Producer 13 runs on Macbook? (or only MacBook Pro?)

Media 100

Producer 13 runs on Macbook? (or only MacBook Pro?)

Posted by Maxwell Federman on October 29, 2008 at 1:26 am

Hello

I am strongly considering a purchase of the Producer 13/Boris RED bundle.

However, before I have the laptop shipped to me so I can run the trial, I would like to get a “field-tested” idea of what the minimum specs should be at;

…my intention is to use the system for HDV (mostly 720p, some 1080) and NTSC editing.

As I recall the limitation preventing me from running Producer on my G4 PowerBook was the need of an Intel processor…

I would have just emailed M100’s sales dept., but would like to hear the opinion of daily users if possible.

Thanks,

Max Federman

Floh Peters replied 17 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
3 Replies

Floh Peters
October 29, 2008 at 8:49 am

[Maxwell Federman] “As I recall the limitation preventing me from running Producer on my G4 PowerBook was the need of an Intel processor…”

Producer does also work on PPC/G4 systems, but you won´t have much fun with all codecs except maybe DV. The problem is that the codec handling takes some CPU power, so the Intel laptops with DualCore CPUs have a big advantage over PPC systems.

And if you are considering one of the newest MacBooks you should be aware that the MacBooks (13″) do not have a FireWire port. So if you want to transfer footage via FireWire or if you want to view your video signal on a video screen you need a MacBook Pro or one of the older MacBooks with FireWire.
Maxwell Federman
October 30, 2008 at 1:36 am

Thanks for the heads-up about firewire.

I have a relative who will ship me his earlier generation MacBook as he is buying a new one. I don’t know the specs and there is a language barrier (and age gap) when it comes to asking him technical questions. But I know it’s not a MacBook Pro model…

…is it safe to assume Producer will run compressed HD on an entry-level MacBook, or am I getting my hopes up?

Thanks once again

Max Federman
Floh Peters
October 30, 2008 at 9:27 am

[Maxwell Federman] “…is it safe to assume Producer will run compressed HD on an entry-level MacBook, or am I getting my hopes up? “

There are several formats of compressed HD, like ProRes and DVCProHD. DVCProHD will work fine, ProRes is more computing intense and it depends on the MacBooks CPU and the format you are working on if this will work smoothly on an older MBP. I think it should, but without knowing the specs it is difficult to say.

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