MacBook Pro OR Power Book for AE 6.5 ???

[Ron Lindeboom]

Personally, if it is speed in After Effects you are after, then I would go for the 17″ Powerbook and eschew the siren’s song of the 15″ MacBook.

When watching Steve Job’s keynote carefully, Kathlyn and I watched it a total of three times now, you will note that Microsoft Office is what he uses as his benchmark of how well existing apps can run on the new machines. But he is very careful to point out the “people who work all day on Photoshop won’t be happy” with the way that Photoshop runs under Rosetta but that “people like me who use it occasionally” will be happy with the new machines. I appreciated the fact that he was careful to point out the differences for those of us who live in the Photoshop world, far more than we do in the land of Microsoft Office.

Translated, I would take that as a caveat that before I would buy a new machine to run After Effects, I would have to go to a local Apple Store and actually see it running on one of the machines and judge from a hands-on trial if I could live with the Rosetta’s conversion hit on performance.

That is my tres centavos.

Best regards and enjoy the new 17″, it’s a great machine anyway. ;o)

Ron Lindeboom

[Jack Nastowski]

Thank you for your advice! It was very helpful and just what I was looking for. I’ll be ordering my new PowerBook tomorrow.

Best,
Jack

[Jeremy Garchow]

You said you can afford to wait. I’d wait. You are passing up the opportunity of a dual processor laptop. Once photoshop and AE get written for intel processors, you’ll be in laptop bliss.

If you can really hold out, I’d do it. I’m sure you’ll be happy with the results.

If you can’t wait, the 17″ is an okay AE machine. Just be prepared to wait for render times. A dual G5 will suit AE much better. Check for refurbs/b-stock to get great deals.

[George Loch]

My view is if you can wait until March/NAB I would. Not just because that is when the macbook is available but the 17″ prices will also go down . Adobe may also have universal version of AE 6.5 or 7.

I would not buy a 17″ right now but, that is based on my personal experience with buying macs.

-gl

[Jack Nastowski]

I can afford to wait for the MacBook in February. But if I have to take on additional expenses to upgrade my programs (AE, Photoshop, FCP Studio, Macromedia Studio), I simply can’t afford the cost in time and money.

Basically, I have cold feet because I haven’t heard anything reassuring me that AE or any of the other programs I use will run well. Have you read anything that addresses the MacBook’s compatibility and performance with such programs?

I think I will get a lot of use out of the PowerBook when editing my projects in AE. I have a Power Mac G5 I can render my AE comps on.

However, if it is clear that the MacBook will run AE, I will definatley wait it out.

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. I’ve had trouble finding information on this “issue”. You guys have been very helpful.

Best,
Jack

[Jeremy Garchow]

Yeah, there will be costs associated with updating all of your apps, but we won’t know how well AE 6.5 will run on intel proccessored macs until we have them in hand. If I were you, I’d wait. As soon as you touch that 17″, it’s going to be far slower than the new MacBooks. I’d save your money, work on the G5 and sweat out these next couple of months with no laptop (unless it’s abosolutely crucial to have one right now). They will be crucial as companies such as Adobe can get up to speed with the whole Mactel infrastructure. Save some dough now so you can update your apps later.

Jeremy

[Scottieb]

Everything I’ve read says that “pro” apps will not be ported to the intel macs until March at the earliest. I think it makes sense to assume that the Apple apps will be the first to see new versions (FCP, Motion, Aperture, etc).

Does anyone else get the sinking feeling that we may not see an intel-compatible mac version of AE until v.7 comes along? Adobe will have plenty of work to do getting CS compiled for intel, so I can’t help this feeling that since a new version of AE is immanent anyway, adobe will just put the new functionality in the full release of 7.

I hope I’m wrong (or that AE7 comes out soon)…

So to answer your original question, personally, if you NEED a laptop NOW (or Feb at the latest), it may be worth it to wait… not to mention that there’s this llittle part of me that is always hesitant to grab professional hardware in the 1st generation.

Anyway, just food for thought.

ScottieB

[David Modijefsky]

For now most of the apps wil run on the new MacBooks under an emulator called Rosetta. Think of it as running an OS9 app in Classic mode under X.4. Rosetta isn’t that fast so the speedbump from the new machines gets lost great deal by running Rosetta. That’s why for instance Photshop is not recommended and isn’t used in any benchmarks. This will be for as long as all major apps have rewritten their code native to the new OS and chipset. AE 6.5 and 6.5.1 are most likely not to be rewritten since the release of AE7 is near so no benefit of the new chipset there. Besides this there are a few common ‘laws’ to help you with choices like this:

If you need hard/software NOW buy NOW
Don’t buy anything dot zero (sw)
Don’t buy anything Rev A (hw)