MacBook Air OK for FCPX?

Good question... I'm wondering about the same thing.

I would say, the processor is powerful enough, if you take the 13inch one, especially the i7. And the video card is supported too, eventhough it is on the "minimum system requirements" list. It features a Intel HD graphics 3000, which should be enough for some background rendering. But I didn't try it myself yet.

Mine is on its way... I'll be sure to update once I get it.

I have watched a few things on youtube of people using it to edit. I have heard the encoding is pretty slow but I was hoping to get one for just editing clips in the car. I would use my imac to apply effects and encode.

tallseabass, did you get your macbook air yet? have you tried fcp x on it yet?

Right now it is tough to utilize the MBA without an external hard drive supported by thunderbolt (or an adapter to utilize a fw 800 hd) unless you count the $1,000 stack sold on the apple store...

Yeah I have tried it and although I haven't done any major editing on it, I'm pretty convinced that it's powerful enough to make tweaks on, but it's not your go-to machine if you really need to get a project done. I tried running a project that's saved on an external HD-- via USB cable-- and everything came up just fine and normal. However, when I tried to add an effect into a 10-second clip, I instantly saw the lag and actually heard the fan come on for the first time. So, it's safe to say that it'll be good for watching/tweaking projects on, but not quite powerful enough to rely on it as your only system to edit on. If my 8GB of RAM on my i5 quad-core iMac even lags a little with FCPX, there's no question that the 4GB of RAM on my i7 dual-core MBA will have an even tougher time. Hope this helps!

That makes sense. I am curious though, have you tried dragging that same 10 second clip onto your SSD and applying an effect then? I know when I edit from a USB HD on my iMac it makes everything render, encode, etc a lot slower. I wonder if your USB might be the bottle neck on your set up rather than your specs of your MBA.

I completely agree though, an iMac will perform taxing tasks much faster.

Like I said before, I think when thunderbolt HD's become available, the MBA will be that much more usable! I am assuming Apple thinks so to since they discontinued their MacBooks! 🙂

I would think so.

I just edited a simple project at the clients office using FCP on a 1st gen mac air.

So I just imported a 10-second clip into FCPX with the built in FaceTime Camera and then added a bunch of effects to it and it ran reasonably well. The fan did not immediately come on like it did when working on a project from an external HD via USB... although the iStat temp reading on CPU was 200+ degrees Farenheit and the HD ran close to 180. So, I'm pretty sure under more use it'll run hotter but I think A Jungemann has a point that perhaps working straight from the SSD as opposed to an external HD (at least via anything other than Thunderbolt) will speed things up. The only problem is that the limited disk space on the 256GB SSD is just way too small to complete any substantial video project in 1080p. I know I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a Thunderbolt external HD!

tallseabass wrote:

So I just imported a 10-second clip into FCPX with the built in FaceTime Camera and then added a bunch of effects to it and it ran reasonably well. The fan did not immediately come on like it did when working on a project from an external HD via USB... although the iStat temp reading on CPU was 200+ degrees Farenheit and the HD ran close to 180. So, I'm pretty sure under more use it'll run hotter but I think A Jungemann has a point that perhaps working straight from the SSD as opposed to an external HD (at least via anything other than Thunderbolt) will speed things up. The only problem is that the limited disk space on the 256GB SSD is just way too small to complete any substantial video project in 1080p. I know I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a Thunderbolt external HD!

best news I have heard all day! 🙂 I agree the limited SSD space makes it "impractical" now but in a few short months, i am sure lacie and others will external hd's available. Can you imagine a time when EVERYTHING is SSD and thunderbolt (or better)? Life will be nothing but rainbows and butterflies! 😉

Can I ask you guys some questions as a newbie to FCPX on the MBAir?

Any particular settings in FCPX to assure no dropped frames and smooth operation with HD?

Using just the internal SSD, do you think I can get away with music videos (1080p) shot with multiple angles from DSLR's, not much digital effects other than fades, and stereo audio plus 1 or 2 dialogue tracks (16bit audio)?

Thanks for any advice.

New Macbook Air 13", i7, 4g RAM, 256g SSD