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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Which MacBook?

I saw your video. Very interesting. Actually I was a bit dissapointed. I thought it WAS possible to edit the proxies on a laptop with FCP without having to render anything. Not that I plan to do any field editing although my partner might like to be able to do a rough cut of long interviews....chop them up and move them around kind of thing before I bring them into the Mac pro tower.

But like I said I just need a laptop just to screen footage, hear the audio (single system) and see a camera time code read out in Quicktime.

(Your video showed that seemed easy enough although like I said in my other message to you, I didn't see a TC readout when you were playing back on Quicktime in your vid so I take it that is something you select when playing back footage?)

The reason for my original question is I'm wondering if I can I get away with buying a less expensive MacBook if all I need to do is screen footage in Quicktime and transfer files from the RED drive/card reader to an external drive hooked up to the laptop?

When I watched your vid I wondered if you might have better luck on a laptop using Adobe CS4 with the new RED plugin. It seems to need less processor resouces to edit.
 
If you want to do field offload, get a Macbook Pro. You'll want to use FW800 and eSATA over Ex34. I don't have numbers to hand, but that is a hell of a lot faster than USB2 on a Macbook.

I don't think anyone has done editing tests on the new MBP, but so I don't knwo about the speed bumps, but getting a clearence discount on a last of the old generation MBP's is an awfully tempting propersition.
 
hey Sam,

Changed the playback settings in final cut pro from "safe" to "unlimited" and it removed the red render bar (became orange) but the playback was still as jittery as you saw in the quicktime playback of the 2k proxy.
 
I can assure, that one can edit on a Macbook without rendering, with an orange line in FCP:

2Ghz Core Duo, 2GB RAM
1024x512 proxies (2k/4k)
1 external wav, manual synched to video
data on external firewire disc


I was wondering, why the playback was not fluent on JNFilms's video, I suspect that with an internal drive is too slow. It might work with a hitachi 7K RPM one.

I am not sure what you mean with timecode, but I suspect, that anything else, than pure straight cuts will force you to render, and ergo break the ability to work with the proxies.

I think for your purpose, you can go with the 999 USD macbook white. It will not look cool, but do exactly what you want.
 
Karlgustav said:
If you want to do field offload, get a Macbook Pro. You'll want to use FW800 and eSATA over Ex34. I don't have numbers to hand, but that is a hell of a lot faster than USB2 on a Macbook.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I am going eSATA with the Sonnet Fusion F2
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusionf2.html

I take it I can plug the eSata card right into the Macbook Pro?
 
Dear Sam,

I've just posted a reply in the following thread (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=20665) that should give the optimal settings for your timeline playback. The stuttering you see may actually be dynamic framerate (which dynamically changes the rate to allow for real time playback)

Helge
 
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