[zubro]

Hi all,

I think I will go for a 15" instead of a tower.
Less power, yes, but when I set up a good tower with screen, I go over USD 12.000 on apple store
So, from my good experience of the iBook G4, I am considering to go portable.
BUT, I need to know if any of you out there is using MOTION.
I am in the DVD business and need to use Motion for my menus.

Anyone has a REAL experience with a PB?
Is Motion working with the video cards that equip the PBs?

Thanks 4 your help!

[loren s]

Originally posted by zubro:
Hi all,

I think I will go for a 15" instead of a tower.
Less power, yes, but when I set up a good tower with screen, I go over USD 12.000 on apple store
So, from my good experience of the iBook G4, I am considering to go portable.
BUT, I need to know if any of you out there is using MOTION.
I am in the DVD business and need to use Motion for my menus.

Anyone has a REAL experience with a PB?
Is Motion working with the video cards that equip the PBs?

Thanks 4 your help!

motion will not work on the powerbooks. Well not on the two 17'in's here.

[zubro]

Originally posted by loren s:
motion will not work on the powerbooks. Well not on the two 17'in's here.

So, does this mean new PB line as a LOT of the Editing guys around are moving with a PB to do FCP work, they (and I) need a mobile solution.
Apple can not let Motion wort ONLY on towers... can they?

[Hollywood]

Look at the videocard. You need at least 64Mb Video-RAM.
The first PB17" are not suitable for Motion. At this moment you can also get with 124Mb.
After this weekend I can tell you more, because I have then switched my first PB17"(Rev.A) for a new one.

[zubro]

Originally posted by Hollywood:
Look at the videocard. You need at least 64Mb Video-RAM.
The first PB17" are not suitable for Motion. At this moment you can also get with 124Mb.
After this weekend I can tell you more, because I have then switched my first PB17"(Rev.A) for a new one.

Ok great! Thanks for your help.
I saw at http://www.hollywoodsae.com/ that you are working on some heavy stuff with Final Cut Pro/Combustion/Flint/Flame/Inferno/Maya/Shake/Red/DVD Studio Pro...
you name almost all of them!
How many people are you over there to accumulate so much knowledge?

[danny_gasperini]

Originally posted by loren s:
motion will not work on the powerbooks. Well not on the two 17'in's here.

It probably will not work on the PowerBook(s) that you have because you do not have a qualifying GPU. The Rev. A 17" PB had a GeForce 440 GO with 64Mb of VRAM. This is not a compatable GPU for Motion.

The current 15" and 17" PowerBooks have Radeon 9700M cards with either 64MB or 128Mb of VRAM - and these cards most definately ARE qualified for Motion.

In fact a 15" or 17" current PB equipped with the Radeon 9700M will suitably trounce all of the new G5 iMacs and even the Dual G5 towers equipped with the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra cards. Motion is a GPU intensive application.

[TheDrew]

Minimum System Requirements

* Macintosh computer with 867MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor
* 4X AGP slot
* 512MB of RAM (2GB or more recommended)
* Mac OS X v10.3.5 or later
* QuickTime 6.5.1 or later
* Display with 1024 x 768 resolution or higher (1280 x 1024 resolution recommended)
* One of the following graphics cards:
� ATI Radeon 9800 XT (R360)
� ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (R350)
� ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (R300)
� ATI Radeon 9600 XT (RV360)
� ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (RV350)
� ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (RV M11)
� ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 (RV M100
� nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL (NV40)
� nVidia GeForce Go5200 (NV34M)
� nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (NV34)
* 10GB of disk space for application, templates and tutorial
* DVD drive for installation


If you buy any revision C powerbook, 12" 15" or 17", they all meet the minimum system requirements aside from system RAM.

The 15" and 17" are equipped with ATi 9700s and the 12" is the Go5200. All of those cards are listed there.

[filmmaker2002]

Ok, ok, ok. Let me put it all to rest. I am a documentary filmmaker and editor. In addition to documentary films, I do news station promos, opening title sequences for my university's news and television shows...and I do them all with FCP and Motion...on a Powerbook. In fact, Motion runs better on my Powerbook with 128MB VRAM and 2 GB RAM than on a Dual 2 Ghz G5 with the NVidia card and 4 GB RAM, from my observations anyway. Motion runs great on my PB as long as you are doing DV and not HD. Video editing is great on my PB...in fact my 17" is the only Mac I have, and I got rid of my dual 1 Ghz Power Mac because my Powerbook is just as fast and has a better video card than my Power Mac had.

So yes, Motion will run beautifully on your Powerbook as long as you get a 1.5 Ghz G4 with 128 MB VRAM...that's the catch, but it does indeed run great.

[loren s]

Originally posted by filmmaker2002:
Ok, ok, ok. Let me put it all to rest. I am a documentary filmmaker and editor. In addition to documentary films, I do news station promos, opening title sequences for my university's news and television shows...and I do them all with FCP and Motion...on a Powerbook. In fact, Motion runs better on my Powerbook with 128MB VRAM and 2 GB RAM than on a Dual 2 Ghz G5 with the NVidia card and 4 GB RAM, from my observations anyway. Motion runs great on my PB as long as you are doing DV and not HD. Video editing is great on my PB...in fact my 17" is the only Mac I have, and I got rid of my dual 1 Ghz Power Mac because my Powerbook is just as fast and has a better video card than my Power Mac had.

So yes, Motion will run beautifully on your Powerbook as long as you get a 1.5 Ghz G4 with 128 MB VRAM...that's the catch, but it does indeed run great.

Huh.. Cool so the new ones allow it. I also heard that the CG card MUST I repeat MUST ,,, have pixel shaders in the card... So the stupid ATI 128mb 9000 pro I just bought will not cut it ! DaAAaAaAAAAAaaAAaaAaaAarrrrrgggggggggggg

[Keiretsu]

Originally posted by loren s:
motion will not work on the powerbooks. Well not on the two 17'in's here.

Crap Motion works on the current rev C PBG4!
Get the drive (5400 rpm) and VRAM (128MB) upgrade and a sh*tload of RAM then it works even good/fast.

[Afrodizzy]

just thought I'd throw this into the mix...

Motion runs on my Rev.B 12" PowerBook as well

(That's just in case anyone was wondering, seeing as all the "hoohaa" thus far has been around the Rev.C models...)

So worry not Rev.B PowerBook users, we're in the game far as Motion is concerned

[zubro]

Originally posted by filmmaker2002:
So yes, Motion will run beautifully on your Powerbook as long as you get a 1.5 Ghz G4 with 128 MB VRAM...that's the catch, but it does indeed run great.

That is some good news! :o)

You have a 17" right?
Can you imagine working with Motion on a 15"?

[jstein]

Whew! I cannot believe you guys are making this so difficult. All you have to do is go to Motion Test and download the zip file that tests your computer to see if you can run Motion.

breathe a little people

[filmmaker2002]

Originally posted by zubro:
That is some good news! :o)

You have a 17" right?
Can you imagine working with Motion on a 15"?

It's not bad...not ideal...but not bad. I draw the line at a 15" though. I was stubborn in moving to a 17" until my friend talked me into it...never going back now.

[zubro]

Originally posted by jstein:
Whew! I cannot believe you guys are making this so difficult. All you have to do is go to Motion Test and download the zip file that tests your computer to see if you can run Motion.

breathe a little people

knew that!

breathin' fine thanks!

[zubro]

Originally posted by filmmaker2002:
It's not bad...not ideal...but not bad. I draw the line at a 15" though. I was stubborn in moving to a 17" until my friend talked me into it...never going back now.

OK, I might go there too sometime... it is still quite some $ to invest!

[zubro]

Originally posted by filmmaker2002:
It's not bad...not ideal...but not bad. I draw the line at a 15" though. I was stubborn in moving to a 17" until my friend talked me into it...never going back now.

That is cool with me, the larger screen and nevermind the "ultra" portability, I already have an iBook G4 1GHz with 1 GB of RAM so I can do quite some work with it already but NOT at pro level.

As I am not in need of MONSTER of power, I think a laptop can do the job I need just fine.

Now, 17" is only a few $ more than a 15", so my issue is not there but on the RAM. You said that you have 2 GIGs os RAM in your machine. Did you buy it on the store or from third P.?

I had to buy my RAM for my iBook in the States because it is twice the price down here in Europe!

Your advice on this ... ?

[filmmaker2002]

Third party

[jersey]

i'm on a 1ghz ti pb with 1 gig of ram with the 64 mb video card, and i have been running motion. no, it's no where close to officially supported on this machine, and at times it aint so pretty when i'm using it. but i use it weekly to create menus

so yeah, you can use it, and i'm sure it would be fine.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by filmmaker2002:
Ok, ok, ok. Let me put it all to rest. I am a documentary filmmaker and editor. In addition to documentary films, I do news station promos, opening title sequences for my university's news and television shows...and I do them all with FCP and Motion...on a Powerbook. In fact, Motion runs better on my Powerbook with 128MB VRAM and 2 GB RAM than on a Dual 2 Ghz G5 with the NVidia card and 4 GB RAM, from my observations anyway. Motion runs great on my PB as long as you are doing DV and not HD. Video editing is great on my PB...in fact my 17" is the only Mac I have, and I got rid of my dual 1 Ghz Power Mac because my Powerbook is just as fast and has a better video card than my Power Mac had.

So yes, Motion will run beautifully on your Powerbook as long as you get a 1.5 Ghz G4 with 128 MB VRAM...that's the catch, but it does indeed run great.

The video RAM is important, but GPU itself is just as important, if not more.

It sounds like you have the 17" with Radeon 9700 Mobility, which is an excellent GPU. The nVidia GeForceFX 5200U on your dual 2.0 is utter crap. Although it supports Motion on paper, it's the bare minimum. You're much better off spending the extra $50 to the the Radeon 9600XT (or splurge for the 9800XT).