Does anyone use a MacBookPro as their only editing computer?

[Stuart Davidson]

Beware using E-Sata on a MBP, I moved from Firewire to E-sata and suffered constant lockups and crashes. Internet research showed I wasn’t the only one. Went back to FW and the problems went away.

[Don Walker]

I edit maybe 5% of my work on a MBP and I never have experienced problem with ESATA. (Sonnett F2 drives etc.)
don

John 3:16

[Jim Edds]

I use an Iomega eSATA drive with my MBP 17in. I use the Sonnet Tempo card (cheaper of the two versions). No problems yet here.

I will say one thing for the Macpro vs. MBP – with the latter I’m constantly switching between the eSata card, the firewire express card (to capture from tape), card reader, etc. A pain at times. Nice to have all the wires connected without messing with them anymore! Also, the MBP screen needs to be bigger if you’re at the highest resolution. Print is too small for my eyes. Drop to a lower res and it just doesn’t look as good.

MBP I7 2.66 8GB RAM, 140GB SSD, FCP 7

[Giuseppe Mangione]

I use FCP with a Macbook Pro 17” with 2GB of RAM, 256 MB of VRAM and several hard drives via FW 800. Editing codec: Sony XDCAM EX.

I mostly worked in short video up to 10 minute in full HD 1080. I only see the system slowing down at the end of a project when I had to fill up the timeline with a text layer for subtitling (especially after the 5th minute of the timeline, everything become pretty slow ). With no subtitling, the system works pretty well.

I do some color correction and filters. This takes time, but manageable.
A big issue is when you have to export and convert in H264… It’s really time consuming.

I never had problems with firewire hard drive, so I really don’t think you need e-sata system.

My conclusion: for editing with a Macbook Pro only you have to organize very well your workflow with breaks for rendering and nights for exporting H264 files. But it works for me, and I’m mobile!

For audio mixing I export an OMF file and I do it in Pro tools LE.

Here come my questions…

In the near future I have to do a bigger project up to 1/2 hour (EX 1080, with subtitling). And I want to upgrade my system.

Of course I would like to go for a desktop, but because I travel a lot between Italy and U.S. I’d prefer to stay with a mobile studio.

Do you think the new Macbook pro 17” with 4GB ram 512 VRAM etc… will work fine for this project?
Have you ever had this experience of 1/2 hour?

What’s the best solution for using a monitor with a Macbook Pro?
1 – to use external monitor connected via PCI Express card with a Matrox MXO2 LE or something similar.
2 – use another PC monitor connected to the laptop.
3 – have both… the PC monitor as extra editing monitor, and the external monitor to view the video.

Has anyone tried in a Macbook Pro the Matrox MXO2 LE or the Matrox MXO2 mini with max technology for exporting H294?
Any advise?

ciao
beppe

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Giuseppe,
I have a MBP 17 similar than yours, and I just bought a new one (coming).
I expect to reduce the processing time a lot.

[Giuseppe Mangione] “3 – have both… the PC monitor as extra editing monitor, and the external monitor to view the video.”
This is the best solution, mostly because you work with Color. You will need an IO solution (Matrox, Motu AJA io).
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Isabelle Lassalvy]

Just a question
how can you use the mxo2 mini and the esata sonnet card at the same time with only one express cad port ?

[Noam Osband]

So, I only edit off my 17″ MBP. I have 8GB of RAM and I use FCP7. And it works fast. But I’ve just started looking into SSD and I’m wondering what people think about it? Reading online, it seems the main advantage is in compressing but that FCP will not work noticeably faster. Am I wrong here? Anyone want to give me some advice?