Is it unwise to edit HD on a windows based machine???

[Thomas Smet]

There is also the point that no Mac outside of the workstation class Mac Pro can have 4 cores. A 4 core PC like was mentioned above can be built for $1,000.00 to $1,500.00 and this is no joke of a system either. Top quality parts. I have run mine now for 8 months straight without a single restart while editing at least a dozen projects on it. If A Mac Pro is beyond your budget and were looking at a Imac then a 4 core PC will smash a Imac not to mention it has expansion slots to add things like an Intensity Pro card or even a better video card. Try doing that on a IMac. The Mac Pros are awesome if they are in your budget but every other mac below it is a over priced 2 core system. Another example are the laptops. The Mac Book Pro is the only decent one to edit on and it isn't cheap. The Mac Book cannot even run certain FCP porograms due to the lack of a real video card. You can get a lot of decent dual core PC laptops for the price of a Mac Book that do have a true video card.

It also isn't really fair to compare a 8 core FCP system to what most people use for a PC editing system. There are PC people that can edit faster and just as stable on a 2 core PC system as a 8 core FCP system. Not knocking FCP at all but do you know how good a PC NLE runs on a 8 core system. It totally kicks but. Instead of buying a $3,000 Mac Pro which is pretty much a turnkey NLE system you could buy a $3,000 HP system of equal specs and it will be just as good if not better. Why don't more computer people just encourage people to buy good PC workstations for the same cost?

[Matthew Pugerude]

Okay lets hold on a second!!! Stop the train! I did not mean to start another PC / Mac War. Lets get back to the question. Short and simple is it unwise to edit HD on a PC. The simple answer is NO it is not unwise. But DO YOUR HOMEWORK when you buy your hardware!!! just to illustrate a point DO YOUR HOMEWORK when you do buy your hardware!!!

Matt

[Steve Kahn]

Ok... I'm staying with my pc (much to my girlfriend's dismay as well as most of the editors in Los Angeles, I'm afraid).

I know FCP can operate on an 8 core system but I also have learned that Vegas cannot even operate on a 4 core.

But, to be quite honest I don't really care if rendering time is a little longer or shorter. I just need a robust system to get the job done (editing HD (up to 4K) shorts and features).

Then the question is what is the best bang for your buck system to get? What brand, sound card, video card etc for a $1000 system?

(also, side note, do I need raid drives?)

Thanks!
Steve

[Shawn McCalip]

My desktop died back in November, and I ended up replacing it with an HP Pavilion 9060n. It's pack with a Q6600 quad core, 3GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8500GT. It does an excellent job of running both Premire Pro and After Effects at the same time, and I was quite impressed on how it handles 3ds Max 2008. It was marked down at the time and had a $50 rebate, so I think I only spent about $1300 for it. It's little brother, the 9040n, is exactly the same except for it's video card (8400 GS), DVD drive, and overall hard drive size(it's 320GB or 640gb... can't remember which)- but I know that one can be bought for right around $1000.

It's not exactly a xw8400 workstation, but it really packs a punch for a home-based machine that my girlfriend and I can both use.

[Laurence Kingston]

Originally Posted by Steve Kahn

I know FCP can operate on an 8 core system but I also have learned that Vegas cannot even operate on a 4 core.
Thanks!
Steve

Who told you that? There are a bunch of guys on the Sony Vegas forum getting lightening fast renders from their quad cores. They are reporting renders that are several times faster than real time in fact.

[Marco Wagner]

Originally Posted by Shawn McCalip

My desktop died back in November, and I ended up replacing it with an HP Pavilion 9060n. It's pack with a Q6600 quad core, 3GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8500GT.

I just bought two HP D4999T models and modded them slightly. I upgraded to more disk space and 4GB ram and a couple other goodies. My only mistake was not paying attention to the big VISTA signs on it. I assumed HP would have XP drivers and DID NOT. So, 3 hours later, I found all the needed XP drivers.

[Kevin Shaw]

One could say that it's unwise to edit HD on a Mac until DVD Studio Pro has support for Blu-ray authoring, but there are workarounds for that. HD editing works fine for me on a Dell dual-core laptop running Windows XP and Edius Pro 4.

If you're buying a new computer anyway the latest Macs are worth considering because they can also run Windows when you need it. If you already have a computer you like (either Mac or PC) then make the best of it until you really need to upgrade.

[Jamie Allan]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

One could say that it's unwise to edit HD on a Mac until DVD Studio Pro has support for Blu-ray authoring, but there are workarounds for that. HD editing works fine for me on a Dell dual-core laptop running Windows XP and Edius Pro 4.

If you're buying a new computer anyway the latest Macs are worth considering because they can also run Windows when you need it. If you already have a computer you like (either Mac or PC) then make the best of it until you really need to upgrade.

Why does that first bit make sense? There's loads of authoring tools available on the Mac that can author BD-Rs with the right hardware setup. Nobody says you have to use DVDSP just because it comes with FCPS :)

This forum is a great source of misinformation sometimes...

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Jamie Allan

Why does that first bit make sense?

I was just trying to make the point that Macs aren't perfect either, to balance out the original premise of this discussion. I've gotten several calls from Mac users who are puzzled about how to create a Blu-ray disc, and I've given them the best info I have on that topic for the Mac platform. Apple needs to get their act together for Blu-ray authoring...

[Alister Chapman]

I switched to Mac's last year and have never looked back.

I was fed up with having to worry about how my computer was configured. I wanted to buy a computer, put in an I/O card, add a raid array and to edit. I've been building PC for years and they have worked.. after a fashion. The Mac was a revelation. I purchased a 4 core mac-pro, a decklink HD extreme card and threw 3 new sata drives in the slots in the computer. I installed the drivers and software which was simplicity itself. I now have a very capable HD edit suite with just about every flavor of input and output and it's worked perfectly from day 1. That's it, no messing about, it works and works well. No Fuss, no hassle and Mac's are a nice touchy-feely experience. I enjoy switching my mac on.

[James Harring]

1 & 2 no and no.
3) generally it tends to be easier to use the same platform as those you collaborate with if you intend to share projects.

IMO it sounds like you are hearing from a Mac fanboy rather than a real tech person. If he were running a business, he'd realize the most cost effective platform that provides a reliable result is the correct platform, even it that answer is an Amiga. It's a business, not a beauty contest.

[Peter Ferling]

If you are serious about sharing/exchanging information with outside sources, then use BOTH platforms.

I have a dual G5 and BOXX 7400 under my work bench. Both are KVM'd to a HD Cinema monitor and apple keyboard and a five button mouse.

The keyboard shortcuts were the only issue (the apple keyboard for XP), but after a few weeks I learned them well.

I use cineform on my XP workstation as the primary edit platform. I can happily accept mac based files from outside sources and post encoded to windows format easily.

What makes the Mac advantageous over a PC is that you are limited to a well defined workflow and toolset. Very little deviation allowed for error. However, a PC is a wide open road and prone to issues if not built and configured correctly.

[Steve Kahn]

Thanks for the reply Peter.

Originally Posted by Peter Ferling

If you are serious about sharing/exchanging information with outside sources, then use BOTH platforms.

Can't you just use edl's to edit between pc and mac? (I don't know as I've never done this) - Seems that mov, wav, jpeg, etc. etc. is common to both machines.

Originally Posted by Peter Ferling

However, a PC is a wide open road and prone to issues if not built and configured correctly.

What would be a correctly built pc?

Thanks again!
Steve

[Ron Evans]

Steve,
In "simple" terms all pieces of hardware will require drivers to work in a computer environment defining how to make the particular piece of hardware operate in the computer environment, what memory allocation to be used and interrupt level for service from the processor etc. Poorly written driver code or application software, will lead to conflicts with other pieces of hardware that can lead to many symptoms on the PC. To further complicate the issue many motherboards have fixed allocations for these resources to particular slots. Put things in the wrong slots and there may be problems. This was a particular concern for early IEEE1394 capture boards and sound cards both wanting to have the same interrupt level!!!! This required particular boards be place in particular slots on particular motherboards to work at all!!! A lot of these issues have been solved with modern motherboards and bios and are not as problematic as they once were. However just filling up all the slots at random may still give problems. Although I am a PC guy I appreciate the control that the MAC has over these issues by closing the box in some sense. However I prefer the freedom to do my own thing. I have 4 PC's , one for connection to the internet( mail and browsing) just cheap dumb machine with all the virus protection etc, one PC for banking and purchasing on line ( also with virus protection etc), an audio editing PC and video editing PC both running with minimum services and no virus protection and only go to the internet for program updates so they run as fast as possible for the hardware. Most started life as my video editing machine and get rippled down the list!!!!( video editor, audio editor, Internet machine, banking machine( this machine still has a Pentium processor and hasn't been touched for about 6 years does its job just fine so I don't intend to do anything to it) I usually just move the motherboard complete with memory etc when upgrading though sometimes an upgrade to DVD writer will allow the replaced part to move to another machine etc. All these machines run with no problems and have done so for years. All downtime comes when I upgrade and move motherboards around!!!!
Others may answer the EDl question but I think that EDl's will only cover a simple editing protocol not the complexity of NLE specific filters and effects that may be used on a specific platform. To me sharing is putting something on an external hard drive specific to a platform and NLE software and giving it to someone else to carrying on with the task etc.

Ron Evans

[Peter Ferling]

Steve, Ron covered the second question with great detail (and most of us have learned this lesson by experience :). Folks whom switch to mac are taking advantage of stability in a trade-off for complete control, and just having a reliable edit station is smart business and use of ones time.

The second caveat is that Macs are expensive. A properly configured PC with quality hardware can cost just as much. (Of course, if you know what your are doing, you can buy parts from tiger direct, built it yourself and save).

To answer your first question, I've never accepted an EDL. I would not half bake a project and hand it over to someone else. I would run off an uncompressed 10bit final for additional work, and likewise receive one.

Affect Effects is the exception. If I hire an outside firm to cut the AE file. I generally just get the entire project and support files on disk. Even if cut on a Mac, it opens and edits fine in windows. I've had to make changes or revisions in this manner. The only issue was having to relink files, but a small task at that.

Sometimes I'll get a PSD or quicktime that is Mac specific -which I need for the PC, or have to write a windows AVI to a QT movie for Mac. Having both platforms makes it easy.

If I had to choose for a single platform, I would opt for a Mac. If I were to go the PC route, I'd get a BOXX workstation. The real issue is not Mac vs. PC, it's the quality of your hardware and build. Period.