iMac

T

Trevin Steger

Member
Ok I am looking into buying a Mac. I've ben looking at the iMac 20" and was wondering if that would be fine...i am going to get fcp as well. Some people told me that the iMac isnt that good and id be better off betting a macbook. Is this true or no. Thanks for the help

-Trevin
 
The latest iMacs are great for editing, in my opinion. You're not going to out-spec an iMac with a Macbook although you might manage it in a Macbook Pro - but then you could buy an even better Mac Pro for the same money, and so on. It's up to you to decide what you need as far as a desktop vs. a laptop though. Both have their advantages.
 
all I need it for is editing and going on the internet. I just use my family computer for homework and music and **** like that. But the computer om in right now(family) is really shitty and slow due to limewire and the fact that its just an old computer. So if I am only going to be using this for editing and internet, which choice do you think is best. iMac or Macbook???
 
Whatever you get, up the RAM and do it 3rd party!

ramseeker.com/

Apple is a HUGE ripoff for upgrades.
 
Get the ram.
Don't buy it from Apple.
Max out your ram to 4GB for $99 with OWC ram vs. $850 from Apple!
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/53IM2DDR4GBK/
It's just as good. If you ever have a customer service issue and the Apple phone guy is blaming the ram, just pull out the non apple ram and put back in your original ram.

here's a tutorial on putting the ram in, they say it's $225 but it's gone way down since the video to $99 while apple's has remained at $850.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glki-cEICpo

I use the 20'imac withe the ram above to edit and composite full HD footage no problem. It will be a demon for DV footage and you can get one with 4GB of ram for what I paid for mine with no ram 4 months ago.
 
Isn't there an issue with the firewire port not recognizing the camera? Thought I remember the work around of plugging your camera into an external firewire port first and chaining to the imac.

Could be wrong but might want to search the threads.....
 
Wow only $99 compared to $850...so your basically just paying for the apple name then...thats really dumb but cool thanks for the links I added both the youtube link and the macsales.com link to my favorites for when I get my iMac. Thanks for all of the help and being patient with me. Some of the other sites ive been on have been not helpful at all...

-Trevin
 
The fact that macs are the best for editing is just you people falling into their advertising. PCs are just as good. Get a Dell Inspiron 530, 2.4ghz processor, 4 gigs of ram, Blu-Ray player and DVD burner drive, 20" monitor, upgraded video card, upgraded sound card, TV tuner, IEEE 1394a adaptor, and Vista Ultimate for $1,654. Then you can get premiere pro cs3 or something and your all set. Its that simple. No one will be able to tell the diference when one thing was editied on FCP and Premiere Pro.
 
I heard compression and exporting is better with macs.

I prefer a mac because I can't stand the interface, nor the PC programs (Adobe premiere for instance)

It is an opinion thing here, so there is no "better" computer.

Like JCal said, it's how you supe up your computer. You can have a mac better than someone else's PC, or visa versa.

All in all, there is no better computer here. It really depends on how much you are willing to spend on the programs, and the computer it self, either it being super fast with a nice blue ray DVD burner, or a crappy old computer with 6 kb of RAM. :thumbsup::)

Edit- Just re-read that. 6 kb of RAM made me shiver.
 
JCal11379 said:
The fact that macs are the best for editing is just you people falling into their advertising. PCs are just as good. Get a Dell Inspiron 530, 2.4ghz processor, 4 gigs of ram, Blu-Ray player and DVD burner drive, 20" monitor, upgraded video card, upgraded sound card, TV tuner, IEEE 1394a adaptor, and Vista Ultimate for $1,654. Then you can get premiere pro cs3 or something and your all set. Its that simple. No one will be able to tell the diference when one thing was editied on FCP and Premiere Pro.
Click to expand...

Yes it's preferance, but think of this. Imagine never having to EVER worry about using virus software, popups, loading drivers, and crazy system shutdowns. PC people have a love for all of this stuff, because it becomes a challenge for them to overcome all of these obstacles. You obviously can't tell the difference what a project was edited on. I can give you a demo on a Mac that will knock your socks off compared to a PC. They are not only easy to use they are FUN! No contest. Get a Mac Pro Quad Core. You can't upgrade an Imac as well. Don't get me wrong, my wife has a 20" IMAC and I love it, but I have an 8 core.


Thanks, Steve
 
BTW my imac crashed repeatedly this week. I had to ask it to do a double back bend while smoking a hookah gargling vinegar and whistling Dixie to get it to crash, but it did. Took me about a day of trouble shooting to figure out why.

I was asking the system O.S. to format two external Hard Drives as a Raid 1 (one is an invisible copy and everything is written to it also for redundancy). I have one hardware raid one (one box two drives) where I used the O.S. to do this and maxed out the speed to 256mps and it worked like a charm. When I tried this with the two my book studio pros - two ext drive, two boxes - and tried to max it out, I got the screen of death and it crashed my imac.

Latest intel Imac running leopard crashed when connected to raided 1 ext HDD's running at 256 mbps via FW800 ... they would connect fine via USB (and maybe also via FW400 can't remember)

BUT they would work at 256 via fw 800 on my G4 laptop which was running tiger. Weird.

Anyway the two mybook studio 500gb's are set up as raid 1 at 153mbps and I have two seagate 750gb in an external raid enclosure set up at 750gb and even at RAID 1 I edit 1080 HD at full rez ... and I have automatic continuous back up. :)
 
Jack, it sounds like its time for you to move up to a Mac Pro, and Steve the base MacPro are Octa cores, so you might as well but the 8 core...You can still get the quads, but I see no reason why..I was a PPC Avid guy, then I worked on FCP, then my life changed....I cant tell you how nice it is to have a mac, you can have all the Pro apps on on comp, FCP2, Protools, Shake.... its a great family to be in.


Jon
 
I don't have the cash for Mac Pro. :crybaby:

The drives worked fine on my older powerbook g4, my point was two part,

1) no it's not true that Macs don't crash ever ever ever.

2) even with raid 1's I'm getting real time HD editing on the iMac :thumbsup:
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
I don't have the cash for Mac Pro. :crybaby:

The drives worked fine on my older powerbook g4, my point was two part,

1) no it's not true that Macs don't crash ever ever ever.

2) even with raid 1's I'm getting real time HD editing on the iMac :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

I have 3 Macs networked at home, and from where I'm sitting here at work, I can see 20 Dual Core Power Mac stations. Simply put, programs will crash sometimes, but I've never had a complete computer lockup on my Dual Core. I have 12 programs running right now and I don't know when a program crashed last. But they do.

I consider myself a power user here and at home but i do nothing like what you were talking about.

I think the IMacs are awesome.

Thanks, Steve
 
I have a new Macbook pro on the way from China. (tracking fedex!! I wish I would have paid for a one day shipping to see if it could get here) Anyway they dropped the RAM price. So I'm getting 4GB RAM

Also remember that 3rd party RAM will void your Apple warranty.
 
No I don't think so.

I had a problem with my G4 powerbook not recognizing one of the Ram slots. One slot was apple ram the other wasn't. No matter which slot I put which ram in the bottom slot would not register the ram. Took it to apple and they fixed the ram slot problem under apple care.

Also if your computer is being weird so you need to call apple care and they make an issue of your third party ram, take it out, put the original ram back in and call them back. They make a user serviceable slot to exchange ram. How can putting ram in that meets their specs void your warranty.
 
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