cgakash

Q: Is Mac book pro useful for Video Editing and VFX Work?

Hi Apple Team and Final Cut Pro Team,

  

    I am Video Editor and Motion Graphic Artist. I do a lot of Video Editing work and I have to spend hours sitting in front of my Desktop and this is getting so hectic for me. So I'm thinking of buying a Mac book Pro. But before spending that much bucks, I need to be sure that I'm going for the best option available. below is the configuration I am planning to buy. Kindly suggest me whether this is the best option or not. If not, then Please suggest me your options.

 

 

 

 

 

Configuration:-

 

Screen:- 15.4 Inch retina display

Processor:-  2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz) with 6MB shared L3 cache

Ram:- 16GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory

Graphic Card:- NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Dec 4, 2014 9:49 PM

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Q: Is Mac book pro useful for Video Editing and VFX Work?

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  • by Karsten Schlüter,

    Karsten Schlüter Karsten Schlüter Jan 21, 2015 11:24 PM in response to Dave_1980
    Level 7 (32,713 points)
    Video
    Jan 21, 2015 11:24 PM in response to Dave_1980

    Dave_1980 wrote:

    Karsten -

    Why external hard drives? Is this for speed reasons? .

    Speed, efficiency, stutter-free, safety ... best practice, that simple:

    While editing, your Mac needs hard drive space (or SSD) for

    using the app itself (not only on launch!)

    running the OS

    all sorts of 'swap'

    cache of renderings

    audio

    video

    stills

    .... (to be continued) ...

     

    now imagine that single tiny platter humming in your Mac - it's mechanic! Yeah, 21st cent, and we rely on motors, rotating disks and tiny riggers, moving back and forth ...

     

    SSDs are nice, but for solid massive files as 'video' ... ?

    Mr Jordan offers a nice read here

    http://www.larryjordan.biz/fcp-x-convert-managed-to-external-media/

     

    What's said before:

    internal for OS and app, one drive for media, one for project (and one for backup, and one for all the raws, and another one for .... ) = happy bunny!

     

    My underpowered set-up (late 2012MacMini) works flawless every weeks 6 stream-MultiCam, made of various formats, from 1080/50p to 720/60p .... using 4 extHDD, two combined as software Raid0, all usb3, nothing-special consumer drives...

     

    On paper (benchmark tests? Ha!!), my hardware is a better Pocket Calculator, in real usage plain awesome! ...

  • by Tom 3,

    Tom 3 Tom 3 Jan 22, 2015 5:36 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Jan 22, 2015 5:36 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

    Nice response.

     

    That's why they dumbed down the new 2014 Mac Mini this year.

     

    Too much bang for the buck.

     

    Something had to be done.

     

    I have three Mac Mini 2012

     

    Two on the shelf for backups and future growth.

     

    $2,200 for all three.

     

    I'm using my 256 SSD Model i7 2.3 here shortly to begin my filming and editing aspirations.

     

    An external SSD 256 Raid for media and will probably add some gigabite hard drives like yourself as my storage needs begin to grow.

     

    My monitors aren't much right now but I will add better as time goes along.

     

    I don't know what in the **** I'm doing but I'm doing it.

     

    It took me fifteen years to get to this point..

     

    I'm hoping I'm a gifted artist.

     

    We'll see.

     

    I'm going to retrieve a short video and post it here to show you a piece of work I find fascinating by a young amateur girl, done with almost nothing in the way of equipment, herself the actor.

     

    Pills and drugs her story.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhWgTIQly4c

     

    Duluth, Minnesota

  • by Dave_1980,

    Dave_1980 Dave_1980 Jan 22, 2015 6:12 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 22, 2015 6:12 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

    Thanks so much guys! Makes perfect sense.

    Appreciate the advice!

    Dave

  • by Karsten Schlüter,

    Karsten Schlüter Karsten Schlüter Jan 22, 2015 9:09 AM in response to Tom 3
    Level 7 (32,713 points)
    Video
    Jan 22, 2015 9:09 AM in response to Tom 3

    Tom 3 wrote:

    … a piece of work I find fascinating by a young amateur girl, done with almost nothing in the way of equipment, …

    Picasso made piece of art with a chewed stencil on a paper towel... and I'm no film critique … but:

     

    Can not share your fascination: all too shaky (tripods, pleaaaaase), an unstructured mix of 'some' shots, some unintentionally out of focus (switch off AF when doing cinematography!) , lots of 'noise'(=too much gain, too little light), 'somehow' vignetted, ... needs excessive color correction BEFORE applying 'looks' (aka grading). And I miss a story, a line, a feeling, something beyond random ... :

     

    Turn down the nice, melancholic piano piece, and watch it again. …

     

    No, to pin something at the wall "One day, I'll do something like THAT!", watch this:

    https://vimeo.com/108018156

     

    and esp. LISTEN, awesome audio track.

    and done with FCPX ...

  • by Tom 3,

    Tom 3 Tom 3 Jan 22, 2015 9:58 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Jan 22, 2015 9:58 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

    I feel sorry for you.

  • by Jason Kulas,

    Jason Kulas Jason Kulas Feb 17, 2015 2:06 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1
    Level 3 (525 points)
    Feb 17, 2015 2:06 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

    How much value is it to getting the rMBP with Nvidia GeForce 750 vs the rMPB with Intel Iris Pro graphics?  Apparently FCPX can make use of the GeForce, if you have it?  How much worse is FCPX on just Iris graphics?  I will not be editing feature films or anything that demanding.  If my pricing works out to a small difference, I'll of course get the GeForce.  But if it's a $400 difference...is it worth it to improve FCPX?

  • by David Bogie Chq-1,

    David Bogie Chq-1 David Bogie Chq-1 Feb 17, 2015 3:23 PM in response to Jason Kulas
    Level 7 (25,807 points)
    Video
    Feb 17, 2015 3:23 PM in response to Jason Kulas

    Jason Kulas wrote:

    How much value is it to getting the rMBP with Nvidia GeForce 750 vs the rMPB with Intel Iris Pro graphics?  Apparently FCPX can make use of the GeForce, if you have it?  How much worse is FCPX on just Iris graphics?  I will not be editing feature films or anything that demanding.  If my pricing works out to a small difference, I'll of course get the GeForce.  But if it's a $400 difference...is it worth it to improve FCPX?

    Let me google that for ya: 

    compare Nvidia GeForce 750 with Iris Pro

     

    Gamers prefer the 750. Other benchmarks on the Net show up but they're all focused on gaming on PCs. I could not find direct information about video editing but I doubt there's anything in gaming-specific instructions on the cards that could benefit video editing performance since video is being drawn from data not interpolated from an engine's output. Most video file decompression takes place on the CPU, I believe, with the emphasis on H.264 these days. According to Wiki, everything from Intel since 2011 Sandy Bridge chips have had H.264 decompressors built-in to the CPU.


    "The 2nd generation Intel "Sandy Bridge" Core i3/i5/i7 processors introduced at the January 2011 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) offer an on-chip hardware full HD H.264 encoder, known as Intel Quick Sync Video.[54][55]"

  • by Jason Kulas,

    Jason Kulas Jason Kulas Feb 17, 2015 3:38 PM in response to David Bogie Chq-1
    Level 3 (525 points)
    Feb 17, 2015 3:38 PM in response to David Bogie Chq-1

    I already Googled ("macbook pro video edit geforce"...did you assume I hadn't?).  From all I've been reading, there is some benefit.  Uses card's RAM for your video instead of system RAM, and it sounds like some operations in FCPX would be accelerated by the GPU (like rendering, effects, exporting).  My question is, how much benefit.  $400 worth?  How much worse with only Iris graphics?

  • by Ian R. Brown,

    Ian R. Brown Ian R. Brown Feb 18, 2015 1:34 AM in response to Jason Kulas
    Level 6 (18,660 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 18, 2015 1:34 AM in response to Jason Kulas

    You will never find such comparisons done by manufacturers and the only way to find out would be by buying both computers and doing side by side identical tests using your particular criteria, which are probably different from most other users.

     

    In my experience of life (especially concerning computers) the law of diminishing returns applies and you can spend large sums for often very negligible improvements.

  • by Tom 3,

    Tom 3 Tom 3 Feb 18, 2015 2:49 AM in response to Jason Kulas
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Feb 18, 2015 2:49 AM in response to Jason Kulas

    Dedicated performance always wins out by a substantial margin over integrated performance for video editing.

     

    Resale value gives you something like half of your money back.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4rgL9dW7mw

  • by WunderBread,

    WunderBread WunderBread May 5, 2015 5:33 AM in response to cgakash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 5, 2015 5:33 AM in response to cgakash

    I'm in (sort of ) the same position. I make drum covers on YouTube and I'm looking to upgrade from my old 2006 macbook pro, there's so many choices out there. From what I've heard getting an SSD is good. But I wouldn't know where to start with anything else. I work a lot so it doesn't need to be Extremely portable but I'd prefer a laptop over a desktop. And I basically just use the internet (email, YouTube, other sites) and ScreenFlow for video editing. And QuickTime for all my movies that I have. I already have a cheap 1 TB external hard drive (I don't remember what model, I think Toshiba something) so I wouldn't need that. And I just want something that doesn't take 1 hour to export a 5 minute video on ScreenFlow >.> lol my friends new macbook pro (I think the top end 2015 model) takes about 15 minutes but I've heard them say that the battery life ***** on it. I want good battery life. So I was thinking a macbook air, or macook pro, but I've seen that the MBP has all the ports which would be nice because occasionally I like hooking computers up to a TV via HDMI to watch shows/movies and I also need to be able to hook up my external and my card adaptor so I can get the videos off of my gopro and onto the laptop. Any help is sooo appreciated. Thanks everyone

     

    Check out my YouTube drum channel and subscribe

    http://www.youtube.com/user/WunderBreadd

  • by Russ H,

    Russ H Russ H May 5, 2015 5:43 AM in response to WunderBread
    Level 7 (21,835 points)
    Quicktime
    May 5, 2015 5:43 AM in response to WunderBread

    It doesn't sound like you will be doing very complex video work with custom graphics, etc.

     

    Therefore, any of the MBPs should be perfectly fine. Don't worry about 5 minute videos taking an hour ago export a 5 minute  video.   The processors on these machines support hardware acceleration for H.264 encoding, which is what you want for uploading to any video site lie YT.

     

    An SSD is nice to have overall, but it's not important for video editing. What would be more important is to get at least one good external hard drive for media and backups. (Two external drives would be preferable.)

     

    Russ

  • by WunderBread,

    WunderBread WunderBread May 5, 2015 1:41 PM in response to cgakash
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 5, 2015 1:41 PM in response to cgakash

    So an SSD is useful in what situation? I already have an external so that's covered. In your opinion what's the beat route I should take? Get a refurbished/old online model(2011 at least) and upgrade to 16gb ram and crucial sad or get one of the newer Mbps? I do like that my current MBP has all the ports in it so if possibly I'd like to find a nice laptop with those like I said, I like the HDMI port and 2-3 USB ports (at minimum 2). I guess what I'm asking is, to accomplish this what is the most efficient and cost effective method? Thanks for the reply I appreciated it

  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 May 5, 2015 2:06 PM in response to WunderBread
    Level 6 (12,500 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 5, 2015 2:06 PM in response to WunderBread

    WunderBread wrote:

     

    So an SSD is useful in what situation? I already have an external so that's covered. In your opinion what's the beat route I should take? Get a refurbished/old online model(2011 at least) and upgrade to 16gb ram and crucial sad or get one of the newer Mbps? I do like that my current MBP has all the ports in it so if possibly I'd like to find a nice laptop with those like I said, I like the HDMI port and 2-3 USB ports (at minimum 2). I guess what I'm asking is, to accomplish this what is the most efficient and cost effective method? Thanks for the reply I appreciated it

    I would never again buy a mac without an SSD. Once you have used one as your system drive, going back to a spinning hard drive is painful.

    It may not help all that much for video editing, but the whole system responsiveness is something else. Just my $0.02.

  • by Russ H,

    Russ H Russ H May 5, 2015 2:25 PM in response to WunderBread
    Level 7 (21,835 points)
    Quicktime
    May 5, 2015 2:25 PM in response to WunderBread

    WunderBread wrote:

     

    So an SSD is useful in what situation

    The system,  apps, and  windows load far faster. Hard to add anything ti what Luis said…just responding in literal fashion to your question. The GPU  CPU  and RAM are not the only important things to Final Cut, but those will make the most difference in avoiding marathon exports for short movies. 

     

    WunderBread wrote:

     

    I already have an external so that's covered.

    Yes, but you said you had a cheap one. You want a good one because that's where your libraries and media should live. Use the cheap one for archiving.

     

    If you buy refurbished, I would try to not to get anything older than 2012, which I'm pretty sure is when the Intels that support hardware acceleration started being used in MBPs.

     

    Also, you might want to post your question on the Mac Book Pro forum; there are many people there who are quite knowledgeable about hardware purchase tradeoffs.

     

    Russ

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