Wrong Macbook... Fixable? Usable?

Hi!

Mom thought of a wonderful gift to help my business. A Macbook with FCP6. Unfortunately, she forgot the magic word... "Pro". She packed the drive full of goodies so the internal drive is almost totally full.

Will this workflow be usable for editing footage from a Canon Vixia for SD DVD projects? Run a FW400 external drive containing all the video? Should I down res the video to SD before editing?

Or am I just asking for major pain working this way and should quietly upgrade to a Macbook Pro?

Macbook running 10.5.7
2G 667 DDR2
Drive with only 18G left on it.

Thanks!

It will work. What won't will be Color.

Michael Horton
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"Will Work" and "Will Work WELL" are totally different. This won't work WELL with the entire FCS suite. Mom...your heart was in the right place, but please try to return it for a "Pro"

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

It will run FCP fine, both for SD and HD. (Ask me how I know!)

Motion will be slow. Color (as Mike indicates) may not run at all -- I'm really not sure. If it does run, it'll be slooooooooooooow.

If you have the cash, I'd see if it's returnable for a MBP.

Mike Watson Wrote:
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> It will run FCP fine, both for SD and HD. (Ask me
> how I know!)

Ok, Mike! How do you know?

Be well,
Ben

I'd sell it and use for a down payment on a Mac Pro- that is if you need a serious editing machine. If this is a machine you'll take on the road more for business with the very occcasional use of FCP on it- then keep it. But say thanks one way or the other to mom- at least it's not a Dell- cuz those don't run FCP well at all.

Noah

Final Cut Studio Training, featuring the HVX200, EX1, EX3, DVX100, DVDSP and Color at [www.callboxlive.com]!
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Looks like I'll need to keep it for awhile. Will editing off external FW400's work ok? Or am I going to have to clear off some onboard drive space?

a firewire scratch disk is highly recommended... don't ever edit media from the internal drive of a laptop.

Capture Scratch and all media should be on an external drive....always. If it's FW400, you are limited to the type of media (speed issues)...which is why I politely asked your Mom to exchange the plain old Macbook for a Pro (includes a FW800 port and an Expres 34 card slot for a eSATA controller card).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Can't exchange. Brought it up to my Stepdad and he was mortified that I'd insult Mom by not just jumping for joy at the gift. He has a point. So to save familial good feelings, I get to make the most of the standard Macbook until I can afford to replace it with a Pro.

It's the thought that counts, after all.

Good attitude, Ben. While it is a very limited system, you certainly can use it for offline editing with Final Cut Pro. It's not suitable for finishing for a million reasons, not least is the utter inability to get broadcast video out of the thing, but it's definitely okay for offlining.

Get yourself a good-quality Firewire 400 drive to use as your framestore. Oh, and delete everything you possibly can off that system drive.

(Joey, only the 17" Macbook Pro comes with an ExpressCard 34 nowadays.)

There are other things you can use it for. Converting media, surfing the web, uploading/downloading, other support tasks. If it doesn't serve as your main editing station, it can still serve as a good ordinary laptop.

Yeah, good idea to keep your family happy and just hold on to it. It's still a big gift.


www.derekmok.com

Huge gift. Send your mom flowers. She obviously loves you.