's question, if you turn off the rendering checkbox, and play back, when you turn it back on again do you have to re-render all previous? Or does it remember where those render files are and not put you under the red line again?

While we're about it, and slightly off topic, has anybody come across a PC or Mac utility to swap the locations of the Apple and Control keys? I'm jumping from one platform to another and hope to install a keyboard-mouse-monitor switcher soon, and I'm slowing down considerably because those two keys are flipped on the different platforms.

I have a fiarly new MBP that is very nice. But I have to say that I rarely use it. My main system is a PC and uses Grass Valley Edius Pro Broadcast. Runs circles around my FCP set up for most things. I finally got Bootcamp and put Edius on the MBP

I would agree about Edius Pro Broadcast - I know this thread is about MacBook Pro but what about this offer from Sony: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665291455

It includes 4GB RAM, the same 2.5 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, a 400 GB hard drive in Raid 0, an express card slot and something the Mac cannot offer right now - a dual layer BD burner (archiving in the field!!!). Obviously not a good choice for people who will look no further than FCP but Edius does offer a lot of +++ also.

Nice one Barry
I particularly like the 1920 display capability on a 17" screen, and the Blu Ray burning capability, both quite important, I'd say, for XCam EX in the field.
A bit steep though, eh? I'm sure there will be competition before long.

I'm thinking of waiting another 3-5 months on buying a macbook pro since the 2.5ghz is running at about $2,500 bucks right now. I figure they may come out with some interesting new features by then.

Im running the 2.6 with the 1920x1200 LED screen. Its a fantastic workflow on it with the EX1 whether in prores or native. Im running raid sata drives off a sonnet express card - dont bother with anything other cards btw, tried the SIIG first and it about blew up my computer. But this is a great setup. I can take it with me with some FW 5400 drives and offload on it with the sxs cards, I can edit on site, and with the LED screen, the battery lasts almost 3 hours. Pretty wild.

Is there a way to get that string of commands under a keyboard shortcut? That would be the best - I don't really fancy going through all that rigamarole every time I want to turn the red lines on and off --- apple R seems easier at this moment!

I don't think so - you can add keyboard shortcuts to any menu items but unfortunately this isn't a menu item. However the keyboard shortcut for sequence settings is apple-0, and from there it's two clicks to toggle the setting. apple-R may be easier, but certainly not faster if you've got a lot of stuff to render!

Also, to echo Phil's question, if you turn off the rendering checkbox, and play back, when you turn it back on again do you have to re-render all previous? Or does it remember where those render files are and not put you under the red line again?

No, as I mentioned before any previously rendered segments will continue to play the rendered version - only unrendered sections will play without filters.

I'm ready to buy a MacBook Pro, but am wondering whether to get the glossy or matte screen? Which one works best for video editing, stuff we do, etc.


I got the gloss screen. Blacks are blacker with gloss. Films look better in a lot of peoples opinion.
However, I did hear that Photoshop users prefer the matte screen because it for its ability to show up more slight tonal differences in color than gloss screens. Something to consider perhaps.

I've got the 2.5 with matt high res screen. It's all new to me - FCP/Mac but it feels good. Just shot some cracking quality pictures, put SxS card in Macbook Pro, viewed pictures in browser, copied BPAV to individual folder, backed up to rugged hard drive, ..... and now the big question ....how do I get the SXS card out? A tight fit!

how do I get the SXS card out? A tight fit!

LOL! :)

Just in case anyone needs to know, push it in again and it pops out - though before doing this, you should select the card in the finder and hit Command-E to eject (the Command key is the one with the apple on it but purists dictate that it's a Command key not an Apple key).

Or click the Eject icon to the right of the icon in a window panel.

Matt the Mac Zealot.

[QUOTE=Evan Donn;854522]
I don't think so - you can add keyboard shortcuts to any menu items but unfortunately this isn't a menu item.

So when I tried to assign a short key to make my iMac desktop as my full screen video preview, there is no option in the keyboard layout. Is it possible any other way. Sorry for the interruption.

Rajiv

I'm ready to buy a MacBook Pro, but am wondering whether to get the glossy or matte screen? Which one works best for video editing, stuff we do, etc.

Go for Matte.
More accurate color, less reflection.