Can the MBA handle non-pro Photo and Video editing?

[Sounds Good]

Hi guys,

1. Can either MBA (11 or 13") handle Photoshop and Lightroom? Not pro work, just family shots.

2. Can either MBA (11 or 13") handle AVCHD video editing? Again, not pro work, just family footage.

Note: I already have a large external monitor, so laptop screen size doesn't matter.

Thanks in advance!

 

[The Samurai]

OP

The video series in my sig may be of use.

In short, yes.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Yes to 1. and 2., but know, that Macs don't edit AVCHD natively and the AVCHD encoded footage gets transcoded during import in iMovie. It will be transcoded to a .mov (QuickTime) file using the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) for video and Uncompressed for audio, which will take 25GB (720p30) to 49GB (1080i60) of HDD capacity per HOUR of footage. Be sure to get an external HDD for this, but USB 2.0 will limit you to 30 MB/s, which is okay for single track video, even in HD, but you may encounter slow downs due to the nature of USB sending data in bursts instead of a constant stream.

 

[Sounds Good]

...Macs don't edit AVCHD natively and the AVCHD encoded footage gets transcoded during import in iMovie. It will be transcoded to a .mov (QuickTime) file using the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) for video and Uncompressed for audio, which will take 25GB (720p30) to 49GB (1080i60) of HDD capacity per HOUR of footage. Be sure to get an external HDD for this, but USB 2.0 will limit you to 30 MB/s, which is okay for single track video, even in HD, but you may encounter slow downs due to the nature of USB sending data in bursts instead of a constant stream.

Hmmm... I'll have to research this and give it a bit of thought. I'm not sure if I wanna do this vs the Windows way.

Thanks for letting me know about this!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Hmmm... I'll have to research this and give it a bit of thought. I'm not sure if I wanna do this vs the Windows way.

Thanks for letting me know about this!

Adobe Premiere can edit AVCHD footage natively, but it will be quite taxing for the CPU, as the application has to calculate every single frame except some keyframes. If you go the transcoded route, you will have every frame and the editing application will just read it.

And if you don't shoot an hour every day, the transcoding could happen overnight.

 

[Sounds Good]

The video series in my sig may be of use.

These look good... checking out now. Thank you!