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Activity Forums Creative Community Conversations MacBook Pro and FCPX 16G? or IMac 32G?

  • MacBook Pro and FCPX 16G? or IMac 32G?

    Posted by Hugue Loiselle on February 22, 2017 at 10:45 pm

    Hi everyone,

    I want to reequip myself to make little video editing.
    Personnal projects mostly.
    But i can do a pretty good job, having a professionnal background

    I worked on AVID 5 and FCP 7 like 4 or 5 years ago.
    The new Macbook pro with 16 gig RAM would be my target.

    My questions are:

    Does FCP X as a good workflow with 16 G RAM or does it absolutely need 32G? (Wich the MBP can’t have)
    Should I go with AVID and and monthly membership?
    or an ADOBE PREMIERE and the Adobe Bundle?
    Is Davinci Resolve a good option?

    Should I think of an IMac with 32G?

    Looking for all of your suggestions

    Thank you

    A video editor coming back to life.

    Hugue

    Hugue

    Scott Witthaus replied 9 years, 5 months ago 8 Members · 13 Replies
  • 13 Replies
  • Andy Patterson

    February 22, 2017 at 10:57 pm

    Your best bet would be to try the trial version of each NLE. I would try one each month if you have the time. If the iMac can get a little better performance that the MBP it might be worth getting. I would like to think the bigger screen might be useful but everyone edits different.

  • Shane Ross

    February 22, 2017 at 11:05 pm

    Read this thread (JUST THE FIRST PART) about how well the new MBP works with FCX:

    https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/93632

    [Hugue Loiselle] “Should I go with AVID and and monthly membership?”

    Do you like Avid? Are you comfortable using Avid? Does it do what you need done, editing wise?

    [Hugue Loiselle] “or an ADOBE PREMIERE and the Adobe Bundle?”

    Do you like Adobe? Are you…just look at what I said above.

    [Hugue Loiselle] “Is Davinci Resolve a good option? “

    The MBP is too underpowered for Resolve, really. Mainly the graphics card. And Resolve is for color grading and converting footage…not QUITE there for general editing, no matter what they claim.

    [Hugue Loiselle] “Should I think of an IMac with 32G?”

    Do you need power? It’s much more powerful than the laptop…but do you need power, or portability? (This one works well with Resolve, BTW.)

    Shane
    Little Frog Post
    Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

  • Andrew Kimery

    February 22, 2017 at 11:26 pm

    [Hugue Loiselle] “Does FCP X as a good workflow with 16 G RAM or does it absolutely need 32G? (Wich the MBP can’t have)”

    IMO more is better, but 16 is fine.

    [Hugue Loiselle] “Should I go with AVID and and monthly membership?
    or an ADOBE PREMIERE and the Adobe Bundle?
    Is Davinci Resolve a good option? “

    The first two have 30 day trials and Resolve Lite is free so you should probably kick the tires on each if you want to.

    [Hugue Loiselle] “Should I think of an IMac with 32G?”

    Do you need to carry your NLE around with you on a regular basis? If the answer is ‘yes’ then get a MBP. If the answer is ‘no’ then get the iMac. Besides more RAM the iMac also gives you a nice 5K screen and a bit of a performance boost over the MBP. With that being said, the current iMac is over a year old so a new one is probably coming soon.

  • Walter Soyka

    February 22, 2017 at 11:28 pm

    [Andrew Kimery] “The first two have 30 day trials and Resolve Lite is free so you should probably kick the tires on each if you want to.”

    I think the Adobe trial is down a preposterously tight 7 days.

    Walter Soyka
    Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
    Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
    @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

  • Andrew Kimery

    February 23, 2017 at 12:01 am

    [Walter Soyka] “I think the Adobe trial is down a preposterously tight 7 days.

    That’s right… well thank you very much Adobe. I guess at worst you pay for a 1 month subscription to check it out.

  • Scott Witthaus

    February 23, 2017 at 12:03 pm

    What kind of work will you be doing? Do your personal projects need higher end color-correction from Resolve or will the color corrector in FCPX or Premiere do just fine? Then ask yourself will you do enough personal work to justify the monthly cost for Adobe CC or do you just pay the $299 for FCPX and be done with it? Do you have a strong need for the other software included with Adobe CC?

    Also, as I am sure you know, FCPX is very different from editing in FCP7, Avid or Premiere. Different, but better for most of us who have made the dedicated effort to learn the software.

    Scott Witthaus
    Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
    1708 Inc./Editorial
    Professor, VCU Brandcenter

  • Bill Davis

    February 23, 2017 at 8:06 pm

    [Andrew Kimery] “That’s right… well thank you very much Adobe. I guess at worst you pay for a 1 month subscription to check it out.

    AFAIK, there is NO “one month” subscription in the Adobe system regarding video editing.

    Only “annual, billed monthly.”

    If I’m wrong about that, I’m certain somebody will correct me.

    But I thought a Premiere Pro ONLY subscription was around $20 a month? Therefore signup is a commitment to pay $240 or so over the full year.

    As I understand it, if you want to stop before that, they have the right to charge you what is essentially a “breach of agreement” penalty at their discretion.

    Once again, if you wish to play, my personal recommendation is to ALWAYS use a pre-paid card rather than your personal credit card. to preserve at least some of the personal transactional power that modern banking laws have largely eroded when it comes to auto-billed transactions.

    As everyone here knows, this is a pet peeve of mine.

    YMMV.

    Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
    The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

  • Steve Connor

    February 23, 2017 at 8:10 pm

    [Bill Davis] “AFAIK, there is NO “one month” subscription in the Adobe system regarding video editing.

    Wrong, you can just have a single month

  • Bill Davis

    February 23, 2017 at 8:17 pm

    [Steve Connor] “Wrong, you can just have a single month”

    Have you done this?

    Where do I go to do this?

    I’m STILL trying to get out of my two auto billing Photo Plan Subscriptions and I’d absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
    to be able to subscribe for a month only when and if I need access to my Lightroom files.

    PLEASE POST ME A LINK TO THIS MONTHLY without penalty subscription availability.

    I’d seriously really appreciate it.

    This will make me VERY happy and save me quite a bit of money.

    Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
    The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

  • Steve Connor

    February 23, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    Not on the Photo Plan, due to it’s low cost I assume, you can take Photoshop and everything else monthly though

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