Jump to content

XL2 or XL-H1


George Ebersole

Recommended Posts

  • Premium Member

Here is the Pro Res HQ version of the video I made:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z987adm63qfss9s/Canon_V_BMPCC.mov?dl=0

 

Along with the MP4 version for those who can't playback the Pro Res

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t3mapobsp5kcp73/Canon_V_BMPCC.mp4?dl=0

 

For sure worth checking out for ANYONE even contemplating buying a Long GOP MPEG camera.

 

Ohh and if you want me to include the GH4. I'll gladly rip it to shreds as I have around 300hrs of it on my drive. I can't do anything with it, not only was it shot poorly, but I can't manipulate it what so ever. Drives me INSANE! I have to cut a friggen' documentary with this stuff and 90% of it is unusable, thanks to the worthless codec.

 

I'll post something for ya'll to see in a few.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Ninja Star and Ninja II shoot Prores and DNxHD. Since the C100 only outputs 8-bit 4:2:2, you can use Prores 422 or Prores HQ. LT is not really recommended and is more of a proxy format.

 

HOWEVER, if you're editing on a PC, I'd highly recommend DNxHD instead (which all the Ninja's shoot) in the 145 and/or 220 codec.

 

In terms of post, either one will work fine in most programs. However, if you're on a PC with Premiere, I find DNxHD to work better end-to-end, if only because it's hard to 'write' prores on a PC. If you're on a mac, the Prores is the choice. Either format should play back with little need for a suped'up PC/MAC.

 

For editing, I'd highly recommend learning Resolve. With 12.5, it's now a full fledged editor, color corrector, and delivery software. And it's free. I have all but dumped Premiere now that Resolve round-trips with the free Fusion VFX/Motion Graphics software.

 

That may change again when Adobe launches their workflow updates this summer they debuted at NAB... But that is yet to be seen.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Okay, great. Thanks Landon.

 

What kind of horses do I need for for a desktop? How much RAM and and what kind of CPU? I need to build a new desktop anyway (primarily for desktop publishing and gaming), but I'm guessing if I'm going to be doing any kind of editing on it, then I probably need a couple of massive hard drives and tons of RAM.

 

Thanks for the previous reply.

 

p.s. or should I get a laptop for post?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No problem George.

 

I would caution you against a laptop for editing, even more-so once you get outside of the consumer codecs like AVCHD and MP4. ProRes and DNxHD are all professional recording/encoding/delivery formats, and have high bit rates and storage rates. An hour of DNxHD 220 footage will take up about 73 gigabytes on your hard drive. That means that if you get a single 3TB 7200rpm hard disk drive (running around $50-$100), you'll be able to store about 40 hours of footage, which should be good for most single projects. With a single drive, you'll be able to get probably 1 stream of footage at a time. If you're planning on overlapping your streams in the timeline, I'd start to suggest a raid array or an SSD / multiple SSD's.

 

While I can't answer for sure in your case, I can tell you that I edit 2k / 1080p DNxHR 444 12-bit (the highest quality you can get in DNx) all the time smoothly on my computer, usually not having any trouble playing it back in real time in Premiere (which I miss - Resolve doesn't do so well without the Mercury Playback Engine found in Premiere). I cannot, however, even playback 4K in real time from the MP4 files directly from the GH4, so I won't even attempt it with DNx or ProRes. This is my setup:

 

AMD FX-8150 CPU, 8 cores at 3.8GHz. ($150)

 

64GB Ram ($200)

 

AMD 390x Video Card ($220 - $300, brand dependent) - current top of the line AMD video card. GPU's are very important in modern editors and VFX software. Don't skimp here!

 

1 x 480GB SSD for operating system and programs ($150)

 

1 x 240GB Cache SSD ($80) - used in Premiere/AE, don't really use in Resolve.

 

2 x Hitachi 3TB 7200rpm drives (one for media in, one for media out) - it's important to have a separate drive to output from your source footage to prevent a bottleneck. ($100 for both, refurbished at microcenter).

 

1 X Bluray Drive ($80)

 

2 x Decklink Mini Monitor cards ($300 for both) - not really important unless you're using Davinci Resolve and need one or more full screen monitors for your footage)

 

All that adds up to about $1,000 for a PC capable of editing DNxHD is real time, in pretty much any flavor.

 

Monitors are additional cost, and depend on what you want. I would suggest two monitors for a good editing workflow, as you can full-screen one monitor and use the other for the user interface, allowing you see all your footage full screen rather than in a tiny preview window. Premiere Pro / AE will show full screen on any graphics card, but Davinci will not - it requires a $150 output card to get a full screen view of your footage).

 

My monitor setup is two (2) for user interface, and (1) for full screen video, plus I have a $1,000 home theatre projector projecting on a 120" screen running from the second decklink. The large screen is not really needed for basic editing, but I find it handy with surround mixing, and for checking focus on a larger screen.

 

You could possibly get this on a laptop as well, but I have serious issues with the mobile graphics cards in these laptops, and most modern day editors make use of the graphics card as much or more than the CPU/Ram. They also have heat issues, and are not expandable in the future.

 

If you decide to move forward with this, let me know and I can work with you help you source / build your system.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

No problem George.

 

I would caution you against a laptop for editing, even more-so once you get outside of the consumer codecs like AVCHD and MP4. ProRes and DNxHD are all professional recording/encoding/delivery formats, and have high bit rates and storage rates. An hour of DNxHD 220 footage will take up about 73 gigabytes on your hard drive. That means that if you get a single 3TB 7200rpm hard disk drive (running around $50-$100), you'll be able to store about 40 hours of footage, which should be good for most single projects. With a single drive, you'll be able to get probably 1 stream of footage at a time. If you're planning on overlapping your streams in the timeline, I'd start to suggest a raid array or an SSD / multiple SSD's.

 

While I can't answer for sure in your case, I can tell you that I edit 2k / 1080p DNxHR 444 12-bit (the highest quality you can get in DNx) all the time smoothly on my computer, usually not having any trouble playing it back in real time in Premiere (which I miss - Resolve doesn't do so well without the Mercury Playback Engine found in Premiere). I cannot, however, even playback 4K in real time from the MP4 files directly from the GH4, so I won't even attempt it with DNx or ProRes. This is my setup:

 

AMD FX-8150 CPU, 8 cores at 3.8GHz. ($150)

 

64GB Ram ($200)

 

AMD 390x Video Card ($220 - $300, brand dependent) - current top of the line AMD video card. GPU's are very important in modern editors and VFX software. Don't skimp here!

 

1 x 480GB SSD for operating system and programs ($150)

 

1 x 240GB Cache SSD ($80) - used in Premiere/AE, don't really use in Resolve.

 

2 x Hitachi 3TB 7200rpm drives (one for media in, one for media out) - it's important to have a separate drive to output from your source footage to prevent a bottleneck. ($100 for both, refurbished at microcenter).

 

1 X Bluray Drive ($80)

 

2 x Decklink Mini Monitor cards ($300 for both) - not really important unless you're using Davinci Resolve and need one or more full screen monitors for your footage)

 

All that adds up to about $1,000 for a PC capable of editing DNxHD is real time, in pretty much any flavor.

 

Monitors are additional cost, and depend on what you want. I would suggest two monitors for a good editing workflow, as you can full-screen one monitor and use the other for the user interface, allowing you see all your footage full screen rather than in a tiny preview window. Premiere Pro / AE will show full screen on any graphics card, but Davinci will not - it requires a $150 output card to get a full screen view of your footage).

 

My monitor setup is two (2) for user interface, and (1) for full screen video, plus I have a $1,000 home theatre projector projecting on a 120" screen running from the second decklink. The large screen is not really needed for basic editing, but I find it handy with surround mixing, and for checking focus on a larger screen.

 

You could possibly get this on a laptop as well, but I have serious issues with the mobile graphics cards in these laptops, and most modern day editors make use of the graphics card as much or more than the CPU/Ram. They also have heat issues, and are not expandable in the future.

 

If you decide to move forward with this, let me know and I can work with you help you source / build your system.

 

Very cool. That's easy to build.

 

But on monitors; should I get a couple of standard 16:9s or should I splurge on those new extra wide screens?

 

C100 + Ninja + misc gear

Desktop with 64gig RAM + octo card in the $300 range

 

I can do this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Very cool. That's easy to build.

 

---

 

But on monitors; should I get a couple of standard 16:9s or should I splurge on those new extra wide screens?

 

Yes, it's a pretty easy build. I built my setup in about 3 hours. Of course, outfitting my post production room took longer, but then I built a custom desk, sound panels on the walls, installed screen and speakers, etc. The PC build itself should be breeze.

 

---

 

I use (2) AOC 24" IPS 16:9 screens for the interface (about $110/ each). You can go with a single ultraiwde monitor. In my old setup I had a single 34" ultra wide from LG, but its $500 price tag was hardly worth it to me when I could get a little more real estate for less money with 2 standard monitors. I also found the ultra-wide to be not that great - most games don't work with them properly, and movies and things will be severely letter boxed, even worse when trying to play a 2.39:1 movie (which you would think would fit the screen nice, except it doesn't fit it at all. Most players letterbox the screen to 16:9, and then letterbox that to 2.39:1, effectively giving you a tiny box in the middle to watch your movie on.

 

I returned mine, needless to say.

 

In any case, the AOC 24" IPS screens have great color, are pretty cheap, and are built very well. I'd suggest those myself. For a 'third' monitor (if you want to go that route), I'd suggest getting something in the 10-bit range like an HP Dreamcolor or Ezio monitor designed for graphics artists. If you can find a monitor designed for artists that represents 99% or 100% srgb color space, you can color correct to rec 709 with little trouble and cheap calibration probe.

 

If you choose to buy a more expensive Atomos recorder with a 7" screen, those are notice 10-bit rec 709 screens - which you can hook up to your pc in post and check proper colors.

 

Of course this is all assuming you want a more professional 3-monitor setup, and this can get pretty expensive. In reality, 2 monitors works really good - 1 for interface and 1 for full screen preview. Just note that if you want a full screen view on Resolve, you'll need the Blackmagic Decklink Mini Monitor card ($137 at Amazon/BH) that has HDMI and SDI outputs. Resolve will not work with any other output card, not with a standard graphics card.

 

If you choose to edit in Premiere though, you can just tell Adobe to output a full screen preview to any monitor connected to your graphics card, though I noticed this tends to produce some weird effects like tearing in the image when the footage is moving fast left to right. In reality, a Decklink Mini Monitor should be top on your purchase list even with Premiere, since you'll get 10-bit, and a better image quality from it.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A top spec 15" Retina Macbook Pro is totally fine for HD editing. Mine is from 2012 and still works great. 4K, not so much.

 

Macbooks are great, but they are also very expensive. In fact, you can build pretty much any PC of equal power to a mac for 1/3 the price. PC Laptops are about the same price as the Macbooks, but I'd still steer clear of editing on a small laptop screen. To make anything look really good you need a full editing desktop with at least 2 monitors. This is even more true if you regularly do color correction.

 

I remember when I built my PC, and similar spec'ed Mac Pro was $6,000.... I built mine for $1,300.

 

PS) Resolve does a 'temporary film screen' option you can use if you're editing and color grading on one screen. Clicking on it will launch a full-screen preview that covers your entire interface until you exit. Very intrusive in my opinion, and doesn't allow you make any changes while watching it.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you can pick up a used c100 at a discount, it's a great camera. Even at retail price it is a great camera. One of those cameras you technically don't need accessories for (other than lenses) to just go out and shoot with it. I would highly recommend the JVC LS-300. It's another type of camera you can just "grab and go" with. I find the color rendition to be nicer to my taste than the c100, and it can also shoot 4k whereas the c100 can only do 1080p and you can choose to shoot in rec709 or Log mode with the firmware update. It is a Super-35 sensor, but you can also crop the image in-camera in case you are using a lens on it that vignettes.

 

It's only $400-$500 more than the C-100, so if money is no object then definitely something to take a look into imo. Then again, for $400 you could deck out a c100 with plenty of accessories.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

I've been a system admin for the last 10 years or so on and off. I've built infrastructure for several networks broadcasting today on the east and west coast. I've also built post production facilities and edit bays are one of my specialities. As someone who is around computers every day of my life, I personally can't recommend a windows based solution for post production. All of the shops I've worked at with Windows client workstations have multiple in-house technicians and all of the shops that have Mac's, don't have ANY techs. This is very common across the board in the post production industry and it's mostly because some companies can't afford to build the mac solutions so they basically pay for someone to keep the windows machines working. This is especially a nightmare with MPAA lockdown facilities, which I'm constantly supporting.

 

There are many benefits to the mac operating system and one of them is... you don't need a MAC to run it on. Today you can buy a hackintosh and run Mac OS flawlessly without really much work. Yes there are only hand-full of motherboards with the right chipsets the Mac OS is happy with natively, but they exist. Plus the operating system is pretty bullet proof, no viruses, no malware, no ransom wear. Nothing that will keep you from working, which is very nice.

 

With the mac side of things, you don't need the newest hardware to be happy. Again, you can skimp and build a hackintosh no problem. Or you can buy a used Mac Pro 5,1 tower The great thing is, the last generation of Mac Pro tower, has 12X PCI-E, 1.33ghz memory speed and upgradable CPU's. Most people like myself who buy them, we buy the slowest dual processor unit we can used and then put in new CPU's. The Xeon X5690 processor is 6 cores and you'd run 2 of them. Each proc has it's own independent bus, memory and cache. So for multithreaded CPU tasks like reading or writing a Pro Res file, this makes a huge difference.

 

Storage is another one of those wonky things. The great thing about the Mac Pro towers is that they have 6 drive bays (6Gbps E-Sata), 2 in front and 4 on the side. So what most people (myself included) do is run 4x4TB drives in the machine as a raid zero in the main drive bays and a 1TB SSD in the upper slot. This gives you 16tb raid inside the computer which delivers around 650MBps read/write throughput, which is WAY faster then any other direct connect solution like thunderbolt, E-Sata or firewire/USB. If you're working on projects all the time, you need the storage. The Samsung SSD's are phenomenal, but they are expensive. I personally spend the extra money to get the right thing. The key is to keep the camera original files constantly backed up and always back up the boot drive as well. I use Seagate or Western Digital 2tb 2.5" USB 3 drives for that. I buy them in bulk and they go neatly into my safe with no cables. They will last around 3 - 5 years sitting if you spin them up every once in a while. I'm sure in 2 years, 4tb 2.5" drives will be the same price, but today they're very expensive and SSD's are NOT reliable for long-term storage at all.

 

In terms of what's on the bus... It really depends on what you're doing. For me, I need CUDA graphics support for DaVinci and AE. So I run a GTX680 Classified, firmware over clocked to 1.5ghz and it flies. Not quite as fast as the double bus available on the NEW 6,1 Mac Pro, but that configuration is $12k, ouch! Getting decent output for a color grading monitor is easy today, blackmagic Intensity Pro is perfect. It's UHD friendly and it's got old school analog inputs for capturing older formats, which is a nice feature. I use a Kona LHI because it has excellent on-board real-time rendering functions. It is the broadcast industry standard for 1080p workflow, which is nice. I also run a Red Rocket and USB 3 card since the tower only has USB2 on board, suck. The only detractor from these cards is that they're only 10 bit 4:2:2. If you wish to color in full RGB, that requires an entirely different setup unfortunately.

 

In terms of monitoring, if you're doing it right, you need three monitors... two for the CPU and one for the output of the graphics card. For the CPU monitors, it doesn't really matter what you use. I always spec the Dell U2415 because they're the best bang for the buck. You CAN run one monitor, but I think you'll have real estate issues up the road. There is nothing like having your timeline on one monitor and your bins on another, it really makes life easier. In terms of the color/preview monitor, there are really only two ways to go; color accuracy or size. For color accuracy, you really need something good and that means expensive. For youtube video's, it may not be that much of an issue, but if you really want a "great grade" then you gotta have it. For color accuracy, there are two ways to go... LCD/LED or OLED. I personally prefer the OLED (flanders scientific CM250), however price is always a problem so that's why something like the Ezio CG2420 is the perfect monitor for most people. It's a wide-gamut Adobe RGB calibrated monitor, which is a great bargain when you think how powerful it is.

 

Since I put sound at the same level as picture, it's critical to have decent speaker. There are really only two speakers I would ever recommend to anyone, the Mackie HR-624 MKII and the JBL LSR4328P. Both are 6" driver, bi-amp, high quality power supply and switching amp. The mackie's have a better/higher quality amp, but the JBL's have a more true/flatter sound. This is one of the reasons I like having a AV I/O card in the computer because it allows me to run high quality audio to a mixer and then to the speakers. It makes a huge difference in quality vs the computer output. So you will need a mixer to go between the system output, balanced AV output and then to the balanced speaker inputs. If you really want to take the audio system one step more, you can always go for a small active subwoofer. I do most of my final monitoring/listening in my home theater using my B&W CM series surround sound setup, to insure things are good before sending out to the client. I also have a reference DLP projector to make sure picture is acceptable as well. I can't tell you how many times I've done work on my edit bay and it's been wrong on a "consumer" viewing device, either picture or audio. So a lot of times, I will put a consumer monitor into the edit bay to make sure things look and sound like they should.

 

I support around 15 post production facilities around Los Angeles and these are the kind of bay's I build. They're long-lasting, very robust bay's that will do pretty much anything for post production. In terms of pricing, you'll find a real high power bay will run you in the 5 - 6k range with everything from tower to speakers. Sounds like a lot of money, and probably too much for you right now, but you can skimp with the hackintosh, probably drop that price in half... but you won't get the kind of speed of a real double processor system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

 

Macbooks are great, but they are also very expensive. In fact, you can build pretty much any PC of equal power to a mac for 1/3 the price. PC Laptops are about the same price as the Macbooks, but I'd still steer clear of editing on a small laptop screen. To make anything look really good you need a full editing desktop with at least 2 monitors. This is even more true if you regularly do color correction.

 

I remember when I built my PC, and similar spec'ed Mac Pro was $6,000.... I built mine for $1,300.

 

PS) Resolve does a 'temporary film screen' option you can use if you're editing and color grading on one screen. Clicking on it will launch a full-screen preview that covers your entire interface until you exit. Very intrusive in my opinion, and doesn't allow you make any changes while watching it.

 

Yeah, I've been building my own systems since the early 90s. I interned for Rob Nilsson a few years back when I was trying to bust back in the industry, and his editing suite is strictly Mac stuff that was top of the line at the time. Nice quiet machines, but super expensive.

 

Meanwhile I've still got an old 14 year old gaming rig that I've tricked out numerous times that I still fire up every now and then. Right now I'm working from one of HP's latest laptops (low price end .. a couple hundred, with a RAM upgrade), and it does almost everything I need at the moment.

 

I've worked at Apple (who hasn't locally?), I learned to code on Apples way back in the 80s, met Jobs and his board members before he passed away, been to the learning center and campus proper ... lots of Apple experience in general. But like my old chem professor used to say, desktops are for people who like to work on cars. Apples are for people who like to have cars.

 

Not a knock against Apple, because they're fine machines, just a bit pricey, and I'm not sure they even run the latest Battlefield. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Not a knock against Apple, because they're fine machines, just a bit pricey, and I'm not sure they even run the latest Battlefield. :)

 

In many cases, PC's are much more powerful dollar-for-dollar than a Mac. With Mac, you are paying for the style and culture.

 

It's also true that in many cases Mac's require less human intervention, but that is usually because Mac's are so simple that they don't need teams of people behind them. Apple hardware is specific, and highly regulated by Apple. Everything 'fits' because there is really only one option. With PC's, there are any number of options, which means you not only need to make sure the parts are right, but you'll likely need to deal with 10 different vendors for warranty support, etc.

 

Look at Ryan Connolly's video on film riot about his switch from Apple to PC. He made very valid points.

 

And I have no doubt, Tyler, that Mac's are in use in some post houses... The question is, is George going run a post house? Sounds like he want's a personal editing suite to me. As long as one understands the potential extra work needed for Windows in the long run, there is no reason a Mac should be any better choice than a PC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Satsuki Murashige; I paid a visit to Fry's and Keeble & Schucats the other day, and both have discontinued prosumer and pro video camera sales.

 

 

 

Would Gassers have a C100 on display?

I don't think so. You could try BorrowLenses in San Carlos:

 

BL West Coast HQ

1664 Industrial Road

San Carlos, CA 94070

(844) 853-6737 x3

 

Or Samy's Camera in SF:

 

1090 Bryant St

San Francisco, CA 94103

(415) 621-8400

 

Definitely call before showing up, BL is a rental only outfit. Samy's may have one in the video rental dept. Worse case, you can rent one and try it out before buying. Should be $250/day-ish. The bigger rental houses will only have C300s and up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lensrentals.com rent's a EOS C100 for $157.00 for 4 days / $136 for 2 days + $25 round trip shipping. https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/video/cameras/canon/canon-eos-c100-ef-camcorder

 

I have used them in the past for rentals with good luck. If you don't have rental insurance, I highly recommend taking out the protection plan for what amounts to about $20. They normally don't require insurance for smaller rentals - until you start getting into the expensive camera range.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

I don't think so. You could try BorrowLenses in San Carlos:

 

BL West Coast HQ

1664 Industrial Road

San Carlos, CA 94070

(844) 853-6737 x3

 

Or Samy's Camera in SF:

 

1090 Bryant St

San Francisco, CA 94103

(415) 621-8400

 

Definitely call before showing up, BL is a rental only outfit. Samy's may have one in the video rental dept. Worse case, you can rent one and try it out before buying. Should be $250/day-ish. The bigger rental houses will only have C300s and up.

 

I haven't been to Sammy's in ages, but I'll check him out. I did not know about BL. I'll stop by them as well. Thanks for the references.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

. The question is, is George going run a post house? Sounds like he want's a personal editing suite to me. As long as one understands the potential extra work needed for Windows in the long run, there is no reason a Mac should be any better choice than a PC.

 

Well, it's going to be an adventure. I haven't shot anything worthwhile in years. I've shot some local stuff for a few people here and abouts over the last few years, but there've been long stretches of time between stuff, and I'm on no one's radar for gigs.

 

I'm essentially coming out of cold storage. The last time I touched an editing bay it was for 3/4" tape with a joystick on one of the control panels ... not entirely true. I did some wedding stuff with a guy living near Koit Tower. We did post on his Apple using AfterEffects or something. But that was like a year and a half ago.

 

I still need costumes, props, and work up a shot list from my old treatment.

 

An adventure. I love good adventures ... if the dice roll right :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

In many cases, PC's are much more powerful dollar-for-dollar than a Mac. With Mac, you are paying for the style and culture.

If you buy brand new, yes... you're going to spend more spec to spec on a Mac.

 

If you buy used, spec to spec (same components), the pricing is pretty even.

 

The problem is, a lot of people are scared about used computers, it's as if after a few years they aren't worth anything anymore. The great thing about the old 5,1 Mac Pro is that it's very upgradable. If you want to run a double boot windows/mac machine, no problem. If you want to run the high end graphics cards, no problem. Actually, there isn't a single "problem" outside of certain companies making software for windows only.

 

I'll admit, if I was building a visual effects bay, I'd absolutely build a PC. Why? Because it's all about GPU, so you can save poop loads of money running a single proc 8 core and putting all your money into GPU's for instant preview rendering. Plus, you don't need codec compatibility or fast storage. All of the effects houses I've worked at render to network storage and they're ALL on PC's. Some of them are linux, others are windows. Most of the guys I work with use Maya for 3D modeling and Nuke/C4D for animation. I support many C4D installations on windows and the render farm manager is junk, they always stop working. I've used many render farm management tools as well and none of them are reliable, so most of my clients cloud render.

 

It's also true that in many cases Mac's require less human intervention

You mean zero intervention. My laptop I'm typing this e-mail on is from 2009 and the only things I've ever done to it was put in a decent hard drive and memory, back 5 years ago when I got it. I reckon it's got another 5 years left in'er. Plus it will run all the latest software flawlessly, even though I choose to run an older OS.

 

Look at Ryan Connolly's video on film riot about his switch from Apple to PC. He made very valid points.

Yea, but he has never owned a Mac Pro Tower. I watched his video and he was coming off a very consumer (pice of junk) iMac and went to a real tower. I mean what a night and day difference. This is why most of these youtube guys who "talk" about the film industry as if they know it, are just full of poop. He complains about Apple not letting their clients know about the future of FCPX. But nobody in their right mind would use such a toy to edit with... I know people do, but they're bonkers. Most people use Avid or Premiere today and both companies are very committed to their users. He complains about not being able to playback 4k media on a consumer iMac. No poop genius, what kind of idiot thinks that's a good idea. I mean, talk about the blind leading the blind. It infuriates me people listen to anything he has to say. He's one of those guys that's learning as he goes along. He clearly has little to no experience in production or post production outside of his own projects. Which is a real shame because once you work on real shows, you learn very quickly doing it cheap and lightweight, just to "have" something to show people, may not be the best idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

But like my old chem professor used to say, desktops are for people who like to work on cars. Apples are for people who like to have cars.

Mac's are for people who don't have the time to futz around under the hood.

 

I had a PC for a few years, it was the computer I used for my tuning on my race bike. It never once was on the internet. The drive was new, the machine itself worked great without any problems. I go to turn it on for one of my events all of a sudden it won't load the program I needed. I looked for help everywhere and nobody online could figure out the problem. I tried for days to make it work, it just didn't work. New operating system, new install of the program, it didn't matter... so I shelved it and bought another one. The 2nd one worked for three days and went blue screen of death. I then ran it over with my van and threw it into the nearest dumpster. There was NOTHING wrong with it, all the microsoft programs worked flawlessly, yet the two things I needed it to do, just didn't work. To me, that's not a computer... and that's what EVERY SINGLE windows system I've ever worked on has been like and I use to use them every day for years.

 

I'm brought into update mac's all the time and they always ask me to fix some windows box. They're the most infuriating pieces of poop ever made. I love servicing products which are well made and when you service them, they work forever. I don't like servicing garbage, stuff that is junk from day one and no matter how much you polish it, the poop will always work like crap.

 

Windows is an infection upon the computing world and ONLY exists due to its lower cost. Apple wouldn't ever go that low in their quality of hardware or software.

 

I'm a Ducati, KTM, BMW owner as well. So I appreciate quality and will spend the extra money to get the best. Why? Because I use to race my Ducati's and KTM's, and I beat the living crap out of my BMW's (when I had them) on the track and in the canyons. I beat the crap out of my Mac's as well, they're in service almost 27/7 rendering, editing and making posts on this forum. I guess if you don't use computers every day of your life, most of the time, none of this matters. But as MY dad always said, "buy junk, get junk results" AMEN is that true!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Wow, sorry to hear that Tyler. You do have to watch out for fly by night component dealers. I typically use a Seagate, Maxtor or just an IBM for my HDs (not sure if IBM still makes HDs anymore, the ones I have by them still work). RAM was always the most temperamental or iffy thing that could botch a system, so I usually went with a manufacturer that had survived the 90s and was still in business. TYAN, IBM (of course), and a few others for mother boards. Anyone else was just trying to cash in on the tech wave. You still see no-name brands pop up then fade out of existence.

 

Thinking here ... I've never had a PC with a problem that just wasn't due to dust or some issue caused by it just being around too long. I've never bought a DELL, Gateway or whatever. I've always built my own systems since my first upgrade from my old 386 dinosaur.

 

It wasn't an easy path ... it was all self taught, but I've saved tends of thousands by building my own systems, if not more, and I've never had any kind of aggravation whatsoever save for a dirty drive or two.

 

Rob's Macs were decent machines. Easy to work with, but his films required these massive separate hard drives that he had stacked up on top of one another. He's probably switched over since, but it kind of turned me off to Apple. All I wanted to do was just upload the footage, tinker with it, pump out a finished product, then make dupes of it. I didn't see the need to keep every last piece of raw footage on a hard drive. But that's just my personal feeling on the matter.

 

I don't know ... maybe I'm taking nonsense here.

 

Anyway, I need to get a camera with a ninja, and build a new desktop. Not to mentions props, costumes and talent.

 

Thanks all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Heh, I'll take your word for it. I guess I've just been lucky. I've never been burned or steered wrong by anyone. Most of the companies that made vid cards, network cards, MBs, HDs and everything else were local. So if you had a beef you could always drive over to Hercules or TYAN or whoever and bitch in person. A few have moved out, so maybe things have changed some.

 

One of the reasons I never moved to LA (other than the fact that I can't stand the goddamn place) was the fact that computer technology was evolving, and if I could transmit my projects to the masses over phone lines or fiber optic cables, and take advantage of the superior locations here in the Bay Area, then why on Earth would any indy film maker move to LA? It made no sense, unless you had aspirations to "make it big" and shoot bigger projects by way of the studio system.

 

Just my take.

 

I'll probably fall flat on my face with this project, but hey, it'll be a learning experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Without making this thread into a computer-focused Mac v. PC debate, I'll just close that portion with a few points of my own:

 

1. I have never had any problem with a PC or Windows, and I have been using them since I was 9. Never once have I had a virus, and only once did hardware fail on me - and that was a hard drive that was around 5 years old and had seen very heavy read/write use. Other than that, I have never needed to do any real repairs to my PC's over the years. I hear some people that HAVE had problems, and I don't doubt their experiences. However, I think many of the people who have a lot of trouble use pre-built computer systems from manufacturers like HP and Dell, which while being okay, are generally sourced with the cheapest Chinese parts possible. The most reliable way to build a PC is to build it yourself using top-of-the-line parts that have good, long warranties (which is still 1/2 the press or less of a NEW Mac). Of course, it also helps if you know a thing or two about PC repair, as well as know troubleshooting tips for Windows. Windows is a tad bit more finicky than Mac (I own a Macbook Pro as well so I know most systems), and sometimes you can run into what I call a 'windows black hole' in which you need to be somewhat experienced with the OS and troubleshooting to bring it out of it.

 

2. I use my PC system for more than just editing, I use it for most everyday tasks's where I don't use my Macbook, manage my three businesses I own, and I play all my games on it (since it's basically a supped up gaming PC). Mac just does not have the same software and game support as Windows, so that would be a killer for me right there. In my opinion, Mac may be fine if your goal is for 'general computing' or for very task-oriented things like a dedicated editing bay with one or two programs that are primary used and are available on Mac. My problem with Mac's begin when you start to need them for a LOT of different purposes, such as web design, graphics, VFX, or even general business management (the program used by my businesses for financial management is not available on Mac, therefore I'd need to switch all company computers to mac to really make it work).

 

3. As Tyler pointed out, VFX work. VFX is mostly about GPU's now. Pretty much every major VFX package is heavily GPU-dependent. If you're planning on doing any effects work other than After Effects (like Fusion, or even using Video Copilots Element 3d within after effects), you're going to find that a PC can generally be beefed up in the CPU department more than a Mac. My understanding of a new Mac is that you can only have them custom built to a certain extent, and I'm not sure what the process would be to start swapping out components once you buy it, and how it might void your warranty.

 

Conclusion: A lot of it depends on if you're a Mac or PC guy, and for the sake of turning this thread into a flame war over the two, I'll just say that either one can mostly be used to fulfill your needs. I'm a PC guy at heart, and as such have no use for a Mac specifically most of the time (even though I own one). For some people, it might likely be the opposite. It is true that PC and Windows tends to have a deeper learning curve than Mac does (which is true of all of Apple's stuff - sort-of plug-and-play and plug-and-forget-it mentality). However, if you're comfortable working with PC and Windows, and know the in's and out's of the system, and you're not running a post house where you might need 10 or 20 PC's (which will most certainly require a network administrator at minimum), I see little reason for one guy to need a Mac over a PC, unless it's just a preference thing.

 

PS) with the newer versions of Windows, much of the older sayings about PC's being difficult are no longer valid. What once might have been true, I can tell you that Windows 10 (and even 8/8.1) are as user friendly as Mac OS is. And with the higher quality of part, PC fails are relatively uncommon (see the fail of the PC repair industry, which was once a major industry).

Edited by Landon D. Parks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...