I was thinking of buying a mac for Final Cut.... please help.

I was thinking of buying a mac for Final Cut.... please help.


  • Total voters
    12
  • Poll closed .
I do like the way Mac is going with the Intel Architecture...

I really wish the Amiga had survived the PC wars... :love4:
 
NLEs all look fairly similar. But when they come to working with them some are a better fit than others. This is where I would start. Got a friend with a mac and FCS? Try it out. Got a friend with CS3 (available on pc and mac btw)? See which fits you better. Dont get caught up in a mac v pc debate. Find what fits you. Whats your current pc btw? is it old and in need of an update anyway? That could be your issue. A new PC will run you a fair bit less if you do your own build and buy components.

For the record Im on a Macpro running bootcamp and XP. My XP installation never crashes.

Keep in mind the following - you cannot yet burn a bluray disc in FCS. You can on CS3.
But then the way CS3 works the resulting blurays suck IMO. I go out through compressor and burn via Encore and its very good.

Apple needs to get this sorted ASAP IMO.
 
As someone who has had to edit on both, I know first hand that macs are more stable and more robust than pcs. I had a pc running Premier Pro and AE and I can't tell you how many times the softeware would lock up or just shut down all together. And before the PC guys say it was the machine, it wasn't. Other than running the editing softare, the machine ran fine.
However, I've only had FCP shut down on me once and I've been using it since version 3. I'm not trying to make a PC vs. Mac debate but when it comes to video, Macs are just more stable and robust because of the nature of the machines. Macs do not count on the OS to run the app like Windows do so there are less operations running and less chances for things to conflict.
 
As someone who has had to edit on both, I know first hand that macs are more stable and more robust than pcs. I had a pc running Premier Pro and AE and I can't tell you how many times the softeware would lock up or just shut down all together. And before the PC guys say it was the machine, it wasn't. Other than running the editing softare, the machine ran fine.
However, I've only had FCP shut down on me once and I've been using it since version 3. I'm not trying to make a PC vs. Mac debate but when it comes to video, Macs are just more stable and robust because of the nature of the machines. Macs do not count on the OS to run the app like Windows do so there are less operations running and less chances for things to conflict.

Thank you bbass74... my windows programs randomly exit out often, which gets quite annoying. But people, when making up this forum, I was not trying to spark a mac/windows debate.... I was just wondering if macs and their software (final cut primarily) was any good.
 
I swear, you Mac zealots are funny... when I mentioned that I hated Mac a few months ago, I thought someone was going to put out a hit on my life...


Well a group of us MAC fans did try to pool our money for a hit man, but you have no idea how much their prices have gone up!!! :)


Bob Diaz
 
Thank you bbass74... my windows programs randomly exit out often, which gets quite annoying. But people, when making up this forum, I was not trying to spark a mac/windows debate.... I was just wondering if macs and their software (final cut primarily) was any good.

I've never had a program "randomly exit" on Windows...

Well a group of us MAC fans did try to pool our money for a hit man, but you have no idea how much their prices have gone up!!! :)


Bob Diaz

I believe you Bob. Between this and our scooter debate, I can see why you'd want to get rid of me... :laugh:
 
Purchased cars, bikes, stereos, TV's and yes a PC. But let me just state, whenever I take out my going on 2 year old MacBook Pro 17 it seems new and fresh everyday. Never before have I had such lasting satisfaction with a purchase. Boots up in 25 seconds or less, and just looks the business and feels right for what you want to do. This MacBook Pro 17 alone has made 5 new customers for Apple, and they too have never looked back.
Recently I loaded up FCS2 which is very elegant as it is extensive covering the full gamut of film and video production. I have plenty to go with FCS2 no doubt, but I look forward to it everyday.
A MacPro for the studio would be the ticket if there's no need for mobility

Best purchase you'll ever make IMO
 
Purchased cars, bikes, stereos, TV's and yes a PC. But let me just state, whenever I take out my going on 2 year old MacBook Pro 17 it seems new and fresh everyday. Never before have I had such lasting satisfaction with a purchase. Boots up in 25 seconds or less, and just looks the business and feels right for what you want to do. This MacBook Pro 17 alone has made 5 new customers for Apple, and they too have never looked back.
Recently I loaded up FCS2 which is very elegant as it is extensive covering the full gamut of film and video production. I have plenty to go with FCS2 no doubt, but I look forward to it everyday.
A MacPro for the studio would be the ticket if there's no need for mobility

Best purchase you'll ever make IMO

Thank you! I am now quite convinced to get a mac... but now I just can' decide between an iMac and Macbook (lol)... I will get there!!!
 
Thank you! I am now quite convinced to get a mac... but now I just can' decide between an iMac and Macbook (lol)... I will get there!!!

I would look beyond the MacBook, you will need at the least a MacBook Pro to take advantage of FCS2 and then rendering effects could still be laborious on a portable. Right off hand I'm not familiar with the IMac but I would not think your expansion options would be as plentiful as the MacPro.
With that being said you could put your money on a MacPro tower, then always up the ram, graphics card, etc later on as your needs expand. The processor would more likely be a quad core instead of a core 2 duo, something you would desire for those labor intensive renders.

In the end get the most of what you feel your budget will allow

Happy shopping!
 
Don't purchase a Mac portable if you don't need it right now. Its up for a complete redesign this coming September. Its a rumor, true, but a solid one.

As for needing a Mac... Tell you a story:

Back in the 90'ies, early 2000, I was a PC man myself. Hated Macs, and to me, they felt like stylized PC's that limited expandability and were ridiculously expensive. I was a Premiere editor (back from 4.0), and FCP was, back then (1 to 3) still a bit "crap". However, I had a problem. Premiere, specially on long projects, was unstable. You see, my PC was a self built machine- powerful on paper, but unstable for video editing with Premiere. I learned to live with the constant crashes, hard disks locking up, ghost frames, etc. I tought this was common in every editor. And the Premiere interface was still better than FCP 1-3. A couple of years later, I needed a laptop and FCP4 had come out. I needed a laptop that would impress clients, and the Powerbook surely looked the best of the bunch. I went for it based on looks, and also to be able to tell clients I used Apple computers or was able to work in FCP- the average client "heard" about Macs and associated it with "Pro". I was of course not very happy of migrating from my Editor of choice to FCP, which would require learning the software and its particular "language".

What happened?

Well, I ended up using the Powerbook as my main editing machine, and the PC became dusty- a simple internet machine for downloads. Why? it wasn't because of speed, but of reliability and results. The machine "never crashed". I could render for hours, 10+, and it would do the job, no problem. It was the end to the nail bitting process of looking at the monitor regularly, expecting a "this program has performed an ilegal operation and will shut down" message. The interface was close to premiere- more so when Premiere went to "pro". So migration from Premiere 6 to FCP 4.0/4.5 was not as hard as I assumed to be. And I learned about some advantages, namely the superior apple uncompressed codecs vs default editing in a DV timeline in Premiere. This, however, needs a different discussion.

To this day, and I own the powerbook for more than 4 years, its still working like a champ. I still use it regularly to dump P2 cards, and, ocasionaly, edit simple DVCPRO HD projects.

After that (2005), I purchased a g5 tower- Every bit as good as the Powerbook, except for... Life expectancy. It broke down 1 and a half months ago, due to an internal design problem- it was liquid cooled and had a leak- which destroyed my motherboard and dual CPU's.

Good news is Apple- after a bitter letter sending, phone calls, etc- repaired it free of charge.

Following this resolve, I decided to purchase a Macpro- dual quad core 2.8ghzs.

This is the main advantage of Macs- the software and the hardware are managed by the same company, and everything is designed to work perfectly without hassles and glitches (they do happen, but apple does constant updates). This is invaluable for professional work.

Ok, very, very long post. As you can see, my opinion is yes, you should buy a Mac :)
 
Last edited:
this is awesome!!! finally, a mac vs. pc debate. it's about time we had it out. i don't think there has ever been a thread like this before.

now that we've all chimed in and gotten nowhere, what next? ford vs. chevy? equal vs. splenda? canon vs. panasonic? paper vs. plastic?

let's get into it. :)
 
Back
Top