Switching from PC: iMac or MacBook Pro?

Film Division

Film Division

Active member
From a PC to a Mac.

So I'm ready to make the switch, now I hear that I can run Windows on the Intel Core Duo Mac machines & to make the move from Premiere Pro to Final Cut Studio.

Which Mac do I buy? I don't want to spend more than £1500 ideally.

I was thinking of an iMac 2Ghz or above but I was suprised to see that the MacBook Pro's seem to be more spec' loaded as standard.

I'm not worried about portability, etc as I already have a HP laptop. It's all about performance.

The whole move from PC to Mac is enough, can anyone assist on which Mac?

Thanks
 
I was in the same situeation 2 month ago and I went for the Macbook Pro! Love the decision every second of the day when I open the macbook. The performence is brilliant and fast.

Niels
 
Does it run FCP flawlessly on the Macbrook pro? I am too deciding to switch from PC to MAC. But not sure if I should go for desktop or laptop. And I'm basically going to use it for FCP. Is there really a huge performance difference nowadays with the desktop mac versus laptops?
 
Make certain you buy a Mac that can be expanded to include a second firewire bus, which in this case would be the MBP, not the iMac.

Use an Expresscard/34 firewire card for that second bus. You won't re
 
I have one of the Firmtek SeriTek/S2M2-E External Sata cards for the new MacBook Pro. It is VERY fast. Works well. The only problem I see is the cards don't firmly stick into the computer. They can be pulled out easily. Not a FirmTek problem but a card slot design problem.
 
Technically Apple says their own tests show the top of the line Intel Mac laptop matches performance of the 2.0 G5 tower with an upgraded video card, or a stock, low RAM quantity 2.3.
 
Macbook Pro, easily. Is just as fast as the iMac (or at LEAST nearly identical, but I think it actually is the same, I mean, they use the same chip!), and portable. Only complaint is the hard drive, but if you've got an external, it's the way to go.

Unless, of course, you don't need portable, or don't care. Then iMac gives you way more screen real estate if you go with the 20" model.

Either way, you can't lose. So choose: portability or bigger screen and hard drive?
 
I wonder what new Macs will appear at the end of August. Rumors are that there will be new enclosures and possibly the new mercom chip.
 
Since you said portability is not an issue, why not get a Quad G5? They are fast, hold up to 16GB of RAM and can be configured with an extreme video card (Quadro FX 4500). Yes, they are PowerPC chips but they are the best and fasted PowerPC available and Final Cut is optimized for this machine.

We used to run PCs at our studio (Avid, Premiere Pro, AfterEffects, Maya etc) and we were ALWAYS fixing driver and compatability issues. Now that we have switched to Mac three years ago we are much, much more productive. All computers have issues, but when the hardware & software manufactures are the same, the ride is SMOOTHER! We have 4 quad G5 FCP suites tied togetherin a fibre network with xsan and xserve raid. So there are many Mac options as you grow.

Another benefit is that as you grow, you can sell Macs and recover a good bit of your investment. Our studio turns over computers every 18 months or so by selling on ebay. We gennerally get between 60 and 80% of our money back. In one case we sold a titanium powerbook for more than we paid!

Always get apple care if it is available. Apple is fast and often generous in repairing their gear.

Good luck!!
 
Apple had a few reps drop by the publishing company I work for recently and did a dog-n-pony (mostly aimed at our IT guys). They did strongly hint there would be new products out very soon (the G5's successor I'm sure).
 
If portability wasn't an issue - you knew the machine would be dedicated to a studio setting - but cost was a concern, could the imac G5 work capturing straight to the internal hard drive using FCP - or better yet upgrade the internal drive from 160 to 500 gb. As stated the specs on the two machines are pretty close. Should work, right?

Would the single firewire bus be an issue then?

Rick
 
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