Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith Posted July 23, 2004 Share Posted July 23, 2004 Currently I am using Windows XP with 1024 mb of ram and 2.66 GHz P4 with 240 Gigabytes of hard drive space. A friend of mine mentioned using "Unix". When you get into serious editing, Unix is the one you want. Any ideas? Oh and, what Unix, there?s loads of different types. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted July 23, 2004 Premium Member Share Posted July 23, 2004 Hi, Looks like you've already got a reasonable amount of Windows hardware, so I'd get hold of Premiere or something. Unix, normally meaning either Irix on an SGI workstation or Linux (usually Red Hat,) is something you only want to get into if you have specific software that requires it. The only software that's available for Linux is either terribly high end and expensive, or very low end - the only middle ground that I know of is a package called Cinelerra. Cinelerra is trying to be Premiere/FCP, and it has some nice features (not least, network renderfarming) but it is substantially unfinished and missing some basic features. Worth keeping an eye on, though. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landon D. Parks Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 Best editing setup? MAC pulling 2 x G5 Processors at 2.5GHZ each... with 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD. Also run Final cut Pro on it with an HD 4:4:4 capture card, and you have a complete workstation that will suite you need even on the most demanding HD situations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos M. Icaza Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 I think your Windows PC machine will do fine, just get more hard drive space, go up to at least 750gig, and more memory, get at least 2 gigs of memory. Also, get Premiere Pro and After effects Pro and you are on your way. C.- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 Hmm ok, Actually I didn't mention, I have 1024 DDR ram. So, double the speed. Personally, I think that?s good enough. I know a lot about computers, and to me that seems ok. Yeh, Power Max with dual G5 processors would be nice... But my bank account doesn?t think so. I?ve been receiving too many phone calls from the bank, basically notifying that I bank with them, and not the other way round.... The only trouble with Mac is that there?s not a great deal of software available. I know you can get emulators, but it?s not the same. At the moment I am trying to find a copy of Photoshop. To add to my collection of, shall we say, discount price software?. (Isn?t the internet soo great?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted July 27, 2004 Premium Member Share Posted July 27, 2004 Hi, What you have is fine. My main wage-earner is a similar spec. It ain't the toys... Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenolian Bell Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 The only trouble with Mac is that there?s not a great deal of software available. That fallacy is still around. I run Mac and I have basically the same software that runs on Window's: Office, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, etc. In some cases softwate may not be from the same vendor as Window's but there is usually an equivalent for Mac. Once you get into very specialized software, its true in some cases there is no equivalent for the Mac. Like a GPS field guide that runs on XP, or something like that. But many times this fringe software is spotty at best. You are right Mac gear can be more expensive that PC fare. There is a logical reason for this, if you look at the specs of the Power Mac G5 and how much it costs, then try to build an equivalent PC machine and see the cost of that, you would fully understand. But anyway that's another discussion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alvin Pingol Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 What you have is fine. My main wage-earner is a similar spec. It ain't the toys... Yep. My system is of similar specs, as well, and suits me just fine. I don't understand what the big hooplah is with massive RAM amounts. I mean, get an application like MaxMem (freeware last time I checked) that rests in your system tray and constantly monitors how much RAM is in use/is free, and has the ability to clear your RAM (how much/how often can be configured) if certain applications fail to do so properly after terminating. Extremely useful in that it can essentially tell you when your computer is about to crash, e.g. don't open another application if the line graph is red and says "RAM: 2% Free" ;) 8GB... Hmm, the only people who I can think of that would actually use up 8GB is CG artists who rely heavily on rendered-to-RAM previews. Now those take up a lot of memory... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted July 27, 2004 Premium Member Share Posted July 27, 2004 Hi, The whole mac/PC thing irritates me. If you want to be a nontechnical artist, buy a Mac. If you want to be a bit of a technician as well, buy a PC. While I can see that certain very big hollywood DPs might be able to be nontechnical enough to want a Mac, I'd have thought that out here in the real world most of us would want the control. To be more specific, what frustrates me about Macs is the lack of the small, useful command line tools. This has presumably improved under the BSD-based OSX, but it's never going to be fantastic on a machine that's so user-friendliness oriented. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenolian Bell Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 If you want to be a nontechnical artist, buy a Mac. If you want to be a bit of a technician as well, buy a PC. I agree with that totally. Nearly all of the people I know who don't like Mac is because they like to dig into the the hardware and software and figdet around with it. Which is fine. You are right the Apple philosophy doesn't follow that strategy. Apple wants the user to be able to plug in a device the OS recognizes it and implements automatically with little of the behind the scenes action being noticeable to the user. Of course as in all computer land, this doesn't work 100% perfect all the time, but it is the over all methodology. I guess I'm more of the second paragraph I want to download software and plug in hardware and it works without me having to write a single line of code. I feel like I've paid them to do that. Part of the reason I've adopted that attitude is because most people I know who are always cracking their towers open and fiddling inside, are constantly always having problems with their computers. I don't want that frustration I just want it to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenolian Bell Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Actually I just thought about it. You can write apple scripts to write simple commands, and their is a terminal program where you can write more complicated code. I've used apple scripts that other people have written, I haven't used the terminal, like I said I'm not really into writing code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenolian Bell Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 I don't understand what the big hooplah is with massive RAM amounts. I mean, get an application like MaxMem (freeware last time I checked) that rests in your system tray and constantly monitors how much RAM is in use/is free...... Your computer is about to crash, e.g. don't open another application if the line graph is red and says "RAM: 2% Free" 8GB... Hmm...... Actually Apple includes this function in OSX its called Activity Monitor. It displays the activity of your processor, memory, hard drive, and network connection. The only complaint you can really make about is that its an over acheiver. Why go with the over acheiver when you can learn to work with less performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR Posted July 29, 2004 Share Posted July 29, 2004 Hi, The whole mac/PC thing irritates me. If you want to be a nontechnical artist, buy a Mac. If you want to be a bit of a technician as well, buy a PC. Phil Irritates me too. Especially when Mac people say you will have all sorts of compatability issues with a PC. I found the exact opposite. I have a box stock eMachine with a 2.1Ghz XP-3000+ processor, I added ram to make a Gig, a second 250GB drive and a DVD burner. I run Premiere Pro 1.5 for video and I have the EMU 1820m audio/sync cards/breakout box that I use with Premiere and Nuendo. Premiere Pro has frozen exactly one time and that was really my fault. Other than that I've had absolutely zero problems. But then, I did know that I would have to check my IRQ sharing etc. I don't think that's really a very technical thing to do. The only thing that sucks is the bug in Premiere Pro 1.5 regarding the way it handles 24p from the DVX-100. A complete screwup for Adobe. I have to complete a project for the British National Motorcycle Museum before the end of the year that mixes DVX 24pa footage with regular 29.97 DV and some 16mm TK's. Hmmm.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alvin Pingol Posted July 29, 2004 Share Posted July 29, 2004 Actually Apple includes this function in OSX its called Activity Monitor. It displays the activity of your processor, memory, hard drive, and network connection. WinXP has something similar. For some reason, however, it doesn't show how much RAM is in use, but rather how much of the page file is being used. Meh. Re: crashing, I don't usually like to say one platform (PC/Mac) "crashes" more than the other, since it's not really the platform's fault. It all boils down to how well the code of the software is written and how it interacts with the OS... right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted July 29, 2004 Premium Member Share Posted July 29, 2004 Hi, The critical advantage that Apple gear has is that it is always running on one of a fairly limited number of systems. There's really only half a dozen reasonably current Macs at a time, whereas there's an effectively infinite number of PC configurations. The one thing that really, really winds me up about people bashing Microsoft and Windows is that very few of them have any idea how incredibly clever it is that it works at all, let alone that it can compete with single-vendor systems. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenolian Bell Posted July 29, 2004 Share Posted July 29, 2004 I wasn't Microsoft bashing. In fact I didn't say anything negative about Window's at all. There are some real Mac zealots out there, I'm not one them. Window's is used on about 90% of computers around the world so they must be doing something right. I was just addressing the myth that their is little software for Mac, and why Mac's cost more. This is not to disparage anyone for using Window's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenolian Bell Posted July 29, 2004 Share Posted July 29, 2004 Many people do recognize that Microsoft has to make Window's for a variety of vendors, circumstances, and situations, that Apple is a single system with hardware and software made by the same manufacturer. This figures into why some people make the active choice of buying an Apple instead of a Window's based machine. That's only a very small number of people, Apple only has about 3% of the computer market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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