I received my new bare bones dual 2.4 Macbook Pro on Wednesday and after using it for the last few days from everything from SxS transfer to surfing to photo editing, I only have one word to say....

ThisthingisthebestlaptopIhaveeverowneditissimplyamazingwhatapleasuretoworkwithawelldesignedpieceofte chnologymyhatisofftoMacthankyouthankyouthankyouifyouareusinganXDCAMEXcamerayousimplymustbudgetforone oftheseitiswortheverypenny

I looked it up and it is indeed a word.

Have A Day!!!

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

I wonder how many of us have bought MacbookPros? EX1 sales must show up on Apple's computer and FCP sales graphs.

my mbp of last summer seems to work well with FCP 6.0.3 but i wished i had the latest 250gb drive at 5400rpm. right now, i only have 60gb of internal space to use and after each job, i need to clean up.

the latest MBP has a 300gb option, but it's at only 4200rpm.

i wonder if the latest MBP with the 1920x1200 glossy screen and LED lighting is even brighter than the glossy 1920x1200 one. the website does not say.

paul

Hi Paul,

Not happy with your MBP harddisk: iFixit Guide to HD replacement (http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Core-Duo/Hard-Drive-Replacement/87/8/)

Just put a bigger disk in your MBP.

George/

thanks george, this has come across my thoughts.
more than likely, i'll be getting a new MBP 17" once they come with blu-ray this fall and give mine to my son.

transfer stuff from old drive to a new bigger one is never easy.
what usually happens is a brand new install of everything, then port user files over one by one.

paul



Hi Paul,

Not happy with your MBP harddisk: iFixit Guide to HD replacement (http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Core-Duo/Hard-Drive-Replacement/87/8/)

Just put a bigger disk in your MBP.

George/

I have the 15" matte finish with a max resolution of 1440x900 and a 5400 rpm 200 gig drive. Although I can't view EX footage at full rez, it's fine for field checking which is what I'll be using it for 90% of the time. I like the matte finish for working in bright glaring light, I have found the glossy while sharper and a bit brighter, tends to have to much glare for using outdoors. One of the features I love on this thing is that the screen adjusts automatically to the ambient light. In low light situations, the keyboard automatically lights up. Also, the battery lasts almost all day on a full charge with conservative energy saving protocols in place. One thing I did notice that I didn't like and maybe I was doing something wrong was, I had to offload around 350 stills to a USB drive for a client and it took about 20 minutes. It only took the client 3 minutes to load them on their PC from the drive. I was using iPhoto to do it, maybe it's just a shortcoming of the program. I just got Lightroom, I'll have to see if that's any faster.

The big test comes on Wednesday. I have a four hour interview shoot. It will be my first major project using this workflow. I will be rehearsing the SxS offload every day to make sure I don't delete anything in the heat of the battle. We only have two 8 gig cards. Which brings up a workflow question.

My B camera will be a Z1. The final product will be used primarily for web site video and direct marketing DVD's. I was thinking of shooting 1080x1440 on the EX to make editing a bit easier. Thoughts anyone??

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

transfer stuff from old drive to a new bigger one is never easy

For Windows that it more true than for the Mac. On the Mac it's really easy.

You can boot from the Mac OS DVD and write an image to an external disk, then do the same copying it back to the new disk.

Even more userfriendly is SuperDuper, that basically does this without the booting to DVD and adds some intelligence.

I use SD with a simple $15 (SATA/IDE to USB) cable to attach new disks to the Mac, copy the system to the new drive and then put it in. The old disk is unmodified for "backup" but really never needed it.

George/

Mick
I'm finding that the EX square pixel 1080 HQ codec seems to downscale to a better looking SD image (DVD, Flash, etc.) than I get with HDV source.
What I am now doing when I need to edit a mix of EX HQ with HDV footage is to upscale the HDV to 1080x1920 rather than "downscale" the EX. I use Cineform Prospect HD avi codec for editing. Prospect HD will upscale the HDV quickly on capture.

Mick
I'm finding that the EX square pixel 1080 HQ codec seems to downscale to a better looking SD image (DVD, Flash, etc.) than I get with HDV source.
What I am now doing when I need to edit a mix of EX HQ with HDV footage is to upscale the HDV to 1080x1920 rather than "downscale" the EX. I use Cineform Prospect HD avi codec for editing. Prospect HD will upscale the HDV quickly on capture.

Thanks Bob, I'll give a try this week.

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

my mbp of last summer seems to work well with FCP 6.0.3 but i wished i had the latest 250gb drive at 5400rpm. right now, i only have 60gb of internal space to use and after each job, i need to clean up.

the latest MBP has a 300gb option, but it's at only 4200rpm.

i wonder if the latest MBP with the 1920x1200 glossy screen and LED lighting is even brighter than the glossy 1920x1200 one. the website does not say.

paul

Go to any number of Mac supply outlets on the net and get a 200 gig 7200 2.5 hard disk and put it in yourself. It's easy to do. Be advised that Apple does not like it when you swap this out yourself, so, you may have to go to an authorized Mac repair service to do it and keep your warrantee! My 2.3.3 intel is from Nov. 06 so I have little reservations in doing this myself and have had no problems with my MBP as a result.

Im curious. Do you guys use your MBP only for field work?
Because it seems to me a Mac Pro is a much better option for editing. The price is not much higher and you get much more for your money. Yeah, MBP is cuttier but...

Why did you buy now? WWDC is tomorrow and will most likely reveal new macbooks and macbook pro's.. + 3G iphone and new apple branding changes.

They're removing the "mac" name from services.. Like .Mac is most likely to become .Me.. And OS-X 10.6 "snow leopard" is supposed to not include PowerPC support.. Are we looking at a PC release in the future?

(All this is rumors)

The chance that they'll release new Macbook Pro's is pretty small, as there aren't any new chips from Intel (delayed), so what would they change?

Michael; for pure editing a Mac Pro is indeed better, but a Macbook Pro gives you the option of quick ofloading cards on the set which is very important for a camera with a solid state recording workflow, like the EX1.
And you can edit basic XDCAM HD EX without any problem, so a Macbook Pro is a good option to have when you have the EX1.
Not to say that a Mac Pro isn't attractive too... 8 cores, hmmmm

Why did you buy now? WWDC is tomorrow and will most likely reveal new macbooks and macbook pro's.. + 3G iphone and new apple branding changes.

(All this is rumors)


The new Macbook Pro's were released two weeks ago. This is one of the new one's.

Michael, I use the MBP for field work and an octocore with 2 24" HD displays in the studio. The options for the field at this time were the MBP at $1800 with virtually unlimited SxS offload capacity. Or buy 2 16 gig SxS cards for about the same price. HMMM, 2 little drive cards or a MBP. I think you can see the choice was easy

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

anyone seen the difference in the MBP 17" glossy versus the 17" LED displays?

if they announce anything new for the MBP monday, i wish it is a blu-ray option. they would be perfect for us HD users.

if they announce anything new for the MBP monday, i wish it is a blu-ray option. they would be perfect for us HD users.

Paul, as soon as Panasonic and the likes have a BR-drive small enough to fit into the MBP enclosure, you can retrofit that into any Powerbook and MBP :-) That is how I replaced my aging super drives until I needed a real speed jump processor-wise. So no need to buy a new MBP if the feature-delta is only a BR-drive.

P.


Edit: Look here: www.mcetech.com/

Sorry submitted twice

So no updates from WWDC - I rekon we're looking at the end of the year for blu ray macbook pros and macpros.

I know the models they're using are the same matshita ones that sony use as adobe have already qualified them for CS3 with macbook pros and mac pros :)

it's true you could put one in yourself, but with blu-ray, requiring firmware and specific drivers, you really do not want to do that.

there is already some panasonic (matsushita) half height blu-ray drive for notebooks already, slot loading which dell has on their XPS notebooks. they can be bought for about US $600, but again, no apple firmware available that i know of.

paul

Keep in mind that Apple DVDStudioPro can't author any form of Blu-ray video disk yet.

Certainly you can install a Blu-ray burner in MacPros. I know of folks doing that already. There's a company that many recommend for Mac and they have drives for MacBookPro 17" but the company isn't DVInfo sponsor so I probably can't mention them.

Since I just bought my MBP....I am just looking at one of these...

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11054

Lesser known company than LaCie but well known to Mac Professionals. I know post house buying these drives for their authoring

Tray for Desktop
http://fastmac.com/slim_bluray.php

Slot for MacBookPro17"
http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338