MacBook Pro 17" Hi-Res test drive today
by RJ
on
Jul 20, 2007 at 9:14:08 pm
Greetings...
I visited my local Apple store today, to take a look at the MacBook Pro 17" Hi-Res laptop.
The MBP, as well as many other Mac systems, were loaded with FCP and the Ducati media elements.
A couple of oberservations:
1) The 7200rpm drive in the 17" booted & loaded FCP much faster than then the 5400rmp drive in a 15 MBP. Almost twice as fast.
2) The MCP was able to playback as many layers of video as a Mac Pro 2.66ghz Quad, which was... (this was a base layer with cropped & repositioned copies of the base layer on top - all playing from the internal drive)
- 5 layers of Pro Res 720HD24p
- 12 layers of DVCProHD 720p60
- 13 layers of DVCPro 50 NTSC D1
In hind sight, I should have tried using different clips to see how disc access affected the number of playback layers observed.
3) The 1920x1200 17" Hi-Res screen is definitely significant extra desktop space over the 1600x1050 17" standard desktop. The Hi-Res is a little tougher to read than a 23" display, but I think I could manage. :)
4) I checked the temp of the bottom of the MBP, and it was warm near the rear/left side, but not hot.
I was really impressed to see the MBP perform as well as the Mac Pro 2.66ghz Quad. I'm sure the extra Mac Pro power would become apparent once rendering, especially as the Mac Pro used for comparison is a 3.0ghz Quad or 8-core.
The Apple store visit has made my new Mac purchase even tougher. :) The MBP has worked it's way back to the top of my short list, challenging the Mac Pro Octo. ;)
I was surprised to only get 5 layers of ProRes 720p HD playback. Isn't ProRes supposed to out perform DVCProHD in this area?
I would love to hear from anyone running a 3G Express3/4 wireless card, or using bluetooth to access a 3G capable cellphone.
I think have a pretty good handle on the compromises of going with a MBP. The portability will really come in handy. However, I would also love to hear any other candid MBP observations that might discourage me, and force my hand into going with a Mac Pro.
Re: MacBook Pro 17" Hi-Res test drive today by walter biscardi on Jul 20, 2007 at 9:38:45 pm
[RJ]"2) The MCP was able to playback as many layers of video as a Mac Pro 2.66ghz Quad, which was... (this was a base layer with cropped & repositioned copies of the base layer on top - all playing from the internal drive)
- 5 layers of Pro Res 720HD24p
- 12 layers of DVCProHD 720p60
- 13 layers of DVCPro 50 NTSC D1"
Never, ever use the internal drive for media. That media is just there for demonstration purposes. If you are going to purchase this laptop, you must also purchase a media drive.
[RJ]"
I would love to hear from anyone running a 3G Express3/4 wireless card, or using bluetooth to access a 3G capable cellphone."
I use Sprint/Nextel Express34 card with my 15" laptop. Works very well, runs approx. 1.5Mbps which is about half of my cable modem speed. My cell phone company is AT&T but ironically they do not support Apple laptops, just the iPhone.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
http://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.
All Things Apple Podcast! http://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html
It supports port-multipliers and is much cheaper then the sonnet cards. We've been using this card in a new MBP for a couple of weeks now with no problems.
However, unless you really need the portability, I would go with the MacPro over the MacBook Pro. Our older quad G5 still outperforms the new fully loaded MacBook Pro. The MBP is a great secondary system and works well on the road, but I would not want to use it as my primary editing system, especially for HD work. Just my 2 cents.
Re: MacBook Pro 17" Hi-Res test drive today by Ben Holmes on Jul 21, 2007 at 2:20:41 pm
[RJ]"The MCP was able to playback as many layers of video as a Mac Pro 2.66ghz Quad"
That's down to the drive, and as a measure of performance means little. How often do you need this kind of playback anyway?
The Mac Pro will outperform the MBP (we use both - MBP's as personal machines) in almost every useful respect. Render times will be lower (really the best reason for a more powerful machine), the gfx card will be more powerful, the screen will be bigger and easier to work with or you can use multiple screens, you can have more RAM in it, components are upgradeable, you can fit a fast SATA array INSIDE it or connect a fibre array, you can install a capture card and work in uncompressed HD and so on.
I love my MBP as much as the next person, but would never consider one as a primary edit system.
