FCP and New MacBook Air

Hi to everyone,
I'm Max from Rome, Italy, and this is my first message on this forum

I apologize in advance for my not perfect English

the question:
I want to buy the new MacBook Air in this configuration
13 - i7 - Ram 8GB - 256 SSD
and my intention is to start using FCP (i'm an old Premiere users)
Mine is a totally unprofessional use, but my necessity is to edit video recorded with my Sony HDR-AS15 action cam, with 1080p video

think that the new MBA can edit this video type for not professional use?

Thank you to all for the help

Max

Unfortunately I can't find anywhere the specs for what format this camera shoots and what connections it has. WiFi won't work with FCP. You'll also need an external hard drive like a Thunderbolt drive that's Mac formatted.

Thank you for Reply

This is the camera spec:
- MPEG4-AVC/H.264
- Memory Stick Micro™ (Mark 2) / microSD / microSDHC
- 1920×1080/60p (PS), 1920×1080/30p (HQ), 1280×720/30p (STD, SLOW, SSLOW), 640×480/30p (VGA)
- Audio: MPEG-4 AAC-LC 2ch

It looks like it's AVCHD, in which case there should be a problem with FCP. To be sure you might want to either take your camera to an Apple store or download the trial version of FCP.

Ok... I read some thread online.
I can convert the format in a "Apple ProRes 422 LT" with another software

the question now is if the MBA chave difficulty to editing this FULL HD video. I know that the MacBook pro is better for FCP, but my necessity is to have hte Air

Download the trial version and see if it will work for what you need to do. The information about LT may be obsolete.

If you convert to ProRes 422 (absolutely no need for an external application, you can do this inside FCPX) you will have no trouble editing your footage on an Air. The latest Airs are perfect portable editing machines.

But if you do all your editing on the road and you must be careful with drive space the best workflow is to ingest your footage, optimize to ProRes Proxies in FCPX and edit with the Proxies. You will edit much faster and Proxies don't take up a lot of extra drive space. When you are happy with your edit just switch to Original media to export your video at the highest quality. The seamless Proxy workflow is unique to FCPX and it is ideal for on-the-road work. Once your edit is delivered you can even delete the Proxy media again.

But as Tom said: the easiest way to find out is to download the trial and see this for yourself.

- Ronny

The problema of the trial is that actually I don't have a Mac, so I can't see. And all my question beacuse I must decide for this machine

Thank you to all the reply
I do not editing all time on the road. Absolutely!
In my house I edit the video, but I need MBA on the road for other use

I take some ingformation about Proxies. Thank you!

If you are mostly editing from home on the Macbook Air, you will always want to have an external drive connected for your FCPX Projects and Events folders. It is not recommended to use the internal SSD since that is the OS X system drive.

Since the Air does not have dedicated graphics capability that has a big impact on performance compared to the larger MB Pros, so ronny's suggestion about proxy editing a great compromise.

If editing from home, since the 13" is a small screen will you also use an external monitor? If so, one tip I'd suggest, whenever you're done editing and ready to export-to any file type, first disconnect the external monitor. This will provide more graphics processing capacity to FCPX.

Beyond the initial transcoding to import your footage, how well the MB Air performs will depend on how much you change the clips in your timeline by adding multiple or complex effects and such. The MB Air can do it-it'll work. It will be slower rendering the export files.

Thunderbolt external drive, max RAM, and proxies should work OK editing on a MBA.

BenB wrote: Thunderbolt external drive, max RAM, and proxies should work OK editing on a MBA.

thank you for all information!

Sorry,
My budget is limited
In your opinion, which of these configurations is better for editing?

i7 - 8 Gb Ram - SSD 128 Gb + LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 1TB

or

i7 - 8 Gb Ram - SSD 256 Gb (edit video directly in SSD)

or

i5 - 8 Gb Ram - SSD 256 Gb + LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 1TB


I have a Synology NAS server in my house and for archive the finished edit video, with 4 Tb of free space.

Thank you for your help

Max

I would go with number 1.

Another vote for #1.

128 GB SSD is enough for OS X and all your applications. Again, you don't want to edit on the SSD. My internal SSD is only 115GB. It's full of Apple Pro & other apps and still 27GB free. You just have to always have an external drive available if you have, for example, a large photo, music, movie entertainment library- in this case the 256GB isn't enough either. But if this is to be an FCPX editing machine, #1 is the winner.

Definitely option 1.

- Ronny

ok... new MacBook Pro Retina on sale

what do you think about the new graphic card Iris on 13?

Maybe is too early for judge....

But my indecision has increased

With the same money I can take:

- AIR 13 - i7 - 8 Ram - 256 SSD - HD 5000 Graphics
- PRO RETINA 13 - i5 - 8 Ram - 256 SD - Graphic Iris

the winner on FCPX?

No proof yet, but the 13" rMBP will win. The MBA is designed for light weight portability and battery life. The rMBP is designed to be an image/video workhorse that happens to be portable.

I think the new 13" MBP is a great option. I have the air and while it is quite good (it's graphics were better than the previous gen MBP) the screen is rather small for serious work, so you'd have to hook it up to an external monitor. With the ability to scale the retina displays, that should help quite a bit I think - plus they look amazing.