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KristenRN said:
Hello to all.....first time here! What a useful place to get information. I'm a current Windows Vista Ultimate user, and have a fairly basic HP notebook now......just about to make the switch.
I really enjoy working with photos and making family DVD's for gifts. Right now I generally use Windows movie maker but own Photoshop and Premier Elements, although I didn't find either of them easy to use. I also have a Sony Handycam digitcal camcorder but this laptop just doesn't have the horsepower to do anything useful with the things I've taped. (mostly my stepkids sports games.) It took over 9 hours to render/burn a 20 minute DVD of my mom and her husband talking that I taped on the HandyCam.
I really enjoy working with photos and making family DVD's for gifts. Right now I generally use Windows movie maker but own Photoshop and Premier Elements, although I didn't find either of them easy to use. I also have a Sony Handycam digitcal camcorder but this laptop just doesn't have the horsepower to do anything useful with the things I've taped. (mostly my stepkids sports games.) It took over 9 hours to render/burn a 20 minute DVD of my mom and her husband talking that I taped on the HandyCam.
General stuff first...just burning an optical disk (i.e. just copying over content that is already in the form that you need it in...no "translation" involved) is purely a function of optical drive speed. Making a movie/video DVD is more than just a burning operation as you noted. You must also render/encode the video into a format that a standard video player can read. And that for that, the faster the processor, the better.
KristenRN said:
Toyed with the idea of an iMac desktop, but portability is a big issue for me. The salesperson said the MBP's might be suitable....have their own video card, etc.....and would be a huge step up from what I have right now. He also mentioned the faster hard drive upgrade to 7200.
If video work is one of the major factors for you, then a 7200 rpm drive might be worth it for you. Generally speaking, faster rpm drives only benefit those who have rather disk intensive tasks. Video editting can be one of those tasks. You might fall into a gray area as you are doing more as a hobby type task than professionally for a living. If you were doing a LOT of video editting, then a faster drive would certainly be a good thing. So, it kind of depends on how much you would use it for video editting. Generally, the downside of a 7200 rpm drive in a laptop vs. a 5400 rpm drive will be power consumption. You might not get a much battery life with a 7200 rpm drive than with a 5400 rpm drive...but it might not be that much of a difference. The other disadvantage is that you are nominally limited to 200 GB drives size right now with 7200 rpm.
KristenRN said:
(1) Is there THAT much difference in processor speed between a 2.2 mHz MBP and a 2.4 mHz? What about the on board video RAM.....basically, is the jump from the $1999 MBP to the $2499 one worth it? Hard drive space is not an issue.
Generally speaking, the difference in processor speed would NOT be that noticeable for most tasks. I doubt you would notice it in doing things like email, browsing and word processing. You should, however, notice it in video rendering/encoding. Thus, the 2.4 GHz (it is GHz not mHz) would likely be the better choice if you are concerned with how quickly you can spin out video DVDs from iDVD. It might even be worth considering the upgrade to 2.6 GHz if that is you primary concern. It then becomes a question of whether the extra money is worth the speed gain, which will likely be in maybe the at least 5 to 10% range (someone else might better be able to give you a more precise feel). The point is that you SHOULD notice a different in movie DVD creating speeds between processor speeds.
As to the video card, I don't recall if iDVD or iMovie really benefit from a descreat video card or not. If they do, I believe it is minimal, but I am just not sure. Someone else who does movie editting more often that I do should comment on that. To my understanding, video editting is generally NOT a graphics intensive task (at least not in that it needs a powerful video card).
KristenRN said:
(2) Is 2GB of RAM that comes on board standard enough to do basic photo and video editing? The price I see to upgrade RAM in these laptops floored me....$700 for 2 more GB? Is this user-upgrade-able or am I stuck with it forever?
2 GB of RAM should be more than enough for your purposes. Besides, it is a user upgradeable item, so you can always upgrade the RAM at a later date. And even if you did it now, many would suggest NOT buying the upgrade from Apple due to the ridiculous fee of $700. You can do it for substantially less by getting the memory from a place like OWC or Crucial.com and doing it yourself (you basically just remove the battery, remove about 4 screws from an access door, take out old memory, put in new memory, put access door and screws back in, and reinstall battery).
KristenRN said:
(3) What's the most important factor in DVD burning: RAM, processor speed or HD speed? Not sure I can afford to upgrade all 3.
You will likely get the most "bang for your buck" with the processor. I believe HD speed is nominally a non-issue (I believe it is more of an issue when you are actually editting the footage, but I could be wrong). RAM would only be a factor if you skimped on it, but with 2 GB, it should be a non-factor. I burn DVDs just fine on my first Gen MBP (1.83 GHz Core Duo as oppposed to the Core 2 Duos that are now used) which is "phyically" limited to 2 GB. The memory would help more if you wanted to be burning your DVD while having many other programs open at the same time (of course, things might be a little slow with the processor chugging away on rendering the video).
(4) Heard lots of fairly negative things about iMovie '08. Should I be concerned? I can't see myself plodding through the learning curve with FC.....I found photoshop to be way more hooey than I wanted to mess with, and premiere elements just as bad. That being said, it's quite possible that some of the trouble I had with both of those was hardware related......constant crashes, and it just didn't seem that easy or intuitive to use.
I cannot speak to iMovie '08 as I don't have it. But, I do believe that Apple is allowing people who have/buy iMovie '08 to also download and use iMovie '06 as well. They were at one point. It does look like you still can...here is the link to get iMovie '06 if you get iLife '08.
If I want to get out of this for under $2700, can someone recommend a solid configuration of the 15" MBP that will meet my needs? Don't need printer, etc.....and already own iWork '08, JamPack/world music edition and a bunch of Sims for Mac games.
Thanks in advance.
Without talking to someone face to face and getting a much better feel for their needs, I don't like to give recommendations personally. Having said that, I would think that you would benefit from the processor speed up tick. I would likely say you could live with the default RAM...you can always upgrade later. The real question in my mind would be would you gain more benefit from going to the 2.6 GHz processor and not going with a 7200 rpm upgraded drive or would you be better with the 2.4 GHz processor and an upgraded drive. I am just not sure. I would note that you can always have the drive upgraded at a later date as well, although it is NOT meant to be user upgradeable (i.e. if you do it, you void the warranty...so if it is under warranty, you need to take it to an authorized Apple service center to have them do it).
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