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Imac Prooooooooo......


Samuel Berger

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- 64 bit Pro Res decode/encode

- FCP/FCPX, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, Motion, Quicktime Pro (very powerful tool btw)

- Dozens of built-in tools like real-time flight tracking and active currency exchange rates to active real-time 3D maps and navigation, all without the need to visit a website. The OS will even integrate this active data into documents if you so choose.

 

- Integrated speech to text and text to speech. You can run the whole machine with speech commands if you so choose.

- A working search engine. Windows can't seem to figure that one out yet.

 

- Images, Calendar, Contacts, Email, Maps, Documents, Music, Texts, seamlessly integrated within individual apps on any computer and mobile device.

 

- Finally, programs don't poop all over your computer when you install them. So if you wanna throw a program way, simply drag it to the trash and it will be gone.

 

1. 64-bit ProRes is nice, but that is only if you require working in ProRes. DNx works on 64bit on both Windows and Mac, which makes it superior - and a more widely support format - in my mind. Yes it might not play back as smoothly on a Mac as ProRes, but ProRes on a PC is 32bit, and my 64bit DNx is going to play back faster. I can also get Quicktime pro for my PC as well, but I don't know of anything it does that my other programs don't.

 

2. FCPX is not a good program, and the programs like compressor and motion don't come standard on the Mac - you you to buy them. Media Encoder and After Effects do the same thing, and they are actually updated programs unlike the half-abandoned Mac programs.

 

3. Google Chrome can give me real time flight info, track currency conversions, etc. with a simple written command. Yes, it's one extra step, but then again I don't regularly track flights or convert currency, so if it needs to happen once every 3 months, I can be bothered to open Chrome. It won't kill me.

 

4. Windows has the ability to run on speech commands built in. It also has text to speech. Not sure about speech to text, since I don't use that - but consider that is a fairly basic thing, I imagine it has that as well.

 

5. Microsoft Edge works perfectly fine, and is built-in. The days of the bad 'Internet Explorer' are over. But my question is, why use a built-in browser? Chrome is much better and more feature-filled than any built-in browser, Safari included.

 

6. I believe Windows has this as well. With your Microsoft account, it syncs all this stuff with OneDrive. Don't use it, so can't say how it works. But it's there.

 

7. I'm not sure what 'pooping' means in terms of programs, but I take it you mean the way Windows installs programs. I think some people imagine this evil Windows machine throwing files all over the place. It doesn't. Most programs install everything into a single folder in the C:/Programs folder. They when then usually write a registry file. Some programs that use external things will create folders in your My Documents section as well. HOWEVER, to get rid of all of that, all you have to do is uninstall the program, and it takes everything with it.

 

Mac also has a registry file that programs write to, and the programs are still stored on a separate folder away from your desktop, it just invisible to you --- and some programs will still create folders for your project files and such - even on a Mac.

 

Lets also be honest, how many times do we uninstall a program? I mean yes - Mac makes its easy by simply dragging the icon into the trash can, but then again Windows doesn't require that many steps --- and no more than most people fully uninstall a program from their computer, the time savings on the Mac is pointless. Like a lot of OSX and iOs features, its 'fancy ware' that has little practical use besides being cool and snazzy.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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The question I have is how you know so much about how hard Windows is to work with, when you claim you won't have any Microsoft product in your house? Are you basing this on old work you have done in the past?

I stopped working in IT in the spring of 2017 when I simply couldn't make his windows machines stay running. They were all brand new boxes, running windows 7 professional and they basically didn't work no matter how many times I'd re-image them. I'd get a call a few days later and the clients couldn't login to the network anymore, making them worthless. I hired TWO windows experts to come in and solve the problems, but the problems kept coming back. The company hired someone else to fix the problems and from what I can tell, he's still not remedied them fully, even after updating everyone to Windows 10. There is just some odd incompatability issue that hits them every week or so, that's inherently only a windows issue as the Mac's are 100% fine always.

 

So no I haven't spent much time using Windows 10, frankly because I've lost all my hair from dealing with Windows issues all these years, I don't have ANY interest ever seeing it again.

 

Ohh and for the record, I have owned 3 PC's in my life, two Windows 3.1 machines and one Windows XP laptop which was used for one task, to read service manuals using a special windows only program. When it stopped reading my manuals all of a sudden, with some bullshit error message that nobody on the internet could figure out. Even after re-installing the OS, it still never would work, so I threw it away. So basically the only windows machines I've ever owned, were for specific purposes and all of them were thrown away.

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​Of all the PCs I've built, I've only ever experienced Blue Screen errors, at most, four times. It strikes me that most people who experience blue screens are modifying their system, and try to get the computer to multitask while the OS is still dedicated towards orderly updating libraries. When the OS gives the CPU new instructions, that process is interrupted, and you get a working but otherwise bad installation.

 

Before I built a new XP machine in 2000 or 2001, I had, up until that time, been installing DOS 6.21 with Win95 and Win98 update CDs. I never purchased the full retail version of either Win95 nor Win98, which, to me at least, should have lent my systems to having instability issues. But that was never the case. It was only when I tried working with the computer while it was installing something that I ever got any kind of instability.

 

Heat and dust getting into the actual CD drives tended to cause the system to hang because the optic reader on the drive couldn't properly read data on whatever CD was in the drive. You would think that the easy solution to that would be to simply open up the CD drive and clean it. But this only worked temporarily, and would give the drive maybe a few months or a few weeks of added life. That verse all the years the drive functioned without being cleaned once. The point of that paragraph being that sometimes things work just fine without being tinkered with, but the moment you try to fix something, there's one over looked component that'll fail miserably, and may sometimes induce a blue screen error.

 

This is just my personal experience. Apple's have become more impressive over the last ten years. Having said that, when I was at BAVC earlier last year training on the latest version of FCP, I actually did have to reboot their machines (all Apples) to get FCP to stop hanging.

 

Like Landon said, computers, in particular PCs, are like any other machine in your house, you need to take care of it. Based on what I see about Apple's design I think they take the dust and heat issue seriously, so there's probably fewer instances of failure, but they're not immune.

 

Just an FYI, I first hacked on teletypes and PETs at UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science in the mid 70s. Then learned basic programming on the first Apples at my middle school in I think 79 when Apple and IBMs were close in terms of home computer performance, with Apple having a slight edge, again at that time. I'm glad Apple caught up, but boy did it take forever.

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3. Google Chrome can give me real time flight info, track currency conversions, etc. with a simple written command. Yes, it's one extra step, but then again I don't regularly track flights or convert currency, so if it needs to happen once every 3 months, I can be bothered to open Chrome. It won't kill me.

 

 

5. Microsoft Edge works perfectly fine, and is built-in. The days of the bad 'Internet Explorer' are over. But my question is, why use a built-in browser? Chrome is much better and more feature-filled than any built-in browser, Safari included.

 

I had been a big Chrome user up until last week when it started to hang severely. It had actually gotten progressively worse over the last few years. Edge, much to my surprise, is lightening fast by comparison, but the downshot is that it has stability issues. It used to be the reverse, with Edge being stable but slow.

 

I used Safari for a couple of years back in 2009 to 2011, but it started to have stability issues, and for some reason took forever to update. It just started breaking down sporadically, and when I tried to uninstall it, it still kept files on my computer that I couldn't remove, even by logging in as an Admin under safe mode.

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Just one point of order:

 

 

 

- 64 bit Pro Res decode/encode

 

Decoding is available. Encoding is available using various third-party tools. It can be done for free, though you might reasonably contend that the free implementation is "ProRes-compatible." I have not had, nor have I heard anyone having, problems with it. This is not really a very big problem anymore.

 

P

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I actually do a lot more than just film industry stuff --- I also run a company that publishes books for self-published authors as well, and I actually have a Macbook Pro from around 2012 that I bought off a friend about a year ago. So I do have some experience with Mac - but not much. It's mostly used to transcode book files and audiobook files for iTunes store, and for use in the rare cases when I need to make or work on an iOs app, since Apple won't let you do anything on Windows in terms of design, coding, or trancoding. I'm not impressed with the performance of it, and I'd actually say lets about on par power-wise as my 2013-era Acer Laptop, which cost like $200 at the time. But it works, and I don't need it for much, so I'm not complaining.

 

I don't mean to come off as 'pushing the Windows OS' on people. I understand that all operating systems have their issues, and each is appropriate for different people. However, I will defend Windows to death when it comes to people making misleading statements about reliability and usability. If you are choosing between a Mac and Windows PC, you should not be basing your decision on which one is more reliable - that is not important, and ignores the other factors that need to go into your decision. A Mac and Windows PC are two different beasts, and are really designed for two different mindsets. If you purchase the wrong one, you're not gonna be happy. Period. Apple hardware and OSX clearly work for Tyler, and he likes it - which is fine. I know many people who love and swear-by Apple products. At the same time, I know people (myself included) that would be lost with the hand-holding OSX does with its users.

My biggest gripe though comes from the way in which many pro-Mac people make it sound as if a Mac computer is the only thing you could ever use that will work reliability. It's not just Tyler, I have a couple of friends who argue with me all the time about how their Macs are superior to my PC (even when they clearly are not in their cases). The way in which many pro-Mac people argue makes it appear as if they own a large amount of stock in Apple, and have a financial stake on people buying Apple hardware and and software... I don't have the same loyalty to Windows, nor do many other Windows users I know. We use it because it works, allows us to customize as well need, allows an infinite array of hardware choices, and doesn't try to hold our hand. It just works, and it's what we are use to.

 

That will be my last post on the Apple vs Microsoft debate. Bottom line: do your research before buying one over the other, and never take my word (or Tyler's word) alone on which one to choose.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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You CAN install OSX on PC hardware --- it's called a Hackintosh. You just have to make sure the hardware you use is right. For that matter, you can install Windows on Mac-based hardware as well... I still don't see why anyone needs ProRes... The DNX codec from Avid is the same size and has the same quality, and is just as portable between Mac and PC. And your PC can play and decode ProRes, and can even write it (if you need it for a deliverable) as well with a special program (which would be less work in my mind than trying to run a dual-boot OS).

 

And yes, Windows 10 is the way to go. Windows 7 is no longer supported.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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I guess I'll have to see what this year's Macworld will bring. I think it's in June. Maybe then the Mac Pro will get an update and I'll run Windows 7 on it. That way if I need ProRes (which is all the time) I can boot into the OSX partition.

Macworld convention? Apple hasn't had anything to do with that convention since 1997. They make announcements randomly when products are ready to be shown.

 

There is a new Mac Pro coming out, which will have PCI slots for GPU's and such. Because it's being made here in the states, there aren't any leaks so far of the design. However, it is happening and it will probably be very expensive.

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You CAN install OSX on PC hardware --- it's called a Hackintosh.

It's not that simple... you need to have hardware very similar to Apple's, which will raise the price substantially.

 

There are basically a hand-full of configs that work and none of them are store bought, they're all custom configs. Most people go to the store and buy a computer, not parts to build there own.

 

By contrast, Windows works fine on macs. Apple even has it's own double boot system which is cool.

 

I still don't see why anyone needs ProRes...

Because it's still the industry standard for deliverables and it's the highest quality iframe codec that's OS Native. Windows doesn't have any native OS support for either codec, but it's a lot simpler to get pro res support then DNX support.

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I have a couple of friends who argue with me all the time about how their Macs are superior to my PC (even when they clearly are not in their cases). The way in which many pro-Mac people argue makes it appear as if they own a large amount of stock in Apple, and have a financial stake on people buying Apple hardware and and software...

Well the difference is that I had to support windows computers for nearly my entire adult life so far. I also have a lot of PC friends who I talk with and they all say the same thing you do, Windows works fine... yet when TWO of them came to my clients place and were incapable of fixing the issues, they just laughed and said "that's windows for ya".

 

Mind you, every time I have a problem that I can't solve with windows, when I bring in an expert, they generally do the same thing I did first, then they shrug and give up. Everyone has their own excuses why they give up, most say it's just windows being stupid again, but the problems never truly go away.

 

Now I understand a PC sitting at home, owned by a technician, is a very different world then a PC at an office... but all I know is how these machines perform on big networks, with san AND nas solutions, with active directory login's and all sorts of specialized hardware. When a company has to hire a special technician to support the dozen windows computers full-time at an office, but has one tech for the other 48 mac's, on the same network, using the same active directory logins, using the same software etc... That's when you realize there is a problem. I use to be the Active Directory administrator and yes, Windows server works fine, thank god. The only logical reason is that the server machines aren't online ever and have nearly every network port blocked, plus heavily stripped down systems. Any computer that touches the internet, media or a portable hard drive, that's where things poop the bed.

 

Again, when you live in your own little world, none of this matters really. However, most of us don't live in our own world, we're online all the time, we're dealing with uploading/downloading media non-stop from sometimes seemingly random sources. There are word documents flying around with edit reports, excel spreadsheets with edit logs, all sorts of stuff that could contain viruses, etc... which need to be scanned before opening, which you'll never know you get in a lot of cases. So it's just about being safe in the long run and not running an operating system that can be effected by any of that nonsense. Stay away from the chinese and russian hackers, stay away from the literally thousands of viruses that are created every year.

 

Also... all of those features I listed, they really don't exist on windows and they are as I said before, hypercritical to day to day use of a computer, especially when one has an iPhone and iCloud, two things which again I can't really live without. I hate android phones, I think the OS is absolute garbage. It looks like a toy made by Kenner for 5 year olds with little bloop, blop sound effects and the size of the icons is super small and there is a lot more "reading" involved to find things, where the iOS icons rae HUGE and you don't need to read anything ever. So yea... I'm stuck with an iPhone as a consequence as well.

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Again, when you live in your own little world, none of this matters really. However, most of us don't live in our own world, we're online all the time, we're dealing with uploading/downloading media non-stop from sometimes seemingly random sources. There are word documents flying around with edit reports, excel spreadsheets with edit logs, all sorts of stuff that could contain viruses, etc... which need to be scanned before opening, which you'll never know you get in a lot of cases. So it's just about being safe in the long run and not running an operating system that can be effected by any of that nonsense. Stay away from the chinese and russian hackers, stay away from the literally thousands of viruses that are created every year.

 

I'm not sure how many people 'live in their own world'... I spend roughly 12-14 hours a day - every day - stuck behind my computer. It's a side effect of having a post-production business, a book publishing business, and have a deep interest in designing and playing games, and writing books. I literally spend most of my waking time on the computer. If Windows had half the problems you say it does, I'd certainly have ran into them already. My computer is internet connected, shares files from authors and publishing houses around the world, files are sent from authors to me and back again. I download probably 5GB worth of data every day, and send nearly as much out.

 

Chrome scans any files you 'download', including EXE files --- but the thing here is, don't download files or programs that you don't know about, and they won't infect your computer. Period. User error 100% here. If you go downloading the .doc file Princess Umba from Nigeria sends you, you deserve a virus. Period.

 

I'm guessing your statement was probably a 'slight' at me, assuming I live in my 'own little world' over here and as such, can't possibly know what I'm talking about. Maybe it wasn't, and I don't really care - but let me tell you, I'm FAR from someown who lives in his own little world. I share more files, download and upload more crap, than 95% of other users - PC or MAC.

 

 

Well the difference is that I had to support windows computers for nearly my entire adult life so far.

 

But you never have owned but a couple of Windows computers, and most of them were XP and before? The problem with only 'supporting' Windows is that you only ever see the bad in it, or what you perceive as bad. If I was a Mac technician, yet never used a Mac in daily use - I'd despise Mac for being unreliable... I mean, heaven forbid the must be bad - all these people bringing them in to get repaired.... I also question how you support Windows PC's your entire life... Are you saying you have worked in IT? Have you worked for PC repair shops? Have you built PC's? If you can't answer yes to each one of these, then I don't consider the person to be well-versed in Windows OS.

 

Personally, I hold an A+Certification and a CCNP certificate. I worked at a PC repair shop for 5 years, and have been repairing and building PC's for myself and others since I was 12 - going on 19 years now. I worked in IT at a call center that ran around 80 Windows PC in Windows server configuration. I'm certified in PC repair and also in networking from Cisco. Believe it or not, I know what I'm talking about here. I have literally seen more computers in my time than I care to admit, and while they are not perfect, the doom-and-gloom you paint with Windows is just not there. It never has been there for the most part, and most of it is fear-mongering from Apple and their hardcore fan base, which borders on being a cult.

 

 

Mind you, every time I have a problem that I can't solve with windows, when I bring in an expert, they generally do the same thing I did first, then they shrug and give up. Everyone has their own excuses why they give up, most say it's just windows being stupid again, but the problems never truly go away.

 

Again, 5 years experience in a PC repair shop. 19 years building and repairing Windows PC's. 19 years of using Windows computers, for multiple different tasks, many hours a day... Cisco CCNP certificate. A+ certificate. I am a PC professional - and I don't agree at all with these 'experts' you mention. Chalking it up to 'just Windows' can mean any numbers of things. Even I have been known to say that before, but that is not because Windows is bad - its because we have came to know the quarks of Windows over the years, and when we see anything - good or bad - we chalk it up to 'just a Windows thing'.

 

 

I hate android phones, I think the OS is absolute garbage. It looks like a toy made by Kenner for 5 year olds with little bloop, blop sound effects and the size of the icons is super small and there is a lot more "reading" involved to find things, where the iOS icons rae HUGE and you don't need to read anything ever. So yea... I'm stuck with an iPhone as a consequence as well.

 

I don't really want to get into an argument with you about Android vs iOS - but since you brought it up, here goes.

 

So, you first say that Android is designed as a toy for 5 year olds, then go on to explain how it has smaller buttons and requires a lot more reading.... THEN, you go on to explain the simpleness of iOS, including the big flashy buttons, and somehow the Android is the one designed for 5 year old? You kinda defeating your own argument here.

 

However, I'll indulge you:

 

Have you ever actually used android? I'm guessing either no, or your just trying to get dramatic about how bad Android is compared to iOS.

 

First, The size of the android grid can be adjusted, which adjusts the icon sizes. If I really wanted 'kid-sized iOS' icons, I can do that on my Android. Second, I'm not sure what 'reading' you need to do to use Android... If you want to change a setting, you literally 'swipe down from the top' to open the settings bar. From there, you can adjust display properties, sounds, etc - JUST LIKE iOS. Third, what sounds the phone plays are fully adjustable - and it doesn't require an reading to make it happen - you simply swipe down from the top, click the gear, click sound, and change the sound to whatever you want - or turn it off.

 

I could literally go on and on all day about how easy Android is to use. The reality is though, I have the last generation iPod touch as well - so I know exactly how iOS works as well, and neither one is simpler than the other. Both do the same thing, and both have similar settings menus.

 

It's not that simple... you need to have hardware very similar to Apple's, which will raise the price substantially.

 

There are basically a hand-full of configs that work and none of them are store bought, they're all custom configs. Most people go to the store and buy a computer, not parts to build there own.

 

I never said it was simple. In fact, I said building a Hackintosh is exceedingly hard. I said this just a few posts ago, when I mentioned that OSX just flat out refuses to work with most hardware that is not already in Apple computers. I simply said you can, which you can.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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On Season One of this TV show, Captain Tyler battled the evil Sony Empire, led by the maleficent Emperor Robynator the Probynator and his henchman, El Stuarto, who were bent on turning the world green.

 

On Season Two, the protagonist must battle Microsoft and their Emissary, General Landon Carelesswhisperian, and prove to the blue-pilled doomed world that you cannot get a usable image out of a PC, or else people will live inside their heads forever.

 

Will he succeed, or will red arrows give us all the Death of A Thousand Cuts?

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Come on Samuel, you didn't get the memo? I always win. Like death and taxes, it's just a fact of life. :lol:

 

Well I agree with some of his points, I actually might end up buying a Mac if the Pro is properly updated. But only after I move back home. His line about the Kenner toys had me in stitches.

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Just for clarification, I got my first computer in 1989 and it was an all in one compaq. My second computer was a 386 Windows 3.1 machine in 1992 ish, which was a huge upgrade. What pissed me off is how "generic" and unsatisfactory it was to use those machines. They came with zero programs outside of solitaire and a calculator.

 

When I got a free Apple SE in 1993, it was a huge eye opener. The machine had a 20MB hard drive (the PC had a 5MB drive) and the Mac came with all sorts of awesome software free, right on the machine stock! Now I could write documents, I could draw/paint, I could even play some pretty awesome games. My friends started slowly switching to mac as well and we've all been on it since.

 

So I understand the dynamic of being on a platform from childhood, but again... I switched platforms twice before settling on Mac because frankly, it was a better system and I still feel it's benefits outweigh the negatives.

 

I'm guessing your statement was probably a 'slight' at me, assuming I live in my 'own little world' over here and as such, can't possibly know what I'm talking about.

Not a dig at you, just a over-all comment about people who work with single workstations at home vs huge networks at offices, etc. I'm in my own little world too.

 

I also question how you support Windows PC's your entire life... Are you saying you have worked in IT? Have you worked for PC repair shops? Have you built PC's? If you can't answer yes to each one of these, then I don't consider the person to be well-versed in Windows OS.

I started in IT in 1997 right when I graduated high school and worked on and off until mid last year, with a 13 year section of doing it full-time, 2003 - 2007 at a "mac only" service shop and the rest working directly for systems integrators. After 2007, I never dealth with "consumers" again, it was all servers and client workstations in businesses. Yes, I've built PC's from the ground up, though most of my PC expertise lies in hardware service of Dell and HP servers. I've installed and setup Windows server active directory and DNS servers for MPAA facilities running mostly windows clients and some mass storage solution, usually a SAN of some kind.

 

I'm no windows expert, I don't claim to be. Again, I despise the OS because as someone who works in IT, I've always been the person called upon to fix issues when they break and frankly, it was never simple. Do that over and over again, week in and week out, you wind up having a hatred for it. Every time I'd fix Mac OS issues, I enjoy it. Not only did I understand how the operating system worked, there were far less variables.

 

I am MCSA and Mac OS server certified technician. I'm also certified in Apple hardware both desktop and laptop. I also hold over a dozen certifications from storage companies and most importantly xsan, to which I worked for one of the leading XSAN development companies installing them all over the post production faclities here in Hollywood. At one point in time, we had 12 XSAN's in a few of the top post houses. I eventually got a job as a full-time tech at one of those post houses.

 

and I don't agree at all with these 'experts' you mention. Chalking it up to 'just Windows' can mean any numbers of things. Even I have been known to say that before, but that is not because Windows is bad - its because we have came to know the quarks of Windows over the years, and when we see anything - good or bad - we chalk it up to 'just a Windows thing'.

Sure and every "OS" has those funny little bugs you kinda scratch your head at.

 

Recently, I've found that every time I sit down at a windows machine and touch the mouse, it stops working. I know it sounds just plain ridiculous, but it's so true. I even shot video of this phenomena, where I sat down at a working computer with the desktop up, I clicked on the mouse and the login screen appeared and even if I used the password, it wouldn't let me back in again. What kind of short cut exists that if you click on the desktop, it perminently locks you out of the computer? That was a newish build of Windows 7 BTW. Those are the kind if "issues" I kept seeing and I said, forget it... if this is how Windows is going to behave with me, I'm gonna walk away. The clients seemed to be ok, but they always had a laundry list of OS related issues that constantly needed to be fixed from servers disconnecting to login's not working. There was some very odd network issue related to some of those machines, I never figured out.

 

First, The size of the android grid can be adjusted, which adjusts the icon sizes. If I really wanted 'kid-sized iOS' icons, I can do that on my Android.

Nope, ya can't. I've tried, no matter what, the IOCN's are SMALLER than the text written below them, leaving lots of space between them. On the iphone, the app icon sizes are all the same, they fit within the same "frame" as well, which is critical. Android app programers don't need to fit within those same frameworks so they make icons that are wider, taller and sometimes just funny shapes, which are confusing as all get out. Plus, the text below each ICON is larger then the ICON itself. It's as if the programmers think you're going to read the text, which nobody does. The concept is to identify the app simply by looking at the picture.

 

Yes, there are 3rd party app's which allow you to change the layout to make it just like an iPhone, but what's the point? All of the newer Android phone's with the same OLED display, similar camera and processor speed as my iPhone X are nearly the same price, so you aren't saving money by buying an Android based phone. Unlike computers, where yes you can find a cheaper and better PC, you can't really with telephones. The iPhone X is a superior product in so many ways, outside of perhaps Apple's reluctance to have upgradable memory. I for one will never use the stock 64gb of memory, so it doesn't bother me at all.

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It never has been there for the most part, and most of it is fear-mongering from Apple and their hardcore fan base, which borders on being a cult.

 

 

 

 

When I used to shoot training vids for Apple back in the 90s their whole attitude was to take jabs at one another; i.e. someone would get up for a presentation, and suddenly he's got a verbal target on his chest with stuff like "Do you still beat your wife?" There was a lot of joking, some of it verging on bad taste and dipping into sexual innuendo.

 

Like I said a few posts up, that attitude reflected in their product. And to me still does, only the juvenile hip atmosphere that used to be down there has given way to a realization that they needed to create serious hardware.

 

I think the old board of directors, whom I also used to shoot every now and then, realized that hip attitude and a slick marketing campaign to huckster the very primitive Macs on a predominantly PC using market, wouldn't last forever. And even in local news stories up here about Apple employees interviewed would say how they had poured their heart and soul into the company. A few news pieces, during a layoff, had employees saying they felt betrayed. Which to me means that Apple didn't only try to fob off hardware to the public, but fobbed off the company to their employees.

 

And in terms of media hardware, I remember showing one their interns whose father was the marketing VP for SEGA America at the time, a vid regarding a dedicated card that could handle BETACAM editing that you dropped into a high end PC. His attitude was that Apple was coming out with something next year. This was circa 1992...maybe 93 or 94. Well, Apple never did come out with anything close. They were still selling the little smiley face Mac and I think .... thinking here ... coming out with the PC-Mac that could run both OSes and consequently both sets of software.

 

I know people are reluctant to reply to my posts for whatever reason, and I'm not working in the industry anymore, but I think it important for people here to understand the kind of culture Apple has, or at least had, and how that affects their products.

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Like I said a few posts up, that attitude reflected in their product.

Yep, well that was a time of turmoil for the company. They really didn't get things back together until 2003 ish and by then it was too late. Apple nearly went out of business because they kept on trying to make what the PC manufacturers were making and it was never going to work. The Power PC processing RISC infrastructure was leaps and bounds better than any of the other consumer processors at the time. Apple also had a much bigger market share in 1992, they had "professional" computers with NUBUS ports! Imagine that! The problem is that Apple was very proprietary, thus manufacturers need to make special versions of software and hardware just for them and Apple was charging exorbitant amounts of money for their hardware. When Jobs was kicked out of the company, Apple's board of directors slowly killed it by giving away the OS for cheap money to "clone" manufacturers. When Jobs came back in 1998, the company was in shambles and it took him 6 years to re-align it and by 2007 it was going strong. Hardware was the same between macs and pc's, plus Apple had gobs of professional products from a bitchin' server OS to post production software and storage. They were rising to the top, but Jobs killed it all off in favor of a much larger market; the mobile one. He switched gears at a moment where Apple was finally a threat to windows again, but sabotaged what could have been. Now Apple makes "devices" and they're starting to fail at that as well. What's next? Will Apple be a media company? Some people think they'll buy Netflix and start to make more media devices.

 

So yes... had Apple just stayed it's grounds and continued to support the professional infrastructure, they'd be in much different place today.

 

And in terms of media hardware, I remember showing one their interns whose father was the marketing VP for SEGA America at the time, a vid regarding a dedicated card that could handle BETACAM editing that you dropped into a high end PC. His attitude was that Apple was coming out with something next year. This was circa 1992...maybe 93 or 94. Well, Apple never did come out with anything close. They were still selling the little smiley face Mac and I think .... thinking here ... coming out with the PC-Mac that could run both OSes and consequently both sets of software.

In 1993 they came out with the "AV" powermac's, first with composite video only, but eventually in 1995 the Power Mac 7500 had 525i video AND AUDIO I/O built-in. Yes it was crude and couldn't be used for commercial capturing as the processing board wasn't high enough quality, but it did exist and it was a huge step in the right direction. Soon there after I did have a real capture card and a very easily editing software package, of whoms name I don't recall. It did work pretty well, but it was not an Apple product. Even though MY powermac 8500 was far more advanced, it's A/V capabilities were limited and Apple switched to PCI bus soon there after which means, no more old NUBUS card.

 

Honestly, I didn't start editing non-linearly until firewire came out in around 1996 ish and even then, apple was late to adopt. I believe my first editing bay was my Power Mac 8600 with a firewire board. I had a DSR-20 deck from the studio, perminantly setup at home and I would take my tapes, injest them into a program called DV EDIT and edit my shows. Eventually I was part of the development team on FCP and started using that. So firewire was really the first way of getting decent quality video into mac's without spending a fortune and it really did open the doors for me to more NLE editing. I stuck with DV editing on FCP until 2009 when I sold my cameras and got my first intel based mac tower, having stuck with G5's for a lot longer then I should have.

 

Funny enough, it wasn't until 2013 that I finally had a 10 bit 444 1080p edit bay at home and 2017 when I switched to 12 bit 444 4k. It's amazing to think that I started editing at home 20 years ago this year. I gotta dig up my first edit, it's gotta be on a drive somewhere. The fact I still have Final Cut Pro on my machine in a working version, is pretty mind blowing as well. I can't believe we've been on this editing ride together for such a long time, half my life!

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Apple also had a much bigger market share in 1992, they had "professional" computers with NUBUS

 

Er, I think comparatively they had a larger market share when put up against any one PC manufacturer, but if you divided the market as it stood then between Apple and PC, then the combined weight of various PC manufacturers outweighed Apple. You could walk into any CompUSA or Fry's, and there would be an aisle dedicated to Apple. That verse multiple aisles of PC hardware and software.

 

And at the studios I was working at at the time the Apple was pretty much a table top toy. There were companies that used them as professional devices, but the tech edge and power processing went to the PC.

 

 

Yes it was crude and couldn't be used for commercial capturing as the processing board wasn't high enough quality,

 

But that's key, because the board I was showing my friend was for professional editing. Take your footage, digitize it, or somehow keep it resident somewhere, and off you went. I don't recall it catching on all that well, but you could edit professional grade material with it.

 

I don't hold anything against Apple, but like a lot of success stories in the United States it sold itself on its image and the concept of the Mac's user friendliness. For what it's worth I'm glad Apple's joined the 20th century (pun intended) for the sake of Apple users.

 

Still, as a hobbyist has been, an iMac Pro is probably overkill for me.

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  • 3 months later...

Months later, here I am still in the same place. No new computer and no new camera, and still unable to move back to CA. But I did learn a LOT from this forum and other places. I feel like I got a real education.

 

One of the things I learned has to do with the iMac Pro. It really is the best computer for my needs. I need to save up and get:

 

  • Apple iMac Pro
  • 2.5 GHz Intel Xeon W 14-Core
  • 128GB of DDR4 RAM | 2TB SSD
  • AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 (16GB HBM2)
  • 27" 5120 x 2880 IPS Retina 5K Display

This will run DaVinci Resolve with 8K footage flawlessly, including Canon Raw Light CRM files straight from the Canon C200. 18-core not needed.

So that is the computer I need to save for, long term.

Short term, I'll upgrade the GPU on my PC (which ironically started life as a Hackintosh years ago) from Dual GPU Radeon 7950 to Single GTX 1080 Ti.

This is actually going to improve my workflow because, it turns out, Single GPU setups are better for Resolve. In the Studio version, which I won't have until I get the BMPCC4K in September, you can tweak dual GPU settings. But BMD doesn't recommend adding a second GPU. In fact they say to pull it out if you have one.

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Best of luck. That sure sounds like a VERY expensive computer though for editing. I just got through editing 6K Red footage for a client the other day, and had no playback issues, and this is all on a sub-$3,000 PC system. I also do a lot of rendering with Fusion, and to some extent Element 3D - and have found that a single 1080 ti is plenty - though I have two now simply because Blender and iRay render faster with more GPU's.

Is there a reason you need a computer that powerful? Would it not be more advisable to spend that money on upgraded film equipment? It just seems like its overkill for anything short of high-end CPU-based rendering servers. My computer technically has 32 threads/16 cores, but I have never seen more them taxed more than about 15% each under full load - so much of the rendering is now done on the GPU that huge-core CPU's are becoming less useful.

 

Whatever you choose, best of luck with the choice.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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