Buy a basic mac??

[Austin Michaels]

I was told that i should buy a basic mac pro and not add any upgrades with them that due with memory hard drives and cd/dvd drives. He told me that i could just install them myself.

 

Is that a smart way to go?

[Saul Rodgar]

You are not giving a lot of info to go by,

 

Basic questions:

 

What kind of material are you going to edit?

 

What is your level as an editor?

 

Do you intend to edit short pieces or features or doc's?

 

Etc.

[Chris Millar]

Yes - you can purchase upgrades elsewhere of Apple (usually at much less cost) and install it all yourself ...

;)

[Phil Rhodes]

There's always the competition.

[Walter Graff]

I was told that i should buy a basic mac pro and not add any upgrades with them that due with memory hard drives and cd/dvd drives. He told me that i could just install them myself.

 

Is that a smart way to go?

 

Absolutely true. Buy the bare bones computer from Mac. Doesn't matter where you buy a Mac, they regulate prices so there is really no special place to buy one. In fact look at the online mac store in the refurbished department. I bought three macs this way. You can save upwards of $400-500. Refurb come with the same warranty. Always buy the apple care which gives you three year on site protection, new or refurbed. Then you can go to places like other world computing, etc for memory and more. Or any place you choose for disk drives, etc. Great thing is that memory and other things are so inexpensive. Y9ou can buy 16gigs of mem these days for $500. just a few years ago it would have cost twice that much.

[Austin Michaels]

my level of editting is not high right now. But i do use Final CutPro 4.5

 

I was going to buy the studio 2 but my Power G4 does not meet the requirements.

 

The material i edit is wide range from any contests but my job i video taping weddings and editing them.

 

Also this Avid what kind of editing does that do? Is it just the same as Final Cut?

[Austin Michaels]

Also

 

Is it smart to buy the good graphics cards with apple since they are decently cheap or should i install my own?

 

Walter Graff or anyone could you help me find a template for video/editing theme? I have been looking all over and most are 100-200$.

I saw Walter you have quite a few websites.

[Walter Graff]

Also

 

Is it smart to buy the good graphics cards with apple since they are decently cheap or should i install my own?

 

Walter Graff or anyone could you help me find a template for video/editing theme? I have been looking all over and most are 100-200$.

I saw Walter you have quite a few websites.

 

 

Buy Apples card. Its the best youll find or need

[Ross Neugeboren]

Also this Avid what kind of editing does that do? Is it just the same as Final Cut?

 

There's two mainstream choices in NLEs, Avid and Final Cut. From my experience, Avid is an industry-standard platform, offering about the same features as Final Cut Pro. There's a big difference in the file formats. In terms of usability, if you already know Final Cut, I'd recommend you stay with it.

 

In terms of hardware, I went the same route you're considering, in terms of buying a barebones machine and adding parts. If you're planning to edit HD in the future, a 2.66 GHz has done very well for me, so the current stock 2.8GHz is adequate. I bought my hard drives from Seagate, and my RAM from Mushkin. I'd recommend that you purchase the stock installed 250GB from apple. Use this to house your operating system and applications. These days you can get a 1TB drive for about $150, which can hold about 92 hours of HD, or 110 or so hours of SD video. Keeping your media and OS/Apps seperate will save you a lot of aggravation in the future, should something catastrophic happen.

[Austin Michaels]

Thanks for the responses. I plan on buying the macpro when the next generation comes out and buying the max processor for it so i dont have to update it and I can basiclly have the top line computer and just add RAM and Hard Drives.

 

I will most likey max out the max so i can edit more quickly and its just easier overall.

 

Thanks again for everyone that responded.

[Bruce Taylor]

There's always the competition.

 

Phil,

 

I've heard of these frankenmacs.

 

I need to get an editing system. I want to be able to edit HD and output it to good lookng DVDs. I'd like to be able to generate EDLs for negative cutting, 2 perf and 4 perf 35mm. I don't want to spend a lot of money.

 

I don't want to learn more than one editing program, and all the younger people I talk to are using FCP.

 

Is there any reason not to use the frankenmac with FCP?

 

Thanks,

 

Bruce Taylor

www.Indi35.com

[Paul Bruening]

PC. Adobe. SATA3.00.

[Tom Hepburn]

"Is there any reason not to use the frankenmac with FCP?"

 

Although I love Adobe products, for me there is no other reason-I'm not sure about the Frankenmac. And hopefully the new macs and FCP will be equipped with Blue Ray capabilities.

 

As I said, I love Adobe and will be using Premier Pro today, but the problem I had with HD, is getting the transfer done and put on a PC formatted hard drive. I would check your favorite transfer house on that one.

 

Tom

[Walter Graff]

Although I love Adobe products, for me there is no other reason-I'm not sure about the Frankenmac. And hopefully the new macs and FCP will be equipped with Blue Ray capabilities.

 

Tom

 

 

Already using blue ray burners on my macs. No issues.

[Phil Rhodes]

The Psystar macs are, as I understand it, in legal limbo.

 

The fact that they're infringing the Apple EULA on OSX doesn't seem to be in question; rather, they're taking the position that the EULA isn't enforceable (as several others have proven not to be in the past).

 

Despite having been an issue for - eesh - must be over a year now, I don't think this has been resolved. I occasionally check up on it and I'm sure a google search will tell you where things now stand. I would assume that Apple will, if they lose, work hard to find ways to shut down the competition and that could conceivably include making sure that future software updates either aren't available for the Psystar macs or, conceivably, deliberately cause problems for them, although they could already be doing this.

 

I suspect it'll take quite some time more before this comes to a head and I further suspect that during this time, the software patches Psystar are using will probably be able to keep ahead of the game. Once it's been decided, who knows. The problems for these things will lie in the future. That they work now and are cheaper than Apple equivalents is not really in doubt.

 

P

[Walter Graff]

Too bad the folks who own Macs are not into the PC lifestyle of having something cheap with a name on it. Apples success is partially due to the lifestyle it creates. The machines are engineered to look real nice, feel nice, and to operate seamlessly. As a former heavy duty PC guy who switched, I saw that it simply wasn't about a box with software as PCs are sold. These mac clones are nice but you'd be better off paying the right price for a real Mac so that you can use it to do what it needs to do and use the appropriate software hardware that separates Mac from the pack.

 

http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/psystar-o...7-32978558.html

[Phil Rhodes]

I think it depends what you're after.

 

Certainly, Apple has created a nice user experience, although I'm not sure that the hardware/software bundling actually contributes as much to that simply as their determination to get the ergonomics right. Either way, if you're after a mac for the "lifestyle", certainly, go and buy one from Apple.

 

That said, there are only a handful of really concrete reasons to run OSX in a professional environment, FCP chief among them. If that's all you're after, a clone mightn't be a bad choice.

 

My only concern would be the ability of the thing to work now and keep working into the future, with future software updates for both application and OS. This will need continuous attention from Psystar, but again, if all you're going to do is run FCP on it, just don't install operating system updates and it'll go on being an edit bay as long as you keep feeding mains power to it. The rub will come when you see a piece of Mac software you want but can't run without making changes to the OS that the clone hardware might not support, but I can't see Psystar letting that become an enormous issue or the things would be useless.

 

P

[Sean Elder]

I know this question was probably been asked, but would it be more of a convenience to buy a mac book pro for on the run editing instead of buying a tower? What would be some of the setbacks of a laptop vs tower?

[Walter Graff]

I know this question was probably been asked, but would it be more of a convenience to buy a mac book pro for on the run editing instead of buying a tower? What would be some of the setbacks of a laptop vs tower?

 

Screen size, input output ability without money and add on's to do so, usability (towers have more options for configurations and speed), connections inherent in the computer, etc

[Austin Michaels]

Also editing on the go your not that concentrated and when your home you have other devices to help you if needed. And again screen size and multiple screens

[Tenolian Bell]

The primary advantages of the Mac Pro are the 8 processors, 32GB of RAM, and expansions bays. Unless you plan to run software that can take advantage of multiple processors, regularly perform a lot of rendering, or 3D compositing. 8 processors is far more than you will really need.

 

If most of your work is going to be with miniDV, HDV, or some highly compressed HD format you don't need a Mac Pro.

 

I would recommend you look at the top end iMac. It comes with a high quality 1920x1080 monitor, 3.06Ghz Core Duo processor, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics, 4GB of RAM, and 1TB hard drive. That makes for a really good editing machine.

 

Apple is expected to update its desktops any time now. Unless you need something right away, I would wait a little while.

 

I was told that i should buy a basic mac pro and not add any upgrades with them that due with memory hard drives and cd/dvd drives. He told me that i could just install them myself.

 

Is that a smart way to go?

[Tenolian Bell]

Psystar is arguing that Apple holds an unfair monopoly by not licensing OS X to the general market. Their is no legal precedent for monopolizing your own product when their are options and fair competition. Apple tried licensing Mac OS in the 90's and it nearly drove the company out of business.

 

What Psystar is doing is clearly not legal. The only reason they have made it this far is on some technicalities. I think the full trial is set for November. Its expected by that Psystar will loose.

 

I wouldn't buy one of these machines based on the fact that Psystar is using a hack to boot OS X and their is no guarantee that OS X will continue to support Psystar's hardware.

 

 

The Psystar macs are, as I understand it, in legal limbo.

 

The fact that they're infringing the Apple EULA on OSX doesn't seem to be in question; rather, they're taking the position that the EULA isn't enforceable (as several others have proven not to be in the past).

 

Despite having been an issue for - eesh - must be over a year now, I don't think this has been resolved. I occasionally check up on it and I'm sure a google search will tell you where things now stand. I would assume that Apple will, if they lose, work hard to find ways to shut down the competition and that could conceivably include making sure that future software updates either aren't available for the Psystar macs or, conceivably, deliberately cause problems for them, although they could already be doing this.

 

I suspect it'll take quite some time more before this comes to a head and I further suspect that during this time, the software patches Psystar are using will probably be able to keep ahead of the game. Once it's been decided, who knows. The problems for these things will lie in the future. That they work now and are cheaper than Apple equivalents is not really in doubt.

 

P

[Phil Rhodes]

Actually the expansion options for the Mac Pro, with respect to its processing prowess, are not that fantastic. There's only four drive bays, precluding someone who wanted to build an HD edit station from doing so. The only Apple-mandated way around this is to buy XSan, which is pan-galactic overkill for the sort of scenario where you might just throw some disks in a case. The Apple decision to do this, to not offer a rackmount option, and to still manage to make the things too big to fit in a 19" equipment rack is insane.

 

The eight way Macs aren't badly priced for their paper spec, which is pretty unusual for a Mac, but you can build something fairly equivalent and much more expandable if all you want is lots of cores. Unfortunately, Apple's computer business is based solely on exercising somewhat dubious proprietorial rights over a single piece of IP, the OS, the mass duplication and distribution of which is technically trivial.

 

That's not a terrifically good place to be in a world where manufacturing tangible goods is about to become flavour of the month. The only reason to buy a Mac is for the OS, and Apple know this, which is presumably why they have taken to selling so many toys.

 

P

[Paul Bruening]

PC. SATAII. Adobe.

[Tenolian Bell]

Actually the expansion options for the Mac Pro, with respect to its processing prowess, are not that fantastic. There's only four drive bays, precluding someone who wanted to build an HD edit station from doing so.

 

How much internal storage would be ideal for HD editing? Western Digital recently introduced 2TB drives, that would be 8TB of Mac Pro internal storage. Is more really required?

 

Not being snarky, I'm genuinely asking your opinion.

 

The eight way Macs aren't badly priced for their paper spec, which is pretty unusual for a Mac, but you can build something fairly equivalent and much more expandable if all you want is lots of cores. Unfortunately, Apple's computer business is based solely on exercising somewhat dubious proprietorial rights over a single piece of IP, the OS, the mass duplication and distribution of which is technically trivial.

 

As far as Apple's reputation for over charging for similar functionality. Since Apple switched to Intel people have been hard pressed to find cheaper machines for the same functionality from other PC manufacturers. You could build your own for cheaper, but most of us would prefer to have a warranty and guaranteed customer support.

 

Apple does not actually make much profit from its software. The purpose of OS X, Final Cut Pro, Logic and all the rest are to differentiate Apple as a separate platform from Windows and sell the more profitable hardware.

 

That's not a terrifically good place to be in a world where manufacturing tangible goods is about to become flavour of the month. The only reason to buy a Mac is for the OS, and Apple know this, which is presumably why they have taken to selling so many toys.

 

You are right. Growth in the computer market is slowing and actually stalling with the bad economy. The Windows PC makers are competing on price and racing to the bottom of profitability and solvency. Apple actually misses a lot of this by not being dependent on Windows. The other PC OEM's see this and have been exploring alternative OS to Windows, but their is nothing currently viable.

 

You are correct that the future growth is in mobile internet devices. Apple recognizes this future growth and why it has heavily invested in iPods and the iPhone. I guess you would look at them as toys if you are a heavy iron snob. But the reality is that the future is in portability. Laptops outsell desktops, mobile internet devices outsell laptops.