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Posted by Luis Ortega on 04/21/07 16:59
Thanks, Smarty,
What would you advise for someone who is interested in video editing and not
primarily DVD authoring?
If I don't go for a Mac Pro and FCP Studio 2, I am considering upgrading my
PC to a quad 4 core cpu with 4 gigs of fast ram, a 512 ddr3 mb graphics card
and a suitable motherboard for all of this, and buying the Adobe master
collection CS3 suite which pretty much has everything that I need for my
workflow. I would probabl;y also upgrade to Vista Home Premium from my
curent Win XP Pro.
Do you think that this would be a faster and more stable setup? Does the CS3
software make use of quad core cpus or should I stick to core 2 duo cpus?
I could get my school to loan me a suitable Mac with FCP 4.5 studio loaded
and use that to keep learning FCP for my school work while forgetting about
trying to go to a Mac at home.
Thanks for your advice.
"Smarty" <nobody@nobody.com> wrote in message
news:0PudndC0uc2eprfbnZ2dnUVZ_rqhnZ2d@adelphia.com...
> Ken and Luis,
>
> I'll offer an abbreviated reply to the 2 questions asked, and will be glad
> to elaborate if you want me to, but will otherwise spare you the detailed
> version.
>
> I purchased my most recent 2 MacPros, first the dual G5 Powermac and then
> the Intel Quad Xeon, for the purpose of making HD DVDs. Although Apple has
> not made a bit marketing fuss about it, their Final Cut Pro Studio
> software was really the very first way consumers could produce an HD DVD
> deliverable on a disk, namely 4.7GB red laser DVD-R. This has been true
> for at least 18 months, maybe closer to 2 years, but I wanted to take HDV
> content I had recorded and make playable disks and FCP was at the time the
> ***only way*** to do so. Secondly, I was amazed after getting my first HDV
> camcorder, the Sony FX-1, when it came out a couple years ago, that my
> wife's tiny "MacMini" (a $600 computer) could do a reasonable, albeit very
> slow job of HDV capture and editing with the free software it contained,
> iMovieHD. I was then convinced that a high-end dual processor workstation
> from Apple with FCP would be the "ultimate" HD and HD DVD tools, since the
> only missing ingredients I needed and lacked in the MacMini were speed and
> more editing / authoring features. The high end workstation seemed like an
> obvious upgrade path, if FCP were also purchased at the same time.
> Ironically, Sony, despite their immense stake in HDV acceptance, chose to
> ***never*** provide any BluRay authoring in the Vegas Suite, (instead
> demanding the user purchase their extremely costly "BluPrint" stuff, and
> also, as you might imagine, never provided any HD-DVD support whatsoever.
> This is still the case over 2 years later..... Thirdly, my motivation to
> buy the Mac was predicated on a long and very enduring love / hate
> relationship with Apple going back to their inception. I love their
> innovation, their spirit, their testimonial to American engineering, and
> their marketing finesse. My Apple stock has also rewarded me many times
> over. And yes, I also am sucked into the Job's reality distortion field
> when ever a new product launches. And finally, my interest in buying the
> newest high end Macs was grounded in my very early use of the Mac with the
> original Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, and even earlier stuff going back to
> their original Quadra 660AV model which had built in Phillips video
> capture hardware along with support for MJPEG, the IOMEGA "Buzz" and other
> 1980s / early 190s vintage video toys for home video editing.
>
> As to why I then decided to sell it off last week:
>
> I waited until NAB a week ago to see what Apple was going to do next,
> having lived with not one but 2 top of the line multi-processor
> PowerMac/MacPro workstations for the last 18 months or so. My true
> experiences with the machines was far below my expectations. Perhaps it is
> because the PC software is so much more plentiful, and I can pick and
> chose from dozens of tools and make them work nicely together, or the fact
> that I can easily modify my hardware a little bit at a time, but I truly
> found the Macs to be mostly aggravating to own and use.
>
> The first and single biggest objection was speed. Everything seems to take
> a long time, comparatively speaking, rendering in particular. Secondly,
> moving around in the Apple environment creates a lot of Quicktime files
> which are not intrinsically compatible in most cases with other tools I
> use and like. Rendering to and from Quicktime is especially painful. The
> third issue was Apple secrecy and a general lack of candor in dealing with
> their problems. My dual G5 had severe power supply issues which Apple
> people were totally unwilling to admit existed until a very large number
> of complaints surfaced, and I, as one of the early victims, had a long and
> frustrating battle attempting to get them to fix my machine. Similarly,
> DVDStudioPro, their disk authoring component of FCP, could not make
> Toshiba compatible HD DVDs until very recently, when a quietly released
> software update fixed a problem that others had complained about and
> acknowledged since the Toshiba players came out well over a year ago.
> Those of us who made workable disks actually had to bring the "HD DVD"
> folders over to a PC and burn them with PC software..........Lastly, and
> this may be just a personal complaint, I found that the user interface of
> FCP had small and difficult to read controls, mostly ***NOT*** user
> adjustable in size, so that a screen big enough to show full HDV workflow
> has tiny text, small icons, and a less than comfortable user interface. I
> fully recognize that this is the world as seen through the eyes of
> somebody 60+ with not so perfect eyesight, so my complaint may not be
> legitimate for others.
>
> I have had friends and relatives who have had Macs with a blown Firewire
> port, bad DVI connector, power connector, etc., and they have been
> ***FORCED*** to replace logic boards and motherboards at expenses of
> thousands of dollars when a single chip is blown or a single solder joint
> is bad because the Apple repair philosophy does not include so much as the
> concept of a replacement chip, daughter board, or simple subassembly
> without a major repair bill. I personally find the Apple "geniuses" who
> meet you at their stores to discuss problems are very limited in their
> problem solving resources......
>
> By releasing an entirely new Final Cut suite, Apple may have solved some
> of the issues above, but I am disappointed that the major claims did not
> include speed enhancements so much as new and additional features.
> Admittedly, the features are long overdue as well, and many new buyers and
> upgraders will be attracted for this reason alone. I may buy into their
> concept once again after the dust settles, and wanted to sell my latest
> Apple hardware and FCP suite at a time when it was still current and
> therefore most valuable. To Apple's credit, their resale is very high
> compared to the PC equivalent hardware, and the cost of ownership is thus
> relatively low despite the initial cost of purchase.
>
> Hope this answers your questions.
>
> Smarty
>
>
>
> "Ken Maltby" <kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:obadnXMM9a1DIbTbnZ2dnUVZ_u-unZ2d@giganews.com...
>>
>> "Luis Ortega" <lortega@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>> news:z59Wh.1817$V7.1736@newsfe7-gui.ntli.net...
>>> Smarty, I just checked the site and it seems doable.
>>> My question is, the part that "took a lot of screwing around"- was that
>>> in creating the disk itself or getting it to work on the Mac when trying
>>> to install Windows on the Mac?
>>> The creating the disk part doesn't concern me as I am quite familiar
>>> with getting things PC to work, but I am a total novice on the Mac side,
>>> so that currently scares me.
>>> Thanks for your advice.
>>>
>>
>> Just curious, what is it the Mac provides that makes
>> you buy it instead of a new PC? I mean if you want to
>> run MS software, on the MAC? Did you find that you
>> couldn't live without being able to run Windows
>> programs? What were the things you needed Windows
>> for, that the Mac couldn't provide?
>>
>> Luck;
>> Ken
>>
>>
>
>
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