Best configuration for editing on new mac book pro with cor 2 duo and final cut? at DVinfo.net

Gary Williams · October 6th, 2007, 11:19 AM

Now that the new mac book pro has core 2 duo processing what is the best set up for editing hdv on the mac book pro and final cut studio 2 and can I get an hd or blue ray burner installed in the set up. I would like to get some opinions on the best set up in the 6500-7k range. I am using a Gyhd100ua for my shoots. Thanks in advance for your opinions

David Warren · October 6th, 2007, 06:17 PM

im wondering about the same thing... is FW400/usb2.0 too big of bottleneck? would FW800 make a difference? external raid?
thanks

Daniel Ross · October 6th, 2007, 07:20 PM

400 works fine. 800 is faster, though.
I recommend 7200rpm drives over the 5400 internal drive (ie, an external drive), but that's as much as you'll need, probably.
USB2.0 is about the same as FW400.

Victor Kellar · October 6th, 2007, 09:49 PM

I would avoid USB. I know, I know, people use but I think the vast majority of people who do have probs. Although its speed is faster than FW that speed is delivered in bursts, not suitable for working with video

If you are working with standard DV then a FW 4 external at 7200 rpm would be fine. For HD you would want to go to FW 800 or some kind of eSATA option.

Yes, you can get an HD DVD burner. At this point, there is no direct Blu Ray support for a Mac. You could only use a Blu Ray burner to burn data discs with Toast but you cannot make a Blu Ray "movie" disc. So if you have to have a Hi Def disk, HD DVD is the way to go, it is supported in DVD Studio Pro.

Daniel Ross · October 6th, 2007, 11:22 PM

USB 2.0 works, but FW is definitely superior when working with Macs, true. It's sorta the other way around with PCs as well.

David Warren · October 7th, 2007, 12:42 AM

i forgot to mention that im PRIMARILY working with hdv material.. 1080i 24f usually.. i edit it mostly at school on the dual 2ghz g5's, so i was hoping that the dualcore 2.2-2.4ghz macbook pro would be a bit better atleast.. i read a review that seemed to state that it was totally workable.. but other user comments on this board have not been very supportive..
i have a 500gig 7200rpm external drive that i use mostly right now.. i could buy an external raid enclosure for a couple hundred bucks but im not sure if its really worth it unless working with several clips at once? like picture-in-picture etc..

Carl Mischke · October 7th, 2007, 01:14 AM

You may find yourself tweaking a lot of settings as you go along --- especially in FCP itself. Depending on what you're doing, some fiddling with the Real Time settings, on a sequence-by-sequence basis, may be necessary. I'm running a 2.4GHz new MacBook pro with the wider screen and with 4GB RAM. External storage is a 1TB Lacie FW800.
Now, if you're running plain old HDV, cutting it up and slapping the clips together, you'll no doubt be fine (you may need the additional RAM, though). However, the moment you start doing effects or colour correction (and not even necessarily using Color), things may start to choke. I heard somewhere (and this is hearsay) that 8GB RAM is really what is needed for all of this stuff to run fast, together with at least a fast quad-core.
Perhaps in my next life ...
I've even found that running a denoise and degrain filter on SD footage makes the machine choke a bit. For things that don't really matter, I've now started downconverting the HDV footage (from the Canon HV20 or the A1) in-camera before I capture into FCP. This helps.
The rule I'm now using: two relatively simple filters per clip, max. Even so, things do slow down --- even considerably so.
You may also make some progress with Motion, but that will soon choke as well.
I don't know how complex your projects are, but as someone said to me a while ago: no-one in their right minds would try and use a laptop for serious video work, especially with Motion and Color.
Dunno if this helps. If there is any way that you can lay your hands on one and play around with it, it will be a good idea. If you can't, well, read and ask as much as you can.

Good luck

Carl Mischke
Jo'burg

David Warren · October 7th, 2007, 01:52 AM

does it make much of a difference if you're editing native hdv or apple intermediate or prores422? or the 'hybrid mode' where it only renders the transitions etc in prores422?

Gary Williams · October 7th, 2007, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl Mischke

You may find yourself tweaking a lot of settings as you go along --- especially in FCP itself. Depending on what you're doing, some fiddling with the Real Time settings, on a sequence-by-sequence basis, may be necessary. I'm running a 2.4GHz new MacBook pro with the wider screen and with 4GB RAM. External storage is a 1TB Lacie FW800.
Now, if you're running plain old HDV, cutting it up and slapping the clips together, you'll no doubt be fine (you may need the additional RAM, though). However, the moment you start doing effects or colour correction (and not even necessarily using Color), things may start to choke. I heard somewhere (and this is hearsay) that 8GB RAM is really what is needed for all of this stuff to run fast, together with at least a fast quad-core.
Perhaps in my next life ...
I've even found that running a denoise and degrain filter on SD footage makes the machine choke a bit. For things that don't really matter, I've now started downconverting the HDV footage (from the Canon HV20 or the A1) in-camera before I capture into FCP. This helps.
The rule I'm now using: two relatively simple filters per clip, max. Even so, things do slow down --- even considerably so.
You may also make some progress with Motion, but that will soon choke as well.
I don't know how complex your projects are, but as someone said to me a while ago: no-one in their right minds would try and use a laptop for serious video work, especially with Motion and Color.
Dunno if this helps. If there is any way that you can lay your hands on one and play around with it, it will be a good idea. If you can't, well, read and ask as much as you can.

Good luck

Carl Mischke
Jo'burg

So what it sounds like your trying to say to me is that using a new Macbook Pro for editing HDV is not the way to go getting a new Mac tower with as much ram as you can afford would be the way to go, but please correct me if Im wrong. Thanks Gary

Craig Parkes · October 7th, 2007, 04:08 PM

From my limited experience cutting HDV on a 2GHZ Imac with 1.5gig of ram, of a 7200rpm external drive running FW400, simple cuts etc and moving stuff around the timeline works fine. Grading and transitions will likely need rendering, but the rendering of basic transitions will be pretty quick, so it isn't a huge head ache if you aren't doing finicky stuff and aren't on a massively quick turn around.

Carl Mischke · October 7th, 2007, 11:03 PM

Gary
My advice to you would be to go for the biggest, meanest MacPro tower that you can afford, with as much RAM and as stong a processor as you can dig up the money for right now. Remember that you can add little bells and whistles (or even big bells and whistles) later on --- which you cannot do with the MacBook Pro.
But again, it depends on what you want to do. It does really well if you simply cut and order clips, perhaps do a bit of brightness/contrast or similar. But the moment you want to start getting off the wall with something more creative (to say nothing about Motion) you may find yourself frustrated. You may well find yourself having to render a lower third title overlay (or accept some frame dropping).
I've played around with the render settings and the RT settings for some time, but I have yet to come up with some magical solution.
Just a bit of what I experienced --- naturally (the disclaimer follows): what I experienced may not apply to others, depending on what they're using the MacBook pro for.

Carl
Jo'burg

Gary Williams · October 15th, 2007, 08:18 AM

Thanks all for the information I am now looking into getting the Mac Pro tower.

October 6th, 2007, 11:19 AM	#1
Gary Williams Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Rocklin, California Posts: 287	Best configuration for editing on new mac book pro with cor 2 duo and final cut? Now that the new mac book pro has core 2 duo processing what is the best set up for editing hdv on the mac book pro and final cut studio 2 and can I get an hd or blue ray burner installed in the set up. I would like to get some opinions on the best set up in the 6500-7k range. I am using a Gyhd100ua for my shoots. Thanks in advance for your opinions

October 7th, 2007, 11:03 PM	#11
Carl Mischke Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Johannesburg, South Africa Posts: 26	Talking tower Gary My advice to you would be to go for the biggest, meanest MacPro tower that you can afford, with as much RAM and as stong a processor as you can dig up the money for right now. Remember that you can add little bells and whistles (or even big bells and whistles) later on --- which you cannot do with the MacBook Pro. But again, it depends on what you want to do. It does really well if you simply cut and order clips, perhaps do a bit of brightness/contrast or similar. But the moment you want to start getting off the wall with something more creative (to say nothing about Motion) you may find yourself frustrated. You may well find yourself having to render a lower third title overlay (or accept some frame dropping). I've played around with the render settings and the RT settings for some time, but I have yet to come up with some magical solution. Just a bit of what I experienced --- naturally (the disclaimer follows): what I experienced may not apply to others, depending on what they're using the MacBook pro for. Carl Jo'burg

October 6th, 2007, 06:17 PM	#2
David Warren Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Posts: 61	im wondering about the same thing... is FW400/usb2.0 too big of bottleneck? would FW800 make a difference? external raid? thanks

October 6th, 2007, 07:20 PM	#3
Daniel Ross Major Player Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Marin & Davis, CA, USA Posts: 418	400 works fine. 800 is faster, though. I recommend 7200rpm drives over the 5400 internal drive (ie, an external drive), but that's as much as you'll need, probably. USB2.0 is about the same as FW400.

October 6th, 2007, 09:49 PM	#4
Victor Kellar Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Toronto Ontario Canada Posts: 239	I would avoid USB. I know, I know, people use but I think the vast majority of people who do have probs. Although its speed is faster than FW that speed is delivered in bursts, not suitable for working with video If you are working with standard DV then a FW 4 external at 7200 rpm would be fine. For HD you would want to go to FW 800 or some kind of eSATA option. Yes, you can get an HD DVD burner. At this point, there is no direct Blu Ray support for a Mac. You could only use a Blu Ray burner to burn data discs with Toast but you cannot make a Blu Ray "movie" disc. So if you have to have a Hi Def disk, HD DVD is the way to go, it is supported in DVD Studio Pro.

October 6th, 2007, 11:22 PM	#5
Daniel Ross Major Player Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Marin & Davis, CA, USA Posts: 418	USB 2.0 works, but FW is definitely superior when working with Macs, true. It's sorta the other way around with PCs as well.

October 7th, 2007, 12:42 AM	#6
David Warren Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Posts: 61	i forgot to mention that im PRIMARILY working with hdv material.. 1080i 24f usually.. i edit it mostly at school on the dual 2ghz g5's, so i was hoping that the dualcore 2.2-2.4ghz macbook pro would be a bit better atleast.. i read a review that seemed to state that it was totally workable.. but other user comments on this board have not been very supportive.. i have a 500gig 7200rpm external drive that i use mostly right now.. i could buy an external raid enclosure for a couple hundred bucks but im not sure if its really worth it unless working with several clips at once? like picture-in-picture etc..

October 7th, 2007, 01:14 AM	#7
Carl Mischke Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Johannesburg, South Africa Posts: 26	You may find yourself tweaking a lot of settings as you go along --- especially in FCP itself. Depending on what you're doing, some fiddling with the Real Time settings, on a sequence-by-sequence basis, may be necessary. I'm running a 2.4GHz new MacBook pro with the wider screen and with 4GB RAM. External storage is a 1TB Lacie FW800. Now, if you're running plain old HDV, cutting it up and slapping the clips together, you'll no doubt be fine (you may need the additional RAM, though). However, the moment you start doing effects or colour correction (and not even necessarily using Color), things may start to choke. I heard somewhere (and this is hearsay) that 8GB RAM is really what is needed for all of this stuff to run fast, together with at least a fast quad-core. Perhaps in my next life ... I've even found that running a denoise and degrain filter on SD footage makes the machine choke a bit. For things that don't really matter, I've now started downconverting the HDV footage (from the Canon HV20 or the A1) in-camera before I capture into FCP. This helps. The rule I'm now using: two relatively simple filters per clip, max. Even so, things do slow down --- even considerably so. You may also make some progress with Motion, but that will soon choke as well. I don't know how complex your projects are, but as someone said to me a while ago: no-one in their right minds would try and use a laptop for serious video work, especially with Motion and Color. Dunno if this helps. If there is any way that you can lay your hands on one and play around with it, it will be a good idea. If you can't, well, read and ask as much as you can. Good luck Carl Mischke Jo'burg

October 7th, 2007, 01:52 AM	#8
David Warren Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Posts: 61	does it make much of a difference if you're editing native hdv or apple intermediate or prores422? or the 'hybrid mode' where it only renders the transitions etc in prores422?

October 7th, 2007, 04:08 PM	#10
Craig Parkes Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 444	From my limited experience cutting HDV on a 2GHZ Imac with 1.5gig of ram, of a 7200rpm external drive running FW400, simple cuts etc and moving stuff around the timeline works fine. Grading and transitions will likely need rendering, but the rendering of basic transitions will be pretty quick, so it isn't a huge head ache if you aren't doing finicky stuff and aren't on a massively quick turn around.

October 15th, 2007, 08:18 AM	#12
Gary Williams Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Rocklin, California Posts: 287	Thanks all for the information I am now looking into getting the Mac Pro tower.