Field Capture Device: Apple vs. PC

[GoREELa Films]

Dear friends and colleagues of DVXUser;

I thought I would just post a quick question in reference to affordable field capture device(s) to be used for P2 media capture from an HPX170.

I am in the process of buying all my equipment (camera included) and am slowly learning about P2 capturability, transfer options, etc.

As I am looking to get a laptop to capture footage while in production (in addition to serving as a field monitor), I am curious to know if there are any advantages to going with a MacBook as opposed to a PC.

I am not asking for platform preference--no fanboy responses, please. I am fairly tech savvy and I have built my own desktop computers for the last 10 years.

As many of you know, there is a huge price difference between a MacBook and PC based laptop system (due to open/closed hardware differences between manufacturers).

I believe I have read somewhere in these forums that MacBooks have the ability to phantom power features when connected via firewire, though I may be wrong about that.

Are there any major differences between the two in terms of being used as a capture device and field monitor? I edit on a fairly powerful desktop system (Premiere Pro and After Effects, 3DSM, etc.), so the laptop really only needs to serve the needs as an HD monitor and storage for P2 captured media.

Responses? (Please and thank you!)

 

[Barry_Green]

Since you're already using Premiere & After Effects, it seems like your ideal field monitor/capture application would be OnLocation. OnLocation is available on both platforms. You could easily use either system as a field workflow station, and there's really no need to pay any more for one type over the other. If you're capturing to an external FAT32 hard disk, that drive could be used on your desktop editing station regardless of what platform created the drive or what platform your desktop editor is.

Yes the apple computers have the ability to power devices over their firewire ports (they use 6-pin connectors) and the Windows systems don't, they use 4-pin. For firewire streaming that's irrelevant, as no camera needs that power signal, and frankly there's a slight margin of safety in using 4-pin because it cannot ever be responsible for blowing up a firewire port on a camera; there are many reports of people blowing up firewire ports when connecting to a 6-pin device (apparently caused by trying to plug the cable in upside down, thus exposing the wrong pin to the power pin).

 

[GoREELa Films]

Thanks for the reply, Barry. I did not expect a response from the head cheese himself