Macs vs. PC for video editing, which is better?

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SS5_Majin_Bebi
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Post by SS5_Majin_Bebi » Thu Feb 20, 2003 12:36 am

this dispute is beyond pointless. Its kin to "Whats better, Pepsi or Coke?" (neither, Vanilla Coke rules :P ) but in the end it all comes down to PERSONAL PREFERENCE, people. At the end of the day, its what you want to use that really matters, and if you are good enough, you can get it to work for you in a way that no one else can. The original Q should've been "What system do you PREFER editing on, PC or Mac?" This is a very subjective area, remember? Its what works best for you.

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Mr Pilkington
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Post by Mr Pilkington » Thu Feb 20, 2003 1:16 am

Mac or PC?

Neither. Give me an SGI and I'll take you all.
*evil laughter* :twisted: *even more evil laughter*

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Post by trythil » Thu Feb 20, 2003 1:26 am

SS5_Majin_Bebi wrote:this dispute is beyond pointless. Its kin to "Whats better, Pepsi or Coke?" (neither, Vanilla Coke rules :P ) but in the end it all comes down to PERSONAL PREFERENCE, people. At the end of the day, its what you want to use that really matters, and if you are good enough, you can get it to work for you in a way that no one else can. The original Q should've been "What system do you PREFER editing on, PC or Mac?" This is a very subjective area, remember? Its what works best for you.
Amazingly enough, everybody has stated their personal preferences, so I suppose the "preference" part of the question was implicit.

And there are things that aren't subjective. A lot of people, for example, really like Final Cut Pro because of its FXScript engine.

FCP is built to output to a large range of formats: film, DV, SD, HD...
Cinelerra is more directed towards broadcast video. Premiere seems to be for film work. (I can't find anything on Adobe's site that states that Premiere is designed for SD/HD broadcast work, but it's also a possibility that I'm just blind.) Sure, you can make any of those tools do anything that another tool can do (well, almost: Premiere can't do 23.976 FPS whereas FCP and Cinelerra can, and you need to support that framerate for some variations on 1080p HDTV).

Because of this and other factors, there's also differences in the compositing engine, most notably native colorspace. Both FCP's and Cinelerra's engines work natively in YUV; I'm pretty sure Premiere's operates in RGB (somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this, because I probably am...)

Well, assuming I'm right --

There's only been a couple of cases in which I've been able to really see the difference, but I'm sure that it makes a difference to some people.

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klinky
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Post by klinky » Thu Feb 20, 2003 6:01 am

Macs Suck :evil:

Let's just say that.


Okay. I've used Premiere on both, the Mac's suck. The interface is the same, the only difference is that :

*It's slower
*Less input formats
*Less output formats
*In ability to maximize the damn fucking window!

Yes... Whoopee!

Mac also lacks, AviSynth, VirtualDub, DVD2AVI, XviD and gosh probably a whole bunch of other stuff I lub and use.

Macs in the begining were better at multimedia then PCs were. They had a GUI first, they had better color matching & a better font system. Macs usually used only SCSI drives which provide better perfomance. They were hailed as being good mainly by still image and publishing professionals. I doubt anyone enjoyed doing video editing on a 66Mhz PowerPC.

That's changed. Microsoft has created better OS's, better font systems, better interfaces. There is more hardware available out for the PC that is faster & cheaper then the Mac. The only thing that a Mac may have that a PC doesn't is a firewire port which is like $20 :\ Mac's no longer use SCSI hard drives, their newest OS is based off of a linux derivative, linux originall started on the PC(weather that has merit or not I am not sure).

When comparing video editing between Mac & PC, I believe the article outlines this, it doesn't matter which you're using since the interface is realtively the SAME. The same buttons, the same effects do the same thing. Most of your time will be spent watching the render bar move across the screen, not getting all confused about where something is on the Mac and where something is on the PC.

The reason Macs are still being used by "the professional crowd" is because they WERE better machines in the past. People who know nothing about multimedia design always have a friend that they know who told them Macs kick ass. This continued to be passed around and this has stuck in many minds.

If you ask someone exactly what it is that makes the Mac better, they probably can't give specifics because there really are none. Sure it has FCP, but PC has Combustion 2 :? Not sure if they're comparable, but I think they're in the same field. Though I despise Combustion 2 :cry:

I think it comes down to zealots and idiots who continue on with the Mac is the KING OF THE MULTIMEDIA WORLD. I'll use what ever product gives me the best bang for the buck. Currently it's the PC.


~klinky

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Post by trythil » Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:22 am

klinky wrote:Macs Suck :evil:

Let's just say that.


Okay. I've used Premiere on both, the Mac's suck. The interface is the same, the only difference is that :

*It's slower
*Less input formats
*Less output formats
*In ability to maximize the damn fucking window!

Yes... Whoopee!
Eh, I don't know if you can say the whole platform sucks because Premiere doesn't run like you'd expect it to. I'd like to hear from someone who has used Final Cut Pro extensively, because FCP + Shake, not Premiere, are the video tools of choice on the Mac platform.
That's changed. Microsoft has created better OS's, better font systems, better interfaces. There is more hardware available out for the PC that is faster & cheaper then the Mac. The only thing that a Mac may have that a PC doesn't is a firewire port which is like $20 :\ Mac's no longer use SCSI hard drives, their newest OS is based off of a linux derivative, linux originall started on the PC(weather that has merit or not I am not sure).
Darwin is based off of the FreeBSD kernel, not the Linux kernel.

As far as a better OS, better font subsystem, whatever -- well, never mind, I'm not going to start a flamewar about that :P
I think it comes down to zealots and idiots who continue on with the Mac is the KING OF THE MULTIMEDIA WORLD. I'll use what ever product gives me the best bang for the buck. Currently it's the PC.
~klinky
Actually, I think one of the biggest things it comes down to are those interface differences that you believe don't matter. People will use what they're used to using. I've heard that argument time and again -- "well, Windows crashes every 5 minutes when I'm doing a Powerpoint presentation, but I know how to use it, so I'll just put up with it"...

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Mr Pilkington
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Post by Mr Pilkington » Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:49 am

klinky wrote:Macs Suck :evil:
How do you fig?

klinky wrote:Okay. I've used Premiere on both, the Mac's suck. The interface is the same, the only difference is that :
This should be good
klinky wrote:*It's slower
As compared to? Maybe a 300MHz Mac vs. 3.2GHz P4. I reality a good Mac (IE: Dual 1.2Mhz will drasitcly out proform even an above average PC (IE: 2.8GHz P4 or dual Athlon 2300)
klinky wrote:*Less input formats
True, not as many codecs are made for Mac
klinky wrote:*Less output formats
Given, but realize that it's not like you can just pickup Radeon and slap it in and output ot TV. Oh wait. YOU CAN!! And any one who really is that codec consious would run a PC on the side, and network the 2 together.
klinky wrote:*In ability to maximize the damn fucking window!
OOHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Beacuse that TOTALLY important! I expected more from some as knoledgable as you. Besides, did you even try resizing the program?
klinky wrote:Mac also lacks, AviSynth, VirtualDub, DVD2AVI, XviD and gosh probably a whole bunch of other stuff I lub and use.
Granted but if you use a mac on a regular basis you realize that there are a whole list of comparable utilies at your disposal.

klinky wrote:Macs in the begining were better at multimedia then PCs were. They had a GUI first, they had better color matching & a better font system. Macs usually used only SCSI drives which provide better perfomance. They were hailed as being good mainly by still image and publishing professionals. I doubt anyone enjoyed doing video editing on a 66Mhz PowerPC.

That's changed. Microsoft has created better OS's, better font systems, better interfaces. There is more hardware available out for the PC that is faster & cheaper then the Mac. The only thing that a Mac may have that a PC doesn't is a firewire port which is like $20 :\ Mac's no longer use SCSI hard drives, their newest OS is based off of a linux derivative, linux originall started on the PC(weather that has merit or not I am not sure).

When comparing video editing between Mac & PC, I believe the article outlines this, it doesn't matter which you're using since the interface is realtively the SAME. The same buttons, the same effects do the same thing.

All that is quite true, and realisitcaly speeking all a Mac is now adays, is a totaly, insaly expencive PC. They use all the same parts, they run many of the same programs. But I do feel that Mac is still queen bitch. Faster, more stable (I crashed OS 8.9 once, once. And I was doing something totally stupid and got imeditely punished. But have yet to on X.2), and further on the leading edge of technology. But I'm not arguing that fact that PC aren't good. They are. And for people who can't afford a decent Mac I say go PC. It'll be cheepper and if you can't afford a good Mac in the first place then up keep and software will be a killer. For the Mac fan there is nothing that a super high-end PC won't give you that your Mac will. Just as the like wise is true. Take it for me, a nonbias Mac and PC owner.

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Post by klinky » Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:53 am

The problem is humans.


>_> I thought it was FreeBSD >_< but maybe I should have said unix derivative or thing gargh. I thought FreeBSD was based off of linux, but o_O. I guess it's Berkley's own *nix version. I guess that's why they have their little devil and linux has Tux :o

AE + Premiere & Photoshop are still widely used on the ol' Mac.

Humans are the problem, we're the slow ones. The ones who can't adapt.

>_<

I've never used FCP :| So who knows maybe it is the awesome. :?


Alot of college level media design programs are based off of Adobe products.

Maybe the upper level programs where the hollywood FX makers go does FCP training :|

The font system was in response to Windows Vs Mac >_> <_<. I was reading about this when trying to make a program that would animate a text effect :o. Fonts are rather complex entities >_<

Basically my reply was in response to the morons at the GameFAQ site :\ Heh heh >_<

argh...



~klinky

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jonmartensen
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Post by jonmartensen » Thu Feb 20, 2003 2:49 pm

trythil wrote: As far as a better OS, better font subsystem, whatever -- well, never mind, I'm not going to start a flamewar about that :P
I think he meant that the Microsoft OS has gotten better over time i.e. Win 2000 pro is better than Win 95 :)

As a curious side note, I have never had the WIN XP OS crash on me. Some times when I have had many different programs running one or some of the programs would crash, but XP kept running. This is with keeping my computer on 24/7 for up to 2 months (usually 4 weeks though). Even on the rare ocasion that premiere has crashed (3 times), Unreal Tournament crashes (often, but it's like that on other PC's) and Internet Explore crashes, the system keeps running. I have really been pleasantly surprised.
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Post by CaTaClYsM » Thu Feb 20, 2003 6:15 pm

actually in the argument I linked to they went and stacked up the best MAC, AMD and INTEL systems, and the MAC came in dead last for all the aplications tested, that would include the premiere and photoshop.
So in other words, one part of the community is waging war on another part of the community because they take their community seriously enough to want to do so. Then they tell the powerless side to get over the loss cause it's just an online community. I'm glad people make so much sense." -- Tab

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klinky
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Post by klinky » Thu Feb 20, 2003 7:10 pm

Pilkington stop talking out your ass.

I fiddled with a Mac when I was in HS. The Mac was, I believe, a 200Mhz PowerPC. We also had some P2-300Mhz systems available(well we had more Pcs then Macs). The P2s seemed MUCH quicker. Yes there was a 100Mhz difference, but it seemed like a large one. The Macs in the school were usually laughed apon since they were a bitch to get on the network, crashed often(yes!) and were slow pieces of junk.

Even the G3 we had with it's jello blue case barely got touched. We did get a G4 actually but it was put upstairs in this room full of old crappy Macs. I think Josh O' Toole was claiming that the G4 ran Quake3 faster then a PC or something. He was a loser anyways.

We had some students producing independant films, they were always using the PCs >_>. Maybe we just didn't love the Macs enough, but the PCs were doing the job a mac is "better at" quicker and cheaper.

The one person who LOVED the Mac was the snooty rich boy who had white hair and his parents owned a country club. He claimed the Mac could do anything better then a PC. >_> Grrr.

About the window Maximize. Yes, you can drag/resize, but there was NO maximize. This really bugged me because back then 15" - 17" monitors were the norm and stretching the windows all the time got annoying really quickly.

Yes export to a analog source and kill your quality.

Yes make a PC do the job that a Mac should do by itself. You know why alot of indepentant video software isn't out for the Mac? Because it's a bitch to program for(not sure how good OS X is). Also converting a quicktime file to a AVI is a bit of a bitch.

Please name what tools provide the functions of AVISynth, VirtualDub or DVD2AVI, TMPEG. For $FREE$.

Anyways, I don't like Macs. They've always been out of my price range and haven ever shown themselves to actually be worth their money. You continue to hear people say that Macs are so much better then PCs. Well, that's not exactly the case. Cact's link there in does have benchmarks between the two and the PCs come out way ahead of the Mac. :\ Plain and simple. Plus you don't get all the neat freeware tools.

~klinky

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