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  • 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 :)

What should I get Mac or PC ?

Ulas Ulker said:
I agree with other mates that it shouldn't be any logical performance difference between two system cause mac is using intel cpu's and the rest of hardware anyway.
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Regarding performance difference: I work in the videogame industry. We are all about getting the most performance possible from the systems that we are running on.

The bottom line is that because Apple constitutes less than 10% of the hardware market (and even less than that of the games market), video card manufactures do not have the same financial incentive to optimize their drivers for Apple platforms.

This is not just opinion, but is very measurable. Here's one of many articles that discusses: http://gizmodo.com/5540716/steam-for-mac-benchmarks-windows-is-much-faster

Besides videogames, there is another category of software that taxes video performance: editing.

Cheers,
Tim
 
Tim Morten said:
Regarding performance difference: I work in the videogame industry. We are all about getting the most performance possible from the systems that we are running on.

The bottom line is that because Apple constitutes less than 10% of the hardware market (and even less than that of the games market), video card manufactures do not have the same financial incentive to optimize their drivers for Apple platforms.

This is not just opinion, but is very measurable. Here's one of many articles that discusses: http://gizmodo.com/5540716/steam-for-mac-benchmarks-windows-is-much-faster

Besides videogames, there is another category of software that taxes video performance: editing.


Cheers,
Tim
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It's been years i didn't play games on my pc, i think the last one i remember was quake or counter strike from university years. But what i do belive is windows always have smthng that makes people crazy. Crashing problems decreasing every version step by step, probably 3 version further there will be no crashing on windows platform at all. I also do belive crashing problems mostly coming over by users, but the same individuals use mac's as well in't? For me the only reason could make me buy mac is the OS. I think mac usage in US is ten thousand times more than europe, i don't know why but it always seems to be like that to me.
 
Either will work. I have both. I love/hate both. Life and Red are not simple...
 
I just finished a shoot today recording directly onto my brand new 2500$ pc editing rig. 5 hours into the shoot. After the pc has been working great. It crashed. It completely locked up. And I can't get it to stop crashing. U all know how horrifying this is. I was doing nothing different from the first 5 hours of the day. So I switched out video cards (in the middle of a shoot!) And it worked (thankfully) for the rest of the shoot. But when we r ready to view dailies. It locks. It's the most frustrating thing. I'm writing this on my phone as we are watching the dailies on a different comp right now. I think I've narrowed the problem down to the powersupply. Now this issue could easily happen on a mac. But I'm frustrated as hell right now. This felt like the best place to vent.
 
I loved my pc for many years. Then I tried to print out a very large poster, and proceeded to crash one by one, every pc in the print lab. 20 PC workstations later, I gave up and hooked up my little mac mini that i was using at home... no problem at all. I have never looked back. Is mac perfect, no. But i find most of the problems arise from throwing things into it that really are not supported, like cheap eSATA cards and using other companies drivers to run them, or cheap RAM. Otherwise my mac runs flawlessly 99% of the time. And if you really want both worlds get the mac pro and dual boot. Easiest way to ensure that the hardware is not gonna cause you nightmares is to have it put together by the people creating the software.
 
Sure, it's the only system the runs FCP... so if that's your criteria, by all means get a Mac.

But Mac is the opposite of flexibility. Less hardware options. Less software options. Less performance. The only thing you get more of is price.

Stability = marketing message from Apple. Reality? Macs crash too.
 
Tim Morten said:
Sure, it's the only system the runs FCP... so if that's your criteria, by all means get a Mac.

But Mac is the opposite of flexibility. Less hardware options. Less software options. Less performance. The only thing you get more of is price.

Stability = marketing message from Apple. Reality? Macs crash too.
Click to expand...

Yes Mac crashes. Specially when I try to run Windows on it.
 
Leo Ticheli said:
Questions you should ask yourself:

1. Do you expect your machine to work flawlessly right out of the box?
2. Do you have time to track down incompatibilities when you add software or hardware?
3. Will your machine be connected to the internet? Do you fear viruses and malware?
4. What's more important to you: price or reliability?

I´ll second Leo´s questions.
One more question: Are you a user or a geek?
If you are a user and you can afford it, buy both, otherwise start with a Mac and work on your movie and not on your PC project.
Since I´m on PC I spend more time with trouble shooting then editing. I can´t wait Apple brings out the new MacPro´s.
But...I´m a user not a geek.
Cheers,
Marc
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Why I feel the need to chime in here, I don't know. As was stated at the beginning of the thread, you can google that question and find many of these same responces. That said:

I used PCs for 20 years. I like working on them, building them, fixing them, and playing games. In later years my interests have changed. I like beauty ( don't laugh, it's valid ), stability and ease of use. I found that in the mac. I'm ok with the " lack of options" in hardware because I know my hardware is designed as a single unit with my software.

So my opinion, get mac and the final cut suite and you'll have no excuses to get your work done for a long time. The reason PCs have a larger global market share is obvious, you can use any hardware you find in the basement. Apple is a US company and sells mainly to the US on a relatively fixed hardware subset.

-JABrown
 
The problem with PC's is there are so many manufacturers and none of them are Microsoft. Microsoft produces the OS while any number of manufacturers around the world build the hardware. The computer you buy in the Windows world is by definition built by two different Engineering teams that rarely (if ever) communicate with each other. Its akin to buying a car from Honda and getting the engine from Ford, putting them together and expecting them to work perfectly. Sometimes PC and Windows integrates well and sometimes they don't.

The reason Apple products work so well is that both of the core components, the OS and the Hardware are developed as one system that shares Engineering assets. The OS code is optimized for a single motherboard architecture and the Hardware is designed to give you a better computing experience, not to compete in price with hundreds of other factories all racing to the bottom in price-point.

Macs may be priced higher, but you're paying for better engineering and software integration. They are far more stable than their PC competitors. All computers crash. In my experience, Macs crash most when third party software is being used and I believe its extremely rare for the OS and the Hardware to be fundamentally incompatible, a problem that plagues the PC world.

PC's are cheaper to acquire, they are easily mod'ed and "hot rodded" and they can be very reliable machines. However, when the main metric you use to select one is cost, please keep in mind that lower pricing can sometimes mean less capability or inferior components. Every former PC fan I know is happy they switched to Mac.
 
Just a remark:
A PC ist not always a PC, either is a MAC not always a MAC...
A Pc like a green box which is loaded full of software for office, internet, mp3-player, sound video editing and so on
is not a PC like a (i.e.)HP Workstation which you will use only for the aim you bought it for.
A Mac like an I-Mac loaded full of software for office, internet, mp3-player, sound video editing and so on
is not a MAC like a Mac-Pro which you will use only for the aim you bought it for.

The question Mac or PC from early days regarding stability and reliability are outdated a couple of years if you know what you do.

I think your own answer is already here:
Mike N said:
...
For example Scratch is only Windows based and Davinci only Mac or Linux based.
Feel free to bias me one way or the other...or should I get a Mac station for let's stay grading and a Windows one for editing and other stuff.

thanks,
Mike
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Having used PCs for 20 years, I switched to Mac a few years ago and haven't looked back. All it took was one day's worth of having to use it for work, and that was it. I replaced my main workstation and my main home system with Macs.

If you want to work on your movie, get a Mac.
If you want to work on your computer, get a PC.
 
Let's examine the claims:

1. Mac is the only patform that runs FCP: Yup, can't argue. To put it gently, I do not love FCP, but I recognize that it's a personal choice. Adobe Creative Suite, Avid Media Composer, Assimilate Scratch, Sony Vegas... lots of options on PC. As soon as we start talking about mainstream software, there are many many applications which are available on PC but not on Mac.

2. Mac is more stable: Lots of anecdotal testimonial, but lack of hard data. My personal experience is that Macs have the same drive failures, power supply failures, video card failures, memory failures, etc. that PC's do. It's true that Mac users tend to be less sophisticated, and tend to customize their systems less, so there is less opportunity for user-induced problems. This is about type of user rather than about any inherent advantage to the system.

3. Mac is more flexible: This is claimed because a Mac can also run Windows. With caveats of course, but it does work if you want to pay the money. As new Windows versions are released, there is a lag before these versions are supported by Boot Camp. As your Apple hardware ages, it will stop being supported (list here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3986). Parallels and VMWare are virtualization alternatives, instead of native boots, with all the baggage that comes with that. Ability to boot Windows aside, you will always have less options with Apple's native OS. Less software to choose from, and less hardware.

4. Mac is easier to use: The subjectivity of this statement should be obvious. I have numerous qualms with the Mac interface. Putting the menu bar at the top of the screen instead of within the current window is something that many new Mac users have difficulty with, for example. But once you start running software, using that software is no easier on one system than another. Editing and post production are inherently technical; if you really feel that you aren't up to the "complexity" of using a PC, I hear you can get a Moviola real cheap these days. :)

5. Macs don't get viruses: Plain and simple, this is a false statement. Macs absolutely get viruses. It's true that Macs are targetted less often, because there are less of them, but they are in no way immune. It is a simple matter to install virus protection. Microsoft provides a very capable virus checker for free to all registered owners of Windows. Install it, and use the safe browsing practices that you should employ regardless of what system you are on. Oracle/Sun Solaris gets less viruses too, but it doesn't mean I wan't to use it.

Bottom Line: If you want to pay substantial extra money, are willing to accept hardware and software limitations, and don't mind inferior video driver performance, then you are a good candidate for a Mac. Plus, you'll get the validation of being "cool" like Justin Long, you can tell yourself that you "think different" like other brilliant people, and you'll get lifetime membership to one of the most popular cults on the planet! :)
 
Oh come on Tim, You are completely off your rocker here.

1. Adobe, and Avid both run on mac as well. We have a choice of the Three largest Editing applications. you have a choice of 2 of the three. Mainstream software? we are talking about an editing workstation, not a home pc for the kids to download music on. FCP, AVID, And Premiere, are about as mainstream as it gets.

2. "less sophisticated"? go ahead, insult me some more. Every item you listed as a failure is a hardware problem. Shall we go into software failures? Yes macs have them, but FAR less than a windows operating environment.

3. Well can't pick to much problem here. Never tried boot camp. plenty happy with osx. Could be right could be wrong i don't know. Less software..... again when it comes to the high end editing workstation, I think your argument is negligible.

4. Easier to use. Yes it is. it should not matter to users who are capable as you suggested, but when it takes me 15 years to teach my mom to use a computer, and less than a week after i get her a mac.... The editors I know are creatives, not computer whizzes. Not to mention the amount of money they make, most producers i know would rather have them working on their film, than having them troubleshoot software drivers.

5. Viruses. Oh how this is a pointless argument. Can Macs get viruses? Yes. Can they get malware? Yes. Do they? almost never. Why for the same reason you mentioned above. targeted less, less of them. Mac for 5 years now. no anti virus. no infections. no fear. this includes the computers i have set up for members of my family. Why buy a system that you know for a fact is targeted heavily? that just seems to be careless to me.

bottom line: You pay the extra money to know your system will work. That its capabilities in one area are not going to be throttled by a cheap component else where. And most of all, because you enjoy the work environment.

Tim, I am okay with you liking to use a PC. If your happy customizing your system, working out any bugs on your own, and can deal with any potential problems on your own, all the more respect to you. I don't want to know the ins and outs of my computer, and I love tech. I want it to work, now, and be slightly scalable so that i can keep up to speed for a few years. My mac pro is nearing 2.5 years old. a few ram upgrades, video card upgrades, and a rocket card and it still runs fantastic. I am starting to see its age and am looking to get another one once the new system come out. by no means will it be retired at that point. instead it will be turned into a workhorse that will take a bit more abuse. Should be good for onset stuff for a few more years. All with very little effort on my part.

The users here who have "lots of anecdotal testimonial" are basing their opinions on their experience. in their experience the mac is more stable. Why is that wrong? Its their experience. Its my experience. You on the other hand have just spouted off a bunch of anti mac gibberish. Stop telling us why you hate mac. tell us why you prefer your pc. without slamming a mac.

I think your list would look something like this:

1: Incredibly customizable with the latest and greatest tech, like video cards.

2: wide ranging support for most editing applications, plus some high end ones like Scratch that are unavailable on mac. (actually not sure about scratch on mac, never really looked it up. but i will give it too you, apologies to assimilate if i am wrong here)

3: Wide variety of choices when it comes to hardware and software, espescially outside the video world.

4: Ability to get your hands dirty with the guts of the system to create an operating environment just for you.

5: .... sorry, i don't have one for you here... come up with your own

bottom line: PC's allow for a wide range of configuration, software, hardware, and customization, with a range of prices to suit your budget. All great valid points. Just not the points I myself valued over the benefits of the Apple system.
 
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