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Which laptop is minimum for FCP?
I am wanting to get a laptop for FCP editing. DV is our primary format. I have a 15″ G4 iBook (1.2 ghz, I think). Would this be too pokey to run FCP? I would use this for basic cutting, then use a desktop G5 to add Motion or AE effects.
If I need to buy a new laptop, any suggestions on what would be a good value for what I’m trying to do? I’d rather get a new G5 than spend $2800 on a laptop, but would be willing to sell the iBook and put it towards a new laptop if necessary.
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13 Replies
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I’m pretty sure it will work to some degree. You’ll need to have an external firewire hard drive as a video scratch disc and yeah, it might be kind of slow. But it will work. Don’t expect much in the way of real-time effects, but if you’re just cutting and doing a dissolve here and there it should get the job done well enough until you get back on a desktop machine.
Since you own it I suggest buying the hard drive and TRYING it at least. If you find that it’s too slow you don’t have to spend $2,800 for a new one. Go to Apple’s website and click on the “store” tab. Go to the red “SALE” tag in the lower right. Click on “Apple Certified.” That very first Macbook Pro there is $1,549. Get that and then go to Crucial.com. Spend another $140 buying 1 GB of RAM. Add it to what’s in there. Use that same firewire hard drive as a scratch disc and there ya’ go: for just $1,640 you’ll be flying with a fantastic system.
Just be warned that you need to upgrade to Final Cut 5.1 to use the new intel Macs. If you haven’t already that could cost more. See here for details:
https://www.apple.com/universal/crossgrade/
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And yes, I know my math is wrong. The answer I wanted was $1,689. I figured it out right and then somehow typed it wrong. D’oh!
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Thanks for the input. So if I do decide to get a new machine, go for a “Pro” not a standard Mac Book, I take it.
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One other question. I do have FCP 5.1. I’m assuming the license is for one computer, so I’d need to buy another copy for the laptop. If I was doing cuts only DV work, would a copy of Final Cut Express for the laptop be sufficient for my needs? I don’t know much about Express…
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i have just cut a commercial in a hotel in a far away land!
using an old aluminium G4 powerbook. and had not one hiccup in 4 days.smooth as silk for offlining
i had a new D2 250GB Firewire 800 drive cutting at DV resolution, digitised and played thru
a sonyy DSR11 deck and a pair of steroe self powered audio monitors.i think the only trick is at least 1gb RAM but save your cash if this is what you intend doing
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The license allows you to load it on one laptop and one tower. So as long as you don’t run them BOTH at the same time, you don’t have to buy another license.
Jerry
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I used to run V.4 on a 400mhz TiBook. No problems. 700+meg ram.
In the early days – v1.2- I played around with a G3 firewire laptop (bronze keyboard? lombard? something like that) and an old external firewire with the camera looping through the drive and didn’t have any problems.
If you run a clean system and don’t load up the drives you can get away with a lot. But I’d consider anything but the macbook pro an offline or rough cut machine.
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Hi Jerry,
I don’t think that’s correct any longer, not for Apple software, unless it’s changed again. The last time I looked the license specifies that the applications only be loaded on one machine at one time. And with the Studio suite, it means, within the terms of the licnese, all the applications have to be loaded on a single machine, and cannot be divided between multiple computers so that one machine has FCP another Motion and another DVDSP, which many people would like to do.
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When did they change it? I’m pretty sure my Studio license reads one tower, one PB etc.. But I’m not running 5.1…
Jerry
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Tom, I just talked to Apple directly… Pro Apps support says the license agreement allows for one laptop, one tower and no running at the same time… including the universal version.
Jerry
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