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Pro Video Editor Says MacBook Pro Beats Out Superior Spec'd Windows Machines In Real-World (9to5mac.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the optimization-is-key dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: Reviews for Apple's new MacBook Pro have yet to officially go live, despite a couple false starts earlier this week. Those should arrive any day now ahead of a retail release for the machine, but one pro video editor today published his early hands-on review after using the new 15-inch model in a real-world setting. The review also aims to address some of the early criticisms of the new MacBook Pro from pros, showing how the machine held up in a real-world, professional environment. The author Thomas Grove Carter works at Trim Editing, a studio in London where he edits "high end commercials, music videos and films" using Final Cut Pro. The review specifically focuses on the experience using the machine in a professional video editor's daily workflow. Carter's conclusion is that the new 15-inch model he was using (he doesn't detail specs), is more than capable of handling daily editing in FCP X with 5K ProRes footage. He also notes that machine "tears strips off 'superior spec'd' Windows counterparts in the real world." Thomas Grove Carter writes: "First off, It's really fast. I've been using the MacBook Pro with the new version of FCP X and cutting 5k ProRes material all week, it's buttery smooth. No matter what you think the specs say, the fact is the software and hardware are so well integrated it tears strips off 'superior spec'd' Windows counterparts in the real world. This has always been true of Macs. If you're running software with old code which doesn't utilize the hardware well, you're not going to get great performance (as pointed out here)."

22 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah well by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I still want my MagSafe

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Yeah well by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's the problem. I don't want to have to buy a bag full of adapters.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Yeah well by war4peace · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So... if it works for you, it works for everyone, or if it doesn't, they're dumb.

      Can you work with an USB stick and a mouse at the same time?

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  2. When are you finally going metric? by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How fast is a strip and what happens when I tear it?

  3. Apple lover promotes Apple product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    News at 11

    1. Re: Apple lover promotes Apple product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, it's worse than that - it's purely speculative as he hasn't even used a Windows machine to make the comparison.

  4. What Codec? What Bitrate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ProRes was designed to be a very easy on the CPU.

    Is he using plain ProRes which is really designed just for HD, or ProRes 4444 or 4444XQ which will be much more demanding.

    How does it perform with 5k RED or other RAW codecs?

  5. FX Pro on apple.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    FX Pro is only available using a apple PC - so how can you compare it to windows???

    1. Re:FX Pro on apple.... by seoras · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You don't. If you watch the video (click on the "here" link at the end of the summary) he makes it clear that he's comparing time to get to an end result.

      Not hardware. The complete package. Hardware + software.

      Sure you could boot the MBP in Windows and do a like for like but that's not what any (sane) person would do right?
      If you want a Windows or Linux machine you aren't going to pay for software you won't use and discard, right?
      With the MBP you are paying for not just raw hardware but the software too.

      People do actually still pay for software, it's how software engineers get paid and eat.
      Either you pay up front (Apple) or you pay with adverts (Google/Facebook/etc) or by giving up your personal data (Google).

      Sorry if I'm a bit tetchy, as a software engineer I do get tired of people expecting me to work as hard as they do but for free.

    2. Re:FX Pro on apple.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is that means his "full process" includes the fact that he already knows what he is doing on a mac, and he likes the workflow on a mac.

      If you got me to test even something simple like image editing software on a mac vs a PC, I'd blow the shit out of anything using my PC, because I know the software and the workflow, I know the filesystem, I know the window system, I just know what I am doing.

      On a mac; I'd get there; I wouldn't do it wrong, I just wouldn't know what I was doing half the time for stuff that is second nature to me on a windows machine. Hell I know all the windows keyboard shortcuts in the OS I just know what I am doing.

      Does that mean Windows "tears strips off Mac" for whatever bullshit test I am running?

      No, it means my workflow, my inputs, my required outputs have been tuned for whatever test I am running on one OS; and aren't on another.

      His test is meaningless if its "My mac specific workflow tears strips off a potential windows specific workflow which I don't really like". Because they aren't comparable things.

    3. Re:FX Pro on apple.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It would have been meaningful if he talked about Adobe Premiere instead. Adobe has equivalent video products for Mac and Windows (and, from personal and anecdotal and thus worthless experience, they beat the pants off of Final Cut Pro X). He could have benchmarked render times or even workflow times by comparing Adobe's products on Windows and Apple machines. He didn't.

    4. Re:FX Pro on apple.... by Gussington · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't. If you watch the video (click on the "here" link at the end of the summary) he makes it clear that he's comparing time to get to an end result

      TFA is about an unspecified spec MBP running better than an unspecified spec Win Laptop. TFA is a pure opinion piece which has no place in this forum. I'd be interested if it had hard numbers, and also did a comparison on performance vs cost, which is ultimately what counts most.

    5. Re:FX Pro on apple.... by peppepz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You don't. If you watch the video (click on the "here" link at the end of the summary) he makes it clear that he's comparing time to get to an end result. Not hardware. The complete package. Hardware + software.

      He's not comparing hardware and software to get an end result. He's comparing hardware and software to get two different end results (running two different programs, arbitrarily chosen). Hence the comparison does not make any sense whatsoever. Different programs take different time to run on different computers and you can't infer anything from that.

      He then goes further on, providing an explanation (that the macbook pro is faster because it is more "optimized") without any proof (he didn't actually indicate what optimization is there on the mac and isn't there on the pc) for a fact that he didn't measure in the first place (that the macbook pro is faster).

      This video makes as much sense as buying a 2016 macbook pro.

  6. Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Windows one can be upgraded past 16gb of ram so not sure how that's going to work out for you....

  7. SO? by mikeiver1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is expected to be this way when the hardware and the OS and the software are all from the same maker. They can and do write final cut to take total advantage of the OS as they have access to the underlying code. The same for the hardware as well. Windows 10 is a decent OS but it is not fancy GUI sitting on top of a highly tuned and targeted BSD distro. All things being equal hardware wise I would very much expect that Final cut pro would be at least 20% faster on the new MacBook pro.

  8. News flash by Trogre · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Software designed for Apple works better on Apple hardware.

    In other news, Microsoft Office works better on Windows than Mac OS.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    1. Re:News flash by Ash-Fox · · Score: 4, Informative

      You know, outlook forms don't work on the macOS version, I have spreadsheets that have macros which are unusable on macOS, I have a variety of word documents that don't render properly on macOS's word.

      On macOS, I have Microsoft Office for Mac 15.27 (161010).
      On Windows, I have Office 2016.

      All latest and greatest versions downloaded from office.com.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  9. um specs? by n3r0.m4dski11z · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I actually went to read the article and expected a proper comparison with actual benchmarks. Instead, find a one liner as quoted in the summary. Come here and everyone says the obvious thing i missed with all the abbreviations: Final Cut Pro is a mac application.

    Fuck this apple fanboi and his trolling!

    shame on you slashdot for bothering to link it in the first place! *newsflash!* know-nothing nobody SAYS SOMETHING! stop the presses!

    --
    -
  10. A lot of his argument is valid to be honest... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...try to buy a Windows PC that has sufficient PCI-Express lanes to run some NVMe SSD storage on top of a high-end video card and some a few USB 3 and ThunderBolt ports.

    Hell, try to BUILD it. The motherboard manufacturers play jenga with individual models and what ports are where, so even though there's a PC Standard it takes hours of research to build a system that doesn't have random bottlenecks if you're going to be doing massive-media manipulation like video editing.

    So does the new MacBook tromp most Windows PCs you can buy or build? You betcha it can, that's no surprise at all. Even those with significantly higher spec 'parts' when the underlying motherboard cripples everything so it can't live up to those specs.

    - WolfWings

  11. Review Fail by Idimmu+Xul · · Score: 4, Informative

    Terrible review

    1) "its fast" dur no one said it wasnt
    2) "he has usb-c SSDs" wow go you
    3) "dongles arent a problem as i use the laptop in a desktop setting anyway and will be buying a thunderbolt dock for the desk" AWESOME man thats great that youve removed the laptops killer feature, portability, to accessorise
    4) "everyone that isnt as enlightened as the reviewer sucks" thanks for telling us we arent as good as you because this generation of MBP doesnt work for our needs

    jesus

    --
    The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
  12. SSD speed. by jcr · · Score: 3, Informative

    In video editing, that's the key. The new MBPs have the fastest bulk storage systems anyone's shipped in a portable yet.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  13. Apple Reality Distortion Field (tm) by thesupraman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just the usual ARFD effect.

    'My computer, despite being slower in all measurable specifications, is FASTER! HA! AND I AM A PROFESSIONAL!'
    Followed by turning of the back, fingers in ears, and reciting of 'nya nya nya nya I cannot hear you nya nya'

    And in the real works, people keep on getting work done, knowing that in actual fact, the exact machine specs, OS, etc
    have such a small effect on a persons productivity, that it is unimportant.

    Not to mention that fact that if he really is doing such high grade video work, and is using ANY laptop, he just doesnt get it,
    as a much more powerful desktop will be much MUCH more productive (for a start, it will have monitors where he can actually
    see the video he is working on... RAID storage so a drive crash wont lose all his work, much more RAM to allow a decent video
    buffer, and more cores, because video processing IS embarrassingly parallel and scales nearly perfectly).

    So, basically a chump. example what the media loves for clickbait.