FCP on a Laptop

I am about to purchase a MAC laptop. My desktop gave up the ghost this weekend. I would really like to install FCP and use it for some editing projects. What should I make sure my new laptop has in order for me to run smoothly FCP, Photoshop, and AfterEffects and MS Office. Or should I just buy a tower? Thanks.

Final Cut Studio is only supported, laptop-wise, on the MacBook Pro.

Beyond that, it's hard to make a recommendation unless we know exactly what you're trying to do. Final Cut Pro can be used for everything from DV up to feature work.

Glad to know that. So, I can only get the Mac Pro. I am going to be cutting docs. Most people will bring me their drives with the media already on it to cut. I also have PhotoShop and AfterEffects applications. I also need to know if the MacPro will have the right amount of whatever I need to have these apps run. Thanks for your help.

MacBook Pro, not Mac Pro. I mean, you can invest in a Mac Pro if you want, but that's obviously not a laptop.

Unfortunately, again, until we know what you're actually doing, it's very hard to make a recommendation. Standard definition? DV or uncompressed? High definition? What format? Offlining or onlining? Throw us a bone, here.

Okay, MacBookPro, Geesh!!! Onlining Only, Standard Def, DV, not High Def, but if I want to eventually do High Def, can the MacBook Pro handle it.

my old powerbook G4 has handled many DVCProHD projects and my current MacBookPro is quite a bit faster than my G5 tower. It can handle it, just stay away from HDV unless you need to, it;s pretty processor intensive

Lots of guys use Macbook Pros on location- plug in an IO device, and hard drive, and you're good for ProRes captures (with the right additional gear, that is).. P2 transfers, etc...

It's likely the more processor intensive stuff if you're working with lots of Motion, Color, AE, encoding lots of H.264 in Compressor, that you may want machines with more powerful cajones...

You should be cool with the lower end HD formats- HDV, DvcproHD 720 (probably even 1080).



www.strypesinpost.com

I have FCP Studio on a MBP w/ 2.5ghz 4 gigs ram all the bells and whistles I can get and I am pleased with its operation. I mostly cut SD or HDV and I have not encountered problems that can't be resolved using this website that are basically my own lack of knowledge or editing for too many hours without coffee.

Cutting Docs should not be a prob. Investing in a 24" Dell Monitor and Firewire 800 drives are in my opinion are very important. I do enjoy having the ability to go anywhere and do some cutting.

The only downside s is that it is not expandable like a tower would be.

I have the 2.4GHz MacBook Pro with 4G ram and a 200G HD. I have FCS2 installed on it but have only used FCP6 so far. I edit P2 720p24pN footage on it and it works great. I use a G-RAID2 500G as my external hard drive hooked up via FW800.

I bought a wireless apple keyboard and mouse for it and those work great too.

A friend of mine just edited a RED short on his, so yeah, I'd have to say it does fine with HD.

I have the 15" screen and hear that the 17" screen draws too much power to run some bus-powered drives, so I would recommend sticking with a 15". It's a lot lighter too.

You can buy a cool device that allows you to hook up multiple monitors to it too, so overall a very versatile machine.

My wish: Larger internal hard drives.

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]

Hold your horses, cavalry -- you CAN edit just fine on a plane old vanilla MacBook - my film school daughter does it every day - load up with lots of ram - use a fast external drive and you are ok. MacBook pros are FASTER -- but FCP Studio 2 works like a charm on a regular MacBook - get as much ram as possible.

The key word there is "supported." If you have a problem, or a future update breaks Final Cut for the Macbook or another unsupported system, you're boned.

FCS2 may work fine on it, Apple says it can work on a g4 1.25Ghz. But can it edit HD with just a FW400? If it can, up to what format? You maybe able to cheat with using your internal drive, but that's not for the serious editor, IMHO.

For that matter, you can use an old G4 with FCP 5.1.2 and edit P2 footage they say....

Check the Wiki:
[www.lafcpug.org]

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]

I use Parallels which allowed me to copy my complete PC laptop to my MBP and so I have my old computer and new mac all-in-one, allowing me to give my PC laptop to my wife. Good stuff.

You might be happy with just the Mac version of MS Office, but I had to go Windows as a school requirement for a class.

You could go bootcamp too, but I really liked the ability to just copy everything over myself. Apple store would have transfered my "files" but it wasn't everything and it would take days to do it, so I just bought Parallels and did it myself. It was a pretty sweet process.

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]

on plain old macbook I've edited DVCPRO HD footage via straight firewire 400 and 800 on plain old bus driven drives and GRAID's. No problem

If you need a portable, get a portable. If you don't need the portability, then stick with an iMac or Mac Pro.