Posted by Smarty on 04/21/07 16:25

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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