Monitor Suggestions

[Michael Sacci]

[Jared Smith] “ACD”
That connection type has been dead for years.

You will need to get an adapter to go from the new Mini Display port to the Monitor’s DVI.

The 13″ does not have a dedicated graphics card, you need to make sure that will work okay with FCS.

[Steve Eisen]

Macbook is not going to allow any serious editing with FCP.

PROfessional work = 17″ Macbook Pro, iMac or Mac PRO

If they are that budget conscious, look for refurbished or a used Mac Pro.

You would be wasting your companies time editing with a Macbook. Time = money.

Unless you are charging clients $1.99 per video, there is no reason to be cheap.

I can payoff a Mac Pro with just one or two clients.

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

[Jared Smith]

the reason for the macbook is the ability to edit at home and office… i will be working 25 hours in the office and 15 at home (of course as well all know there will be countless weeks of 80plus hours). i hate to hear that a macbook is a bad decision cause i just can’t imagine them going for the 17inch… maybe i could find the older model used on craigslist or something…

[Shane Ross]

All he is saying is get the MacBook PRO…not the MacBook. The silver one, not the white one. And go for the 15″ if you can…more screen space. No REAL need for the 17″, unless you want to add capture cards or the ability to load SxS cards, or work with drives that connect via eSATA, but a 15″ is a good one.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Jared Smith]

gotcha… so the new 13inch ones that are unibody (not the white one but the silver 13inch) will or won’t do the job?

[Michael Sacci]

Are they going to buy you 2 monitors? Working on a 13″ without a monitor is going to slow you down.

[Bill Lee]

Work supplies me with a 13″ MacBook Pro, plus a 24″ LED Apple Display because it’s cheaper for them to buy than a 17″ MacBook Pro. Overall it works really well, so I have lots of screen real estate on the 1920 x 1200 external, and extra on the internal 1280 x 800 display. You can get some pretty cheap monitors that do 1920 x 1080 – and that doesn’t matter too much (’cause you aren’t going to be color grading on this monitor, right?), and connect it up with DVI to the MacBook Pro. If you are going to be doing color critical work (Photoshop?) on that monitor, then you might have to spring for a better quality monitor.

If you have to work in the field, then a 13″ MacBook Pro is handy enough to squeeze in some editing (just!), yet when you connect up at home or at work, you get the benefits of lots of screen. You might even find it worthwhile having a big screen at home and another big screen at work, so you can get some productivity happening in both places.

Bill Lee

[Dean Neal]

I would go high-end Macbook Pro (15 or 17inch) – particularly if you are doing HD vision?

I have a 17inch MBP, the extra screen is great on the go (you wont always have the external monitor around) and it gives me an ability to connect eSATA.

You are dealing in vision here and you want scaleability…

Dean Neal…

[Eric Nicastro]

I use a 15″ MacBook Pro unibody, the first generation, with a dual core 2.53GHz and 4GB of RAM running FCS 3 and I have a Dell 24″ U2410 monitor hooked up with a mini display port to full size display port cable. I had to order that cable directly from cdw.com (https://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1973897&cm_mmc=ShoppingFeeds-_-GoogleBase-_-Cables-_-1973897_StarTech.com%20Mini%20DisplayPort%20to%20DisplayPort%20Adapter%20Cable%20-_STP-MDP2DPMM6). I didn’t like having the adapter, it seemed like it was putting too much stress on the connector on my MacBook Pro. My setup works great. I love that Dell monitor and my MacBook has edited everything from SxS media to video from the Canon 60D. I use either a G Tech Mini or G Raid set in raid 0 to edit from depending on the project.

You’ll definitely want at least a 15″ screen if you plan to edit from that without the external monitor. Anything smaller and you’ll spend more time moving and resizing windows than editing. But make sure they don’t skimp on the hard drive; you’ll want a good external to work off of. Don’t use the internal, it’ll just slow your system down. And of course, always have a backup drive.

[Barbara Ballow]

I am planning to purchase the same Dell monitor, except that I want to connect two of them to my MacBook Pro and not use the 17″ screen at all.
Is anyone doing this?

thanks,

Barbara