Macbook Pro with red rocket/thunderbolt or Mac Pro without

[Trey Chace]

I'm in immediate need of a second edit suite, and I'm not a super techy guy. Can someone tell me if I should get a new Macbook pro with the Sonitech PCI slot with a red rocket? Or a Mac Pro loaded without a red rocket. It's one or the other, I'm not super interested in dropping a ton of coin on this. I shoot about 50% on the red and 50% on the mkIII. As of now, im on FCP, but may switch to PP. Could also just get an old Mac Pro too...not sure weather to just take the hint and ditch the tower all together as it seems as the Mac Pro could soon be going bye-bye.
cool, thanks, and again, non-tech overload answers are appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
trey

 

[Matthew Mann]

Are you transcoding for your edit, or wanting to work with the R3Ds natively? If you're transcoding to Pro Res in FCP 7, you'll be fine with any generation macbook pro unless you need the rocket for the transcode. If you're working with native R3Ds, it partially depends on what resolution you're shooting and monitoring. Premiere lets you down res up to 1/8, so you could probably work with 5k FF footage in realtime on a macbook pro without a rocket. You'll definitely be fine with the rocket with the MBP, although I do hear thunderbolt PCI-e is slower than having it native in your tower. Whatever the case, it really depends on your full workflow.

The Mac Pro isn't going bye bye... Tim Cook mentioned an update in 2013.

 

[Olivier Madar]

Could you only think of the PC route ?

My advice is : Forget the RedRocket. For the same amount of money you can have a wonderful PC and work 1/2 with 5K and render in 1,5x the real time (the Rocket won't give you a lot much). See the test on notebook Mac and PC

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...otebook-on-Mac-i7-versus-PC-with-Premiere-CS6

 

[Trey Chace]

thanks folks,
yes I'm transcoding to prores, and 99% of the time only using the 4k files for frame grabs.

 

[Matthew Mann]

Well the rocket will significantly speed up your transcodes to pro res, but after that you're golden on any MacBook Pro from the last couple years with FCP 7.

 

[Kwan Khan]

MBP Latest test results from M. Cioni
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?81179-New-15-quot-MacBook-Pro-Performance/page3

BTW... My Tower is for sale (lol)