A potential convert to Mac needs help

[Chris Hurd]

<< Is there any solution to the 'REAL TIME PROBLEM' with Mac? >>

Denis, please don't put words in my mouth; I never stated that this was a "problem." For example, you can't get four-wheel drive on a Porsche Boxster. That doesn't mean it has a "four wheel drive problem."

For some folks, rendering is an issue; for others it isn't. If you don't mind rendering then a Mac solution is perfectly acceptable, and there's nothing to "fix." Hope this helps,

[Jeff Donald]

Too bad about the Porshe 4 WD thing. I bet it would be real popular in Texas.

Jeff

[Chris Hurd]

Popular only if you can strap a trophy buck across the hood.

;-)

[Jeff Farris]

Porsche is introducing an SUV next year.

[Chris Hurd]

And Macs might be real-time by then.

;-)

[Martin Munthe]

For the price of a realtime DV card for the PC you get an uncompressed D1 real time card for the Mac. It's the IgniterRT from www.auroravideosys.com.

Why pay top dollars for 5:1 compression real time when you can get it 1:1 compression real time? AND any offline Mjpeg-A setting? And with full support for the excellent 3-way color corrector in FCP3.

No way I'll pay for real time hardware based on super destructive DV codecs when I can get it uncompressed on the Mac using FCP3 for the same price.

There is however one downside. If you are in a hurry and need to do it in OSX you can't. Aurora has not yet released their OSX driver (only the codec). But they will do it soon.

[Denis Basic]

Guys, thanks a lot for your impact. In the end the Mac guys seem to have hit me harder with their arguments and I am getting more and more convinced that I should convert to Mac-ism.

Initially I opened two threads, one in this, i.e. Mac Forum, and the other one in the PC forum, asking both of the sides for arguments. As old Romans would say: "Audiatur et altera pars." Chris, sorry for opening two threads, but I assumed that PC people do not necessarily sneak into Mac pages and vice versa.

I also owe to you Chris an apology for putting the word "PROBLEM" in your mouth. We were speaking about the DISADVANTAGES of the Mac. You also sometimes refer to the need for rendering on the Mac as an "ISSUE". Well, for me, as a non-native speaker of English, an ISSUE is a synonym for "PROBLEM". Since every DISADVANTAGE creates PROBLEMS, and PROBLEMS are widely considered DISADVANTAGES, these two latter terms semantically overlap a great deal, too. Now you can understand my rationale. But, maybe I am not right. In any case, please, do not mind, for, as said, I am not a native speaker of English.

Now I will skip further semantic discussions and jokes about Porsche to save some space on our server. Thanks again to all of you on very prompt and factual help. And if you do not mind, guys, here is

A NEW QUESTION:

1. Would the Dual 1-GHz Mac (2x80 GB hard drives and 1.5 GB SDRAM) with FCP be able to smoothly process a 2-hour digital feature movie? Has anybody tried to do such a long project on a Dual Gig?

Thanks a lot,

[Ken Tanaka]

You shouldn't use your primary 80Gb drive for capturing and editing whatsoever.

With high-cap drive prices so low I would get a 120Gb IBM DeskStar (or the Western Digital equivalent) as the second ATA drive. You should be fine with nearly any project with such a drive.

Now just go buy the thing! ;-)

Have fun.

[Denis Basic]

Thanks Ken,

As to the purchase I am waiting for Wednesday and the Expo. As to the drives, let me ask you a few very ignorant questions:

1. The Ultimate Dual Gig Mac comes with two 80 GB ATA drives. Is not that enough?
2. Or should I ask the store to make a special order for me and put in some other drives? Which one(s)?
3. Or should I buy a Dual Gig Mac with only one 80 GB ATA drive and buy an external drive? Which one? The 120 GB one?

Besides editing and DVD burning, if possible, I would like to be able to use my Mac for the Internet, to play music and for Word Processing. That's it.

Please, give me your advice. :-)

Thanks,

[Ken Tanaka]

I wasn't aware that Apple was shipping dual 80's in the new units.

My suggestion is to just get a single 80Gb drive from Apple then add a 120Gb after it arrives. It's a very simple maneuver. (If you're used to the pain and agony of adding drives to Windows PC's you're in for a very pleasent surprise.) Plus, I'd bet that Apple would effectively charge you close to, or more than, the cost of a DeskStar 120 for adding the 80Gb. You'll never regret the effort, particularly if you're getting the Mac for editing large projects.

[Jeff Donald]

Hi,

I agree with Ken. Get the biggest 7200 RPM drive you can. I like the new Western Digital 120Gb with the 8Mb cache. CompUSA has them on sale this week for $149 after rebates. It's a steal. DV takes up about 13Gb per hour. So, 120Gb is not quite 10 hours of media. How many hours of tape will you shoot to produce the two hour feature? If more than 10 hours you'll need another drive. Might just as well get it now and install them both at the same time. Less hassle over all. If you don't think you'll shoot that much or if money is really tight you can use the media management tools to delete the footage your not going to need. FCP3 is very advanced in this reguard.

The Mac will come with iTunes for music listening and it can also burn CD's. It will also come with Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator for browsing the net. As far as word processing I suggest Microsoft Office. The new version has Quartz Rendering enabled and it is truly a beautiful screen. You've probably used Office on the PC and everything is pretty similar on the Mac. A few different keyboard short cuts and that's about it.

Now, about that 4WD Porsche . . .

Jeff

[Martin Munthe]

Denis,

"1. Would the Dual 1-GHz Mac (2x80 GB hard drives and 1.5 GB SDRAM) with FCP be able to smoothly process a 2-hour digital feature movie? Has anybody tried to do such a long project on a Dual Gig?"

I've edited two feature films and 20 music videos on 35mm/16mm origination using DV/FireWire on the old gray G3 266MHz tower model (back in '97-'98). No problem at all. In those days I had to have the material on external SCSI drives but internal IDEs a perfectly capaple of handling DV these days. I used EditDV and FilmLogic (CinemaTools) on that old station. NLEs have come a long way since then. I'm currently editing three new features (2h lenght) on a dual 450 using FCP 3. I have one 74GB IDE mounted internally as well as a IDE RAID0 card with 150GB for doing uncompressed work using the Igniter. I offline the feature projects in 20:1 compression. Using DV in this set up is no problem at all.

[Jeff Donald]

The newer G4's ship with 7200rpm drives. The lower end iMacs and eMac use 5400rpm drives to the best of my knowledge. It's a price point thing. No new G4 towers today (Macworld). I really didn't expect one. Early fall might see a little faster G4. I don't expect any big changes til Macworld SF next year. The disapointment is that OS X 10.2 is going to cost $129. I think originally it was going to just be a N/C upgrade. But sales being what they are in computers this year and OS's having high profit margins, hence the need for the charge.

[Joe Redifer]

I agree about the price of Mac OS X Jaguar (or "Jagwire" as Steve Jobs pronounced it). It does look to have some good features, but it didn't blow me away. I'll just hold off and get it whenever it comes with the new Macs.

Was it just me, or did Apple's Streaming Server have major problems? It played fine through about 70% of the show, and then disappeared for the last half hour or so.

Anyway, I'm still waiting for new Macs with DDR RAM and some enhanced features... or the price to go down on the current models!

[Rik Sanchez]

Yeah, I was seeing the stream and just after he talked about iCal it just froze and I couldn't log on again, even the apple website was not loading. some friends of mine have been putting off getting another G4 in the hopes of getting the "G5", they'll be bummed out to have to wait till next year when it will probably come out.

with the Jaguar OS upgrade, if you buy any new mac or even the 14 inch iBook, will it come with Jaguar? I want to pick up an iBook, not enough saved up for a Ti laptop, I figure to buy what I need now instead of waiting longer to get what I want and in the meantime not being able to be mobile just because I wanted the big Ti Laptop but didn't have the money for it.

that's the situation now, do you guys get a dual 1 gig G4 now and start working right away or wait longer to get the latest and fastest. But of course if you buy one now, Apple will soon announce the new G5's, when I got my G4, several months later I could have gotten a faster one for the same price. is that considered one of Murphy's laws.