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Editing HD on Macbook PRO

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Hi!

I own a Macbook PRO
15.4-inch: 2.4GHz (MA896LL/A)
2GB RAM,
nVidia 8600m 256MB GDDR3

I just got it. It's been barely used, like new.

I tried editing Full HD Video (1920x1080p at 24 fps) on Final Cut Pro 7. It's shoot with my Canon 600D.

It is going kinda slow.. can't edit normally.. I get the message, that frames are being dropped. And rendering is going very slow.

Is it even possible to edit that type of video format/quality on my Mac ?
Or I shouldn't waste time and re-render it to something lower and then edit?

It is my frst ever MAC. And I am only starting to learn Final Cut ... sorry.
 
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I think max possible ram here is 4GB .. I am planning to upgrade.. any more suggestions?
 
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Mac Mini Core i7 2012 | White 2009 MacBook 2 Ghz | 733 Mhz G4 Quicksilver
Nope, apple officially supports 4 gig, but 6 gig can be installed, otherwise OWC would not be selling the upgrade and everymac.com would not say that the model can support 6 gig of RAM
 
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chas_m

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You should probably think about using a 7200rpm hard drive or even an SSD if you can afford it (as well as the RAM already mentioned).

Lots of people edit HD on a MBP, but you didn't mention the native format of that video which could also be playing a role. This isn't my area of expertise, but ISTR that there's an option in FCP to edit in a lower-res format and then apply the edits to the HD ... yeah here we go (not much detail but might start you on the path):

Apple - Final Cut Pro X - All Features
 
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So I see... 7200 RPM on a Firewire port, right? Will that do?
Or to install a new internal hdd.

All those video files are in .MOV format.

About the link - I am using Final Cut 7, not X.
 
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Late 2013 rMBP, i7, 750m gpu, OSX versions 10.9.3, 10.10
7200 RPM on a firewire should be good. You shouldn't use your internal drive for a scratch/render drive unless absolutely necessary (like you're on the road and don't have your scratch drive with you)

FCP 7 still requires RAM to work with HD footage - although it has a minimum requirement of 2gig, you may get better mileage with 4 gig.

You may want to do some basic troubleshooting to make sure your Mac is working in top order ( see: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html )

Here are the specs for FCS that includes fcp7: Final Cut Studio (2009) - Technical Specifications

If you're using your internal drive for editing, that may be the cause of dropped frames. Also, what codec are you using? If you're using ProRES 422 you should be ok, if you're using an uncompressed format (and possibly ProRES 444) you will want to explore different storage and/or more RAM.
 
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7200 RPM on a firewire should be good. You shouldn't use your internal drive for a scratch/render drive unless absolutely necessary (like you're on the road and don't have your scratch drive with you)

FCP 7 still requires RAM to work with HD footage - although it has a minimum requirement of 2gig, you may get better mileage with 4 gig.

You may want to do some basic troubleshooting to make sure your Mac is working in top order ( see: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html )

Here are the specs for FCS that includes fcp7: Final Cut Studio (2009) - Technical Specifications

If you're using your internal drive for editing, that may be the cause of dropped frames. Also, what codec are you using? If you're using ProRES 422 you should be ok, if you're using an uncompressed format (and possibly ProRES 444) you will want to explore different storage and/or more RAM.

Thanks for all this info !!

So RAM upgrade + an FireWire external 7200 HDD... that's what I need now to get this going I guess.

I just reinstalled that mac.. I guess it is ok as I read through that Troubleshooting article.

When it comes to those ProRES codecs.. how did you mean that?
Now I just copy .MOV files from my DSLR and import them into FCP ... where can I check that codec ver.?

thanks!
 
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Thanks for all this info !!

So RAM upgrade + an FireWire external 7200 HDD... that's what I need now to get this going I guess.

Of course if you have a friend that has one you can test on, that'd be great :) I'm always a personal fan of testing before spending money!

I just reinstalled that mac.. I guess it is ok as I read through that Troubleshooting article.

If you got the Mac with the system pre-installed from the pervious owner and not in the initial state, it doesn't hurt. You never know what they may have left on there. I'm rather paranoid if I buy a used computer and always wipe and reinstall.

When it comes to those ProRES codecs.. how did you mean that?
Now I just copy .MOV files from my DSLR and import them into FCP ... where can I check that codec ver.?

That the camera (the 600D) is putting out H.264 .mov files (according to the review over at dpreview). H.264 is a distribution codec and not an edit codec. It's highly compressed and can create a rough time editing as it requires a lot of horsepower to decode it. The big advantage of H.264 is that it's very compact and yields very good video for its size. It's one of the codecs used in AVCHD footage and Blu-Ray distribution discs.

ProRES is an edit codec. Although it has some compression to it, it has very little compression compared to H.264. It takes a lot less CPU power to decode this codec. The downside is that it takes a LOT of space (6-10x the space that an H.264 file takes), so an hour can take 70-80 gig.

You will get significantly better performance to edit video that is encoded with ProRES. This will mean that you'll need to transcode your footage from your camera into ProRES. You may want to try MPEGStreamClip to do this transcoding (it's free and works well with .mov files).

I know your system can do the work. At work I use an older iMac 2GHz, 2Gig Ram and an external USB drive (I'd prefer to have a FW800 drive, but I work for a school and getting them to outlay money can be tough) and I am able to edit 1080i and 720p footage without real problems (the footage I usually need to edit doesn't require a lot of simultaneous tracks of video (usually only 1 track or 2 at the most), if it did I'd run into a bottleneck with the USB drive)
 
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Thanks a lot Nethfel! :) great info !
I think I will try encoding my files to ProRES first before I plan buying FW external HDD and RAM. Just to see does it get any better.
 

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