Hello everyone! I had a quick question. pc or imac? I have a friend who can build me a PC for about $1300.00 and he said it would be comparible to a $4000.00 pc on the market as far as editing is concerned. Am I still better off with the imac G5 or should I let my friend build me this super editing pc?
pc or imac?
- Thread starter rockydm92
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It's almost a religious war between the Mac and PC advocates. Once upon a time I think Mac kicked ass but Win XP is pretty stable and for the most part it's a tad cheaper. I've dealt with both and I think on the whole Mac with Final Cut Pro has a VERY SLIGHT edge but not enough to justify the additional cost. It's just an opinion, as are all opinions with someone who tells you one system is "better" than another. The tools on both allow you to do the exact same think, that is capture footage, cut footage, and output a movie.
I'm also pretty experienced in building systems, have done it for a living, and there is NO WAY anyone can build a $4000 system for $1300. $1300 will buy you a decent editing machine but that $4000 system will have a dual processor, several 200+ gig RAID hard drives, a dual monitor output with two monitors, 2 gig of memory and legal editing software, and maybe a dedicated hardware capture card. The cost of those parts alone will cost way more than $1300, it's just impossible. Your friend is exaggerating. The margin of profit for pc's is very low because competition is so fierce, you really don't save a huge amount when you do it yourself. You'll save some, and you'll probably get more bang for your buck, but you ain't EVER going to make the kind of savings leap of $2700.
I'm also pretty experienced in building systems, have done it for a living, and there is NO WAY anyone can build a $4000 system for $1300. $1300 will buy you a decent editing machine but that $4000 system will have a dual processor, several 200+ gig RAID hard drives, a dual monitor output with two monitors, 2 gig of memory and legal editing software, and maybe a dedicated hardware capture card. The cost of those parts alone will cost way more than $1300, it's just impossible. Your friend is exaggerating. The margin of profit for pc's is very low because competition is so fierce, you really don't save a huge amount when you do it yourself. You'll save some, and you'll probably get more bang for your buck, but you ain't EVER going to make the kind of savings leap of $2700.
I love my iMac G5. I just finished my feature on it. Before that I cut 7 features on my iMac G4.
They are worth every penny!
They are worth every penny!
Having never used a Mac, I don't really know how they operate or what the advantages are to using them, instead of PCs. I think a good number of filmmakers prefer them, though.
directorik said:
...I will be getting my G4 on monday or tuesday. I am going from pc to mac. I have a question, though:
How difficult will it be to transfer my word files into my mac? My ENTIRE project is on my pc, but it needs to be transfered to my new computer... I have never had to transfer anything to a mac before...
--spinner
It's not about the platform. It's the software.
If you want to edit on FCP, which is becoming the defacto standard for low-budget indies, then you have to get a Mac. And at that point, it's just a matter of getting the most Mac you can afford.
If you want to edit with Avid DV, then you have to get a PC. Granted, Avid DV isn't exactly a standard, but the interface is identical to the higher end Avid systems, which are currently the industry standard for editing.
For your purposes, I'd personally recommend FCP on a Mac. Costs more, yes, but it's really about the software; and right now FCP is where it's at.
If you want to edit on FCP, which is becoming the defacto standard for low-budget indies, then you have to get a Mac. And at that point, it's just a matter of getting the most Mac you can afford.
If you want to edit with Avid DV, then you have to get a PC. Granted, Avid DV isn't exactly a standard, but the interface is identical to the higher end Avid systems, which are currently the industry standard for editing.
For your purposes, I'd personally recommend FCP on a Mac. Costs more, yes, but it's really about the software; and right now FCP is where it's at.
spinner said:
I have a network with both PC and Mac. Word files are cross-platform and adding a Mac to your existing setup should be fairly straightforward and simple. Just copy them over or burn them to a CD.
Word of note about file/folder sharing on the Mac: you can only share your Public folder on the Mac (sort of like your My Documents folder in XP) without a third party plugin. If you have files on an external drive or in another folder that you want to share, you'll need Sharepoints, which is a free utility that allows you to share folders the way you do with Windows.
There are two very powerful software that are good in PC systems, one is the Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 and the other is Sony Vegas, both can do what you can do with FCP on a Mac, and learning curse isn't that difficult. I have 4 PC with Premiere Pro networked (each have their licenses) and due to a client's need, I have to get another PC for HD with Premiere and a MAC G5 for HD as well, and using both together for the next huge weekly project that i just signed contract with. 
Johnny
Johnny
...Thanks, I am looking forward to my G4. The one I got (picking it up tomorrow) I decided to trick it out as much as I could afford because I intend to use it until it dies on me. I hope, but don't want to speculate on potential successes, though I hope for the best. I expect to be using this computer forever (kinda)...and even if nothing happens with my project (
) I will still have made an investment in myself and I already have some ideas as to what else my equipment can be used for. I'll have a nice little set up once I get some light audio and lighting stuff......where do I look for Sharepoints? Can you give me a little more information about what they are? Can I download them for free?
--spinner
mac or PC?? for me, that's not even a question, especially when dealing with creative things such as film making. macs are soo much more stable than windows, and as far as i know, the film editing software is better too.
on a mac, you wont have to worry about removing that virus the day you want to edit your big movie.
on a mac, you wont have to worry about removing that virus the day you want to edit your big movie.
haid said:
The film editing software is better at the sub-$1K for sure. FCP is quickly becoming the defacto standard among indie filmmakers.
But the OS isn't any better, and it's certainly not any more stable. The Mac does some things better and some things not; overall it kind of balances out. I use both and none of my machines ever crash. And I use my PC for most of my graphical work.
AVID HD works on PC machines as well (I have been reading their specs) and windows xp...
There's an interesting article on DVEvent magazine from this issue, it listed a battle of NLE, Vegas, Premiere Pro 1.5 and FCP are very close to each other, in fact, some area one would do better than the other, etc.
It's usually NOT the software that makes a good editing (in fact, editing means no one should have paid attention to a good editing work but can follow the story). It's more about the creative person behind the machine that would work great.
And as for breakdown, Mac does have problems, go to Mac forums and you would read some issues they have, but perhaps it's more stable than PC because you are not using a mac for almost EVERYTHING you are using with a PC But both have it's good and bad, it's just matter of opinion and which format is most suitable for YOUR need.
Johnny
There's an interesting article on DVEvent magazine from this issue, it listed a battle of NLE, Vegas, Premiere Pro 1.5 and FCP are very close to each other, in fact, some area one would do better than the other, etc.
It's usually NOT the software that makes a good editing (in fact, editing means no one should have paid attention to a good editing work but can follow the story). It's more about the creative person behind the machine that would work great.
And as for breakdown, Mac does have problems, go to Mac forums and you would read some issues they have, but perhaps it's more stable than PC because you are not using a mac for almost EVERYTHING you are using with a PC
But both have it's good and bad, it's just matter of opinion and which format is most suitable for YOUR need.Johnny
Apple Final Cut Studio:
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio
Avid Free DV:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22245
Avid Xpress DV:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15334
I use a Mac for everything. It's not only required for my job (Network Admin - all Mac shop), but I find them personally more stable and more understanable for me than their PC brethren. They are getting great reviews in PC mags as is final cut studio (Final Cut Pro HD, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, . If you are a student, you can hook up with the final cut studio experience for quite a bit cheaper.
The bottom line is budget and personal preference. If you are used to a pc, a Mac will have a learning curve associated with it as your brain adjusts to working differently. The costs are comparable if your putting together a PC to do Video work after all the cards and the extra hard-drive space. Make sure you don't shop based on the sticker price, it won't usually include all of the stuff you need to do video effectively (this includes the Mac to which you will want to add RAM and drivespace). Make sure you get firewire on your PC and a DVD burner on either system (Superdrive on the Apple).
As far as problems go, the only thing you will read online is about problems on both platforms. People who are not having problems have no reason to complain.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio
Avid Free DV:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22245
Avid Xpress DV:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15334
I use a Mac for everything. It's not only required for my job (Network Admin - all Mac shop), but I find them personally more stable and more understanable for me than their PC brethren. They are getting great reviews in PC mags as is final cut studio (Final Cut Pro HD, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, . If you are a student, you can hook up with the final cut studio experience for quite a bit cheaper.
The bottom line is budget and personal preference. If you are used to a pc, a Mac will have a learning curve associated with it as your brain adjusts to working differently. The costs are comparable if your putting together a PC to do Video work after all the cards and the extra hard-drive space. Make sure you don't shop based on the sticker price, it won't usually include all of the stuff you need to do video effectively (this includes the Mac to which you will want to add RAM and drivespace). Make sure you get firewire on your PC and a DVD burner on either system (Superdrive on the Apple).
As far as problems go, the only thing you will read online is about problems on both platforms. People who are not having problems have no reason to complain.
The only computer I use for movie editing is a Mac mainly because its what I learned on FCP rules!
actually you could build a killer PC for 1300 if you don't need harddrives, OS, and monitors... But PC's and Macs are fast in different ways. Macs are RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Calculations)... they are very low end RISC... but the archetecture does great things with massive ammounts of calculations... PC's are (Long Instruction Set Calculations) but the benifet is that they are very customizable and with the right operating system do parallel computing very well... Macs (my understanding) do grids very easially... but you'll never get Realtime HDTV composting over a 100MB/s firewire port...grids are great but they arn't a renderfarm...
Also for as little as $200 you can get a dual processor motherboard that's NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Archetecture) aware... basically each processor has it's own bank of RAM... Macs don't have this... so RAM in a Dual Mac is about half as fast as it should be (usually made up by being RISC)... but with dualcore and quadcore processors coming out low cost parallel processing will probably outweigh the expense of a RISC based system... example... it used to be that the workhorse for 3D animation was the Sun UltraSPARC III ...now almost all 3D movies now are rendered on AMD Opteron Processors in massivly parallel systems running linux... ILM, Pixar, I think LucasArts, and others... however the beast that rendered The Increadables had 1024 Opteron processors... not 2
Also for as little as $200 you can get a dual processor motherboard that's NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Archetecture) aware... basically each processor has it's own bank of RAM... Macs don't have this... so RAM in a Dual Mac is about half as fast as it should be (usually made up by being RISC)... but with dualcore and quadcore processors coming out low cost parallel processing will probably outweigh the expense of a RISC based system... example... it used to be that the workhorse for 3D animation was the Sun UltraSPARC III ...now almost all 3D movies now are rendered on AMD Opteron Processors in massivly parallel systems running linux... ILM, Pixar, I think LucasArts, and others... however the beast that rendered The Increadables had 1024 Opteron processors... not 2
if you know about building PCs and know how to put one together, you can get a good PC up and running:
Pentium 4 with 3ghz motherboard/OEM CPU HT/FAN : $205 (1 year warranty on board, 90 days on cpu)
1 gig of DDR PC3200 ram : $100
80gig 7200RPM system drive : $70
300gig 7200 RPM data drive (SATA or EIDE) : $140 x 2 (if you want one for preview one for video clips)
DVD Dual Layer Burner - Pioneer brand : $60, or you can find it from $33 and up
Keyboard/optical mouse : $15
Firewire card : $20
17" used monitor : $80
external video monitor : $35 (commodre rca jack in, those are cheap and do the job)
Case with Power Supply 550watts : $40
Roland MA-8 Stereo speakers $90 (used can be found for $50)
That's basically a good DV Editing suite and it can handle the basic for HDV editing as well if you have a 3.2Ghz CPU instead (add $40), the above came out about $920
So, yeah, you can build a good machine for less than 1k (I have 3 of these), but the bottom line is what you are more comfortable with, a mac or a pc, they are all just tools, it's the editor that would make the wonders.
Obviously, if you are good on what you do, people would be impressed with the result but of course, depending your skill level and the goodies the computer that can offer you
Pentium 4 with 3ghz motherboard/OEM CPU HT/FAN : $205 (1 year warranty on board, 90 days on cpu)
1 gig of DDR PC3200 ram : $100
80gig 7200RPM system drive : $70
300gig 7200 RPM data drive (SATA or EIDE) : $140 x 2 (if you want one for preview one for video clips)
DVD Dual Layer Burner - Pioneer brand : $60, or you can find it from $33 and up
Keyboard/optical mouse : $15
Firewire card : $20
17" used monitor : $80
external video monitor : $35 (commodre rca jack in, those are cheap and do the job)
Case with Power Supply 550watts : $40
Roland MA-8 Stereo speakers $90 (used can be found for $50)
That's basically a good DV Editing suite and it can handle the basic for HDV editing as well if you have a 3.2Ghz CPU instead (add $40), the above came out about $920
So, yeah, you can build a good machine for less than 1k (I have 3 of these), but the bottom line is what you are more comfortable with, a mac or a pc, they are all just tools, it's the editor that would make the wonders.
Obviously, if you are good on what you do, people would be impressed with the result but of course, depending your skill level and the goodies the computer that can offer you