Editing Final Cut HD Video on Mac?

[PatrickKun]

I have a 15" MacBook Pro with 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4 GB of ram. I still found, that opening a 1080i video shot from my Canon t2i, very laggy. I'm wondering for those of you who do a lot of HD editing what spec computer do you use? Even a macbook pro can't really HD video. I'm thinking about upgrade to a desktop one like iMac. I would like to know what you guys' computer specs are and if you are experiencing any lagging when editing or playback. Thanks!

 

[RediSpades]

Desktop would do well. They are less expensive, more powerful, and less likely to get stolen (who steals towers these days, no one...)

Though the number one person for you to ask should be Andrei. He does a lot of that now and days.

 

[Chrisfecto]

I'd also suggest utilizing the the 2nd graphics card you probably have in your Macbook pro but going into the energy saver options in system preference and turning on "better performance"

 

[JButterfield]

Maybe consider a Mac Pro instead of an iMac? YOu can get them with up to 12 cores.

 

[KevinReylek]

Your machine is more than capable of handling HD video. I edit HD video on the time on a Macbook Pro that's a little over 3 years old and not quite as tricked-out as yours spec-wise. A better computer is nice, and will be able to handle some things more smoothly, render faster, etc, but you can certainly create good projects using the equipment that you have.

One thing I'd suggest would be to make sure you keep your FCP project file and footage on a drive separate from the one in your laptop. It's never a good idea to work with video on your system drive. You want your video coming from a drive other than the one that your operating system is installed on. I personally like the "Rugged" drives from LaCie a lot, but there are plenty of good external drive options out there.

 

[ZachMueller]

It is because you need to convert all footage from T2i to either ProRes 422, which Quadruples the file size, before importing to Final Cut. This goes for all Canon DSLRs, Final Cut cannot handle raw H.264 on it's own. Use MPEGStreamclip, a free conversion tool you can download online, to convert all your clips, then edit. You should google 7D Final Cut Workflows.

 

[PatrickKun]

Thanks a lot Zachmonky, I saw a lot of your video on youtube too. Nice HD video. One more question for you since you do a lot of editing. I use After Effects a lot to do motion graphic stuff but how do you use FCP & After Effects together? Do you edit the movie first and then add graphic? or do graphic for each clip then export to FCP?

 

[ZachMueller]

Hmm, not sure on that one, I don't do any AE stuff. I'd shoot Andrei a PM, he deals with that stuff quite often. I do know with Motion works in tandem with FCP, but Motion is not nearly as capable as AE.

 

[ZachMueller]

Also, if your just getting into DSLR workflows, I'd check out some of Philip Bloom's tutorials. They are free on his website, worth a google.