Just before NAB Show 2014 my 4 year old MacBook Pro decided to go on the fritz. I use laptops to run my business, write these blogs and do a lot of writing in general. Video Editing, Graphics and the like are usually done with my primary systems at the office or my 27″ iMac at home. So when I priced out a new MacBook Pro, to my surprise, the base MacBook Air was actually a little less expensive. Sure the hard drive is much smaller since it’s flash memory now, but it’s also much lighter. I decided to purchase the base 1.3Ghz Intel Core i5 model with the larger 256GB hard drive and the base 4GB RAM. It comes with two USB3 ports and an SD Card slot.
If I wanted anything else beyond this base setup, I would have to order it from Apple since everything is soldered together. There’s no way to even add another 4GB RAM at the Apple Store anymore, it has to come preconfigured. Yes, Apple DID have a model in the store with 8GB of RAM but it was also the top of the line machine and way more than I wanted to spend on a laptop. So off I went with the base Air for less than the MacBook Pro. Less RAM and slower processor than the Pro, but so much lighter in the weight. Because the hard drive is so small compared to what I usually use, I picked up a 1.5TB USB3 Seagate from Costco on my way home, I think it was $70, to hold my iPhoto Library.
At NAB 2013 I started shooting selfie interviews with a portable camera I borrowed from a local DP. The idea is to just capture the essence of the show with some useful information but in a VERY informal style. I think it’s fun to use such simple handy cam techniques in a ridiculously technology heavy showcase. Folks really enjoyed them last year and Marco Solorio dubbed them #WallyCam so I was determined to make them even better this year. But then I remembered…. MacBook Air. And not only the Air but the most basic model with just 4GB RAM. Hmmm, will it even RUN the Adobe suite? Why yes. Yes Indeed it does.
So what IS WallyCam? Well this year it was a Canon Vixia HD R400 camcorder that shoots 1080i AVCHD onto those small SD cards.
A whopping $200 at Best Buy and loaded with features like manual audio level, control, manual white balance, manual exposure, external mic input, focus tracking and even manual focus control. Oh and it has audio meters and record time remaining on the SD card. In short, this thing has more features than some of the more expensive cameras out there AND it fits into the pockets of my cargo shorts. Perfect for walking around Vegas and the NAB Show Floor. I even found a neat extendedable stick on the Strip in Vegas to make shooting even easier and give me some wider shots. Thank you Tim Kolb for finding it. See just how simple this is?
At the end of each day I transferred the footage to the USB 3 drive using the onboard SD slot. VERY VERY fast data transfer, I’m really liking USB 3. Fire up Adobe Premiere Pro and…… edit. No problem at all.
As you can see, generally these are one video track with some additional B-Roll on Track 2. Tracks 3 and 4 are the bug and #WallyCam / Twitter identifier which are in the entire video. And then I’ll use tracks 5 and 6 for the Lower Third identifiers, all created in the PPro Title Tool. Running time averages 3 minutes though the #PostChat meet up was so epic it featured a 20 minute video. Generally I put no filters on the videos to help with the rendering times because I’m just trying to get these out quickly, get them uploaded and get to the next NAB event.
You’re probably noticing the red line above everything. That’s in there partially because I actually drop the the video into a 720p timeline for the edit. Yeah I could use AME to convert the footage to 720 on the way out, but editing in 720p already puts the footage into the format I want to output with and if I want to reframe anything, I can do so. Editing was surprisingly snappy, the USB 3 single drive worked brilliantly and even render time was impressive. I averaged a 10 minute render time for a 3 minute timeline. That’s converting everything from 1080 to 720 plus the graphics plus converting to an H264 for upload. That was very impressive for a machine that the Apple salesperson rightfully assured me, “you don’t want to use this for editing.” In the 5 days I was in Vegas I turned around 20 WallyCam videos. Premiere Pro and AME never hiccuped, crashed or otherwise burped during those 5 days.
Would I use this as my ONLY editing system? Nope, I’m sure you throw some large projects at it and you’re gonna be in a world of hurt. But smaller on site jobs, video reviews, etc…. It’s definitely something that does work and it’s certainly very light. My next step is to purchase another USB 3 drive, install the Mac OS on there and then install the entire Adobe Creative Cloud there so I don’t fill up my 256GB internal drive with that suite. Then anytime I need to pull up Premiere, Photoshop or anything else, I’ll have it on hand, just reboot to the external drive. Yes, you MUST have the OS on the same drive as the applications, I already asked Adobe about that.
So Yes Virginia, you CAN Edit Video on a basic MacBook Air and you can do it surprisingly well.
Here’s a search of all the WallyCam videos. And here’s the epic #PostChat NAB Meet Up video.
It’s all about the portability. Am using similar desktop/same laptop memory, but have 2.3gig Intel core i7 in the MBP. Often find myself wishing for the right Vixia for a smaller, non-GoPro go-to, and this sounds like a great option for me! Thanks. I lean towards portability because I want to go where the action is, and for documentary work, the intimidation factor of a larger cam can scare away subjects. The HD backpack setup (or even pouch setup or cargo-pants-pocket setup!) allows far greater flexibility for shooting more intimate interviews, negotiating rough terrain, low-profile/low-budget travel, and is far more economical if you want to build a custom underwater housing. (And it’s cheaper to lose a Vixia or laptop if your housing fails or you get robbed!) Thanks for the tips, as always!
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I knew it. My spidey senses told me a Mac Air was totally workable for just the application you described: basic, run and gun, citizen journalism with very minimal effects and layers. One thing though, did the Mac Air get really hot during these stages: 1) active editing with un-converted/native camera footage (adobe/mac are working hard to make that avchd/mpeg-4 edit friendly) and/or 2) Rendering and outputting your final video file for upload to youtube, vimeo, etc?
I got this response on another board:
Also keep in mind that the cooling on the air is not meant for long renders or editing that keeps the heat up. You will thermal damage the CPU eventually. The MBP’s are also limited there as well though not as much as the airs.
For rendering, yes the machine gets very warm right at the top of the keyboard. You’ll want to keep the laptop raise up off a surface when rendering While editing, not really. A little warm, but nothing beyond normal.
Another relevant nugget from Creative Cow:
GPU accelerated Mercury Playback now works on Macbook Airs with Intel HD graphics
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/956091