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Macbook Air & Final Cut Pro works…
Alright i know i am about to get slammed on this post, as i have read some others where folks have wondered about the MBA and FCP. Well I have a Macbook Air and I will post my experiences here with the hopes that it might help someone out before the purchase. Let me caveat by saying that this is my 3rd computer in my suite of tools, so I am able to have this experiment with the comfort of my 8 core and MBP 2.6 at hand. I did not load or install any of the rest of the suite. Only FCP for now
Let me get this out of the way, DO NOT buy a MBA as your main edit station, BUT it can run FCP and cut DVCPROHD 1080 & 720 just fine…
I have the stock MBA 1.6 with the 80GB harddrive (about 59GB free from factory). And I have been running some tests with FCP. The biggest problem is getting your footage on the computer and working with it. I have a G Drive mini that is dual Firewire and USB. I dumped a project from the MacPro via media manager to the G Drive Mini via firewire. The project has about an hour of 720 24p DVCPRO HD material (a friend’s daughter’s bday party) that I shot on a HVX200 and Letus. I connected the Drive to the MBA via USB (it provides bus power) and the project opened up just fine and i was on my way.
I can play back 3 streams of footage in real time (Brady Bunch Test), and most transitions playback in real time. When a render is necessary, it is a little slow, about 2x real time on gradient transitions. The interface is snappy, but scrubbing isn’t visually smooth if you drag the playhead along really fast. The waveforms take a bit to draw in when the project is first opened, but once drawn the first time, update fairly quickly. Been tooling around for a couple hours in the project, and its been keeping up just fine, and its been stable. I have to say that other than the screen size, this doesnt feel that different than editing on my MBP, but again I am doing just cuts and assembly. But I am shocked at how it is performing just fine. Another surprise is that the USB connection has been ample thus far. I always heard that macs and usb drives dont play well for video, but I am just not seeing that yet.
So why do this? If i have serious job with a tight deadline with a need to finish on the portable, i am still taking the MBP, but its nice to know i have an option for my next flight of just taking the MBA (since its going to be my main document computer anyway) and a drive and doing some basic editing on a plane. I travel a TON, and the flexibility is nice. Reminds me of the offline days of laptop editing, if that model of doing an assembly on the laptop and the finishing on a desktop or stronger system, there could be something here.
I will update this post with experiences, and further benchmarks as I see how much is feasible to accomplish on the MBA. I will also see what DVD Studio Pro runs like on the system. I will not attempt Color or Motion. STP is a maybe.
If anyone has any questions, let me know.
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1 Reply
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I think the Macbook Air is a wonderful machine, but to not have firewire, it is a major drawback for video editors or people that just want to use final cut pro. I saw no reason why it wouldnt run it as I had FCP running on an older powermac g4 (i think it was the 866mHz model).
What I think would be great from Apple is to produce a Macbook air size device but with an express card slot, faster processor, and bigger hard drive. No dvd drive, firewire, or any of the bonus features. With an express card slot, it’d be a great complement to the new Sony EX1, be able to still keep it small, and be a great companion for an editor to bring along his/her projects. Also, an express card slot gives traditional workflow of tapes and firewire the opportunity to expand so the computer can have the ability to add on a firewire port. But that’s all just my opinion. A faster macbook air with an express card slot. That’d be great.
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