Macbook Pro vs iMac for video production

Hello - I need to invest in a new system for production of HD videos, typically music videos less than 4-mins, which make heavy use of Premier Pro and Effects. The priority is real-time editing and fast rendering.
I had more or less settled on the following:
15 inch Macbook Pro with retina display, 2.8Ghz i7 processor, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD drive, and Intel Iris Pro Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB GDDR5 memory. I can get this with an education discount for just under £2000.
Then I started wondering... is this the best option? Is there a better iMac option for the same price? Portability is not an issue.
Any help from people in the know very much appreciated!
Thanks in advance.

Video editing is best with the best/fastest processor you can afford and loads of RAM - 32 GB - (which you can install yourself later at a much lower price), so you can compare the machines you are considering to see what the benchmarks are (google benchmark tests). Remember though: even a Mac Pro will still take time - video editing/rendering is a massive processor intensive task - it will not be instantaneous. If you are into heavy editing, etc I would seriously consider a Mac Pro.
As for transfers, if your camera uses an SD card, I'd consider using a USB card reader (or a built in reader if there is one) - it'll be just as fast and save the camera battery.

Similar Messages

What Macbook Pro to get for video editing?

For software like adobe after effects cs5, what macbook would be the best, I have pretty limited money so is the base model ok? if not whitch one works well?
Thanks!

The top end non-retina, 15" anti-glare is the best. SSD preferred, has a Superdrive. RAM and hard drive upgradable later by the user.
The retina has a glossy screen which is hard on the eyes and using in various places, it's battery life is terrible and the images are not correct as it's blowing things up to mach the higher pixel rate. No Superdrive. You can't open the machine up, you can't clean the fans of dust you can't upgrade it later, you will have to max it out at purchase for a small fortune and go way over budget. Plus there really isn't too much difference in the quality of the screen with regular MBP's anyway, just eats battery life to drive that huge pixel screen. You'll be replacing it a lot sooner than the standard 15"
Don't waste your money on the 13", it lacks a dedicated graphics, the CPU does it thus it's HOT. Won't 3D game well if your also into play.
Top end 15" antiglare is perfect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X0wo6dIsMU
Actually the MacPro is the perfect choice of power and performance for video editing, with it's substancial cooling. But you want a laptop , just know things will take longr and the machien will be hotter as a result and wear out sooner if your doing 3D gaming or video often.

New to macs need guidence on what macbook pro to get for video & photo

I see there are alot of what looks like good deals on ebay for macbookpros, is ebay a safe place to get a mac book pro? If I get one with OS leopard from ebay, can I get a discount or free upgrade to snow leopard?
among the features I have read about snow leopard, it has a "put back" feature for accidental deletions, does leopard have anything like this?
I am in California, if I get a macbookpro directly from mac online or a mac store do I pay tax? like a regular electronics store? why dont macs ever go on sale? they seem to be the same price all over.
what would be the bare minimum in specs to get in a macbookpro for smooth rendering/editing of all types of video like high def?
I may also need to run some windows programs; MS word, Excel, photoshop & roxio easy media creator. I have read about vm ware fusion & paralles for macs, which would be best for running my windows programs without problems. Will vm ware fusion or parallels run on OS snow leopard?
I had been using roxio easy media creator on a Dell Pentium 4 PC with windows XP home, editing .mpg movies clips taken with my Sony cybershot digital still camera & I could never make a DVD without some difficulty, until I cannot do it at all now, the video & audio are out of sync. I have talked to some people about this & alot have told me a mac would be better suited to what I do. So now I am looking at macs, they seem very expensive, so the less I have to spend would be better, but I am willing to spend a little to get good reliable performance.
Message was edited by: Sossity

Hi -
You will get a lot of different answers to your questions. Here are mine:
Sossity wrote:
I see there are alot of what looks like good deals on ebay for macbookpros, is ebay a safe place to get a mac book pro?
I my opinion, no.
If I get one with OS leopard from ebay, can I get a discount or free upgrade to snow leopard?
No.
among the features I have read about snow leopard, it has a "put back" feature for accidental deletions, does leopard have anything like this?
I believe you are referring to TIme Machine, which is a built in software back up feature in both Leopard and Snow Leopard. You will need an external hard disc drive to make it work.
I am in California, if I get a macbookpro directly from mac online or a mac store do I pay tax? like a regular electronics store?
If you buy a computer from the Apple Web Store, you will have to pay the sales tax your state charges - but you won't have to pay for shipping.
why dont macs ever go on sale?
They sell at full price so why should Apple discount them?
they seem to be the same price all over.
Yes, even at most reputable mail order companies the price is usually within 50 or so dollars of Apple's list price. This is another clue to be suspicious of the ebay prices.
what would be the bare minimum in specs to get in a macbookpro for smooth rendering/editing of all types of video like high def?
To edit HD video, I would max out the ram and you will also need to have fast (firewire) external disc drives to store the media as you will not want to have the media stored on your internal system disc.
I may also need to run some windows programs; MS word, Excel, photoshop & roxio easy media creator. I have read about vm ware fusion & paralles for macs, which would be best for running my windows programs without problems. Will vm ware fusion or parallels run on OS snow leopard?
Yes. There are reports that there are some problems with Snow Leopard, but these should be ironed out shortly, or have already been ironed out as the 3rd party software makers update their software for Snow Leopard.
I had been using roxio easy media creator on a Dell Pentium 4 PC with windows XP home, editing .mpg movies clips taken with my Sony cybershot digital still camera & I could never make a DVD without some difficulty, until I cannot do it at all now, the video & audio are out of sync. I have talked to some people about this & alot have told me a mac would be better suited to what I do. So now I am looking at macs, they seem very expensive, so the less I have to spend would be better, but I am willing to spend a little to get good reliable performance.
OK, well this is something I can't advise you on. If you were to get a new Mac, you would need to: Buy the Mac, buy Fusion or Parallels, buy a full copy of Windows to install on your windows partition, buy the ram upgrade, and buy external storage. Plus, you will have to learn a new operating system, and new software like iMovie and iDVD.
What the relative value this has to you, I don't know. If you have a long term commitment to working with photography and videography, then without a doubt, I would recommend doing it as eventually in your career you will need to be familiar with how to work on the Mac platform.
If you are doing it just to make better DVDs from MPG movies shot with a still camera, I would think about it.
Hope this helps, and good luck!

Can I use Mac Mini as a "server" for a MacBook Pro and iMac?

I want to develop a simple system for accessing my files from multiple devices.
I heavily use iTunes (190 GB), iPhoto (120 GB) and iMovie (30 GB, but want to do more when I get time). Additionally, I store lots of old videos on circa 10 portable hard drives (1 TB each), which I access occasionally.
The family use all this content and we currently have a MacBook Pro and are considering buying a new computer - either a new MacBook Pro or an iMac. We also have iPads, iPhones etc and a Time Capsule. We use wireless fibre optic broadband.
I don't really want multiple iTunes and iPhoto libraries. We want all our music and pictures in single master libraries that we can all access and update.
As there is seemingly too much data to store on iCloud, we need to find an alternative solution.
My possible solution is:
(1) Load my master iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie libraries ("iTPM libs") on a Mac mini
(2) Buy a new MacBook Pro or iMac (probably doesnt matter which)
(3) Link the MacBook Pro(s) and iMac to the Mac mini to access iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie and the master iTPM libs
(4) Plug the portable hard drives into the Mac mini whenever I need to access the video content stored on the portable hard drives
(5) Add "users" to the system (i.e. family members), in the same way you would access a shared server at work
(6) Over time, buy more computers to access the system in the same way
My questions are:
(1) Is this system feasible?
(2) If so, can I edit the iTPM libs from the MacBook Pro or iMac?
(3) If so, what happens if both the MacBook Pro and iMac are accessing the libraries at the same time? Which takes precedent?
(4) Would this solution be significantly slower than having separate libraries on the different computers?
(5) Is there an alternative approach that might work better for my needs? (which are, after all, relatively straight forward). When I went to the Apple store they were unsure!
Many thanks.

I heavily use iTunes (190 GB), iPhoto (120 GB) and iMovie (30 GB, but want to do more when I get time). Additionally, I store lots of old videos on circa 10 portable hard drives (1 TB each), which I access occasionally.
The family use all this content and we currently have a MacBook Pro and are considering buying a new computer - either a new MacBook Pro or an iMac. We also have iPads, iPhones etc and a Time Capsule.
[…] We want all our music and pictures in single master libraries that we can all access and update.
The "update" portion of this is where your problems will arise. You'd be better to consider your proposed system initially in terms of content "consumption", before getting into the nitty-gritty of editing shared content.
iTunes has the Home Sharing feature built-in, which solves the content consumption issue.
I don't know anything about sharing iPhoto libraries, but this KB article looks useful.
As for iMovie, I think there are two things you want to do: share the raw data (sound effects, music, photos etc.) that are used to create iMovie content; and share the finished results. Is that right? I'm not sure how you'd go about doing that, but if you clarify your aims in this regard, it'll help the next person who comes along.
When it comes to updating content, such as adding new music to iTunes or iPhoto, I'd suggest you do it through the Mac mini directly. This seems the least problematic solution. You wouldn't necessarily need a dedicated display for the Mac mini - you could use remote desktop or VNC or what-have-you.
As for speed: doing anything across a network is always going to be slower than doing it locally. But, it probably won't matter for content consumption (though if you're all watching different movies at the same time the drives on the server may struggle, and the wifi bandwidth might be tight).
I hope this represents a good initial response to your query.

Hey, I want to buy a macbook pro or imac mini, I want to know which is better and why, is their going to be new macbooks ect released in 2-3 months thats better that i should rather wait for? Or buy one now ?

Please help me i dont know which one to buy, and ive never owned one before but i have used my friends quite alot. Why is macbook's worth buying if you can get many products for the same price with better specs ?What makes it unique that it dominates basically the whole world.

Hey,
Thank's 4 the advice , but one of my main problems is I live in South Africa and apple products is x2 as much as what the usa doller is for it. Eg Macbook pro starting price $1199 american dollars and directley converted to South African currency is R9160.30.... but the problem is if i want to buy it in my country it has been marked up alot and a Macbook pro starting price for me will be R13000 for 13 inch and if you directley convert our price into american dollers its $1704.30 american dollars, so thats +600 dollers more.
So its much more expensive to buy products in my country and thats just the starting price.
I want mobality but i was also thinking (imac mini) is kinda portable and can plug into any1 T.V u know.
So like i really do t know what to get and that, because its alot more money to spend than the US dollar.
So i really want you to put your self in my position you know...
And what is classified as a good monitor???
And i want to know why my friends say that the imac mini is pathetic , but i think it losts longer than most windows laptops, what do you think ??
And can i who lives in south africa buy products directley from apple them selves ??
Thank's man , hope you can help me out here!
Hope other people can c this 2
Brent

What display is more suitable for a macbook pro, an iMac or a Thunderbolt Display?

I am currently deployed in Afghanistan and will be purchasing a Macbook Pro upon my return. This will be my first time owning a mac as I have always been a Windows user so I am unaware of which product works the best with one another. I am curious to know though which display will work the best with a macbook pro; an iMac or a Thunderbolt Display? Any guidance or advice anybody could offer would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Both work very well with the MBP.
In essence the iMac is the ThunderBolt Display with an added Mac computer inside.
If you don't need a second Mac computer save the money, get the Display and invest the money in more RAm or a bigger harddisk for the MBP.
Stefan

My new MacBook Pro and Imac can't recognize my digital video camera (Canon GL2) via FireWire 800 9 pin to 4 pin cable.

My new MacBook Pro and Imac can't recognize my digital video cameras (Canon GL2 or Sony) via FireWire 800 9 pin to 4 pin cable. I've tried two different cables. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Is your DV camera plugged in to AC power (not batteries only)? When you step down from 9 pins to 4 pins, you lose the "power" pins.

Heey so im getting this knocking sound in the centre of my macbook pro whenever i play video for too long or game. it doesnt seem like its getting too hot either! anybody else have this problem? please help

aye so im getting this weird knocking sound in the centre of my macbook pro whenever i play video for awhile or gaming. this just started happening recently its been perfectly fine before even when it gets hot. anybody have or had this probem? please help

Try resetting your SMC and PRAM.
Resetting the System Management Controller >>
If that does not help, do an Archive and Install to eliminate a software issue.
Mac OS X: About the Archive and Install feature >>
Dave M.
MacOSG Founder/Ambassador  An Apple User Group  iTunes: MacOSG Podcast
Macsimum News Associate Editor  Creator of 'Mac611 - Mobile Mac Support'

The best MacBook for video production

Hello,
I want to start working on video production (from camera shooting to video editing and compositing).
As a first step, mobility is very important, so I want to know what is the best MacBook to start with (best price/performance ratio)?
Also is Final Cut Studio package all I need for video production?
Thanks!

Have you ever worked with video before?
What software do you intend to use? What formats will you acquire, edit, output?
Do you intend to make money from this or is it a hobby?
If you intend to make money from your efforts, do you have a capitalization plan and have you talked to your banker? Do you have a business plan in place that has been vetted by knowledgeable people?
Head down to your local library and pull anything you can find in the business section regarding starting a small business then read what ever you can get your hands on about video production. Then, walk over to the public access channel and sign up for one of their "intro to video" sessions.
Honestly, the speed of the laptop is the least of your concerns.
On the other hand, if this is just a way to play, purchase whatever you want.
x

I have a macbook pro I use for work and iMac at home. What is best way to manage my files? Use iCloud? Dock my laptop when I come home? Appreciate any suggesitons

I have a macbook pro I use for work and iMac at home. What is best way to manage my files? Use iCloud? Dock my laptop when I come home? Appreciate any suggesitons

That depends on what kind of "files" you're talking about and what your employer's policy is on using cloud storage.
I found dropbox and/or OneDrive work very well for keeping documents in sync between multiple machines.

I need help to decide which macbook pro is best for photo editing, editing movies and doing all the rest too like excel, word etc. 13"

I need help to decide which macbook pro is best for photo editing, editing movies and doing all the rest too like microsoft office products ...excel, word etc. I am new to the apple world and have liked the idea of the MAC Book Pro 13" but really dont know if this is good enough or if the computer will soon crash?
13-inch: 2.6GHz
with Retina display
Specifications
2.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
8GB 1600MHz memory
512GB PCIe-based flash storage1
Intel Iris Graphics
Built-in battery (9 hours)2

That's a fine machine and, with 8GB of RAM and 512GB flash storage should serve you well for light video/photo editing as well as for 'normal' usage. And it should last you for years to come.
Good luck in making your decision!!
Clinton

15" MacBook Pro or iMac 20"

Well its that time for me to upgrade my core duo macbook. im currently deciding between the 15" MacBook Pro, the iMac 20" or the dell XPS 620. Studying multimedia at uni heading into the video stream if that help.
budget is $2500. any help or advice would be good.
thanks in advance.
Stu

I have both the 15" MBP and a 24" iMac.... both the latest generation. Choosing between one or the other would be tough for me. I like them both but almost feel I need both for different reasons. If you don't need mobility I would g for the iMac....and STRONGLY suggest the 24 over the 20. If you do find a need for portability then obviously the MBP is the way to go. Like I said.....I love both of mine (and am a very recent conversion from windows) and have been in the mac world for about 3 months now. The one big thing I notice in my MBP is that I miss the higher resolution of my iMac. You get very comfortable using that much real estate and it is very obvious when you do not have it.

Trapped at transferring data from my old macbook pro to iMac

I got a new iMac yesterday and was trying to transfer data from my old macbook pro to iMac through time machine...
However, I encountered HUGE problems....
Background info: I set up a new account before I transffered my data.
Here is what I did:
I used migration assistance to transfer data. I chose to transfer everything listed on migration assistance from time machine to my new iMac.
After this process was completed, I switched to the transferred account from my newly-set account. Then I realized all the old stuf, (including the software problems + old apps such as microsoft 2008, had been transferred to my new iMac. what I really wanted were all the documents, pictures and music! Therefore I decided to delete this account....
Question 1:
1) I deleted the transferred account, then there was a windown came up asking me if i wanted to keep the home folder, I chose no. then mac started cleaning up and BACKING UP. Since I already had a copy of everything, I stopped the backup process....then this transferred account was deleted. However, everything was still on my mac that I don't have access to (at least I don't know how...) when I checked my mac stroage!
Could anyone tell me how to delete all the files I transferred from time machine to my new iMac?
Question 2:
2) how can i only transfer documents+pictures+music from my old macbook pro to new iMac through time machine without creating a new account? I want all the files to be directly transferred to my newly-set account...
LSS:
Question 1
I tried to transfer everthing from my old macbook pro to new iMac but i realized there were something I didn't want that had been transferred as well. Therefore I deleted this transferred account. However, all the files are still in my mac even if I have deleted that account. Could anyone tell me how I can access to those content and delete them?
Question 2
I just want the documents, music and pictures (from iPhone library) to be directly transferred to the newly-set account on my iMac through time machine (instead to transferred the whole old account to my imac) How can I do it??
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE OF GOING THROUGH THIS MESSAGE. I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND.
btw, you can totally see that i'm not a computer person at all....:( thanks for your help!!

I suggest starting over. Boot into Recovery mode, wipe the HD, reinstall the OS, and, on first boot, use the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide to do the migration.'

AE ppoe mode in AE only allows macbook pro and iMac to connect to internet but not ipad

I just upgraded to 20MB DSL line and got a new Qwest Q1000 modem connected to an A Extreme.
Since Qwest now has PPPoE, I set the Q1000 modem to bridge mode and turned off Wifi.
Then I Set the AEx router to ppoe mode, entered my username and password from Qwest and all is well with all lights green.
But... only my imac and macbook pro connect to the internet. My ipad, my wife's macbook and an ipod touch cannot connect.
According the Airport Utility, all these devices are detected by the wifi network and they have their own unique IPs provided by the AEx router (in pppoe mode) 10.0.1.7, 10.0.1.9 and so forth, no ip conflicts detected, all the lights green with full access to the internet. Again, only my iMac and my macbook pro actually connect to the internet at full speed.
Does any one know why some devices connect to the internet while others are not able to...
Again, no errors detected anywhere, all modem and router lights green.
Any help is welcomed.
Janickk

Thanks for the reply. Your suggestion did not work. Apparently there is an issue with DNS addresses.
The Airport Extreme in pppoe mode sets the router and DNS addresses to be the same 10.0.1.1. Some devices (like my macbook pro and iMac) ignore this DNS value or use a different (unknown) and then they connect to the internet perfectly. But the devices (ipads and ipods) aquire and set both values (Router and DNS) to be the same, (10.0.1.1 and 10,0.1.1) wont connect to the internet until I manually changed the DNS address in the DNS field.
Question: are these two values supposed to be the same/different/ in both fields in the AExt in pppoe mode?
Thanks
Janickk

Is there any possible way I can download Microsoft powerpoint on my MacBook Pro OS X for free? I need it for lots of projects of my school.

Dear Apple Inc.
I would like to know if there is any possible way I can download Microsoft Powerpoint on my MacBook Pro OS X for free? I hope you can reply as soon as you can so I can be able to do all the projects being presented to me from school on Microsoft Powerpoint.
Thank you,
April Navarro

These are user forums. You are not speaking to Apple here. You cannot get MS products for free. You can purchase the student version of Office for OS X from MS. You can download a 30 day free trial that you can fully activate by purchasing a license key for $139.00.
You can download a free copy of Libre Office which is functionally similar to Office 2007 for Windows but runs on Macs. I don't know how compatible the presentation module is to Powerpoint.

Macbook Pro vs iMac for video production

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