Can I Temporarily Edit with a MacBook Pro?

[Sam Roberts]

All these rumors about a new more powerful Mac Pro tower arriving in the next few months has me wondering if I should wait on that purchase and try to get by for awhile just using the MacBook Pro field computer I am also planning on buying.

Here are the specs on the Macbook:

17-inch: 2.5GHz
2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
250GB hard drive1
Double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB

I know a newer model arrives this week and I will get that one but the above specs are bottom line.

I am also planning to buy a Caldigit HD Pro Raid and an AJA io HD input output box.

So if I add all these things together can I edit RED material for output to 1080 DVD and tape for broadcast?

Anything more I should add to the laptop ie: more memory?

Can I use my two Samsung LCD computer monitors with the MacBook?

Will the Caldigit card install in a laptop?

What about the FCS program itself? If I install it on the laptop will I be able to install it a second time on the Mac Pro tower when I buy it?

Is this workable?

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Yes you will be able to install it on another computer, but you can't use them at the same time within the same network.

Can't answer the rest of your questions.

 

[Alex Carr]

You would save some money by getting a 15" Macbook Pro and then a 8 -core 2.8 and a BlackMagic Card, But you would get more performance for Layoffs. Better Stability Mostly.

Either working with Proxies, or Transcoding them to Pro Res to work is both very intensive and slow on a Macbook Pro. The FSB is 800mhz, on a MacPro its double + six more Cores. If you are on a deadline for Projects, A Macbook
may not get you completed in time.

 

[RMTOP]

Had the same idea

Had the same idea

I had the same idea and purchased a MacBook Pro with 2.6 GHz, 4 Gig of memory and a fast hard drive. I’ve had pretty good success editing in ProRes 422 after rendering down from original R3D files. The big problem is the rendering time. It is incredibly slow on a MacBook Pro. I’ve averaged about on to two frames a second. So if you’ve got tons of time for the conversion process the MacBook Pro seems to be able to do a decent job with the converted material. I tried to use the QT proxy files created by the camera and was able to put them on FCP timeline. However, any attempt to add effects was not possible. I found the QT files great for looking but impossible to edit except for straight cuts. The majority of answers I got from my own post about this was if I want to do any serious work with RED material I’d better be ready to get the 8 core, highest end MacPro desk top.

 

[Sam Roberts]

I wonder if I could somehow use the AJA io HD box to speed things up a bit?

 

[Tim Fassnacht]

All these rumors about a new more powerful Mac Pro tower arriving in the next few months has me wondering if I should wait on that purchase and try to get by for awhile just using the MacBook Pro field computer I am also planning on buying.

Here are the specs on the Macbook:

17-inch: 2.5GHz
2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
250GB hard drive1
Double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB

I know a newer model arrives this week and I will get that one but the above specs are bottom line.

I am also planning to buy a Caldigit HD Pro Raid and an AJA io HD input output box.

So if I add all these things together can I edit RED material for output to 1080 DVD and tape for broadcast?

Anything more I should add to the laptop ie: more memory?

Can I use my two Samsung LCD computer monitors with the MacBook?

Will the Caldigit card install in a laptop?

What about the FCS program itself? If I install it on the laptop will I be able to install it a second time on the Mac Pro tower when I buy it?

Is this workable?

Dont think Caldigit Card works on a laptop, You only have one DVI port on your MacBook, so one of those LCD monitors will have to do, and as mentionied, a single license of FCS2 will only work on one computer on a network, so if you have it installed on both, just disconnect one from the internet and you can use them simultaneously.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[Sam Roberts]

Thanks for the replies. I figured it would probably be the rendering times that would be the problem with this idea.

 

[Ben Holmes]

I wonder if I could somehow use the AJA io HD box to speed things up a bit?

No - the IO HD will not speed up conversions or renders. What it does is to deal with the encoding and decoding of the ProRes codec. It's designed to work with HD ProRes material, and cannot deal with uncompressed HD, which is a good thing on a laptop system. I'm a big fan of ProRes HQ for 1080p broadcast work for a lot of reasons, but as a device, the IO HD is limiting in terms of workflow.

Coupled to that, you could buy a Mac Pro for the sort of money the IO HD would cost you, almost, then get a cheaper Blackmagic card to output to tape.

The IO HD is a great product, but this is the wrong reason to buy it. If you capture and edit to tape in all enviroments in 1080i/p it's a great product. For a RED finishing workflow, notsomuch.

Your own conclusion is right, get a Mac Pro tower. There will always be another one around the corner (usually in January) so sometimes you have to bite the bullet. It will make you money NOW, and will always be useful as a second system when you can justify a newer one. To be honest, you are not going to see big performance gains on the mythical 16/32/1024 core Mac Pros until the OS and applications better support multiple cores. Roll on Snow Leopard...

Ben