PC/Mac Book Pro
 

I am considering going from PC to Mac.

I currently have a HP PC with 3ghz Pentium 4, 2 gb ram, NVidia GeForce FX5200 video Card, dual monitors, etc.

I am looking for something to render After Effects a lot quicker, and I plan to shoot HDV soon...I need to upgrade machines.

Question 1: Will a Macbook pro do the job? Does it need to be upgraded to do it well? How does this compare to say, Core 2 Quad Processor on a PC?

Question 2: I have a lot of software I don't want to have to rebuy for a Mac. Can I use it in Bootcamp in Leopard OS, and will it run just as efficient?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

While I love my Mac... the Macbook Pro will never be able to compete with a desktop that has equal CPU power... however the Macbook Pro will go places the desktop can only dream of...

I have a Macbook since it needs to be with me when I film, I would love a quadcore desktop to do the dirty work, but it is not in my budget.

You'll do well in what-ever choice you make by maximizing RAM, and using the largest, fastest drive you can afford, 7200rpm in you notebook and 10,000rpm in your desktop (or better if you can find it) and upgrading your graphics card on the desktop...

running Windows via bootcamp on a Mac is great, and in many cases runs better than on PC hardware (go figure)

You really need to define your needs, before you choose a computer.

I needed and inexpensive, powerful travel companion... equipped with firewire.
The Macbook was the answer, 2.4Ghz CPU 4GB RAM 320GB 7200rpm HD. The RAM and HD upgrades I did myself, since they are user serviceable... and cheaper that having it done at time of purchase from Apple;-) (BTW the specs are the same when I run VISTA via Bootcamp, but I don't do video with Windows)

The disk speed change made a big difference for me, the DV/HDV is all about moving data... faster drive, faster data movement... even fast drives cannot really keep up with the power of our modern CPU's...

Also using a Macbook Pro-- 15 inch. No problem editing HD, and I don't miss having a desktop. I use the MacBook on a desk most of the time. I can't speak to after effects because I don't know how well (or crappy) adobe codes that stuff.

When you boot into windows using bootcamp, you're fully running windows and should have good performance (other than the fact that you're running windows.)

Macs are generally great machines for multimedia work, so you should do fine getting a MacBook Pro. (But do get Pro- you'll want to talk to your external drives using FW800.)

Ryan... I think Jon is right as far as he goes, but I'd go farther. Video editing/creation is about processing data. So while fast drives are critical, when it comes to working with complex codecs like HDV, the processor speed is key. A fast CPU/GPU is much more important for complex After Effects projects.

Although the portability of a laptop is great, I would never consider one as a primary editing/compositing machine. By their nature, they just won't be fast enough.

I cannot comment on the Mac or PC question as I haven't put my hands on a Mac in almost two decades.

The new 17" model sounds very nice, if you can afford it! See: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/non-linea...ream-edit.html

Ryan,

Your question should be do you want a laptop or a desktop configuration? Laptops of any manufacturer can't compare to the raw computing power or speed of a desktop of similar generation. However current-model laptops are amazingly fast.

Although I'm a Mac user and have been for years if you're already PC-based it may not be worth switching over. The new MacBook Pro 17" inch is aesthetically pleasing but lacks a lot of real-world computing punch.

When you look at bang for the buck with new MBP 17" inch falls short. Take a look at the Lenovo W700 series; for the same amount of money the Lenovo gives you (2) internal HDD's that can be put in a RAID-0, it has (2) discrete busses for FW and USB and it has a built-in color calibrator for the massive screen. However, when you price out options for that beast you're also into the realm of a nice desktop.

Apple's biggest success and their claim to fame isn't their hardware offerings (from a configuration standpoint only) it's the OS. Nothing else on the planet comes close to it's usability, stability and overall value of OSX, period.

If you want a machine that will crunch AE data quickly then get a desktop, PC or Mac really doesn't matter these days; if you know how to setup and maintain either then you can have a reliable system. If you want near-desktop performance get the W700. If you want the newest Mac available look into the 17" MBP.

Being the peacemaker I am, I offer the following solution; PC hardware that runs MAC for a fraction of the cost:

Psystar's Online Store - Open Computing Solutions featuring Mac OS X Leopard, Windows and Linux

Of course, you may get left out in the cold when Apple writes code around this threat, but for now, its the cheapest way to get a scorching hot PC....Hackintosh for about 1/4 the price of a MAC.

Had to delete several posts because of platform war comments and the responses to them. It would be prudent for some of our newer members to actually READ THE @#$# TOS.

We don't do political, we don't do platform wars, we don't do flames. We're not like all those other troll-filled sites. But we can lose patience with TOS violations after a while.