I am thinking about getting a base 13'' MBA soon (after the refresh that seems imminent) and was wondering how it handled video editing. I currently really only use iMovie, but was wondering how compatible it would be with FCPX if I need to upgrade to that in the next couple years (since I plan on having this for at least that long). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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MBA and video editing
- Thread starter krogers34
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Just to second what Zeds said, it will work but will keep you waiting while complex stuff renders, exports, imports, etc more often. It really depends on your usage. If you are planning on editing your own family vids or whatever then you will probably be fine. If you were to use it to edit wedding videos for a small business you mind start pulling your hair out waiting for it too often.
I am considering selling my ipad to partially fund one of the new airs myself, and although I wont throw anything too complex at it, I do plan on doing quick edits of my videos from my Canon 60d to upload on youtube. Anything beyond simple editing and I will sit down with my powerhouse desktop.
As long as you have reasonable expectations you will be fine with the MBA.
I am considering selling my ipad to partially fund one of the new airs myself, and although I wont throw anything too complex at it, I do plan on doing quick edits of my videos from my Canon 60d to upload on youtube. Anything beyond simple editing and I will sit down with my powerhouse desktop.
As long as you have reasonable expectations you will be fine with the MBA.
This is what I'm looking at too - mostly casual stuff that wouldn't stress an air, but the occasional need for some power.
For exporting/rendering you can leave it overnight, or as mentioned use another machine.
Out of curiosity, would Adobe Premiere elements be the best option for cross platform editing? eg if I want to edit a few small things on an Air, but larger things on a desktop PC?
The current low end MBA is actually slower than the first Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro's. A speedier MBA will still be dog slow. The video card is ~2x the speed of an x1600. an intel 3000 is about the same speed as the current video card.
Long story short, don't even try editing video on a MBA, at least not for anything demanding like FCS (or FCP + Motion + whatever else is in iMovie Pro)
Long story short, don't even try editing video on a MBA, at least not for anything demanding like FCS (or FCP + Motion + whatever else is in iMovie Pro)
You asked a question that couldn't be answered and now you are resorting to name calling. Even more of a reason people never cease to amaze me. If you didn't like the response maybe next time you'll ask questions that can be answered or clarify what you mean in you post. If you meant hypothetically then you probably should have mentioned it. Since we don't know you and this is the Internet all we have to go on is what you actually type. Also no one knows what processors are going to be in the next MacBook Air except for Apple and their manufacturing partners. As of now it's all rumors and speculation. I would suggest not calling people names when you are in the wrong.
You DON'T need to answer anything! If you got NO INFORMATION then just keep your mouth shut instead of being a D&^% like the op mention! (looking at your signature)Owning ALL APPLE PRODUCTS DOESN'T MAKE YOU BETTER THAN THE REST OF US!
Back to the subject, Op I think the MBP will be a better choice for video editing.
I never said that it did or even mentioned anything about anything that I owned in this thread so what does that have to do with anything? Add that with your name calling seams like you are trolling. We had no way to know what he meant all we knew at the time of his original post was that he asked how a product that didn't even publicly exist yet handle video editing. If you ask a dumb question you don't really have a reason to get upset at the answer. Amazed yet again.
I agree with you about MBP being a better choice for video editing on a general basis, but this depends on to what extent OP will edit videos. For casual editing, MBA is fine. For professional purposes (be it photo, audio or video), I recommend MBP.
What I don't agree with you, however, is the name calling ("D&^%"). You're going ad hominem on brand, even implying that his equipment-listing in the signature is to show-off (the original idea behind that is something else). For all that you know, OP might have the same equipment even... unless you know something about him/her that the rest of us don't.
In my country, we say that the way one yells in the woods is how one will be answered. That certainly applies on this site as well.
Things that the current MacBook Pro has over the current MacBook Air that could help with video editing is a faster processor, a maximum of 8GB of RAM, FireWire, ThunderBolt, and the ability to add a second internal hard drive with an optibay. The new new MacBook Air will most likely be getting an upgraded processor and ThunderBolt. It might get 8GB RAM but that would be less likely when compared to a processor and ThunderBolt. The upgraded processor will be low power so it may be slower than the MacBook Pro processor.
Everyone else seemed to have excellent answers so thank you everyone else for helping me out and thank you brand for your last post. That said, I will probably get the new MBA. For now, I don't see any heavy editing in the near future so it should be fine for now. Thanks guys.
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I think your best bet is to wait for the benchmarks to pour in. With the amount of interest and discussion about this new Air, you will likely see many helpful reviews the first day it's out. As others have mentioned the MBA might even be running an underpowered gpu compared to 13" MBP.
My hope is that since Apple now makes such a large stake off of software, they are increasingly more likely to make very competent hardware to ensure software gets bought. Although they may not directly recommend FCX on MBA, I assure they have tested to make sure it can perform with the software well enough for light consumer usage; otherwise why strip seemingly professional software of much of it's professional abilities. They really want your 299$ along with your MBA purchase.
My hope is that since Apple now makes such a large stake off of software, they are increasingly more likely to make very competent hardware to ensure software gets bought. Although they may not directly recommend FCX on MBA, I assure they have tested to make sure it can perform with the software well enough for light consumer usage; otherwise why strip seemingly professional software of much of it's professional abilities. They really want your 299$ along with your MBA purchase.
There have been a number of threads on this topic and the general consensus is yes you can edit movies in whatever you want on the MBA, it's just going to be slower when it comes time to render it out. Here is a thread with some real-world feedback:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1094342/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1094342/