Macbook pro or older generation tower? beginning editor

[Donal O kane]

It really depends on what you are planning to do.

options are:
new laptop
new mac pro
older tower mac pro

I’ll start by saying that I regularly online and color grade HD programs with my pre-unibody mac book pro 17″ connected to a FSI broadcast monitor via AJA io express.
I’ll continue by saying that it is right on the edge of working and I have had a few dodgy moments/crashes, none that have delayed or caused problems that couldn’t be fixed
Somedays I do feel like I have painted myself into a corner, i’m still painting but room to move is limited.

As soon as the new mac pro is announced I will be be buying one.

so types of usage
a) high end HD/RED with need for broadcast monitoring
b) regular cutting, not pushing things too far but decent usage
c) playing around every now and then

for a) i’d:
get a brand new 17″ macbook pro (only one with the expresscard slot)
or
brand new mac pro (once the 12 core comes out)
or
used quad core mac pro (or 8-core if you can get a good price but these are the top dogs for now and until 12-cores arrive) or quad core G5 with PCI-e

the new laptop and new tower will be a similar price,
laptops are easier to move about.
laptop has options but they are limited for full broadcast work and just on the edge
towers are the most flexible

As for the used towers loads of people on these forums use them all the time for high end broadcast work. They will tell you that for this type of work it is more important a) what storage you have and b) what input/output card you have c) what monitor you have and finally d) for some apps like color your graphics card.
towers with pci-e give you the most flexibility to used the newest in storage, input/output, graphcis etc. all of this is in my opinion by the way.

for b) you can use any new macbook pro, any tower and even an imac will work nicely.
but as you go down this list your options to extend into more broadcast type work becomes harder/more expensive.

for c) anything goes.

so in summary … it all depends on what you want to do. you of course want to spend as little money as possible but this can be a trap as cheaper computer can lead you down the wrong path and limit you to more expensive hardware to get the job done.

laptops will work, some will say they won’t .. but people said final cut pro would never be a serious editing program and some said that a program like color would never take the place of hardware color grading. But it is cutting the edge of workability very finely, not for the faint of heart 🙂

If I could talk to me 3 years ago before buying my 17″, i’d now own a quad core mac pro.
And maybe have back problems from moving it around so much … but i’d have more hair, and slept a lot more.

Good luck!

[John Fishback]

There’s a lot of discussion about this if you search. IMHO you’d do better with a used MacPro than a new Macbook Pro. The MacPro will offer much better/flexible expansion options.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Donal O kane]

oops repost!

[Steve Eisen]

Apple usually has some good deals on their refurbished Mac Pros.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Tatiana Gomez]

Thank you everyone for the info. From this thread and from reading others I am definitely leaning more towards a used mac pro.

What specs should I look for? I want something kind of basic for now with the option of being able to add on more stuff later. For example I know you can add RAM so I would probably buy a 4gb of RAM mac and possibly add more RAM later. What specs do I definitely need on the computer (as in I cannot add it on later?) and what specs would be helpful to have right away if I want to run final cut pro.

Not all that related but would it be smart to get the apple care warranty on a mac pro (if i buy refurbished)? Or are those a bit easier to fix than laptops? Also, when buying used towers online, is there any way to check what generation they are?

[Tatiana Gomez]

What is the difference between 8 core and 4 core?

[Michael Craven]

[Donal O Kane] “used quad core mac pro (or 8-core if you can get a good price but these are the top dogs for now and until 12-cores arrive) or quad core G5 with PCI-e”

Personally, I’d recommend against a G5. Stick with the Mac Pros since they have Intel chips, which a lot of the newer software requires.