Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Mac vs. Windows...

Status
Not open for further replies.
For me, if I had ever been a mac user and was faced with the choice between mac and PC, it would all boil down to whether I wait for a computer maker to build a (closed system) mac or if I instead choose to assemble the bitchin' parts to make a custom PC that will immediately handle my innovative camera company's 6k resolution data.

mac is the equivalent of a DSLR and the PC platform more resembles the RED camera concept of design your own. Just like some camera people can't handle the complexity of RED cameras, so it is for some computer owners who just need a computer done for them in whatever flavor the manufacturer decides they should work with. Even PC companies like Dell and HP allow a huge amount of flexibility in what they will build for you.

Apple chose to remain closed and cute.
 
Nikhil Kamkolkar said:
btw, my guess would be that Gene Roddenberry had Massively Powerful computers hidden away in the Enterprise, that did the heavy lifting. :)
Click to expand...

I'll buy that. I should've stated "ALL personal computing." But I wonder what resolution footage we'd be working with that'd require Starship-class computing power?
 
Last edited:
Nikhil Kamkolkar said:
my guess would be that Gene Roddenberry had Massively Powerful computers hidden away in the Enterprise, that did the heavy lifting. :)
Click to expand...

When releasing the iPad, Jobs himself said the vision was trucks for the big loads and compact cars for the day-to-day stuff. But Apple had to focus their attention for a while on compact cars to be at the forefront of THAT new wave. I think history will show they chose wisely to suspend pro product focus for a relatively short interim. We will see.
 
Mathieu Ghekiere said:
They earned that love, and it's because of the Same reasons people give them a lot of credit now.
Click to expand...

Apple spent a LOT of years focused on keeping media producers happy, they've earned the love. These days I think they've wandered from the path some (and the Windows ecosystem has really come on strong), but I suspect that much goodwill takes a while to erode. I had an iPhone for years and while some Apple'ism's really annoyed me (cough...iTunes...cough), overall the thing just worked. Apple obsoleted all my peripherals by switching the connector on the iphone 5 so I switched to Android... boy to I regret it (reboots, crashing apps, reset on update... a bunch of things that Windows used to do).

In all likelihood I'll be an iPhone lifer after this contract is up... and Android is following a similar tech trajectory as Windows did (they're just a decade behind). So in 10 years when Android is solid it'll be too late to suck me back. I suspect many of the OSX fans are in that boat, because in reality there's not much difference between OSX and Windows these days. You get a bit better performance from Windows, a bit better usability from OSX... but long time Apple fans are just not going to see that... it's too late for Windows to woo them back.
 
Elsie N said:
For me, if I had ever been a mac user and was faced with the choice between mac and PC, it would all boil down to whether I wait for a computer maker to build a (closed system) mac or if I instead choose to assemble the bitchin' parts to make a custom PC that will immediately handle my innovative camera company's 6k resolution data.

mac is the equivalent of a DSLR and the PC platform more resembles the RED camera concept of design your own. Just like some camera people can't handle the complexity of RED cameras, so it is for some computer owners who just need a computer done for them in whatever flavor the manufacturer decides they should work with. Even PC companies like Dell and HP allow a huge amount of flexibility in what they will build for you.

Apple chose to remain closed and cute.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree. Its the fact that apple is closed that makes their computers so stable. They are both the software and hardware manufacturers. This means they know exactly what can go inside their machines. For windows, you can get 1001 combination of core components with different drivers. Red is, in my view, a lot closer to Apple. The brain, ssd port, 5"lcd, side handle all have proprietary designs on them which makes for those excelent features. The camera allows external monitors just like the Macs, and has multiple ports. And allows different rail systems. Notice they only officialy "allow" redvolts and red bricks to power the camera, and not other third paRty options, even though they work. This is understandable because damage can be provoked by deficient power supply.

The success of Apple goes in hand with its tight integration of hardware and software. PC's are open, true, and allow for faster and more costumizable "engines". But one really needs to be in the know of PC hardware and assembling to be able to troubleshoot any occasional gripe with incompatibilities between hardware and software. I used to do that when I was on a PC years ago. When I switched to mac and could 100 % concentrate on my creative work in a reliable platform, I never felt like going back, even with the current speed advantage of PC's. in fact, I did a Red centric job recently with a mobile rocket in my macbookpro retina and it felt fantastic. Its how I am working right now.Of course I'm not a huge post house, and this is obviously not a solution for that scenario, but with thunderbolt and the Retina policy, I stay positive in continuing to trust this company on hardware and OS.
 
I prefer Windows hardware because I like having choices.
 
Felix K. said:
I prefer Windows hardware because I like having choices.
Click to expand...
On a Mac Pro, a user can choose from nearly any manufacturer:
monitor(s), mouse, keyboard, video card, RAM, hard drives, peripherals… add any sort of connectivity via PCI cards: eSATA, USB3… what else needs to be customized?

And Felix, I wasn't calling you out on this... I really like the friendly tone of this whole conversation and I respect your preference... I'm just genuinely baffled when people talk about customization. Besides the actual processor, which I know is a big choice, I don't see the mac pro as some choice-less, inflexible box...

I just remembered when I built a Power Computing Mac and put a Zip Drive (and maybe a Jaz Drive too) on the front. I guess Mac Pros are weak in allowing that kind of media customization.
 
I certainly prefer to work on a Mac but...please Apple...give us some info about your intentions about Pro market...

If Apple gives no news, we will be "forced" to go the Window's route.
 
As an editor (going all the way back to the 1st-gen Avid systems in 1990), I've worked extensively on both platforms. I prefer the Mac OS for ease of use, though these days that's more a matter of familiarity than design. And I find FAR more people in our industry on Mac than on PC (with the exception of animation/motion graphics folks). Every DP I know is on Mac.

That said, in terms of brute power per dollar, PCs still have the edge, and I like the wider range of PCIe cards on the Windows platform. CUDA acceleration, for example, on Adobe CS6 is a non-starter on an iMac at present. (But on the flip side, I can connect my Rocket card in an external Sonnet box via Thunderbolt, then yank it out of the edit suite and bring it on-set with a laptop... something that's VERY helpful.)
 
Antoine Fabi said:
I certainly prefer to work on a Mac but...please Apple...give us some info about your intentions about Pro market...

If Apple gives no news, we will be "forced" to go the Window's route.
Click to expand...

Same here. 25 year Mac person and I HAVE to purchase a replacement for my 3.5 year old MacBook Pro in the next 2-3 months. It HAS to be a workstation. I built (more like battled) a monster-spec'd PC back in the early 2000s and will never do that again. I'm having nightmares about using Windows, but if a new Mac Pro isn't announced soon, I'll be getting a Z820. To boot, if I go Windows we'll transition our lab(s) that way too. If only there was a professional video editor for Linux....
 
Jack Stenner said:
I built (more like battled) a monster-spec'd PC back in the early 2000s and will never do that again. I'm having nightmares about using Windows
Click to expand...

Well, that was like 10 years ago, try to get an updated impression of Win (Win7) and you'll probably change your mind. At this point Mac vs PC is really no matter of performance or stability anymore, mostly just personal preferences but the same old arguments keep popping up on both sides.
 
Both Windows and Mac platforms work. PC's are very customizable and offer a more robust experience. Mac's have the die-hard fan base support but lack the hardware. I've built a few hackintosh computers which worked for what I needed to do and the far surpassed this current generation of Macs.

I want the RedRocket X
 
I have a MAC BOOK pro. Have had for about 2 years now. It runs windows. I've seen the MAC OS for about 15 min in two years. I need to be able to support both sides.

Personal preference? PC of course. I mean, how long as it been since a major upgrade of MACs towers? I'm not stupid.. Look at the money they are making on iPads and iPhones! They are not going back into pro hardware just cause we say so. And now with the stock getting hammered, they are not going to look to the pro market to get out of it.

until I decide to edit all my future projects on iPad, there is no future with MAC. At least not for me.

Jay
 
Beating a dead horse here but the rumors of a Apple Thunderbolt 4K monitor seem to hold a good bit of water. The previous Thunderbolt monitor is no longer available, much like the Mac Pro. We should "expect the best, prepare for the worst", but I'm going to remain an optimist on this one. Its development was spoken of a year or 2 ago.

I respect that Apple doesn't roadmap for its competitors like RED, and it always keeps me uncomfortably on my toes, but the surprises are usually worth it. How pro hardware is handled will be the ultimate litmus test for Tim Cook's legacy going forward. I hope he keeps us onboard.
 
http://www.lwks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=57&Itemid=182

Jack Stenner said:
Same here. 25 year Mac person and I HAVE to purchase a replacement for my 3.5 year old MacBook Pro in the next 2-3 months. It HAS to be a workstation. I built (more like battled) a monster-spec'd PC back in the early 2000s and will never do that again. I'm having nightmares about using Windows, but if a new Mac Pro isn't announced soon, I'll be getting a Z820. To boot, if I go Windows we'll transition our lab(s) that way too. If only there was a professional video editor for Linux....
Click to expand...
 
I have had about 15 Macs in the last thirty years. Mac Pros in Edit A, Edit B, and audio room. Love the look of the OS, and the integration with iPhone and iPad.

Ran the first Avid on Mac. Avid for 20 years, then switched to Final Cut for the HD transition (since it was 1/5 the price of a new Avid.)

HOWEVER, I have now gone back to Avid after the Final Cut X debacle, very happy with DNX codec. My 8 core Mac Pro can not quite handle the load, so REALLY need an update.

If Apple does not deliver soon, I may have to go Windows. Uggh, but the Avid / Red Cine / After Effects, which is the software I use, should work fine, though the GUI is clearly uglier, font displays etc.
 
One other angle to look at this from... Software. And the support the software has for the hardware. We keep wanting faster and more powerful hardware, yet most software out there does little to actually use it. Sure, increasing the internal bandwidth and speed of our memory makes the biggest differences, but with very few exceptions, mostly no software can use all 8 or 12 cores in a system, let alone 16 cores in the current monster Xeon configurations. Writing very capable multi-threaded software is not an easy task. It's not an optimization that the compiler can do for us, at least not at anything more than a very basic level. Image processing and rendering applications that don't require serialized or sequential computational streams do well with this sort of thing -- 3D rendering applications for example. Segments of images or entire image frames can be divided up amongst individual CPUs or threads rather easily. And yet, many applications fail to even do that...

Kinda shooting off on a tangent, but one of the most useful little pieces of software I've ever had is a little tool I created myself, circa '99. I updated it once or twice and it probably needs a re-visit again. But it's a little command line utility for Windows that lets me launch any app I want and I can pin it to any CPU(s) and priority level I want. This is basic multi-processor functionality, especially thinking forward to systems with many cores, back then we only had dual and quad core systems and it was the number of CPUs in a system, not cores on a CPU. haha. Why this functionality is not intrinsic within the OS (Mac or Windows) is beyond me. In Windows, if you launch an app, you can go into task manager and modify its CPU affinity and priority settings. That's a pain in the butt... Why not just have the app launch with these assignments every time you double-click its icon?

Originally I wrote it for render node control for Lightwave 3D and a few other apps. We were building multi-processor render farms and at the time LWSN (LightWave Screamer Net) render node software was single-threaded and so were most all render plug-ins. We could launch and pin multiple nodes and pin them one to each CPU (and later to each HT instruction pipe) on a multi-proc render system. I foolishly put the app online as a free download. haha. Oh, if only I charged $5 or even a $1 download fee. Oh well, 20/20 hindsight and all that. The little utility feels like a kludge solution now, I guess it always was. It needs a bit of tweaking to bring it up to snuff with current systems, but it still supports all the CPUs/ threads available. Works like a charm with a third-party render manager and REDLINE... ;) Maybe I should take a closer look and update and repackage it for commercial release.

I had hoped that such a utility would be unnecessary by now. Unfortunately it seems to be more necessary than ever before. :(
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top