Macbook and Final Cut Pro

I'm studying film, and my PC is filled with problems that I don't want to deal with. I plan on buying a macbook, but I need to know how well it can handle final cut pro. I know it doesn't have a dedicated video card, so how much will this effect final cut pro? If the difference is really big, I guess I can look into imacs, but I do want dual screen (can't afford anything above 1300).

From the Apple website:

An AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)

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It's been several generations since I've used Final Cut, but from what I remember, you only need the graphics card to use Motion. Of course, the more memory and faster hard drive you have, the better experience you'll have, so the low-end computer isn't the best way to go for Final Cut.

I have used Final Cut Pro with out much of a problem on my macbook, only a few times though, and nothing too intense. I have 2gb or RAM and a 7200rpm drive...

Final Cut Pro works fine on my macbook. I've used it for over a year now.

The macbook is not compatible with Motion however. Motion isn't supported with integrated graphics.

ok, is there an alternative for motion?

yeah, adobe after effects CS3. I couldn't tell you which one is better though.

The reason why I want to get a mac is the ease of use. My friend's ibook had imovie, bbut it would connnect with two of my cameras (ones canon hv20 and another is a proconsumer sony that's also hd). My schoolls intel-based imacs connected flawlessly (but i think iit had imovie hd). But i don't think it really matters if it was imovie or imovie hd, since wouldn't the computer have to recogniize the camcorder first as a hardware?

If you only need Final Cut, and not all the stuff in Final Cut Studio, would the features included in Final Cut Express get the job done for you?

I've never done editing, but based on my compositing experience, it seems to be mostly about memory and hard drive speed, rather than CPU or GPU performance. I did render out an After Effects shot that took like a minute a frame to render out, but that seems very uncommon.

ekorazn said:

I'm studying film, and my PC is filled with problems that I don't want to deal with. I plan on buying a macbook, but I need to know how well it can handle final cut pro. I know it doesn't have a dedicated video card, so how much will this effect final cut pro? If the difference is really big, I guess I can look into imacs, but I do want dual screen (can't afford anything above 1300).

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You can have dual screen with an iMac BTW, they have an extra video port on the back but you need an adaptor to plus in a second LCD.

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

Mini-DVI output port with support for DVI, VGA, S-video, and composite video connections via adapter

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-DVI

valve1138 said:

If you only need Final Cut, and not all the stuff in Final Cut Studio, would the features included in Final Cut Express get the job done for you?

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There are a few features that are not in FCExpress that are in FCP.

Annoyingly for me, the 24p (24 frames per second progressive) video modes aren't supported in Express - I need the full version.

To put this to you another way, 24p enables video to look a little like film (which is shot at 24 frames per second.) If you want video to look like TV, you shoot it at 60i (which is 60 interlaced frames per second - or every other line of a frame every 1/60th of a second.)

I would also hasten to point out that based on my (non-rigorous but good enough for me) testing, Mac computers render SD and High Def video much faster compared to an equivalent Windows solution. I don't know why that is but it's enough to get me to pick up a Mac Book Pro.