A potential convert to Mac needs help
 

Dear all,

For several months now I have been considering to "convert" from PC to Mac, because of some serious video editing with which I plan to get involved. Of course, I have been waiting with my purchase, because I wanted to see if there would be any price reductions and new offers during and after the NY Mac Expo.

Hence, I have been observing and a little bit testing the Dual 1Ghz PowerMac. I have been impressed with the machine so far. I also plan to get a 23" cinema display as well as FCP and DVD Studio Pro in addition to Mac Office.

However, before doing any purchase I want to be sure that I am doing the right thing. That is why I have a few questions for Mac owners. Here we go:

1. Are you, as a present owner or connoisseur of a Dual 1-Ghz PowerMac, satisfied with its performance in general and especially using FCP and DVD Studio Pro?

2. Or would you rather recommend a totally different machine and/or even software?

Most important question:

3. Generally speaking, from your own experience, what are the advantages and what are the disadvantages of a Mac in comparison with a PC in regard to non-linear video editing.

In advance, thanks a lot for your time and answer.

With best regards,

I have used Macs for NLE since 1993. First with a series of Avid Media Composers, then in 2000 I switched to FCP and DVDSP. I currently use a G4 450MHz dual processor with 2 monitors, Mac OS X, FCP 3.02, DVDSP 1.5 and the assortment of AE, Photoshop, etc. For me, and the way I edit, Macs are the best tools for the job. I know business associates with the dual 1 gig and the machine is blazingly fast. More than enough speed for NLE editing.

The advantages of a Mac over a PC is that it works right out of the box. True plug and play. No tweaking, no fining tuning, no setting this BIOS etc. No conflicts, few if any problems. OS X is extremly stable. I can't stress that enough. Most PC users here talk about dedicating a PC just to editing. On the other hand while editing I'm hooked to the net, listening to MP3 on iTunes, and have After Effects and Photoshop open doing compositing etc. all at the same time. When I have long scenes to render in AE I turn it on and let it run all night. The same with multiplexing a DVD. Your rendering times would be considerably shorter with a Dual 1 gig.

Disadvantages to a Mac are higher initial costs. But if you end up owning two PC's (1 for games, net, business stuff, 1 for NLE) how cost effective is that? The lack of real time effects is a mute point for film makers or documentary work. Weddings videographers may need more glitzy effects than a simple dissolve or wipe. The Mac will have to render before output. Many effects can be previewed in Real Time. The next version of FCP will address this issue to keep pace with Avid DV express 3.5

Macworld starts Monday, but i don't expect any higher G4's till later this year.

I'm ending this now (I'm in the middle if a huge lightning storm) and I'll post back in a short while.

Jeff

The *only* additional drawback I can think of to editing DV on a Mac is that there's no real-time output to DV. You still have to render the entire project. On the PC side, you have the Canopus DV Storm and Matrox RTX100 which provide real-time output to DV, no rendering. However, having to render your final output to DV on a Mac is really not *that* big of a deal to many people. Just an FYI.

Whew, lightning passed and no direct hits. The only other addition about rendering is color correction. Color corrections need to be rendered also. There is software that will do direct output to NTSC monitor for previewing in realtime in AE. It doesn't run is OS X yet. So, try to shoot it right or expect to have to render. But, I think this will change in the next version, due probably end of this year or early next.

Jeff

Denis,
As an owner of the h-w & s-w that you're contemplating here are my responses to your specific questions.

#1: Yes, absolutely joy-joy happy-happy.

#2: No. There are, as Chris noted, excellent PC-based nle configurations. But due largely to the Windows driver and interrupt architecture they tend to be susceptible to s-w breakdowns if new apps are added to the PC.

#3: As Jeff noted, the Mac-based solution just works out of the box. And keeps working. Overall the Mac platform became even more solid when OS X (a Unix core with an Apple u.i.) came along.

The issue concerning real-time rendering is not really much of an issue. Many of the most common effects used in FCP do render in real-time on fast G4's. Color correction and other non-r.t. effects render fast enough to avoid much distration (generally sip-of-coffee fast ;-> ) on the dual 1Ghz G4.

As the Nike folks say, "Just do it"! You really will not regret it.

AUDIO IN
 

Guys, thank you so much for your great IN-puts and IN-sights. Well, at this note, I have another "IN" question.

What about AUDIO IN PLUG on the sound card for the Dual 1 GHz?

In one of the discussions here somebody complained that the "new Quicksilver Macs don't have an AUDIO IN plug on the sound card.... 400MHz has one... 933 MHz doesn't have it..."

What should I do to get an audio input on my new computer? How much will it cost me to get a decent card, which produces a decent (DVD) quality sound without any annoying "hiss"?

Thanks again,

If your doing DV the audio will follow video via firewire. If not, there is an analog connection in the rear. Digital inputs require third party adapters. Most of the more reasonably priced units are USB. There are 2 USB controllers so full bandwidth can be devoted to audio, suitable for 48KHz, 24 bit audio. Audio may get some changes in the next generation G4's, but don't expect them til later this year or early next.

Jeff

Correction:
Indeed, there is NO analog microphone jack on the dual 1Ghz Quicksilver. For some very strange reason Apple eliminated this facility, favoring USB-based microphones. I have a Create Labs Soundblaster Live Mac board but frankly, contrary to Apple's site claims, CL has not supported the board well on the Mac (no OS X). There are several MIDI-oriented boards available. But this represents perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the QS Mac in my opinion.

Very sorry, mistook headphone/lineout jack for line in. The last series with analog audio in was discontinued in January 2001.

Jeff

a possible alternative to the audio in plug ?
 

Thanks again Jeff and Ken,

Your advices are very important for me, because I will have to import some extra audio in my very first project. I highly appreciate your help.

(A few more questions:)

1. So, what should I do? Wait for the next generation of G4s or buy the present Dual 1-GHz and work around the problem using USB ports?

<<Jeff: There are 2 USB controllers so full bandwidth can be devoted to audio, suitable for 48KHz, 24 bit audio.>>

2. Excuse my ignorance, but Jeff, would these technical specifications guarantee a good sound like the one we get from good DVDs?

Another idea just came to my mind. Namely, I would have to superimpose some narratives over a short movie I plan to make. Hence,

3. Do you think that I would get a good quality sound if I would just separately record the narratives on my XL-1s, then export them to my computer as a video file via firewire, and then add them to the film after cropping the pictures?

This is based on the philosophy: "Use what you have!"

Thanks a lot for your help,

Well, I'll take a swing at your follow-ups.

1. No, I don't think you should wait. For $35 the Griffin iMic USB audio connector (mentioned elsewhere here) is certainly worth a look if you want to connect a good mic to your Mac for voice-overs. (see: http://www.griffintechnology.com/audio/imic_main.html).

2. I'll let Jeff respond to this, but "guarantee" is not a concept I would embrace. The quality of your sound will depend on many factors, only one of which is the signal transport.

3. Recording voice-overs using your camera is actually a very good idea and one which I most often use. It helps to ensure some audio consistency with other audio recorded with your footage. It also can be easier to get cleaner sound since you can position your mic away from your computer's noisy fan. I generally watch the playback of the sequence on a studio monitor (away from the computer) and record my voice-overs on a GL-1 with a separate mic. I turn the lens toward a slate page showing the scene and voice take reference so that I can organize the voice-over clips after importing it into FCP. Lastly, it lets me store the voice-overs on tape with the video footage for later reconstruction if needed.

Many people set up ad-hoc portable sound booths for this work by using part of a cardboard box lined with acoustical foam for isolation. Easy, inexpensive and very effective. Plus, if designed thoughtfully, it can be folded and easily stored when not in use.

DVD audio must be encoded into Dolby Digital AC-3 before recording, and that is a far cry from uncompressed 48khz 16 bit audio (even though Dolby Digital IS 48k 16-bit). So yes, 48Khz 16-bit audio would be plenty fine. I think you can encode a DVD with linear stereo tracks and not Dolby Digital, but I have always favored the 6-channel ability of Dolby Digital.

Real Time Editing
 

Thank you very much guys for your advices. I really appreciate your time spent in preparing your comments.

From AUDIO IN PLUG I would divert now our discussion toward the "REAL TIME". In my other thread Chris Hurd told me that:

<<With a PC and a good editing card like the Canopus DVStorm, you have something the Mac can't do, which is full real-time performance... color correction, multiple filters, multiple title overlays, output to DV... all without rendering.>>

1. What do you think of this statement? Is there any solution to the 'REAL TIME PROBLEM' with Mac?

I did some research as to this topic and found the following:

"Matrox RTMAC-INT Video Card $599.00 A Matrox RTMac in your Apple Power Mac G4 lets you work with three layers of video and graphics in real time, and instantly create more broadcast-quality effects than you could with just software alone. On RTMac, push, swap, split and other slide transitions happen in real time."

Source:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/91/wo/7zUCD1ag57mjSeZjb83/0.3.0.3.30.77.1.1

2. What do you think of the RTMac card? How does it work with FCP3?

Again thanks a lot for you answers,

There is no point to wait for the next generation of G4's. Apple by design has gone away from audio input via analog connections. They no longer have floppy drives, either. Apple provides two means of audio input, USB and FireWire. Both are well supported by leaders in the audio field, Digidesigns and MOTU. Not to mention that within the past two weeks Apple purchased eMagic, another leading audio company. This will insure the Mac's leadership in audio production.

DVD Studio Pro contains A-Pack, software encoding to create Dolby Digital Audio tracks. Hardware/software is also available from the above companys to also do Dolby Digital audio. A-Pack software is Dolby certified and produces goood quality audio for DVD use.

The XL1 works fine for recording voice over work. If your concerned about using the XL1 a good alternative is the USB Pre from Sound Devices http://www.sounddevices.com/index.html It may be just what your looking for, combining analog to digital both in and out of the computer. It gives you headphone monitoring, phantom power and two inputs accept mic, line or tape level. I use one of there products, MM-1, and will say that I am extremly pleased with its performence.

I do not feel that the lack of Real Time effects to be a problem. I have edited on many different systems over the years. My style of editing has adapted to the lack of real time effects. The "necessity" of real time effects will depend more on your style of editing and the content your editing. Wedding videographers and industrial video producers need more of the glitz of real time effects. I know how a disolve or simple wipe will look. FCP3 will even preview some effects in real time. But before it can go to tape the effects will need to be rendered. On a recent 30 minute project which took about 50 hours to edit, the rendering time for the complete project was less than an hour.

Could I have edited the project in less time on another platform or using different software? My answer is reservidly, no, except for an Avid Composer or Symphony. When I edit on PC's for clients I allow extra time for the inevitable freeze and loss of time to reboot the system and see what we will have to rebuild that wasn't saved. The hour to render effects is more than made up by the overall stability of the Mac. This comment I'm sure will attract a few responces from the PC side. Even disreguarding this, the way that FCP and Avid allows you to organize your media is probably time saving enough. The media handling is superior and I save hours in the organizaton of the project.

So, the question is, Do you really need Real Time effects? You might, you might not. But you might ask your self, Is Real Time effects the most important factor in picking an editing solution. For me and the type of projects I edit, it is not high on my list. Why not the RTMac then? Some one will correct me, but I don't think it works with FCP3 in OS X.

Jeff

Indeed, the RTMac does not work in OS-X. It's been a $1000 waste to me so far. Martox continues to promise OS-X support...for the past 6 months. They've dropped to a "1" on my 1-5 scale of quality vendors. Don't waste your money. The most valuable part of the board under OS 9 was the break-out box.

Real-time effects during editing are highly overrated.

<< 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,

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

Jeff

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

;-)

You guys don't read enough car magazines....
 

Porsche is introducing an SUV next year.

And Macs might be real-time by then.

;-)

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.

2-hour movie on the Dual Gig Mac
 

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,

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.

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,

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

Denis Basic, if you're attending the MacWorld show in New York, please be sure to drop by the Canon booth. I'm working the show at the DV camera counter and it would be a pleasure to meet you in person. Looking forward to meeting you,

The sooner you buy a Dual G4, the sooner they'll come out with a G5. Please buy a G4 right away so that Apple will either introduce the G5 the very next day or at least lower the price by $1000 on the dual G4 right after they get your money. :)

Hi all,

Chris, I wish I were in New York for a change, but I am stuck here in Seattle writing my dissertation. Ah, it would be so nice to meet you, hang around in New York, and visit the Expo. Maybe some other time. :-)

Today morning I also ran to the Internet to see what’s up in New York. Well, as we know, the new Dual 1.4 GHz was not introduced so the Dual 1 GHz is still about $4,100.00. Somehow, intuitively, I also guessed that this would happen. Thus, I am not too disappointed. In any case, I don’t rely too much on Murphy’s laws.

It would be nice to get the Dual 1GHz for $1,000.00 less, especially since I plan to buy the 23” display (about $3,500.00) in addition to FCP3, DVD Studio Pro, Cinema Tools and Mac Office. Maybe I should wait until September? What do you think guys? Somebody mentioned “later this year” as the time when the new Dual 1.4 GHz should appear and make the Dual 1GHz cheaper.

I am not looking for the latest version of G4 (i.e. the expected 1.4 GHz) or even for G5. If Martin and Joe R. were able to successfully complete their demanding projects with their 450 MHz Macs, I believe that I would be satisfied with my Dual 1 GHz.

So, I do not plan to wait until the next year and G5, but maybe I could wait until September. What do you think, guys? (It is true. I am getting nervous and it might happen that I go ahead and order the stuff this weekend.)

As to the Jaguar, I know that I would love to have the car. As to the program, I am not sure that I really need it.

Greetings,

<<<-- Originally posted by Joe Redifer : The sooner you buy a Dual G4, the sooner they'll come out with a G5. Please buy a G4 right away so that Apple will either introduce the G5 the very next day or at least lower the price by $1000 on the dual G4 right after they get your money. :) -->>>

And of course 10 days ago I ordered my Dual G4! Well, I hope that helps in getting the price lowered for you. :)

Rik Sanchez, take a look...
 

I walked into an Apple store last January with every intention of walking out with a Ti Powerbook. I put the 14" iBook and a Ti Powerbook side by side, both connected to my website, scrolled through many of the still images on my site, had the Apple trained sales staff check the calibration of both monitors, and walked out with the iBook.

In my still photography, image quality is everything and speed is way down the list. Since I have taken up video, my iBook seems completely capable of everything I want to do in the field. Granted, I am an amateur, but don't dream of a Powerbook thinking that your display is going to be vastly superior to the less expensive iBook...it ain't.

By the way, the only time I wait for my iBook is if I drop in 8 or 10 transitions at once. It will take a couple of minutes to render them all, but I can still work, just not watch. And that is with the 600 Mhz iBook. The current crop is faster with a 700 Mhz processor. The one mistake I made was to accept the pre-packaged 20 gig hard drive. I should have ordered my unit for delivery with the 40.

Jeff,
thanks for the info on the iBook, I've had my eye on it, a friend has the old 12 inch one he got a while back, likes it a lot. I've most of the cash saved up, I'll be able to get it soon. I mainly want it to store my videos as mpegs and do photoshop stuff on the go, someone else mentioned doing FCP stuff in the RT Offline mode, that sounds cool also, I would still do my major video stuff on the G4 desktop that I have.

I'm sold on the iBook, just a matter of time till I get one, can't wait till I'm mobile with it, just take it with me everywhere. I seem to be in more situations where it would be nice to have a laptop with me and do some work there on site at a shoot.

How much ram do you have in it? The only thing about living here is I have my family order it for me and they ship it out to me, I don't want to get one with the Japanese OS on it, so I get my computer from the states, I wish they would ship international but no one does.

RAM
 

I have 256 and in my never ending techie quest, would like more. Get the largest soldered in memory card offered, then buy the snap in DIMM from a third party. They're cheaper and bigger than what Apple offers. Snapping them in is no biggie.

If you find a company that will ship to Japan, you'll probably face stiff import duties and customs charges. Let your family ship it to you, then its just something you forgot to pack.

Hey, cool, I'm no longer a "new boot"!
 

What's the break point, 25?

So it's no big deal to open it up yourself and pop in the extra ram? With the G4's it's a snap, but I figured it would be a hassle to open up a laptop.


here is the member rankings, congrats on becoming a backbone, remember, no slouching, sit up straight, we have a community to support, I'm actually looking forward to borrowing Chris' truck, it'll be nice to drive on the right side of the road again and not have to shift with my left hand :-)

"a Tourist has made fewer than 5 posts -- this is somebody who might just be passing through, or wants to use the board to get a specific question answered. Obviously this is someone who's just recently joined; no way of knowing yet how long they'll stick around.

a New Boot has made more than 5 but fewer than 25 posts -- this is somebody who seems committed to using the board but is still fairly new. It's like a probationary status. They're here and are part of the team; let's see if they can stick it out.

a Regular Crew member has made more than 25 posts -- these folks are the backbone of the community, who have earned the right to full-fledged membership status by virtue of all the posts they've made. They have "arrived."

a Major Player has made more than 75 posts -- it seems like they swing through here quite a bit, and they're very vocal, we always hear from 'em. At the rate these folks go, they don't remain Major Players for long, as they're always moving up.

a Trustee member has made more than 150 posts -- someone who's obviously committed to making regular use of the boards, answering questions and helping out. If this person asked to borrow the Ford, I'd probably toss 'em the keys. They've been around often enough, I feel like I can trust 'em.

an Inner Circle member has made more than 250 posts -- beer drinking buddies for sure. But you don't see too many of them because I've invited most of 'em to serve in a different capacity, as forum moderators. "

The cut off date was the 17th, so your safe. If you buy a Mac and 10.2 is not on it you will get a free upgrade. If you want a CD there is a $20 charge, I think, could be less. Sometimes if you call customer service and beg, they extend the grace period for maybe 2 to 4 weeks. But don't count on getting 10.2 for free if you just bought your Mac.

Jeff