Mac or PC?

[Tommy James]

So what computer platform is better for editing HDV? Is it Apple or Microsoft. Oh by the way I don't own stock in either corporation so a lively debate will not offend me. There seems to be an urban legend that the Apple computer is better for video editing.

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Tommy James

There seems to be an urban legend that the Apple computer is better for video editing.

It's only an urban legend to those who haven't tried both and made their own decision about the matter.

[Brian Duke]

Originally Posted by Nate Weaver

It's only an urban legend to those who haven't tried both and made their own decision about the matter.

Persoanlly I couldn't work on a PC. What is your choice Nate?

[Jiri Bakala]

Been there (PC) for years...sadly. Then, a year and a half ago switched everything to Mac. Now, me happy...:-)
Very happy, that is...:-)

[Brian Duke]

Originally Posted by Jiri Bakala

Been there (PC) for years...sadly. Then, a year and a half ago switched everything to Mac. Now, me happy...:-)
Very happy, that is...:-)

Me always been very happy.. EXTREMELY HAPPY that is.. Been a mac user for 13 years. tries PC once and I almost killed myself hehe

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Nate Weaver

It's only an urban legend to those who haven't tried both and made their own decision about the matter.

I have both and have had for about 5 years. Frankly, I can't understand the bias toward either. And, it is bias because for practical purposes there is no difference.

OS X -- I like because I know UNIX and feel comfortable knowing where everything is stored. I haven't used the shell in several years, but could if I had to. Clearly it is better looking -- which counts -- but IMHO far more clumsy than OS 9. OS 9 looks like it was designed as a whole by one talented person, while OS X feels likea series of false starts. If you read MacFixit you'll See Apple has had serious problems with OS and appplication bugs for over a year. I still haven't upgraded to Tiger and won't until 10.4.5.

XP -- very realiable compared to OS X. Looks like kid's toy. The fact each window has a Menu bar is critical with new large high rez screen(s). Although Networking stuff is all over the place and not EZ to set-up or fix -- it is far more robust than that from OS X. Very, very fast!

Early this year I bought a very hot Dell laptop and I just placed an order for an iBook. Neither my wife and I care which system we use. And folks getting Office documents have no idea which machine they came from. Neither do we.

Really the choice comes down to which applications you want. If you go OS X there is no only one HDV NLE. But, when you look at performance, and functionality (24p and 24F support), Premiere Pro with AspectHD is the only real choice on the PC.

After Effects and Photoshop and Office are on both as is FireFox.

So I'd start looking at the application and let it determine the machine.

[Tim Dashwood]

My bias is towards Mac simply because I've used both platforms with Avids for many years in many different post facilities and I've logged the most downtime hours with PC - regardless of NT, 2000 or XP. Also, Mac OS X is so easy to network and share media for "non-IT" guys, and there are no spyware/viruses to worry about.

When you have a client in the suite waiting for his master tape so he can send it out by courier at 5PM, and you get a "fatal error" that you need the facility IT guy to fix, it just doesn't make good business sense to stick with PC. (and its embarrassing)

When it comes to reliability, IMHO a Mac with FCP can't be beat. Apple makes the hardware and software so there are no unknown 3rd party variables or conflicts for tech support. (unless you have a Blackmagic or Kona card - but even then, those products are developed with close support from Apple.)

Plus, Apple hardware just plain looks cool in any edit suite!


Note however, that as of November 2005, Aspect HD does seem to be the best "working" solution for capturing 720P24 HDV from the HD100. This is likely to change soon.

[Aaron Koolen]

Been editing on PC for about 3 years, using and programming PC's for, maybe 9 or 10. Got a Mac Mini about 9 months ago, yesterday bought a PowerMac and am selling the PC.

I've found XP to be pretty stable compared to previous versions. I think OSX is a little less so - close call - *BUT*, if an OSX application goes down, it usually doesn't take my OS with it. XP on the otherhand can cause everything to just die a horrible death.

I find OSX much slicker - Spotlight is nice. Integration of Keychain with all the apps. Expose is smooth and useful. Machine looks much nicer. The whole experience IMO is smoother, less cluttered and more relaxing - and I do think those things matter.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Was a Mac user and PC user. Once Windows 95 came out I never looked back to Mac again for personal use. I'm in constant contact with Windows and OS9/OSX.

My personal choice is XP for speed and my NLE is Liquid for rock solid stability.

[Laurence Kingston]

I suppose I'm one of the few who went from a Mac to a PC for video editing. That probably says more for my feelings about Vegas vs FCP than it does about either PC platform though (I love Vegas but never could really figure out FCP).

[Kevin Shaw]

I used Macs for years and liked them, but switched to PCs about the time I started doing video editing and haven't looked back. (I tried FCP in version 3 and didn't see anything unique enough about it to get my attention.) As far as HDV in particular is concerned, the PC platform was ahead of Macs until FCP5 came out, but that seems to have leveled the playing field. And if you have any thoughts of working with footage from the Panasonic HVX200 you'll probably get better support for that in FCP than most PC-based editing applications, so that's a plus. But overall it's pretty much a draw as far as I'm concerned, and I like the fact that PCs still give you a wider choice of hardware and software at reasonable prices. (Insert standard Mac versus PC pricing discussion here...)

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

I tried FCP in version 3

Version 3 was a MacOS 9 application that was adapted to run under OSX. FCP 4 brought native OS X support that took advantage of multiple processors and sped performance considerably. They introduced "realtime extreme" in FCP 4 which was a huge improvement over FCP 3 which had to render virtually everything and couldn't send realtime previews over firewire.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

Version 3 was a MacOS 9 application that was adapted to run under OSX. FCP 4 brought native OS X support that took advantage of multiple processors and sped performance considerably. They introduced "realtime extreme" in FCP 4 which was a huge improvement over FCP 3 which had to render virtually everything and couldn't send realtime previews over firewire.

Interesting, but I've got realtime DV previews over firewire on my PC laptop, so no big deal there. Now the question is who will have the fastest production time from an HDV timeline to a finished high-definition DVD, once we know for sure how we're going to make those? Sounds like Apple may be a step ahead there as far as H.264 encoding and HD DVD setup is concerned, but they're lagging on support for the currently more useful Windows Media format. (Insert standard H.264 versus Windows Media discussion here...)

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

Interesting, but I've got realtime DV previews over firewire on my PC laptop, so no big deal there. Now the question is who will have the fastest production time from an HDV timeline to a finished high-definition DVD, once we know for sure how we're going to make those? Sounds like Apple may be a step ahead there as far as H.264 encoding and HD DVD setup is concerned, but they're lagging on support for the currently more useful Windows Media format. (Insert standard H.264 versus Windows Media discussion here...)

That will be Liquid because the DVD authoring is done right from the Liquid timeline and encoded 1:1. This is why I can edit HDV natively now and encode directly to SD DVD from an HDV timeline. What a time saver and my EDL and timeline can stay in place waiting for HD delivery.

It's all good, but Liquid is the fastest of all NLE's from capture to edit to output merely because it's all done within the same app.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

It's all good, but Liquid is the fastest of all NLE's from capture to edit to output merely because it's all done within the same app.

Stephen: what's your editing performance like with HDV and what are your editing computer specs? Does Liquid still grind away with "background rendering" instead of letting you see your changes right away? And does it still litter your hard drive with hundreds of obscurely named files, or have they simplified that process? I did one project with Liquid a couple of years ago and haven't touched it since; maybe I'll take another look at the latest demo.