Last gen MBP vs. 13″ unibody MBP

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
I chose an older 15″ MBP because of the ExpressCard slot to run eSATA drives – FCP is better with the faster drive access.

I got AppleCare because there has been a history of graphics card failures in the older 2007-8 MBPs:
https://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377

[Jerry Hofmann]

Yeah, you’re possibly missing 3 things.

1. Expandability. There’s no way to run an external monitor inexpensively (Io HD will work and they run 3k) without an express card slot.( Matrox MXO might work, but I’d check it out before I committed to a Mac of any ilk, as it uses the second monitor port to do it’s trick) There’s also only one FW bus in any Mac, so you can’t add another without the card slot. Firewire cameras and firewire drives really work a lot better on machines with two busses) AND you can’t add a USB 3 card, nor an eSATA card to anything you’re looking at, so you’ll always be constrained to slow external disk drives.

2. Color won’t run on the 13″… so you lose a fabulous color application by buying one. It will open maybe, but the display is just too low a res to show the app properly)

3. The only “lately” made MBP’s with a card slot are the 17″ machines.

So depending on what you want to use the Mac for, and what your acquisition and delivery mechanisms/formats are going to be, you might not want to buy less than a 17″ machine… a used one sells for not much more than it’s 15″ counterpart. Even the current 17″ has the express card slot.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

DVD:https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays

[Patrick Simpson]

Some great thoughts.

I probably won’t be monitoring because my primary delivery right now is web. But having the expresscard slot for esata sure would be nice, otherwise I’m editing w/ a FW800 drive.

Most of my acquisition will be solid state from a DSLR, so having multiple FW buses isn’t crucial. Then again, it’s always nice to have the option for expandability w/ the expresscard slot.

[Bob O’brien]

Also, assuming you’re planning to use FCP on a 13″ – no thank you.

CAMERAS
Sony EX3 & Sony DXC637/PVV3 Betacam-SP

PORTABLE EDITING
*MacBook Pro – 2.33Ghz – 2Gb RAM
*Matrox MXO / 23″ Cinema Display

DESKTOP
*DualG5 2Ghz w/2.5Gb RAM
*UL4D SCSI Card
*HMV800 DualMax RAID0
*AJA IO
*Sony 2800

SOFTWARE
*OSX10.4.11, QT 7.5, FCP 6.0.4, Livetype 2.1.3, Soundtrack Pro 2.0.2, DVDSP4.2.1, Adobe CS3 Prod Suite

[Andrew Evans]

haha i do it and its not great. but i do have a cinema display that i hook up to when I’m at the office.

[Patrick Simpson]

Andrew, you’re saying you edit on a 13″ macbook pro? What are the specs? Other than screen size, what are some issues or hangups you’ve run into? Do tell!

We’ve heard from a lot of people raising a stink over the idea of editing on a 13″ macbook pro, but not many who actually do it (and have lived to tell about it).

[Andrew Evans]

…”and live to tell about it.” haha. true true.

mine is the 2.4ghz 4gb of ram. i did put a 320gb 7200 hard drive in it and that made it a bit faster. not that i edit off the internal. i have a g-raid fw800.

I really don’t mind editing on it. I have a usb keyboard, mouse and 23″ display attached to it. bigger display is a must. other than that it works fine for FCP and AE. its just slower rendering.

The only reason i have this is for portability. If you don’t need a notebook you might look into getting an earlier macpro (1,1 or 2,1). I think they go for around $1,500 on ebay.

andrew