15" MBP or 13" MBP & 5K iMac for Video Editing, programming and web design?

[Rasta4i]

I'm starting out on the long journey of learning to edit videos to a professional standard and also learning to code with the end goal being able to create professional level mobile apps and websites. A few friends and I have a lot of idea's of thing's we want to create however I have a dilemma on the best route to take for hardware.

4K video editing, coding for website's, multiple mobile platforms and also VM machine's. At first I decided to get a 15 inch macbook pro but I keep changing my mind. Now I'm considering getting the touchBar 13 inch macbook pro with 16gb ram, then picking up a top specced 5K iMac once they get refreshed later this year. This is the more expensive option but it allows me to-do serious editing at my desk amd other things when I want more screen real estate. Like leaning new programming languages or anything where I need to watch tutorials ( going to be using a lot of them going forward, so much to learn).

Anyway I digress, 15 inch pro that I can use while being more relaxed and it's cheaper or 13 inch pro and 27 inch iMac combo which gives me freedom and power but attacks my pocket more... Do I even need 16gb ram in the 13 inch? I'm looking for best workflow but also longevity/value as this is for my business. Sorry one last bit of information that I've forgotten to mention, I'll also have a 32tb home server running where I and my partners can backup all of our to projects.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Chrolm]

Isn't the actual price difference so small between them that you might as well get the 15" now and the iMac down the road? I saw about $600 difference between the two when similarly configured.

 

[keviig]

How about getting the 15" and a 27" external monitor like the Ultrafine 5k?

 

[mrkenta]

I can only speak in terms of video editing, but 4K(30fps) video editing should be ok on the 15inch. You can get by using the 13 inch if its only simple editing, but if you are going to use multiple streams of video and effects 15inch with dGPU is the only way to go.

 

[Rasta4i]

How about getting the 15" and a 27" external monitor like the Ultrafine 5k?

I'm wondering how that machine will hold up editing 4K as 60 fps become more normal and such, I want something that can handle that comfortably. I don't want to pay £2.4k only to have something that can't handle serious 4K editing when people start capturing 4K at 60 fps for that price
[doublepost=1484041813][/doublepost]

I can only speak in terms of video editing, but 4K(30fps) video editing should be ok on the 15inch. You can get by using the 13 inch if its only simple editing, but if you are going to use multiple streams of video and effects 15inch with dGPU is the only way to go.

I wouldn't mind the 13 for simple editing and iMac for serious serious editing and I mean the one coming out this year

 

[mctrials23]

If you are serious about this you would probably be better with the 15" MBP and an iMac at a later date. The macbook will be plenty for what you are doing now and then iMac will give you the extra grunt for the really taxing stuff in the future. The 13" will be a little lightweight and as already mentioned, it doesn't cost that much less than the 15".

 

[Rasta4i]

If you are serious about this you would probably be better with the 15" MBP and an iMac at a later date. The macbook will be plenty for what you are doing now and then iMac will give you the extra grunt for the really taxing stuff in the future. The 13" will be a little lightweight and as already mentioned, it doesn't cost that much less than the 15".

Yes I've just come to this conclusion lol, it's only 600-700 cheaper for the 13 inch and it can't do too much and that 600 I save now doesn't help with the iMac that much.

So now the question is which go for the 15" with the plan to edit 4K at 60fps once that becomes a thing radeon 450, 455 or 460? Is it worth upgrading the CPU from 2.6 to 2.9...

 

[mrkenta]

So now the question is which go for the 15" with the plan to edit 4K at 60fps once that becomes a thing radeon 450, 455 or 460? Is it worth upgrading the CPU from 2.6 to 2.9..

4K60p is a whole other realm. The 15" won't be able to handle it.

 

[cityboy-100]

Do you want to maintain two machines?

 

[tudyniuz]

4K @60fps is totally different if bitrates get bumped up as well, so go all in for the biggest and baddest machine you can. I'm thinking of the newly announced GH5 which films in 4K@60fps with a crazy bitrate of 3-400mb/s. None of these Macbooks will chew through that footage like bubblegum, so I'd suggest getting the 15" for now, the biggest and meanest you can get. Once the iMac's get an update, you'll save some money until then and get that as your main machine, with the 15" as your on the go workstation.

 

[Rasta4i]

4K @60fps is totally different if bitrates get bumped up as well, so go all in for the biggest and baddest machine you can. I'm thinking of the newly announced GH5 which films in 4K@60fps with a crazy bitrate of 3-400mb/s. None of these Macbooks will chew through that footage like bubblegum, so I'd suggest getting the 15" for now, the biggest and meanest you can get. Once the iMac's get an update, you'll save some money until then and get that as your main machine, with the 15" as your on the go workstation.

I'm now planning to use the 15 as the main machine for at least a few years so you think it can handle the video from something like the GH5 without coming to a halt while rendering?

 

[tudyniuz]

Lemme ask you this, what will you be using for video editing, FCPX or Adobe Premiere?

 

[Rasta4i]

The plan is FCPX, however i hear that its more a prosumer thing rather than a professional thing? So if Adobe Premiere is superior i may use it. Something tells me FCPX will be fine...

 

[mrkenta]

I'm not sure what kinds of features you are looking for in an NLE, but if you are willing to learn FCPX it is optimized for MacOS and will perform better than Premiere Pro CC in many cases. If you are going use other Adobe products like AfterEffects I say go with Premiere. I also suggest using a free trial on both and choose after

 

[tudyniuz]

The two couldn't be more different. Premiere and the entire Adobe suite rely heavily on GPU performance, needing CUDA cores that you only have in NVIDIA graphics cards. Guess who dumped NVIDIA for ATI/AMD? Yeah, it was Apple who did that. With that in mind, I've been struggling with Premiere on a 2015 iMac, while render times are ok-ish, it's during the edit itself that I see myself needing more CPU cores and an NVIDIA GPU. For Adobe Premiere, to be honest, I don't think any Apple product is worth it. You can get machines that run it better for a quarter of the price, just because they have that NVIDIA GPU.

On the other hand, I've been working with FCPX almost exclusively in the past few years and it handles anything and everything I throw at it. Not only do I have better render times, but the scrubbing and scrolling through footage is much smoother than it is in Premiere with the same footage. I usually work with 4K files at 100-150mb/s bitrate and I have no issues with performance, not even with some Macbook Airs that I've tested on the go.

Premiere is an industry standard of sorts, but FCPX can be just as good for most people, and it runs better and smoother in almost all possible scenarios. It's the main reason I own Mac's, even if I do have a really powerful PC, I almost always come to the Mac for my main work.

There are lots of things to consider when choosing between Premier and FCPX, you need to take stuff like bitrate or codecs into account, but if you're going for a Mac, I wouldn't use anything other than FCPX with a bunch of plugins to make up for the stuff you only find in Premiere.