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Which Apple Laptop for HD?
I am contemplating dipping my toe in the Apple waters, and want to buy a used Mac laptop for HD video editing and production. I have not so much as turned on a Mac, so I know nothing about them. What Mac laptop could I consider as a minimum that will handle HD, as in model, CPU, OS, clock speed? I am very mobile in shooting and editing video, so I really need a laptop. Prefer starting out with used, until I know I want to make the plunge. Curently using a Dell laptop with core 2 duo and Vegas Pro 9.0. Many thanks!
Max
Max
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4 Replies
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Look at the MacBook Pro.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
The 17″ MBP with an LED 1920×1200 matte screen is flat-out stunning, and it has an ExpressCard slot that can be used for eSata high performance disk access (much faster than FW800 even), and it also has a high performance graphics card that will help you for Motion especially.
Look for one with a 320GB disk or whatever is one or two generations behind on the disk size.
Factory refurbs have the same warranty as new (1 yr P&L), and you can add 2 years to that inexpensively anytime before the first year is up. Apple.com has these, also MacMall.
Do not get a “MacBook” (without the Pro), they don’t have usable graphics cards and there are a few other issues as well.
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I’ve got a MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz. It’s fine for Logging and Transfer, but the main problem is that it is only capable of 2 GB RAM. The newer Macs go beyond that but you lose the Express slot, which is very useful for many add ons. I agree that you need more than the 160 GB HD. Not sure that you will save that much by buying used, since if you get a 160 GB drive you will probably need to upgrade it quickly with HD footage needs. I found I needed a quad core desktop Mac to really do the job right, but a MB Pro might get you down the road for a while, and prepare you for doing more taxing work later.
Alf
Panasonic HMC-150 & FCP on MacPro Dual Quads, 12 GB 7.0.1 on 10.6.2 -
As I stated above, the 17″ MBP keeps the ExpressCard slot.
The newer MBPs take up to 8 GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 RAM.
I use a FirmTek eSATA dual drive enclosure, rock solid and high performance, which saves me worry about the system drive filling up.
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