Can I see some opinions re purchasing a G5MAC vs. PC for edi

nobody
Member

Can I see some suggestions re purchasing a G5 Mac vs. a Dell 8300 for editing? I have read so much and I still can't make a decision. MaybeI can get some opinions from some hands on users.

Thank you,
Ken

Posted 8 years ago #
cfulton
Member

NOOOOOO! Not another Mac vs. PC thread! :)
Don't forget to check out our recent product reviews of editing software titles here. Both FCP and FCX are solid packages. Avid is available for both platforms (in the same box, if I remember correctly). Windows has a wider variety of editors available, including Vegas and MSP. Happy Holidays to all of our forum particpants from all of us here at Videomaker. -Charles Fulton, Associate Editor, Videomaker Magazine

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Ken, you're sure aiming for the top of the heap for Macs if you're wanting to get a G5! That would be a good place to start anyway.
I recently bought a Power Mac G4 1250 mini tower solely for use with video editing. You might've seen one of my posts on this subject. I'm very happy with it, and the software, (Final Cut Express), that I bought with it. Whether you decide to buy a Mac or a Dell, my advise to you
is just use your machine for video editing and nothing else. I'm not completely sure whether or not getting on the internet with my pcs and downloading a bunch of stuff has anything to do with it, but my pcs haven't been cutting
the mustard with the video editing. That's one of the reasons I bought a Mac. I've also heard that Macintosh computers excel in video production compared to some pcs. It's true that pcs allow you to use a wider variety of softwares than Macs do, but as I said, I'm happy with mine.
Another thing I've heard is that Macs don't break down or crash anywhere near as much as pcs do, but this wasn't the sole reason I bought a Mac.
As I said, whether you buy a pc or a Mac, get the hardware you need for it, (usually an additional hard drive and extra memory), and make sure it has a firewire input and you should be set. Good luck.

Tunesman.

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Ha Ha HA Ha! Tunesman, I don't want to incur the wrath of the Videomaker editors again. However, let's try a little logic exercise, since you've again made anecdotal statements about the relative reliability of PCs. If a particular computer system has 97% of the real-world market share, wouldn't it be logical that you'd hear about more breakdowns, crashes, etc. on that platform, than on a computer that only a measly 3% of all computer operators were actually using?

Another question that comes to mind. By stating that "Macintosh computers excel in video production compared to pcs" are you inferring that 97% of the video editors on this forum are getting inferior editing results compared to the 3% or so using MACs? Is this really fair to say, since you know that a particular Videomaker editor will jump on anyone who may take exception to that statement :) (Just kidding).

One thing I've noticed about your posts is that you've declined to share the actual specifications of your PCs, which you claim prove that PCs are unsuitable for video editing. Since, PCs come in infinitely more varieties than MACS, could it be that your particular models are more suited for net surfing? PCs cost as little as $300.00 to several thousand, depending on the specific hardware. For example, I just obtained a dual 2.4 ghz Xeon PC, with 1 gig of RAM. I purchased it on the net for about $1700.00 (specs and purchase location available on request). Maybe, I can't tell the difference, but I believe this machine running Vegas romps all over my particular MAC dual G4 for video editing (admittedly 800 Mhz + FCP3).

Yo Tunesman seriously, musician to musician, don't succumb to the MAC cultish behavior, and begin to 'dog' PCs with the usual unsubstantiated 'cliches'. You're smarter than that. Plain and simple, your G4 is an okay machine, but it doesn't hardly dominate the average P4 system available for less than $1000.00 today. That's the truth. Final Cut Express doesn't come close to Vegas for video editing power. That's the truth. Current PCs running Win 2000 or XP don't break down any more often than MACs do. That's the truth. The MAC dual G5, and the revised FCP4, might actually be the most powerful desktop NLE combination today. That's the truth. This won't last very long, since PC technology (with 30,000 or so technology firms designing for that platform) grows at a logarithmically higher rate than terminally proprietary Apple will ever manage. That's the truth!

Posted 8 years ago #
cfulton
Member

Wrath of the Editors? Feh! We still like you, Lee... :) -Charles Fulton, Associate Editor, Videomaker Magazine

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

I'm not claiming to be an expert on any of these things, I'm just stating what I've heard from various people about Macs and PCs. If Ken wants to try a G5, I think he should try it just to have something different than what the pcs have to offer. And no, I'm not succumbing to any "Mac cultish behavior", I just think it's okay to try different products on the market to see how people like them. Maybe pcs do own the market on video editing, but that doesn't mean we can't try something different. That's what makes this country great, is the fact that we live in a free society and have the freedom of choice.
Right now my Macs working good for video editing. Years from now, when I decide to buy a new machine for that purpose, I'll probably get a pc for video editing. I'm really just using a Mac now because I was curious about their machines and how they operate, not because I want to toss away my current pcs.

Tunesman.

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

my main reasons for staying with PC's

1. I can build them myself therefore they are waaaaay cheaper (i just finshed building a 3 gig system with a gig of ram and dual 200gig HD's for under $700 because when you build your own PC you can shop around for the very best deals.

2. the fastest MAC now is a dual 2 gig ...
the fastest PC would be maybe a dual 3.2 or 3.0 gig

3. The only reason PC's have that bad reputation for crashing is because the early windows operating systems were nothing more than a GUI (graphical user interface) which means basically when you clicked an icon then windows would translate that to a DOS command then execute it. APPLE built a very stable operating system early on... Microsoft did not... So Windows got stuck with a bad reputation... but the truth is as long as your running at least windows 2000 or up (XP) then you wont have NEAR as many crashes. (i have yet to have one crash or "illegal operation" on windows 2000)

4.Upgradeability -
PC's are upgradeable... all the PC's i build i build to be upgradeable... so basically.. new technology comes out. and im not stuck with something slow or with a small storage capacity. Now i know you can upgrade harddrives and small things like that with SOME (not all) MAC's but come on is that MAC really built for the future...? I dont think so.

Now onto the reason MAC's do sell the limited number that they do... Aesthetics... and Ease of Use... yes a MAC is beautiful yes you can easily buy one and succesfullly edit a high quality movie without even ever asking for help. But liek i said NO mac is not upgradeable (limited) and NO a Mac is not TECHNICALLY faster than a PC (or close)

Case in Point... I was at Microcenter (computer store) recently checking out the APLLE studio displays (yes i will admit that those things look AMAZING... although quite ridiculously overpriced) When i heard a what i made out to be a fairly wealthy couple next to me who i could tell were going to e buying a computer. Now anyways i could hear the lady talking and i dont think she even looked at the specs on the thing once but she just kept talking about how beatiful it was... they ended up walking out of the store with a G5 Dual 2Ghz... do you think that that lady will ever notice the difference between that and say the single proscessor 1.8 ghz or a Pentium 3... NO

so that divides MAC customores into two groups... those that buy them for the aesthetics.

and those that buy them because they want an easy surefire solution to produce good videos without any hassles

but what they fail to realize if they were to take the time to invest some time with a PC to reallllly get to know one then they would be able to produce videos just as good if not better on a much cheaper machine with ten times as many options

and thats just my 2 cents

-=JOHN=-
my name is John and im 14...
thats all you need to know

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

oh yea and anythgin but a DELL i HATE Dell's more than any other computer... ive seen thier catalog and in thier most recent one they called a machine with 128 MB of RAM an "excellent solution for all your mulitmedia needs: Gaming, Music, and Making Movies" plus if you wan tot buy a DELL with decent system specs you ahve to pay OUTRAGEOUS prices i suggest you either build your own (its actually quite easy and you can find a full guide at http://www.mysuperpc.com) or if you think thats voer your head your head buy an ABS machine http://www.abspc.com theyre customore satsifaction rating is twice that of DELL's and theyre machines are first rate with phenomenal prices + you can customize them exactly how you want.

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Come on tunesman, of course you're free to do whatever you want, and use whatever computer you want. However, once you make statements about a particular computer platform, even if you're simply spreading rumors, you've got to in turn expect others to question you on it. That is the whole point of forums, isn't it?

By the way, don't you think that advising Ken to go with the G5 is simply advising him to stick with the "status quo", considering MACs have always been the 'conventional wisdom' video editing machines. He will have no real choice of editors. FCP4 rules the MAC world. Everything else available at a reasonable price, are compromises that don't match up to what's available for PCs.

Don't you think the real "freedom of choice" is going with PCs, since this is actually the platform of the desktop NLE revolution. Here he would have the choice of Vegas, Premiere, Pinnacle Edition, Ulead Media Pro and numerous other editing titles, with infinitely more titles on the horizon. It's not 'conventional wisom' in the software design world to target the MAC market, when 97% of the software buyers own PCs. So you're advising him to limit himself to Apple hardware and software only. I'm not saying that G5 and FCP aren't great - but they're not the only game in town. Since you claim you don't know much about computers, how come you're so sure this is sage advice?

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Hey John:

I'd like to hear the specifics of your system for under $700.00. That's a great price for so much power. Who made the Motherboard? Is it 800mhz FSB? You know, not everyone is suited to the task of constructing a computer from scratch. It seems easy to you, but you should learn to appreciate the special knowledge that you've acquired in order to accomplish this.

You're right about Dell being extremely expensive. But, you've got to learn to look at it from their point of view. Probably 99% of the so-called 'computer problems' that people encounter is 'human error' not hardware or software failure. But, egos make people blame the machine rather than themselves. Dell has to 'price' in the inevitable tech support, knowing that the vast majority of that support will be 'user error' rather than hardware or software problems. If you're ever inclined to build computers for your friends, or whatever, you'll soon see that those 'tech support' phone calls day and night will soon outweigh the two or three hundred dollars you thought you made on the sale. You'll be sending them to Dell, soon enough ;-)

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Yeah, I'll admit I'm not an expert on computers, and Ken is free to make his own choice, and even though I respect your opinion, there are other people who think as I do that
you don't nessecarily have to follow the crowd and buy a pc. Maybe others might want to try something different for a change, just to be different. Yes it's true that I've been dissatisfied with the performance of video editing by my pcs. I don't know what the problem is, and at this point I don't care. I don't believe it was a mistake on my part to buy a Mac for video editing, because as long as it's doing the job, and doing what I want it to do then that's fine with me.
As I mentioned before and I sound like a broken record, I'm not taking sides on the issue of pcs and macs, in other words, I'm not for one machine and not the other. To me these machines are tools and nothing more. You're right in that pcs have a much broader market for video software than Macs do, but like I said, mine's doing the job for me at this time and it's doing it beautifully. Except for video editing, my pcs are invaluable to me for other tasks such as cd burning, audio recording and numerous other things, and I can't do without them.
As I said, if Ken wants to check out an Apple computer, that's his choice, but I think he should hear all opinions on the matter.

Tunesman.

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Lee:

John is correct in that you can build a top end machine for under $700; you just have to shop around a little bit for the components. I built 7 machines in the past year and averaged around $600 per machine; all machines have at a minimum of 512 MB DDR RAM, 7200 RPM hard drives (40GB+), and a minimum of an AMD 2100+ CPU. All components were purchased online and were name brand -- AMD, AOpen, Asus, ATI, Western Digital, etc.. I simply did my homework before buying.

As for building a pc from scratch, well, there is not a lot to it. It's not like 15-20 years ago when you had to run diags to identify the bad sectors on the hard drive before you could format it or spend forever adding memory chips to a card. Putting together the hardware is easy -- it is no more difficult that playing with Legos. I taught my dad (70 at the time) the basics of hardware so he could work on his own machine; it took him about an hour to figure it all out. It has been my experience that the biggest problem people face when working on a computer is the fear of breaking something. Once you get them past that point the rest is easy. If you use a little common sense -- unplug the computer, ground yourself, don't try to "power/muscle" components into slots, take your time -- you rarely run into problems.

I also question the human error factor being responsible for 99% of all computer problems. IMHO, I would hazard that at least 15% of all errors are software related -- starting with the operating systems and applications that have been forced on us from Redmond in the last 6-7 years. As a developer, I can tell you that regardless of your programming skills and the amount of time spent testing you will have bugs in your system. That is a fact of life. When you take into consideration the number of so-called developers that are nothing more that "wizard-users" it is actually surprising that the rate for software failure is not higher -- especially when you look at size of the bloatware on the market today. Hardware is a little harder to gauge. You don't encounter nearly the amount of hardware incompatibilities you did 5 or more years ago; still a few out there. Most of the hardware problems I have seen in the last few years have been due more to age than anything else; for some reason most people tend to have an aversion to upgrading until a new game won't run on their existing system or it dies.

You are dead on about the troubles you encounter when supplying other people with computers. Been there, done that. Once you build a system for a friend (knowing you can't pad the price for tech support like you would a true "paying" client) for some reason they seem to think you are on call 24/7 for tech support. And the inevitable happens -- they have a friend who is having problems with their computer and were wondering if you could "help" out. It ends up that your friend (who by this time is a major annoyance and is to be avoided at all cost) has saved $200-$300 and you end up with a major headache for all the countless hours you spent trying to fix their screw-ups for free! Dell all the way!!

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Of course you can build a PC for less than $700 - but did you build a 3.0 gig P4 system with 1 meg of RAM and two 200 gig harddrives for less than $700? I did a little research starting at pricewatch.com, and I couldn't piece together a similar configuration that met those specs for under $700.00. I wasn't being a 'doubting thomas', I'd love for someone to steer me to where I could construct an equivalent system with decent parts for so cheap. I'd do it tomorrow. However you didn't do that. You provided a $600 example using an AMD 2100, 512meg DDR and a 40 gig HD. That is hardly the equivalent of a P4 3 gig, etc. etc. How about Apples with Apples (no pun intended);-).

Of course building a PC is now a lot easier than 'the old days'. However, you ought to recognize that there's a lot more to constructing a truly reliable PC than simply 'snapping the parts together'. I think you're taking a lot for granted due to your experience. Someone who has never done it before might consider the simplest things huge hurdles. For example, even connecting the wiring from the case to the motherboard at the appropriate points requires a level of understanding that you might not be acknowledging. I've had to provide tech support many times for 'novice' builders who couldn't figure out how to hook up the HDD LED and the Reset button. Worse still, what about those 'builders' not having a clue about 'anti-static' measures, who put their system together, only have random failures two months down the road - then blame Bill Gates? You also have to know how to PROPERLY install the OS and drivers. Doing this automatically with 'Wizards' is a gamble at best! All this knowledge comes with experience. I just don't believe that someone can do right it 'first time 'round' without prior knowledge or expert help.

You're right. 99% of PC problems being 'human error' is a stretch on my part. That was an anecdotal comment based on my personal experiences in tech support of brand new systems.

I'd also question your "...been forced on us from Redmond in the last 6-7 years..." comment. First, how is Windows'forced' on us? You could use Unix, Linux or even go Apple. I choose to go with Windows. Bill Gates didn't have a gun to my head. As for the inferred unreliability of Windows software, I think the relentless attacks on Microsoft is the most unjustifiable assault on a company in the history of personal computing. If Microsoft is so terrible, why does 97% of the business and personal world rely totally on this OS and its applications for all their computing needs? BTW, aren't you using Internet Explorer (or some other Windows application) to read this post?

Since you're a developer, you must be able to appreciate the fact that the Windows OS is so robust and flexible that it services the hardware and software produced by myriads of designers, each with proprietary standards and differing levels of design skill and quality control measures, while maintaining commercial reliability standards. I've seen Windows work just as well with $50 reverse-engineered PC CHIPS MBs as with the best Intel-built MBs. Apple has never had to face similar challenges, since they are firmly in control of the hardware and most of the software. This makes their OS development job much easier, yet I can personally testify that MACs bug out sometimes, just like PCs.

I'm not being a 'Bill Gates' apologist. I'm just honestly acknowledging that I rely on Windows products to make a living and to enjoy some of my leisure time surfin' to Videomaker and other cool sites every day of my life. It just doesn't make sense for me to bitch about Windows and then use it so extensively on a daily basis.

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

yea the specs on my PC are p4 3.0 ghz - local computer store near my house - $215
1024 MB crucial Ram - $120
Maxtor 40gb boot drive - office max after thanksgiving day sale - $20
dual maxtor 200 GB internal Harddrives $100 each - COMPUSA(also after thanksgiving day sale, i got the last two left)
FIC 856pe MAX Motherboard $50 at microcenter
Cheap raidmax case(with 350 watt powersupply) - $30 at newegg
Radenon 9600 $100 at bestbuy after thanksgiving
CD/RW - already had a good one so free
there you go total = $735

ok so i was a little over 700 dollars but i still got some incredible bang for the buck

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

Lee:

You wanted hardware specs -- this may not be a dual processor but it will scream!

Asus A7V8X-X MB
AMD 3000
1 GB Kingston PC2700 DDR
WDC 60GB 7200 RPM
WDC 180GB 7200 RPM
ATI Radeon 9200 w 128MB DDR
SB 5.1 Live card
Total price: $589.95

Prices pulled from pricewatch within the last 48 hours.

Posted 8 years ago #
nobody
Member

This is much more realistic than John's suggestion, which requires you to wait for thanksgiving day sales, find a FIC motherboard on sale at 50% of its cheapest price posted on pricewatch.com, locate 'a local computer store' which provides the cheapest price for a Pentium 4, 3 gig chip in the entire United States and throw in a CDRW you happen to have lying around. However, to make this a practical video editing system, you'd still need to add a case, DVD burner and firewire card.

Therefore, instead of adding a stand-alone firewire card, I'd toss the SB Live and get the SB Audigy instead. This provides sound with 24 bit audio support and a built-in firewire port. This would add about $40 to the overall cost. I'd add a Sony OEM DVD +/- DVDRW burner for another $118.00. The computer case/power supply adds at least $50.00. Total price: $590.00 + $40.00 (Sound/firewire) + $118.00 (DVD burner) + 50.00 (case/power supply) = $798.00.

You're pushin' $800.00 and you're using an AMD processor and a Taiwan MB - IMHO no match for an Intel P4 3 gig hyperthreading processor with Intel MB, but definitely good enough for pro video editing and still a lot more desireable than going the MAC G5 route.

BTW, when you get up around the $800.00 level, companies like tigerdirect.com offer pre-assembled and warrantied systems that bring into question the practicality of going through the trouble of 'building it yourself'.

Posted 8 years ago #