Considering getting a Mac

[Kalium]

It just seems that you get a lot more computer for your money, especially if you want to edit, by going with a PC. The lack of AVS is a big thing against Macs here.

On the lower end of the market, PCs really are king. Macs don't start to outperform PCs dollar for dollar until you get into the higher-end stuff - or into massive installations.

[milatchi]

The lack of AVS.

I am drawing a blank on AVS.
Definition?

[Kalium]

AVISynth. At current, it has dependacies on VFW and DirectX, and thus is confined to Windows.

[milatchi]

The lack of AVS is a big thing against Macs here.

Based on my reading about AVS. It seems that it's features such as: rescaling, deinterlacing, denoising, enhancing, frame rate conversions, DivX, MPEG 1 & 2, XviD encoding, etc can all be found in ffmpegX for Mac OS X

[AbsoluteDestiny]

THe main thing avisynth does is frameserve footage (such as dvd mpeg2) into editing programs and make it useable. All mac editing software will work with DV which is lossy and takes up a much more space and with only 40 gig to play with that means not a great deal of video footage.

[mantlepicture]

Macs are definitely the king of video editing. Macs can do everything a PC can do, and they do it easier and more reliably. As someone who has worked with Avid Xpress Pro on a $7k PC and a $1.5k Mac, I would pick the Mac anyday. I'm not some Windows hater(I am typing this on a Windows XP system), Macs are just the best bet. It's true that most professionals work on Windows, but there is a reason for this. They work for post-production houses, and the editors are very rarely put in charge of purchases. Moronic managment makes those decisions. But I and any other professional editor(someone who edits for a living) can tell you that we prefer Macs.

If you buy a PowerMac G5, get the cheapest one. The processors aren't a big deal. Spend $50 to upgrade the graphics, and spend $300 to get a gig of RAM. DO NOT buy a display through the site. They are sexy, but $1000 is just insane. A third party monitor will work just fine; you can buy two flat screen monitors and still save $400. You will be able to get a great system for about $1800, without a monitor(you can just use the one from your PC if you want). Don't worry about the dual processor systems. They are nice, but they are overkill. In school I use a 1.6Gig single processor, and it is incredibly powerful. The cheapest on the Apple site is 1.8 single. So you don't need to spend a fortune. Just don't be cheap on the RAM. 1GB minimum. You can get away with the stock graphics card, but I recommend at least the 9600(only $50 more).

Like someone else said, try for the student discount. Speaking of student discounts, Studica.com sells Avid Xpress Pro(the best editing program you can get outside of a post-production house) for $300. It's a hard program, but if you used FCP, you will have no problem with it. Or hell, just stick with FCP is that's what you like. It's not as good, but the differences are pretty small.

THe main thing avisynth does is frameserve footage (such as dvd mpeg2) into editing programs and make it useable. All mac editing software will work with DV which is lossy and takes up a much more space and with only 40 gig to play with that means not a great deal of video footage.

One thing professional editors do to save drive space is edit in low quality. I can fit at least 30 hours on an 80GB hard drive. Then, when you are done with the editing, simply bump it up to high-res. You don't need high-res footage to make your sequence. You just recapture it after you are done(of course, this only applies if the footage has timecode).

I've been looking heavily into getting a Mac in these last few weeks and reading nonstop, so if you have any questions, I probably know the answer to it, so ask away.

[mantlepicture]

I just got a new iMac G5 a few months ago, and I love it. I have done some editing on it and it is handling just fine. I have the 20 inch widescreen with 160 GB drive, and 512 MB DDR RAM. I also got Final Cut Express 2.
But, what I have is fine, it has done everything I wanted it to do.
If you want to do more then just AMV I would suggest the 250GB drive, and at least 1 GB of RAM.

Or

You can just pay more and, have enough housepower for everything, get the G5 Power Mac.

I hope I have helped you some.

http://www.apple.com/store/

I would recommend not getting a iMac. They are just powerful enough to edit now, but with all the stuff coming in the next 6 months, it will soon be obsolete. Seriously, my instructor at school, an Apple certified employee, said this. It will still be usable, but if you have the choise, go with a PowerMac. The cheapest one is all you need, and you can get it for like $1200 with a student discount.

As for the hard drive, 250 is definitely nice, but not necessary. You can easily get away with 80GB. Here are some tips:

-Do not render. Get a program like Avid Xpress Pro which plays effects in real time. You only have to render one time per project.

-Yes, one time per project. When you are done, set in and out points on the top blank video track, covering all your renders on the below tracks. Drag the effect Submaster(it does nothing, which is the point). When you render this effect, since it's on top of the other renders, it will automatically render everything beneath.

Everytime you render something, you create a media file on your system. Removing it does not delete the file. And rendering each effect, as opposed to using the submaster method, creates a lot of unnecessary files. This is what eats up your hard drive space.

-Delete all media files you are done with. Keep the clips. You can recapture the footage easily, and the clips basically act as shortcuts, so your project will remain intact. A clip is only a few kilobytes, while media files take up gigs.

-Capture all the footage in low quality. Edit with it. When you are done, bump it up to high quality. This way, you are only capturing the footage you need for the edit. On an 80GB drive, you can hold about 30 hours of footage. Since the sequence is your actual project, the low quality media is just a place holder. WARNING: Do not attempt this with any captured footage. Stuff with timecode ONLY(i.e. DVDs).

250GB drives are definitely nice, but get it seperately. You want all your media on a seperate drive from the OS, so the 80GB drive that ships with G5 is perfect. Get a seperate 160GB drive and you will be fine. 250 is only necessary if you like working on MANY long projects at the same time. Again, not a bad idea, but if you are under a budget, it can be cut easily.

[Kalium]

Macs are definitely the king of video editing. Macs can do everything a PC can do, and they do it easier and more reliably.

Um... Wow. You really have an advanced case of what I like to call 'Apple Fanboyism'.

I work with Macs, and I know their shortcomings quite well. For one thing, strange and unexplained hardware failures are not all that uncommon - and there's not a damn thing you as the user can do about it. Yes, the OS is good. But the OS isn't everything.

AVISynth is a very powerful tool. If you would stop advertising for Avid for a moment, you could realize why we like it - it's fast, Free, powerful, and oh so flexible.

Oh, and don't forget that using a Mac severly cripples your choice of software tools in general.

[mantlepicture]

Um... Wow. You really have an advanced case of what I like to call 'Apple Fanboyism'.

I work with Macs, and I know their shortcomings quite well. For one thing, strange and unexplained hardware failures are not all that uncommon - and there's not a damn thing you as the user can do about it. Yes, the OS is good. But the OS isn't everything.

AVISynth is a very powerful tool. If you would stop advertising for Avid for a moment, you could realize why we like it - it's fast, Free, powerful, and oh so flexible.

Oh, and don't forget that using a Mac severly cripples your choice of software tools in general.

No, it's called "extensive use of both platforms". I loved PCs and was even in the middle of building an editing PC until I started using a Mac. Judging by other editors I know in the industly, I am not at all alone on this. Windows has its strong points, but editing isn't one of them.

As for AVS... oh well. I've never ran into a situation where I needed it, and I've done much more advanced things than AMVs. It may be free, but that doesn't mean its manditory.

As for software tools, I disagree. They may have less, but all the best editing software is on the Mac. Even multi-platform software like Avid runs better on Mac. Try getting LiveType or Bryce on your PC. You may say, "well, I don't need those programs". No, but a lot of editors swear by them. Hell, even free programs like GarageBand make it worth it. There is much more to editing than what AVS can do. And there is MUCH more involved with editing than you experience in making a simple AMV. And Macs simply have more to offer a serious editor. Call me a fanboy all you want, but as I've said: I've used a $7k PC and a $1.5k Mac. The Mac has only crashed once for me, while I've see more blue working with Windows than a Smurf. AMVs don't really push the limit of your system like advanced editing does. While many PCs are viable, to get a combination on par with a Mac, you will be spending about $500 more. And you miss out on many amazing programs(you'll never know how much you need LiveType until you use it).

That said, I have nothing against PCs. For general use, I prefer them. Hell, I am on one right now. And while I am buying that Mac, I am also upgrading this PC. In fact, I was one of the biggest anti-Mac people before I started working on a G5. It illiminated pretty much all of the headaches I witnessed on the PC. I was working on a commercial and suddendly got the blue screen of death. I am very good with Windows troubleshooting(God knows I've had my practice...), but I have no idea what happened. I did nothing differently that day than I ever did. Hell, I was only looking through a menu when it happened. And no, it wasn't anything malicious, seeing as that computer never had an internet connection. It must have been some system file, because I ended up having to reinstall Windows. Needless to say, this isn't something you want to do when you have a deadline. I only thank God that I wasn't working with a client. That would have been REALLY embarrassing. While this may be an extreme case, Windows just isn't a stable OS.

The worst a Mac did was lock up one time. I lost nothing, and it set me back all of two minutes.

[Corran]

As for AVS... oh well. I've never ran into a situation where I needed it, and I've done much more advanced things than AMVs. It may be free, but that doesn't mean its manditory.

As for software tools, I disagree. They may have less, but all the best editing software is on the Mac. Even multi-platform software like Avid runs better on Mac. Try getting LiveType or Bryce on your PC. You may say, "well, I don't need those programs". No, but a lot of editors swear by them. Hell, even free programs like GarageBand make it worth it.

Such irony...

Also, it appears you haven't made an amv before so how can I honestly believe you when you say stuff like:

AMVs don't really push the limit of your system like advanced editing does.