powerbook for video editing?

Hi there,

I'm leaving film school and am looking to get my own machine to edit with Final Cut. This computer would also be my primary computer for all other things, so I'd prefer to have a laptop rather than a desktop, for mobility purposes.

So my question is, does anyone know from experience or common sense, does Final Cut Pro run at a reasonable speed on a Power Book as compared to a G5 desktop with comparable amounts of RAM? Is it a really bad idea in general to use a laptop as a primary computer for Final Cut editing? If is can work, any suggestions on size (15" vs 17"), how to customize, etc.?

Thanks so much!

Final Cut basically says that you need a lot of power. To quote another person, "unless you have dual 2.5ghz, you're screwed."
So, do I think you can run final cut on a 1.67 with 2 gigs ram and 128 vid? I do not think so. I think you can, but you may crawl. This is where a dual processor would come in.
This is all personal opinion based on the specs of final cut pro located on apple's website.

I'm also a film student, but I'm not planning in staying in the field. Quite a few of my classmates have powerbooks, and they use it to edit. It is do-able, but it will be much slower than having a faster processor (or dual processors). They do fine with a powerbook; and I think you should too.

What about less intensive editing software? What would you recommend and howdoes it work on powerbooks. I am looking at getting 1 and would do a little camcorder editing. I presume the PB would be fine for it??

richieg said:

What about less intensive editing software? What would you recommend and howdoes it work on powerbooks. I am looking at getting 1 and would do a little camcorder editing. I presume the PB would be fine for it??

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I've done that and it was decent. I used iMovie and iDvd to burn. I did not notice a lag at all. I have all the specs I listed above except I have 512mb ram.

I wouldn't deter you from a PB if your buddies are successful in using one. I'd go on that info before I'd take anything from a forum. It's hard to BS something that is going on in real time.

I work with someone that does Final Cut rendering with a 17 inch Powerbook in the
office. It does take a while but having the powerbook means that you can take it with
you and do rendering while you're not using the computer otherwise.

I use my powerbook with final cut express and it's not too bad. Unless you need all the bells and whistles of Final Cut Pro.

I've edited a DVD before on the Powerbook and it seemed perfectly comfortable. Not with Final Cut, but I've used iMovie, iDVD and DVD Studio Pro along with things like Cinematize and MPEG Streamclip.

Sure there were times when it had to encode things and took quite a while, but at least it gave an indication of progress so I knew how long I could spend doing something else away from the computer. I've never used a dual G5 so I don't know how it compares in speed.

But the point is, speed is relative. To someone who's only ever used a dual G5 for video editing, yes a Powerbook is bound to seem intolerably slow *to them*. But if you've never used one, you have nothing to benchmark against so all that'll matter is that it does the job smoothly, which I'm pretty certain it will. Rendering/encoding will take as long as it takes. Also let's not forget video editing on personal computers has been going on for years - yesterday's G3 Powermac, which was probably used for video editing just as often and seen as the fastest and best thing since sliced bread - is most likely slower than today's Powerbooks.

Only thing I'd suggest is if video editing is one of your primary concerns, get the 17" model. Because I have the 12" screen, which is great for what I want it for (portability and general work), but when I did use it for DVD editing I found it very cramped because of all the toolbars, timelines and other widgets you have to work with all on one little 1024x768 screen. A large firewire hard drive wouldn't go amiss either as Powerbook hard drives tend to be a bit small for shifting big video files around.