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zubro · Mar 2, 2006, 07:13 AM

Hi All.

Anyone is using Final Cut Studio on a MBP?
I would specially use DVDSP and Motion.
How good does it take the encodings to m2v?

PS: Would the 100GB 7200rpm be better than the 120 at 5400? Sometime it is a "cache" story and the 2 discs end up with almost the same performance...

jamil5454 · Mar 2, 2006, 09:36 AM

I don't think Final Cut Studio Universal has begun shipping yet. And yes, the 7200rpm is faster than the 5400rpm drive. I don't know about "better", though. It depends on how you use your MBP. If you're doing a lot of Final Cut Studio, I would go with the 7200 rpm drive. You lose 20GB, but I wouldn't think 120GB would be enough anyway so you'd most likely have mass external storage.

hakstooy · Mar 2, 2006, 10:10 AM

Just a heads up, I've installed Final Cut Pro 5 and it loads. I haven't tried to use it for anything yet, so it might crash during rendering or exporting, but it does load.

jmgriff · Mar 2, 2006, 12:44 PM

Ideally you'd use one or more external drives for capture, storage and scratch ... relying on the internal drive alone isn't ideal. Hopefully there are some expresscard/34 FW800 or eSATA cards in the works, to keep the built-in FW400 for a camera or deck.

FCS Intel won't ship until late March IIRC, and the cross-grade for existing licences is $49.

zubro · Mar 2, 2006, 12:47 PM

The universal: "Shipping March 2006", that is now-ish.
But damn! I thought that it was out already!..
I do not understand that they (Apple) launch a "Pro" Hardware without sofware..
They knew about the Harware coming out,... right?

Sometimes I just wonder..

zubro · Mar 2, 2006, 01:34 PM

Hi jmgriff.
I did not plan to use the internal HD so much, and absolutely not for for storage and scratch! ;o)
But, on the go, you sometime have to deal with it..
And yes I know it is a bit crippled with one FW 400 but I read somewhere that there is an ExpressCard/34 ready for the MBP...
There:
http://siig.com/
double FW400, but the eSATA is more interesting:
http://www.lycom.com.tw/EK102.htm
or check macnn (strikes again! ;o)
http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/02/....expresscards/

Cheers.

jhogarty · Mar 2, 2006, 03:37 PM

I haven't installed the FinalCut studio suite yet since Aperture gives me that wonderful message about incompatible hardware. I'll install FCP studio this evening and give it a shot.

J.

zubro · Mar 2, 2006, 04:41 PM

Hi J.

Thanks for the feedback! :o)

PS: Wow! I am impressed by your Hardware! What are you doing with ALL this?

harrisjamieh · Mar 2, 2006, 04:58 PM

So have I got this right, Final Cut Pro (PowerPC version) actually runs on the Intel hardware, even though it has been publicised as not being able to...?

jhogarty · Mar 2, 2006, 06:02 PM

Zubro,

I'm a "switcher".
iMac --> kids/wife computer
Dual G5 --> 3d animiation, video editing, gaming computer (not a pro, just as hobby)
Mac Mini --> Home Server (Print/Fax)
MacBook Pro --> For the on the go. Hoping to get all my graphics tools loaded and working.

J.

hakstooy · Mar 2, 2006, 07:13 PM

harrisjamieh: yup

Well, like I said, it loads, but I haven't actually USED it yet, just jumped into it real quick to see if it would work.

jhogarty · Mar 3, 2006, 12:17 AM

I installed the FCP Studio suite this evening. I didn't go into much detail with each app but they all did open. I was able to play a quick clip in FCP and flip through some templates in Motion. Below is a screen capture with all of the applications open. Of them all, DVD Studio took the longest to open. Almost thought it crashed.

http://homepage.mac.com/jhogarty/FCPS-MacBookPro.png

More to come....

MovieCutter · Mar 3, 2006, 12:33 AM

I would go with the largest hard drive you can. I use FCS on the latest Powerbook with a 120GB HD. DV video is fine on the 5400rpm drive, but you'll likely do most of your editing off external drives if you really are a pro. The fact that FCS takes up about 35-40GB of disk space, you'll want the largest drive you can get.

zubro · Mar 3, 2006, 10:36 AM

jhogarty, nice one! :o)
Funny it "just works"... but real cool also! :oD

MovieCutter, I understand the need for the "biggest" HDD but from 100 to 120, i believe it is rpm that talks! ;o) (well, I can also be wrong..)
And yes, ALL my data is out on BIG HDD, amaizing how f-a--s---t those things just fillup!..

jhogarty · Mar 3, 2006, 11:35 AM

Ya I noticed that Final Cut Pro studio took up a ton of space. I'm now down to 5.74GB and I started with a 100GB 7200RPM drive. I did notice that my iTunes library is taking up way too much space. About 26GB. I'll clean that out as I normally keep that on my server. I must have imported the whole libary to the MacBook by accident.

While on the subject, are there any other areas of "bloat" that I can wipe out?

J.

hakstooy · Mar 3, 2006, 11:46 AM

You can install a lot of the template information for FCS on an external if you want to save room. The apps themselves are not that big.

I actually just read a post on this somewhere recently, it mentioned monolingual (removes language files and can save quite a bit of space) and disk inventory x which lets you analyze what is where.

It is amazing how quick it all goes though ain't it?

MutePrint · Mar 3, 2006, 11:47 AM

The fact that FCS takes up about 35-40GB of disk space, you'll want the largest drive you can get.

Did I read that right? Forgive me for my PC-born naïvety, but as a lowly premiere pro user I've never heard of any program taking up that much space alone. Even the Adobe Suite clocks in at no more than a couple gigs.

hakstooy · Mar 3, 2006, 11:51 AM

It's not the application itself, its all the template, loop and "media" files the programs access.

MutePrint · Mar 3, 2006, 12:03 PM

Wow, that's nuts. But, in that case I would imagine the 100/120gig difference is fairly negligible for a serious editor, and thus not worth the slower rpms. (for the record, I think anything less than 7200 is ridiculous for a $2G+ system)

jhogarty · Mar 3, 2006, 12:40 PM

Thanks hakstooy, I'll look into your two suggestions. I just nuked the "Test Drive" Office software and the Trial Quickbooks.

J.

hakstooy · Mar 3, 2006, 07:14 PM

OK, I finally got to trying out some work in FCP.

Slow.

Unusably slow.

When I got a 15 minute render time for a 5 second transition I said...

You better finish up your projects on the PPC Macs until the Universal Binary versions are released.

zubro · Mar 4, 2006, 01:46 PM

Good info hak! :o) Thanks!

Regarding the disk space taken by the Apps, the samples take far too much, yep!
A simple App like DVD SP goes over the G!... Remember when Photoshop was Huge on OS9 over 100 MB... (I still run it on my good old 8600:oD