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Final Cut Pro 5 on 1.33Ghz iBook?

OldCorpse

OldCorpse

macrumors 68000
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Dec 7, 2005
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I'm planning on shooting a 20 minute hi-def video. My wild hope is to edit it on my 12" 1.33Ghz iBook (latest edition) using Final Cut Pro 5. Is this totally insane, or is it semi-realistic?

A few points:

1)I bought a 300GB 7200RPM 8MB cache Seagate external HDD with 2 firewire and 1 usb ports. My iBook has a standard 40GB HDD, of which I have 20GB availiable. I was hoping to install FCP5 entirely on the external Seagate, but looking at the Apple site for system reqs for the FCP5, it seems you can install 1GB of the FCP5 on the iBook and the rest (10GB) can go on the external HDD... am I correct?... the wording is somewhat ambiguous.

2)I realize it depends on how much material I shoot and edit, but is about 200GB enough?

3)I'm planning on buying a 20.1" Ultrasharp 2001FP Dell external monitor and installing the spanning hack - is this usable for editing? Someone on Macrumors claimed you can't use LCDs for editing due to ghosting, color and resolution issues, and CRTs are recommended... true/false?

4)Looking at the system reqs for FCP5, it seems my iBook processor is ok, as is memory (1.5GB RAM), but I'm worried by my video card... is that going to be a problem trying to drive the 20.1 inch monitor in editing film?

So, given my setup, is the iBook too feeble? Is there any hardware/software I should be considering in addition? Anyone with first hand experience editing on a similar system - what's your take? TIA!
 
OldCorpse said:
Ouch! No hope? Even with a fast external HDD? :( :( :(
Click to expand...

System Requirements

* Macintosh computer with a 867MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor; not supported on Intel-based Mac computers with Rosetta (learn about Universal application availability)
* HD features require 1GHz or faster single or dual processor; authoring of HD DVDs requires a PowerPC G5 processor
* AGP or PCI Express graphics card
* Mac OS X v10.3.9 or Mac OS X v10.4 (or later)
* QuickTime 7.0 or later
* 1GB of disk space required to install application; additional 10GB required to install all optional templates, loops, content and tutorials (may be installed on separate disks)
* DVD drive for installation
Click to expand...

Apple.com....well you are supported but...well it is going to be veeerrry slow :eek:

It is mainly the CPU, but your RAM and HDD will help...but just don't expect any speed

Edit: Get a G5 or a Core Duo
 
Thanks for the responses. However, it seems some say it's impossible, others that it'll be extremely slow. Bottom line, is it unusably slow?

Those who suggest buying another computer: it's really not a very good idea at all, for me, and I'd argue, for almost anyone. I can't afford a new computer right now, and even if I were to go ahead and max my cards even more, what do I buy... it's a bad time for Apple products right now. I'm starting shooting in March - if I buy a powermac, it'll be obsolete within less than a year as the new intel PM come out, so that's out as I'm not about to buy a computer that's already obsolete just for this one short video project - and I don't really have space or want a desktop here. So, I thought - how about skipping buying a monitor, and instead spend a bit more and buy an iMac - they just got updated too. Except, the FCP doesn't run on the new intel machines, and won't until well after I need it - and again, I don't fancy buying an already obsolete PPC iMac just for this one small project. MBP same deal as with the iMac (and it's way too expensive). Mini is not really an improvement over my iBook. So, as you can see, buying another Mac is just not a solution that's sensible for me.

That brings me back to my original question: has anybody actually used a setup similar to mine for film/video editing?
 
I recently tried editing a SD video on my Dad's Pwoerbook at a friends house. The specs are 1.5 GHz, 1/25 GB RAM, and 80 GB hard drive. To be honest it ran iMovie HD terribly. I could get a rough cut of a clip, but as soon as I tried to edit the fine details it just beachballed. I just took the project home, and cut the video up with my Power Mac and then loaded it back to the Powerbook. That's with iMovie and SD footage. I think it would be unbearable to edit HD with FCP.
 
macbaseball said:
I recently tried editing a SD video on my Dad's Pwoerbook at a friends house. The specs are 1.5 GHz, 1/25 GB RAM, and 80 GB hard drive. To be honest it ran iMovie HD terribly. I could get a rough cut of a clip, but as soon as I tried to edit the fine details it just beachballed. I just took the project home, and cut the video up with my Power Mac and then loaded it back to the Powerbook. That's with iMovie and SD footage. I think it would be unbearable to edit HD with FCP.
Click to expand...

Wow. Guess that settles it. What a bummer :( ...
 
depends if it's 720p or 1080i. either way, its going to be painfully slow to edit the HD footage directly.

HOWEVER... there is an easy workaround. dump the footage to your ibook, create a FCP project for it. then with media manager, do "recompress" and choose PhotoJPEG OfflineRT, and what then is its a small, low res version of the HD video (or you can even do DV if you want higher quality), and you edit it in the lower quality offline version. when you're absolutely done editing, right click or control click your sequence and do reconnect media, then find the original HD streams on your disk. THEN do color correction (NOT in anything BUT HD), and export it. offline/online editing works great for HD on a G4.
 
whenpaulsparks said:
depends if it's 720p or 1080i. either way, its going to be painfully slow to edit the HD footage directly.

HOWEVER... there is an easy workaround. dump the footage to your ibook, create a FCP project for it. then with media manager, do "recompress" and choose PhotoJPEG OfflineRT, and what then is its a small, low res version of the HD video (or you can even do DV if you want higher quality), and you edit it in the lower quality offline version. when you're absolutely done editing, right click or control click your sequence and do reconnect media, then find the original HD streams on your disk. THEN do color correction (NOT in anything BUT HD), and export it. offline/online editing works great for HD on a G4.
Click to expand...

Holly Molly, thank you! Now, it'll take me some time to unpack what you wrote and digest it, but I like the sound of it! Thank you so much!!! :) :) :)
 
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