IoHD / Macbook Pro / FCP or PPro3?

[Walter Biscardi]

[jimmybee500] “but as Adobe have moved back into Mac territory and my familiarity with their suite I wondered if PPro3 might work with IoHD?”

That’s a question for AJA. You can post this question in the AJA Io forum or email their tech support directly.

[jimmybee500] “What else will I need in my laptop setup to edit/composite uncompressed SD and possibly later ProResHQ 1080?”

High speed SATA array. You need to find one that utilizes the Express card connection. Honestly have not spec’d out anything for the laptop but some good SATA companies are LaCie, Sonnet, Dulce and MaxxDigital.

[jimmybee500] “Plus if I went this direction then I’d have to go for a FW800 RAID…is this better/worse/same as an eSATA RAID? Not many ports on a MBP..”

Depending on the array, generally FW800 is much worse that SATA in terms of speed. Plus SATA can offer up to RAID 10 protection.

[jimmybee500] “i’d initially looked at a BMD Multibridge for i/o and monitoring, but it only works with PCIExpress…is this the same thing when used with an adapter?”

That’s a different product than the Io HD. Personally we run all AJA products in the shop.

[jimmybee500] “Or should I really be looking at a Mac Pro desktop?”

In my opinion, yes. After Effects simply cannot render as fast on a MacBook Pro than the desktops. I use my laptops for internet and email, very rarely to edit because we don’t have the time to wait on the laptop renders.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Jimmy Brunger]

Thanks for info Walter (btw – loved the blog on starting your own business..looking forward to the next one)

Yes, this is a tough decision for me on the MBP vs Desktop.

In an ideal world I’d go for both, but I only really have the money for one. Currently I’m a mograph/vfx artist but do a tiny bit of editing/audio sweetening and I want my home setup to be able to edit too as I hope to fuse the two a bit more and work on less client-attended jobs, as I do now at our facility..So speed isn’t as much of an issue, but being able to do the job properly obviously is.

As this would be my sole home computer a laptop is far more desirable as an all-in-one solution and enables me to work on the move when needed. Obviously an all-in-one machine is not ideal for an edit machine, but I have made it work fairly well on my workstation at the facility..Properly firewalled up, protected and only installing necess apps of course.

On other hand, perhaps I would be better off getting the desktop first and then a cheap macbook for travel/internet later? Can I install FCS suite on my laptop from the same licence?..I know you can with Adobe’s suite.

An AJA Kona / BMD Decklink solution on the desktop would be cheaper than the IoHD’s hefty price tag – which could save me a bit to get a cheap laptop aswell – but does the IoHD offer anything the Kona/similar doesn’t? I mean I’ll need a RAID array whichever option I go for right? But ProRes is only available via IoHD? So uncompressed HD without means a BIG array?

Thanks for your help.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3 / Mocha v1
————————————-
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Walter Biscardi]

[jimmybee500] “On other hand, perhaps I would be better off getting the desktop first and then a cheap macbook for travel/internet later? Can I install FCS suite on my laptop from the same licence?..I know you can with Adobe’s suite.”

Yes, you can install on the Desktop and MacBook. The MacBook will be rather limited for use with FCS just because it’s slower and has a less beefy graphics card than the MacBook Pro. But it does run and I know some folks who are editing with it.

I have two laptops here along with a Mac Mini and iMac that are all used for email, internet, Compressor and DVD Authoring. We don’t edit on any of them because we do have three desktop systems. But when I started my company, I started with a desktop for editing and an original iMac for everything else.

For VFX work, desktops are really the way to go, especially since you can upgrade at will even after you make the purchase. Laptops are much more limiting in what you can upgrade outside of RAM.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Jimmy Brunger]

Walter/anyone else…

do you know if it would be possible to pop 2 x quad-core xeons in the current 2 x dual-core Mac Pro at a later date? I really can’t stretch to the 8-core at the moment, but hopefully in the near future the chips will get cheaper and if I can upgrade the desktop to this effect that’d be the decider I reckon.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3 / Mocha v1
————————————-
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Walter Biscardi]

[jimmybee500] “do you know if it would be possible to pop 2 x quad-core xeons in the current 2 x dual-core Mac Pro at a later date?”

Call these guys, that’s what they do. They actually designed the first Quad Processor Mac back in 1995-’96 and were quite successful with Mac clones until Apple took that away. I use them for Apple service since they’re very close by.

https://daystartechnology.com/

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Jimmy Brunger]

I’ve given them a tinkle. Thanks for the heads up Walter.

Just to try confirm one more thing on the AJA IoHD (I’m not getting much response on the AJA forum!) does it offer any sitgnificant benefits over a capture card like the Kona or similar?..

I mean, is it just native ProRes capture the Io can do exclusively or does it offer some other benefits? Presumably it’s the only capture card worth it’s salt for use with a laptop?..It’s just alot more money than a Kona or Decklink card if I were to go the desktop route.

Thanks.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3 / Mocha v1
————————————-
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Michael Colin]

FYI, I recently bought the top-end MBP with 1920×1200 display and used it on a chroma-key intensive project. Rendered out Shake composites with Animation codec in a pretty snappy fashion, and the FCS2 programs worked great as well. I upped the RAM to 4gb, got a GRAID2 and used a 23″ Cinema display (mirrored the MBP display).

I know speed is relative, so let me put it this way: it worked fast enough for me with what I was doing, and I wouldn’t be afraid to use this setup with a client looking over my shoulder.

[Jimmy Brunger]

Thanks for your info Colin.

How were you/are you getting footage into the MBP?

And with the external monitor, can you use it as an extended desktop? (ie: you move the mouse to the far right of the MNBP screen and it then appears on far left of external screen) Or does it only support mirroring?

I’m still not totally decided on my options, as it looksd like the budget might not stretch to a desktop, but then it does has cheaper i/o options…but the only option that I know of for MBP is IoHD at