New Ipad Pro or MacBook Air

[Whack]

I guess the title says it all but i'm looking for some advice from those of you in the know here. I am looking at buying either an Ipad Pro (new model just released) or MacBook Air (also new model released);
My main use for eithr of these are as follows;
1- Light editing of photo/video from my Mavic2Pro mainly for social media purposes
but I will also be downloading movies/music for when travelling etc so portability is a factor, and some web browsing ,but I think size wise will be fine with either. I suppose my main concern is will either be capable of playing back h.265 footage smoothly and if I go with the tablet will the IOS software limit me to the extent that i'm better off going with a laptop and full OS?
Any thoughts/suggestions gladly welcomed.

 

[phil54]

Surface laptop. Sorry have to say it having tried multiple Mac laptop and iPads all trumped but the surface.

 

[Kilrah]

Proper file management, storage, backup and archival is almost impossible on iOS, IMO you'll always need to also have a computer for anything that isn't "single use".

 

[Keule]

If you lean towards a Macbook, then go for an Macbook Pro, not the Air.

 

[petewaugh]

I've just edited a 45 minute 4K video for a client using a 10.5 iPad Pro 256 Gb with Lumafusion. Worked a treat. However, I did use a Leef usb drive and WD WiFi SSD drive as well for file management and back up (which adds to the cost but they come in handy for other tasks). I also used a lightening to SD card adaptor to transfer video from the drone and a lightning to HDMI adaptor for presentation. Normally I would have used my Mac and Final Cut Pro but wanted to prove to client it could be done from start to actual event presentation solely on an iPad Pro... Presentation was a huge success.
Using the Leef and WD drive I've had absolutely no issues with file management. There seems to be this mainly historical belief that IOS is impossible to work with but with IOS 12 it's been pretty straightforward.

 

[ryanolivas]

I would go for the Macbook. Base on what you are using it for both are a good choice but you could do a lot more on Macbooks(I have both although older versions of them).

 

[Kilrah]

Now how do you take the project off this iPad to continue working on it on a production environment? What about the file management?

 

[Cslucas34]

I currently use 3 platforms for my editing and post production on both photos and video. The shortcomings with the iPad will be the storage and file management, in my opinion. It’s fine for just photos, especially since photoshop will be porting the full version of their software over. If you intend on doing video as well, I would highly recommend a full computer vice just a tablet. To that end, since you seem to prefer Mac; then I would suggest a Mac book pro and a portable HD for external storage. Davinci is an excellent free software that will run just fine on a pro and even the free version will allow you to do some amazing stuff once you learn it. Based on what you are saying you want to do with them, I would say MacBook Pro should be your purchase. Light weight, good battery life and portable, decent enough to do video edits in 265, and easier to manage files. My 2 cents.

 

[ac0j]

Now how do you take the project off this iPad to continue working on it on a production environment? What about the file management?

Lightning SD card adapter, or NAS, or share the file via network. There are many ways. I don’t understand everyone thinking iPads are incapable. Must not own one, or do and don’t RTFM.
They are basically a laptop with out a keyboard or mouse and HDD storage built in. But on these times that means little to nothing.

 

[petewaugh]

Now how do you take the project off this iPad to continue working on it on a production environment? What about the file management?

I export from Lumafusion to wireless SSD drive (Western Digital) - it works flawlessly. Then if I really have to I'll import into Final Cut Pro. I've found Lumafusion to be almost on a par with FCP, for my projects certainly. I can export at 4K 100Mb/s (though it does take a while). To be honest one of the reasons I tried forming an iPad Pro workflow was my ageing Mac stutters with 4K but the iPad Pro runs smoothly. Also the days of my clients asking for DVDs and Bluray are gone - it's 4K or nothing and they just want to stream it.

 

[Kilrah]

Lightning SD card adapter, or NAS, or share the file via network. There are many ways. I don’t understand everyone thinking iPads are incapable. Must not own one, or do and don’t RTFM.
They are basically a laptop with out a keyboard or mouse and HDD storage built in. But on these times that means little to nothing.

My point is that Lumafusion is an iOS app only so I can't say start working on a project on the go then come home at my workstation, transfer the editable project to my computer and continue/finish/polish the job I started.
Of course you can render the video and transfer it somewhere else with no problem but it's frozen at that point, and with the way apps are distrubuted on mobile OSs you have no long term guarantee you can get back and rework that project 3 years down the road without starting from scratch.

You can do that with iMovie, but iMovie is basic. There's no Final Cut Pro level tool that allows you to go back and forth between a mobile OS and another platform, same for now for photo (supposed to change with Photoshop somewhere next year).

It's not "incapable", it's just frustratingly limited. The iPad's form factor and touch / pencil UI are great for some things but pretty poor for others, so IMO ability to go back and forth seamlessly and losslessly between tools is crucial and at this point completely lacking. With a full blown OS no problem.

Also the app sandboxing is really terrible for file management as soon as you have to use more than just one app for a task, ending up storing multiple copies and versions of a file with losses at every transfer.

It's great as long as you stay within the pretty well defined narrow use cases (what apple are great for), but as soon as you need something a bit different it becomes a nightmare. I perfer a more balanced all-around solution.

I got my 12" iPad Pro with the intent of using it for content creation as advertised, but regardless of how much I tried it just never worked out in a satisfying, comfortable,, collaborative and future-proof manner. The only things I do with it now are watch Youtube and my Flickr feed in bed. I do a lot of that and the screen is perfect for it so it's still worth it though

 

[motrebugni]

For the amount of task, iPad Pro will be better option, but yea until you held on to light editing. As if you shift to hardcore editing then you will need MacBook Pro, but yea going for Air makes no sense for the amount of task you wish to, and no matter what even you buy, Apple OS will be smooth in all.

Regards,
Smith