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

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

… because I tend to most of my editing in the car... waiting for a football practice to end, or a match to start :-)

although I'm getting more and more practice in editing, speeding up my edits, my sorts of football-reports can not be done in a car... should need a cozy trailer-home, somethin' … 😝

I thought you had moved the venue of that last game to England when I saw the opening shots until I realised that now we are all in the EU, Germany has as much right to foggy weather as the UK.

Hello all. I have a related question.....

I am new to MAC, and actually am about to get my first MAC...moving from PC Video Editing.

I am no "Pro"...but have built a position for me at my current job,...where I make short (20min or less) training videos. (video clips, imported sketchup mp4's, etc)

I have historically used a PC with a crappy editing software (Cyberlink)...

I need portability, so I want to get the macbook pro.

And sounds like the highest end current model will do the trick.

My question is....if I stress the machine as much as I can...say dozens of individual HD clips, tons of graphics, images, etc, sound etc, into one project.....could I possibly bog down the computer that would cause delays as I edit? (I know that rendering is the hog, but my biggest complaint with my current system is the small delays as I go thru the editing process. Even the 2 second delays.)

It is a pet peve of mine. Those little delays.

With the MACbook Pro (highest end machine), should I worry about this? (Using prox)

If so, I assume the only solution would be the new mac pro?

Any advice would be appreciated...since I am going to pull the trigger on a new machine within a month.

Just looking to put my mind at ease.

Thanks!!!!

Dave_1980 wrote:

....if I stress the machine as much as I can...say dozens of individual HD clips, tons of graphics, images, etc, sound etc, into one project.....could I possibly bog down the computer that would cause delays as I edit?

• avoid compounds
• add at last 2 external hard drives
• and avoid compounds (did I mention that …?)

=> no delays. no bogs, no ... nothin'!

I don't get tired to link to my stunt report .-.

Not 100% seriously meant, but demoes the tendency ...

And FCPX needs render only on export … in most cases … and if you avoid compounds ... esp. compounds IN compounds!! 👿

Meant as a serious advice:

Don't try to transfer your habitual workflow and methods to FCPX.

Try to start from zero, open minded.

A few things differ, a few things are familiar.

Example:

Watch the first 10 (=those are 'free', but all 20 for 10$ is a snap!) episodes of Steve&Marks latest :

https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/lessons-for-final-cut-pro-x/id952621966?mt=12

… and one last serious advice, to avoid any 'delays':

you shouldn't use comp.... ah, you know that? Excellent! 😝

Hi Dave.

What Karsten said.

A small point, but just to let you know, it's Mac…not MAC.

Best of luck.

Russ

Great, thanks much!!! Man, sounds like this is going to be a slow transition....and a lot to learn.

I would probably blow your minds if you saw what I had to do in Cyberlink to get what I wanted.

10-4, thanks

MAC is short for, umm, Media Access Control Address See the wiki for IEEE802 specifications.

It's a number assigned to individual computers or CPUs on many kinds of networks.

Karsten -

Why external hard drives? Is this for speed reasons? And why (2)? What if I get the macbook with internal flash storage?

Thanks!

Dave

Using another hard drive for your media and projects will help speed up the process as the tasks will be shared.

So it's mainly about computer efficiency.

The FCP X app should be on your boot drive of course.

If you only do a little editing you can manage OK with just the computer's hard drive but if you intend to do a lot it's well worth getting a large HDD (2TB or more USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt).

I don't know why Karsten said get 2 unless he was suggesting you make a RAID.

Are we sure Mac isn't named for the Macintosh Apple, a famous apple breed like Delicious Apples.

I think that's what it is.

It's the same shape as Apple's Logo.

It's for capacity.

Everything is external these days except your main drive.

Free's up your computer to do it's hard work more efficiently.

Lot's of advantages.

The sky's the limit.

Internal your boxed in.

Macintosh is pretty classy, that's Steve Jobs.

I've had the same conversation with my IT geeks. They always want to run full caps on Mac, changing it to MAC. That's because they understand MAC addresses and they loathe our fleet of Macintosh machines. Plus they get to think they're SHOUTING when they ask if my MAC is up to date!!

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! ... 😎