how good is the G5

[Jean-Francois Lavoie]

Now, understand I am not making feature films
G.lee
What kind of feature films are you talking about...I am looking to get the equipement for making alot of kind video and i expect doing a sport film which for sure will has to look like a film.

I agree with you that it really doesn't matter which platform to use. I am pretty sure i d be able to arrive at the same result either with a PC or a MAC...but i hate bugs, i hate wait, i hate work with a awkward software. i want a system who will last for at least 4 or 5 years, i want a software easy to use who give professional look video and film. My problem is... i have no experience then i have to trust reviews and user comments...which is ...as you said...really hard.. of course i am gonna spend at least 4000 dollars...

Until now, i trend toward the Mac and FCP because Professional use it, people love it, i have heard such good things about this system, it's powerful, will last for a while and a lot of DV schools use it. I can't end up with the same thought with a PC windows XP based and Vegas. .. i think wont be able to really set up my mind until i ll choose something... Is that makes sense...

[G. Lee Gordon]

Mark, I may have been a little harsh. It was time for me to upgrade my system so I researched and researched and found that the G5 was the best bang for my buck. So I bit the bullet and bought a G5 from Compusa... a month and a half later (delays from MAC) I recieved the most beautiful machine that I had ever seen! Great, I go to load my Protools... It crashed! I call protools and they said the computer is so advanced that they haven't upgraded the program yet .Two and a half months later, I still can't use my Protools. So I concentrate on editing.

I load up FCP Express. Not impressed. It's just like the old Adobe days... Haven't tried Avid yet. It's not that the MAC was awful, it's just that these die hard mac people make it seem like some orgasmic expierience to use a Mac, and frankly I don't get it. The G5 is awesome. The machine is flawless. But, there is such an abundance of programs available for the PC that are not available for the Mac. There's not even a store that offers Mac software in my little town.

So frankly my opinion is that this Mac stuff is a lot of hype. An advertising image synonamous with you're cool if you drive a new VW Bug type of thing.

Bottom line, if you have a PC and you like the programs you are using. Stick with it. If you've never used either, go ahead and go for the Mac. Either way, in my humbe opinion, it's the software that's important. Is FCP leaps and bounds above the rest... no not really. Is it a bad program, not at all. Is it good enough to switch environments if your're already comfortable... not in my opinion.

[Mark Monciardini]

G. Lee Gordon, Thanks for the response. I'm a soon to be switcher. (few weeks out)

Just hang in there for a little while and things will get better. It's a new technology and some folks are still catching up. It's a big decision making the switch and I think you'll be much more happier in the long run.

I was curious, you didn't mention anything about the Macintosh lifestyle you have now and with other people. Or how about the fact you don't need virus software, anti-spyware and anti-adware. Have you tried the iChat and iCal? They are remarkable. I know you many not have an Apple store in town, but it's still worth it. The MacZone catalogs are nice to have for when you want to order things, also online you can find plenty of computer stores.

I've been using Vegas on the PC for a Year and a Half and I do not care what anyone says, but Vegas is a Toy. I will say it again, "Vegas Video is a toy". Yes it's easy to whip things up, but the audio output and clip control is a joke. It's not a serious, professional NLE. My opinion.

And as for PC users (like my self), don't listen to them if they put you down being a Mac user. People like that just run you down and pretty soon you'll start to believe them. There are many more PC users out there so you need to stay strong. While you're busy being productive, they'll be busy sending error reports to Microsoft.

I'm getting my Dual G5 in a couple of weeks or so. Can't wait.

[Glenn Chan]

I've used both Vegas Video (most audio editing) and Final Cut Pro. The workflow is VERY VERY different so if you use one you won't understand the other one right away.

I will say it again, "Vegas Video is a toy". Yes it's easy to whip things up, but the audio output and clip control is a joke. It's not a serious, professional NLE. My opinion.

I don't know about you but the audio controls in Vegas are amazing- the best of any NLE. There are only a few tasks which you'd need to flip over to an audio editing program for.

The clip control some people find more efficient than FCP, but FCP probably has the edge on long projects.

And as for PC users (like my self), don't listen to them if they put you down being a Mac user. People like that just run you down and pretty soon you'll start to believe them. There are many more PC users out there so you need to stay strong. While you're busy being productive, they'll be busy sending error reports to Microsoft.

Vegas users report a lot less problem than FCP on forums. Maybe it's just because there are more FCP users and/or they complain more, but FCP4 has lot of known issues (and so does Panther with it killing FW800 drives). Vegas has no show-stopping bugs (losing A/V sync on print to video) and only a few little quirks. None of which are as annoying as "Preparing Video for Display..." in FCP.

I don't remember XP/NT/2000 ever crashing on me, while I've seen a few kernel panics with OS X. I'd have to say that Vegas is at least as stable as FCP.

Premiere 6 and under, win95, and win98 do give the PC platform a bad rep though because all those products are buggy.

I'm not sure which system I'd recommend. Definitely if you're on a budget you'd go with Vegas/PC. If you need Unix to do your programming then FCP/Mac would be a lot more attractive. Figure out what you need to do and get the NLE that is better for you.

[Jeff Donald]

Vegas users report a lot less problem than FCP on forums. Maybe it's just because there are more FCP users and/or they complain more, but FCP4 has lot of known issues (and so does Panther with it killing FW800 drives).

These casual observations on reports of problems are less than scientific and are not statistically relevant. I'm not saying that FCP does not have issues. But judging the number of issues or the severity of the issue by a casual observation of complaints on several forums is meaningless.

The Panther/FireWire 800 issue was dealt with within the first day. Owners of FireWire 800 drives need to contact the drive manufactures for a firmware update. Panther is a cutting edge OS offering features that XP users only dream about. The next MS update is still at least a year away.

[Glenn Chan]

The Panther/FW800 issue should never have gotten out in the first place. And people who can't boot OS9 can't upgrade their drive's firmware to fix the problem.

There's also the releases of QT6.4 and OS10.2.8 which caused problems for people. Apple quality control has been poor lately causing systems to become unstable.

These casual observations on reports of problems are less than scientific and are not statistically relevant. I'm not saying that FCP does not have issues. But judging the number of issues or the severity of the issue by a casual observation of complaints on several forums is meaningless.

Ultimately it's the user's experience that matters, and forums give a good idea of that people's experience with FCP/Vegas is. There are other factors that affect how much people complain about a program so you have to take casual observations with a grain of salt. However, the huge difference between the amount of complaints of Vegas versus FCP seems to indicate that Vegas is at least as stable.

[Jeff Donald]

And people who can't boot OS9 can't upgrade their drive's firmware to fix the problem.

Untrue. All the major drives I've checked, LaCie, FireWire Direct, Glyph, OWC and Wiebetech all have OS X updaters. No need for booting into OS 9.

Ultimately it's the user's experience that matters, and forums give a good idea of that people's experience with FCP/Vegas is.

User's experiences are one of the best ways to judge a programs features, defects etc. However, the online community is full of trolls, half truths, hearsay etc. Our own community has been the victim of this in the past. Accurate and meaningful judgements about users reports can not be made.

However, the huge difference between the amount of complaints of Vegas versus FCP seems to indicate that Vegas is at least as stable.

Vegas is a stable product and it's stability has not been an issue. FCP has been very stable since the early releases of version 1 and 1.2 New versions always have few issues. If FCP is mission critical wait a month or two for the early bugs to be worked out.

There's also the releases of QT6.4 and OS10.2.8 which caused problems for people. Apple quality control has been poor lately causing systems to become unstable.

Apple released within 48 hours (I think it was less but I can't be sure) a downgrade option to QT 6.4 users. Those that were having problems could easily downgrade to the prior version of QT.

The school I teach at, thought about adding a Vegas Video class. However, a survey of potential employers in the production/post production industry in the greater Tampa area found no users. Avid and FCP skill sets (with a few Premiere users) were the vast majority of hiring requirements for perspective employees.

[G. Lee Gordon]

Mark, I haven't tried ichat or .mac. I've had so much crap on my pc that I've decided to keep my Power G5 an internet virgin...

As far as Vegas being a toy? Well, I don't know. I'm not a post house or a commercial editing suite (yet!), but for my weddings, corporate video, etc. , Vegas is heaven.

[Jacques Mersereau]

We have four duel 2 gig G5s here at The Media Union. All I can say
is they ROCK. Wonderful design and manufacturing. Fast as hell
and very quiet all things considered.

On my 1 gig G4 laptop using Combustion, it takes about 18 minutes
to render a 15 second pan and scan.

The G5 can render and _burn_ the same pan and scan (a 600+ meg disk) in 6-7 minutes.

The head of Apple Video Development was on campus yesterday.
Updates to fix some known bugs in Panther and improve FCP speed up to
7 layers/EFX in real time using panther are due out VERY soon.

Now, you have to understand that with any super new technology there
are bound to be bugs and quirks, but I am taking out a loan to get
my own G5 . . . the ride is awesome IMO and worth the payments.

The other thing that's cool . . . as programs update to 64 bit, this computer
will get even faster.

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

I would not be surprised to discover that what Apple is talking about is actually implementing a 64 bit version of the rendering engine in FCP. Should be fairly easy, they just have to recompile part of the program, a very specific part, and it will make a big difference. It's like what happened when PowerPC came along, big performance boosts could be seen even in non-native programs with some operations. Photoshop used a PowerPC plug-in while the application itself was still full of 68k code.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Ignacio, you make a very good point. That's probably it.

[Glenn Chan]

64-bit theoretically won't improve FCP performance. 64-bit allows programs to use larger numbers. In the case of FCP this isn't useful at all. The biggest numbers used in rendering is 32bit (for audio and video). It's more than enough.

However optimizations for the G5 processor will definitely increase performance.

Now back to the actual topic of this thread, of course G5/FCP4 would be a great combination- if you can afford it!!

If you're working in a professional environment then Vegas isn't the best choice (doesn't do betaSP, hard to online on other systems) but for other uses it can be a great system.

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

I guess you are right about that Glenn, but does FCP not use larger than 64 bit numbers when rendering YUV in the high quality mode?

[Jean-Francois Lavoie]

I have been working a night job for 6 months here in Whistler BC. My job is night cleaner. Each time i am working at night i think about the system i ll be able to buy. i saved more than 10 000$ only with that job.

Now i have enough money to buy something really good but i am afraid to spend it.... expecially when i am thinking to buy a Mac(i have been a PC user for 5 years now)

i definitely want start in production the next year ..professonally.. and as soon i ll get all the equipement...i ll start doing some little video for everybody who wants it.

That said, i dont wanna practice 1 year on a NLE that i'd change after that time. Big waste of time.

I can built a pc based system with a Dell Xps and a Adobe bundle
for 4000$ with a 19" crt
And a Mac based system as a G5 1.8 and FCP for 4500$ without monitor.

I hope if a decide to spend the extra 1000$ on a Mac i d see a good difference at the end. (when i ll get use of the NLE)

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

I think FCP4 is light years ahead of Premiere. I used to be a Premiere user and loved it, but with FCP there is no going back.