New iMac 3.06GHz vs. Mac Powerbook 2.5GHz

So, I need some opinions about an idea I have.

1) I travel full time so a desktop computer with desktop display is out of the question.

2) I have been considering a 17" Powerbook Pro, but then I had this idea.....

3) I could travel with a 24" iMac packed in foam in a hardshell suitcase. I live in Australia and Qantas only charges $22 for an extra suitcase up to 32 kilos (international is another whole story). So, my thought is- with the new iMacs out with

Configured as:

* 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

* 4GB memory

* 1TB hard drive1

* 8x double-layer SuperDrive

* NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB memory

* 6MB shared L2 cache. Shared seems like a "bad" word here.

* Frontside bus, 1066MHz

the 17" Powerbook Pro configuration is-

* 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

* 4GB memory

* 300GB hard drive1

* Double-layer SuperDrive

* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB, 6mb L2 cache

* 667 MHz front-side bus

So, unless I'm missing something (likely), the iMac seems like it may be better suited to run FCP's Color and Motion?

Any opinions please. I'd love to go the Mac Pro route, but it just won't "fly"- sorry for the bad pun, though it's not really a pun......

Obviously you will not be able to set the iMac up while you're waiting for a plane, so I assume by travel, you mean being able to set up every time in a hotel room or apartment. Also, you may want to think about whether you like to edit on a glossy screen, some people do not. Hey, if you have 32kgs, get a MacPro and a Cinema Display.

Seriously, the iMac idea would seem pretty limiting to me as a travel setup.

So, I need some opinions about an idea I have.

 

Any opinions please. I'd love to go the Mac Pro route, but it just won't "fly"- sorry for the bad pun, though it's not really a pun......

I have a 17" MacBook Pro 1st Generation and also have a newer iMac (but not quite that new).

I have taken my 17" on some dive trips, but also carry my 15" (older tiBook) when I do not want to have as much weight and do not see myself really doing alot of processing.

For non-dive trips I have taken my 17" MacBook Pro out for weeks at a time to do editing in the field. It is easily expandable with ExpressCards to hook up external eSata Drives. It is a carry-on so you know it is going to make it where you are going. You could even hook it up to a rental monitor or tvs if you need the extra screen space. For a non-dive trip the 17" MacBook Pro is great. For a dive trip (and all the extra stuff in carry on) sometimes it is a bit big but I have taken it when I think I will be doing more capturing/editing and it is great to have after the initial hassle of travel.

I say go for the MacBook Pro. The iMac sounds like a good idea but will end up being a real pain. I've got a friend who has been editing $250K music videos on his 17" for a while including working with red footage. It's got plenty of horsepower, trust me. And there are way to go fully uncompressed with the Express Card slot, it just takes some cash and discovery.

Billy

Thanks for the input.

We have a 13" MacBook for travel- there's not enough processing in the computer for Color and Motion, so I'm told. We will continue to use the MacBook for travel outside of the US- I really don't need to look at tape when we're diving- I have one of those small Sony decks to take along.

The Mac Pro would be nice, but with a display, it's pushing it for suitcase room and I could be looking at 2 suitcases in addition to our regular checked luggage- I'm not really interested in doing that.

When we travel full time- it's more accurate to say that we travel for work. We often stay and average of 1 to 3 months in one place. My wife is the reason we travel as she does contract work. We are always provided with housing so it's not like we live in hotels much, though in between jobs we do travel.

We have a storage unit in Sydney that we can keep the computer in when we are traveling abroad, so this idea I had seemed like a good one.

With the iMac, we have a much larger display and it'd also serve as our HD telly when we rent videos. I was just wondering if any of you knew whether the new "fast" iMac had the computing ability to handle Color and Motion?

I've actually had a 17" for years, but gave it to my son for his silk screen business a while back. I was going to wait until next year for the (hopefully) new generation of 17: Powerbooks, but then this new iMac came along. Drew, I do remember that you have mentioned before about using your 17" for editing, and I may well still do that instead of the 24" iMac, I just had the idea.........

So, with this background, would the 24" 3.06GHz iMac be at least as good as the 17" for editing in FCP and will I be able to use Color and Motion?

Thanks again for any further comment.

Thanks for the input.

 

We have a 13" MacBook for travel- there's not enough processing in the computer for Color and Motion, so I'm told. We will continue to use the MacBook for travel outside of the US- I really don't need to look at tape when we're diving- I have one of those small Sony decks to take along.

 

The Mac Pro would be nice, but with a display, it's pushing it for suitcase room and I could be looking at 2 suitcases in addition to our regular checked luggage- I'm not really interested in doing that.

 

When we travel full time- it's more accurate to say that we travel for work. We often stay and average of 1 to 3 months in one place. My wife is the reason we travel as she does contract work. We are always provided with housing so it's not like we live in hotels much, though in between jobs we do travel.

 

We have a storage unit in Sydney that we can keep the computer in when we are traveling abroad, so this idea I had seemed like a good one.

 

With the iMac, we have a much larger display and it'd also serve as our HD telly when we rent videos. I was just wondering if any of you knew whether the new "fast" iMac had the computing ability to handle Color and Motion?

 

I've actually had a 17" for years, but gave it to my son for his silk screen business a while back. I was going to wait until next year for the (hopefully) new generation of 17: Powerbooks, but then this new iMac came along. Drew, I do remember that you have mentioned before about using your 17" for editing, and I may well still do that instead of the 24" iMac, I just had the idea.........

 

So, with this background, would the 24" 3.06GHz iMac be at least as good as the 17" for editing in FCP and will I be able to use Color and Motion?

 

Thanks again for any further comment.

If that's the case and budget is not an issue I say go for the MacPro and just ship it. Get a 23" cinema display and you're set. I also recommend a Contour Shuttle Pro. BTW Color doesn't really take up that much processing power and as Drew stated Motion relies heavily on your GPU(Graphics Processing Unit). Personally I don't use motion because it's a little too cookie cutter for me but Color is an amazing weapon to haven in your arsenal.

Billy

The other issue is that your iMac could become damaged in transit, even in a hard case. You may show up on site and have a machine that won't boot. If you go with this option, I would carry a bootable clone of your system on an external FW800 drive (or eSata, if you go with Mac Pro) that you hand-carry onto the airplane.

I agree with Eric, imac's aren't designed to travel on a regular basis. It wouldn't surprise me if you run into problems.

I would go with the macbook pro and beef up the ram

Jon

Everyone, thanks.

iMac brochures out the window (and into recycle bin) and it's Powerbook Pro 17"- next year.....I'm waiting for the "new" model....for once. Your comments and suggestions were what I wanted to hear, though not what I wanted to "hear"......

thanks again for the good advice.

Well I know a few mad people who've travelled with iMac as an editing system. Since they read the board I won't disparage them too much but even they will admit they were mad.

It's workable and CPD industries and Star Case have cases for them. I've seem them at various shows. Obviously once you check your bags, you are at the mercy of the baggage handlers. If you read a few airline's baggage policy, they actually discourage you from shipping computers via checked bags. It's probably easier to ship via courier, like most production crews do for most of their editing equipment.

You will get a bit more processing power with an iMac but the macbook pro is easier to expand with high speed options like eSATA drives due to the Express Card slot. FW800 is pretty slow. Truth be told, Motion is slow even on the fastest Mac Pros when you start rendering serious layers. I believe Gyula will commiserate on that.

The frontside bus is 800mhz not 667 which is the Santa Rosa MBP speed.

The 1920x1200 resolution 17" is pretty good looking except for text. If you really want more resolution, why not fly with a 20-24" monitor?

So, I see the point when thinking about adding a RAID via the Express slot- good point, like I've read about on a previous thread- the bus powered RAIDS. Is there any real difference between eSATA Express Cards, or are they all the "same" essentially.

I'm in Hong Kong for a few weeks and prices here for Apple and accessories are cheaper than the US....so I may pick up some gear here. I think that checking the computer is probably a bad idea- funny enough our flight from Perth to Sydney just last Saturday proves the point....we checked 7 pieces of luggage and three were damaged!

I must be nuts to think I might get away with checking a 24" iMac........as for the future and checking a 20"...now maybe that's another thought----I can pack more padding around a 20". I would just love to have the extra "real estate" for editing in FCP and PSCS3.

Does anyone have any opinions on Express Cards?

thanks!

shep

I must be nuts to think I might get away with checking a 24" iMac

Yes, yes you are As to the real estate issue you may want to consider a LCD Monitor if you really want to carry one around They are inexpensive nowadays and if it gets broken or lost in transit it will not be as painful a hit. I have edited on the MacBook Pro with various LCD hooked up for extra screen room. Worked fine. Also remember that color correction could be an issue with anything unless you have things hooked up for correction work (thinking more the Final Cut side as oppossed to PS).

Does anyone have any opinions on Express Cards?

 

thanks!

 

shep

I have the SeriTek ExpressCard and it has been solid (though I am still running Tiger on my MacBook Pro, fortunatley I have not had to put Leopard on that machine : )

Also running a Seritek Card in my Tower that is running Leopard and it works fine, though external drives need to be off when booting (or re-booting)

So the best I can figure out is there is no such animal as an expansion card eSATA RAID system that is bus powered? I think I understand that the Express slot is faster than using the FW800 port, and I'm thinking that there is no bus power available through the express card slot?

Is there a product out there that borrows power from the FW ports to drive an eSATA - two drive RAID? It seems as though it doesn't exist.

I'd try to avoid carrying power bricks with me, especially as I most often use 220v. and would like to get a bus powered RAID that uses the express card slot....am I dreaming again?

thanks,

shep

Most ExpressCard34 cards use the Silicon Image Sil3132 chipset, which has a 120MB/s limit in OSX. The bus isn't powered either.

Shep if you must have a bigger monitor, travelling with a 2nd production monitor. Almost all production crews do that to deal with dailies to send back to producers etc. Some actually crunch HDCAM SR to MPEG files and send them back via email, all on site.

Hey Shep

Sorry to hear about your luggage.

It's really funny how you have to do this and do that, tick this, cross that, and go through here to get on a plane but they employ clowns to load the luggage.

Anyhow you should look at the Panasonic ToughBooks.. I have seem them covered in dust from being lugged around from tractors to headers to boom spray...pretty funny...

http://www.panasonic.com/business/Toughboo...d-computers.asp

Maybe you can load up a MAC OS to it...what ever you do don't go near VISTA. What a pile of &^%$ that is.

Anyhow you should look at the Panasonic ToughBooks.. I have seem them covered in dust from being lugged around from tractors to headers to boom spray...pretty funny...

http://www.panasonic.com/business/Toughboo...d-computers.asp

 

Maybe you can load up a MAC OS to it...what ever you do don't go near VISTA. What a pile of &^%$ that is.

I just had to see what you were doing in a Mac Thread The ToughBooks are cool, looked at some last year and was told XP only even though Vista was out though it seems they broke down and installed Vista. But I still think a 17" MacBook Pro would do fine in this scenario

I recommend a hard cover for a MacBook Pro. RhinoSkin make an aluminium one, but I have a plastic one for $50 from Speck.

http://www.speckproducts.com/products/seet...-macbook-pro/25

Must....resist....urge....to....buy.....MBP.....nope, couldn't do it!

I'm typing this reply on my new 17" MBP, 2.6GHz, 4gb RAM, 200MB 7200RPM, LCD HD screen, with hard case (got it Loftus-it is "tough).

In HK I saved over $300 off the retail price if I bought in the US- go figure, i guess that's what "pushed me over the edge" to get a machine now and not wait until Jan or longer...

So, I have a recommendation on the eSATA express card- what eSATA drives out there have a compact case to hold 2TB's for RAID? Drew recommended a company that had FW800 RAID- I'll take a look and see if they have the eSATA too.

Anyone else?

thanks for all your help, you who post!

And Wagsy...you know that the Qantas gorillas are not happy with pay and lack of help- I personally think they are man handling stuff much worse than ever....Qantas used to be pretty gentle- that's out the window! They are fixing two of the three pieces they trashed last week! oh well.

shep

So, I have a recommendation on the eSATA express card- what eSATA drives out there have a compact case to hold 2TB's for RAID? Drew recommended a company that had FW800 RAID- I'll take a look and see if they have the eSATA too.

Congrats on the purchase

Some links on cards pricing

This is the eSATA one I have been using for the last two years Firmtek eSATA

There are other less expensive ones such as Firewire Direct Card

Not sure of a compact RAID 2 Terrabyte since that would need 2 3.5" 1 Terrabyte or 4 of the 2.5" 500 Gigs (if they are available.) I would think something in this size Examples are the two Terrabyte size, though I may have missed something newer. Firewire direct has bare enclosures, but they are not hardware RAID anymore

People have been recommending this G Tech though I have not tried them yet.

For FW800, Gtech makes the G-RAID Mini. They are quick and RAID config with 2.5" drives. What I like about them are they can be replaced with newer 2.5" SATA drives as capacities grow, unlike the La Cie Little Big Disk which is very nice looking and works like a charm but the max is now 500GB (2x 250GB PATA drives) as PATA fades into extinction.

Wiebetech, Gtech and Firmtek have enclosures for 3.5" eSATA. The Wiebetech Toughtech XE is nice because it has eSATA and FW400,800 and USB2.0. Buy 2 and mount them on the card and RAID configure them La Cie also has eSATA products..