Is Macbook Pro 13″ ok for ocasional editing?

[Thomas Morter-laing]

Which MacBook pro specifically? I don’t remember a 350GB specific one off the top of my head- what’s the processor? 🙂

Tom Morter-Laing
Editor
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010

——————————
Thanks if you can help 😀
——————————

Equipment (not for ‘bragging’, but in case it’s relevant to future posts :D): Canon 7D, with Rode NTG2.
iMac 27″ intel i7 3.4GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD 6970M [2GB GDDR5], G-Tech G-RAID 2TB (soon to be over eSata!). Elgato Turbo H264HD.

[Jeremy Doyle]

I use my wife’s 13″ macbook pro core 2 duo with 4 gb ram every now and then. It works fine with a firewire 800 drive. Cuts only in Pro Res and HDV are no problem. I’ve finished a couple of projects on it, but it takes forever to render and I’ve only done it in a pinch.

It certainly is nothing compared to my Mac Pro, but it beats the pants off my old G4 that I cut DVCPRO HD footage with on FCP 4.5 when I made the jump to HD.

[Tatyana Mircheva]

I am sorry I meant the 13 inch 320GB https://store.apple.com/uk/product/FC700B/A

Originally released February 2011
13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, 1280-by-800 resolution
4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
320GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM

Tatyana Mircheva

[Jules Bodenstein]

Hi Tatyana,

All the modern macbook pros should be more than capable of running FCP, although they may be a little slow rendering I would advise working with offline SD proxies to relieve pressure on the macbook.

The main issue I would have with the 13 inch is the size of the screen. I like a big screen or two while editing and have found it difficult to work sometimes on my laptop which is the 15 inch model.

Either way happy editing!

[Tatyana Mircheva]

Thank you guys for your replies. I have just purchased it. Have a good weekend! 🙂

Tatyana Mircheva

[Al Bergstein]

The question I have is whether this one runs Lion or if it is the one running something prior to that. If this came out post Lion, then you might have a problem, as I have been unable to run FCP 7 under Lion. Just want to make sure you are clear on that, if in fact that is the case. I could be wrong. Maybe they have fixed that problem? But when I tried to install FCP 7 on my Lion based machine, it said it would not run on it and refused to install.

Al

[Thomas Morter-laing]

Al- thats not a common issue methinks- I have Lion on mine and currently repel the idea of FCPX, and am running FCP7 without any issue…

Tom Morter-Laing
Editor
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010

——————————
Thanks if you can help 😀
——————————

Equipment (not for ‘bragging’, but in case it’s relevant to future posts :D): Canon 7D, with Rode NTG2.
iMac 27″ intel i7 3.4GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD 6970M [2GB GDDR5], G-Tech G-RAID 2TB (soon to be over eSata!). Elgato Turbo H264HD.

[Al Bergstein]

Thanks Thomas, very odd. Oh well, I’ll give it another try then. I don’t use it that often anymore anyway, but when it didn’t install, I just gave up.

Al

[Apostolos Nikolaidis]

Tatiana hi,

I was wondering how things go with the 13″ MBP and FCP?
I edit as well on a 27″ iMac and need a small and reliable laptop for my shooting journeys.
Is the 13″ MBP capable of doing some basic editing / viewing and exports for HD materials through FCP 7?

Any help/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Apostolos

[Tatyana Mircheva]

Hi,

Well, I bought the refurbished one in January from the apple site -good price. It came as brand new.
I tried a little bit of editing and it was rather slow. The screen is also small. The last time I upgraded the firmware it crushed and had to take it to apple store. They had to erase everything. Bah!

So, unfortunately I can’t give you a great review on the editing side as I didn’t use it much for this after all.

I guess not helpful at all.

Therefore I am off to bed.

Ciao.

Tatyana Mircheva