Ever since I got my macbook I was aware that Final Cut Pro wasn't really meant to run on it. In fact, they explicitly say on the website that FCP doesn't support the intel gma950. Well I had a license of it, so I wanted to try it out anyways. Truth is, it runs. Nothing stopped it from running. Well the time has come to work on another project and I noticed that anytime I try to watch a movie in the Viewer, it plays back horrendously and drops frames all over the place. However, the movies seem to play fairly well in the Canvas. Figure that one out. One additional piece of information that could be helpful here is that I am running an external 20" monitor off the macbook as well, for a little extra real estate, and video is coming off an external firewire drive. I want to upgrade, be it a new macbook with wireless n and the C2D or a macbook pro with the larger screen and a graphics card. My question revolves around the macbook and fcp: Should the issue of dropping frames be at all related to a lack of a standalone graphics card on the macbook? I noticed that Final Cut Express fully supports the integrated graphics and that's always a software option. Would I be noticing the same issues with playback? To be safe I could always just go with the macbook pro...but hey, money is the second half of the equation. Experience? Suggestions? Thanks.
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MacBook vs. MBP for Final Cut
- Thread starter vandlism
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I've ran FCP on a macbook with a 20" ACD connected and the macbook screen used as Full Desktop Preview, and havent had dropped frame issue.
I've also used it with a canopus adv firewire for outputing to a tv and no problem.
Have you rendered ? Have you got Real Time effects set to SAFE ? Just trying to work out a reason ?
I've also used it with a canopus adv firewire for outputing to a tv and no problem.
Have you rendered ? Have you got Real Time effects set to SAFE ? Just trying to work out a reason ?
No. FCP is not video card intensive, it is processor intensive.
The main reason that FCS2 demands a graphics card is for Motion and Color. FCP can run fine on integrated graphics.
Your dropped frame problem is coming from something else. Either ram or the speed of your capture scratch.
So unedited video can be viewed in FCP in the Viewer window. This is where it's all choppy. Audio continues but video drops out after a few seconds. However, in the Canvas where the video is already in the timeline, the video plays perfectly. I can also open the source file and play it in Quicktime with no issues. So maybe this has become a bit of a FCP question, but can anyone give me a bit of direction on where I can start digging in to find what's slowing me down? In the end this all helps me decide between the macbook and mbp.