Interesting article: Mac Vs. PC on Video Edting

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 7:01 pm

kthulhu wrote: Of course, now that Dell support is based in rural areas or in India, AND the call length time got dropped to 11 minutes, from 17 (according to klinky, who continued to work at the outsourcer Dell used on a different contract after I left) their support is probably shit.

Thanks for backing up my claim

Nah, but yeah :O I guess. Nevermind :O

~klinky

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 8:36 pm

Well, that's Dell. It varies from OEM to OEM.

BogoSort · Post by **BogoSort** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 8:46 pm

Well I'm pretty sure that I didn't say that Macs were cheaper by TCO. I was just saying that if one does include that in the price they aren't as ridiculously expensive as the initial price might suggest. Having talked to people who work in computing facilities at my college(which has many computer labs of PCs by IBM and Dell, as well as Macs), it's interesting to see what gets phased in and out over the years. I think we're slowly migrating away from Dell for PCs just because they have lots of problems. When you're dealing with hundreds of computers, that 1% that has problems suddenly becomes a hassle. Sure if you give them a call, they'll replace the part, but isn't it generally good for them to not need to replace it in the first place? I know that Dell outsources a lot of their components, and thus the quality of their machines varies greatly from build to build, even from machine to machine. Lots of people have great experiences with Dell, including myself. I know others that have just had a neverending stream of problems.

My point isn't that Macs are better, just that PCs don't sk00l Macs in all areas..

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 8:59 pm

Yeah, well basically :O

I don't know.

Technically there isn't a REAL difference between stability between machines. I was stating that PCs are inherently more unrealiable then a Mac.

Even if you suggest that the servicing is quicker/better. We still have the fact that it's 2x as slow for 2x the cost. Also if something does get broken, replacement parts are usually always way more exspensive then a PC, even if they're the same part ^_^

The only "Mac" advantages are:

Old elitist userbase.
Color Management
Fonts
FinalCut Pro

There is really nothing on a MAC that you can't do better/quicker on a PC.

~klinky

BogoSort · Post by **BogoSort** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 9:12 pm

klinky wrote:There is really nothing on a MAC that you can't do better/quicker on a PC.

For an individual machine, this is often the case. I'd take my PC over a Mac for a primary machine anyday. Hell, if we really wanted speed for the money, I'd be all about running my Linux machines with Cinelerra with it's nifty renderfarm support. However, as cool as it is, the Linux machine will take a much more time and maintnance than say a Windows PC or a Mac will. When managing groups of machines, this dynamic is significantly different. People will pay more so that they don't have to use their time(which could be used to actually creating things) supporting their hardware. Just walk around. It's not uncommon to find 4 year old Macs chugging away slowly in various heavily trafficed computer clusters. 4 year old windows PCs are just percieved as pieces of junk, slow, and useless.

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 10:53 pm

4 year old windows PCs are just percieved as pieces of junk, slow, and useless.

...because there's newer/quicker/faster/better/cheaper stuff out. ^_^

~klinky

BogoSort · Post by **BogoSort** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 10:56 pm

klinky wrote:
4 year old windows PCs are just percieved as pieces of junk, slow, and useless.
...because there's newer/quicker/faster/better/cheaper stuff out. ^_^

In addition to oftentimes having lots of hardware/software failure.

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 11:17 pm

What has failed on your computer? ^_^

I did tech support, we had about a 1000 computers. I remember about 2 or 3 going down.

I think we're moving away from the topic here. Apples are in no way more reliable then a PC. They practically use the same parts. Possibly you could have software conflicts or something go wrong, but guess what? Every version of Max OS has it. MacOS is known for it's crappy memory and network support previous to OS X.

I've used them, they're slower :O

Yes down time sucks, but Macs still have down time. You don't here alot about all the troubles with Macs because there aren't as many macs in use and there are no other vendors besides Apple.

Also time that's spent waiting 2x for a blur to render could be better put to use making creative work as well.

This has turned into a whole Apple vs PC debate. However, I can see your point and what you mean by it, but I think it's not a very good point and people shouldn't think of Macs as being the end all realiable solution because they simply are not. Macs still break, macs still have errors, macs run out of memory... :O

Yes yes...

~klinky

jonmartensen · Post by **jonmartensen** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 11:18 pm

The only hardware failure I've ever had is with my 20 gig WD hard drive, and it was still under warranty

alternatefutures · Post by **alternatefutures** » Sat Dec 14, 2002 11:19 pm

Well, seeing how Macs use the exact same hardware as a PC save for the processor, you can write off the hardware failure as the price you pay for going with the lowest bidder. For software failure, if you compare a PC running Win98 to a Mac running OS9, you're going to get similar software failure (I've seriously crashed Macs using their version of notepad for crying out loud). The only reason Macs are seen as having better support is because they have a tiny marketshare, so it's easy to handle the ammount of calls they get. Dell was in the same boat, then once they started dominating the home market they hit crtical mass and tech support started suffering.

And going back to video editing, software companies such as Discreet have figured out that four year old PCs AREN'T useless, and are actually offering Linux based solutions to harness the extra processing power generated by older PCs. Of course though, upgrading to a powerful new PC can be done for $900 bucks if you build it yourself, so you have to ask yourself if it's really worth salvaging that old PII you have sitting around.

And no, sorry, I've seen no evidence of Macs have superior hardware avialable. High-end soundcards tend to NOT have Mac support. The Sony universal DVD burner, the only one of its kind, doesn't have Mac support, and good luck finding a high end professional graphics card, such as the ATI FIRE series, for the Mac. Kind of ironic that the best Macs can hope for is a the latest gaming cards, even though even Apple devotees admit Apple's aren't as good at playing games as their PC counterparts.