MacBook Pro: GRF Card 128 vs. 256 MB & FW800 vs. eSATA

[phrunk]

Hi all,

I just got my HV20 (great!) and I also need to get a new cutting environment. I have gone through the forum already and feel pursuaded to get a Mac. To combine mobility and power, I am focussing the latest 15" MacBook Pro. However, I have one remaining question left over to decide between the 2.2 GHz and the 2.4 GHz Version:

Grafx Card:
Both have the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. The 2.2 version uses 128 MB, the 2.4 has 256 MB. As I assume that a processor power of 2.2 GHz is sufficient, in the end, I would have to pay EUR 500 for additional 128 MB of grafx memory. Is it worth it? And, yes, I would like to have the possibility to run FCS2 Motion. What difference will there be between 128 and 256 MB? By the way, I will pump the MacBook Pro up to 4 GB of internal memory anyhow.

Additional questions:
1. FW800 vs. eSATA:
I have read that eSATA (possible with eSATA II Express Card 34) is better than FW800. But I haven´t read why. Can anyone please explain that to me?

2. Screen:
You can choose between the shiny one and a non-reflective (equal price). What does the cutting community prefer?

3. Operating system:
Leopard is planned to be released in October/November. Is it worth waiting, esp. in terms of HD video editing? Have you heard of update possibilities?

Thanks in advance to all of you who are helping me out with this one.

Frank

[Simon Hughes]

Frank,

I have the 15" MBP C2D and I would always go for the fastest processor and the max video RAM. Great idea to max the system RAM but that won't affect the video RAM (which is separate), so go for the 256MB.

I think that the advantage of eSATA is the transfer speed over FW400/800. Having said that, I'm using a Western Digital My Book 500GB drive via FW400 ($180 CDN at Costco) and it's working fine. I did buy a Belkin ExpressCard/34 that gives me two additional FW400 and a USB2 port. I run the HV20 into it (via FW) while the external drive is hooked to the MBP's FW400 port.

When I bought my MBP, I had no inkling I'd be getting into video, but I was firmly into still photography and I chose the matte finish screen . It is much better for looking at images.

You will be able to purchase the OS-X upgrade when it is available. Installation is pretty painless from what I've read.

Cheers,

Simon

[wfeu]

yes the extra ram on gfx card is well worth it. especially if your going to want to fcs2 / motion.

1. not sure...maybe throughput. the esata would be best but a few firewire 800 drives and softraid would work to.

2. I had this option as well but one of the screens is special order and could add a few weeks delivery time on your machine. I got the one that was ready now.

3. No dont wait. When it comes out youll want to reformate youre drive with zfs file system if it indeed does make it in the release. But there is no sense in waiting. The computer/software industry will likely have something announced in Oct/Nov but it is not coming out for feb/march and so on..Like apple updating the computer models a few times a year. Just get it and enjoy it. When I get a new machine I wait for one to be released with little problems and then get it like my last MBPro I got it the month before apple announced the models you are looking at.

[tiloprobst]

(...)

I don't think you would feel much a difference between 2x2,2 and 2x2,4 GHz, but you will notice the difference in VRAM in Motion and the difference in RAM in FCP.

If you work a lot outside, go for the non-reflective screen.

eSATA is preferable of course, but for HDV playback FW400 or FW800 is fine. Even a 1920x1080 Motion JPEG A runs smoothly here on a FW400 external harddisc. However, if you want to work on uncompressed HD, there's nothing fast enough ;) And I guess even a handful of HDV streams/layers at the same time would be too much for FW. Remember that FW400 is as fast as USB2 on the PC...

Leopard should not be worth the wait, FCS2 simplified things already. Maybe QuickTime will be improved in X.5 (AVCHD natively *cough*). More important, FC Express and iMovie (iLife) need an upgrade.

[zephyrnoid]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Am I correct in stating that the only difference between the MBP 15" 2x2,4 GHz & MBP 17" 2x2,4 GHz is the screen size? And does the screen size affect VRAM in a manner that visible affects refresh rates?? I like a nice wide timeline but also like some compactness when traveling. Any feeling one way or the other on the two versions of MBP? I'm assuming the 15" can be ordered with 256MB of VRAM ?

[skinnyboy]

the benefit that eSATA has over FW800 is only noticeable if you have a striped RAID. If you have a single drive, FW800 will be as fast as eSATA (or close enough).
When you stripe a RAID over eSATA, the transfer speed is cumulative over the drives. So, let's say a single drive transfers at 1MB/s (just for arguments sake here) - if you stripe RAID a second drive in, you'll get 2MB/s and so forth.
There are some other factors, but that's it in a nutshell.

Trouble with a striped RAID, though, is that if one drive fails, you're hosed. You would need a reliable backup of the RAID at all times.

[Pom16/10e]

I am using a MBP with :
-1 external FW800 drive for boot volume
-1 external e-sata drive for footage
-1 external e-sata drive for renders and the finalcut app itself (strangely, moving the app to another drive almost doubles speed in FCP...)

that is the fastest setup I could come up with in months of testing.

FW800 Vs e-Sata : skinnyboy, i beg to differ ! in my experience, e-Sata blasts FW800 big times.
And the better your drive (raptor), the more appearent is the difference.
Which is understandable, since e-sata is native speed (as fast as if it was internal in a tower mac)

As you pointed out, the only faster solution should be to RAID two discs.
But for most of my project, loosing the separate discs for render makes it not as fast as having two separate discs. and since security is better whith two separate discs, that is what I stick with.