Is a Mac better than a pc.

[biggirafe]

I read that with interest. The problem is, I'm doing music (of sorts - some imagination is needed here...) videos with up to 5 video tracks, 1 or 2 effect tracks and 1 music track (mixed separately from up to 8 tracks then imported into the video program). Although the videos are only 2-3 minutes long, it isn't possible to split the chunks down any further because the various tracks overlap and interweave. The rendering itself is OK but the 'puter creaks and groans through the compilation stage. Wth some packages I can't even view a preview screen and I'm editing with a ... plastic ruler in fractions of milimeters!!

AJ - I think you probably have a higher-spec set-up than mine and presumably a 64-bit system. As you seem to have replaced all/most of your hardware (and drivers?), have you tried loading a different version of Windows? Or even just from a different installation disk. Something sounds corrupt somewhere...

Hi Roo
If you are doing such complex mixing I would say you need a profesional machine, still if you can get yourself a large independant harddrive and dedicate it to your editing software from install and keep your work on it you will find it makes a big difference if you can get a good hardrive with a very large on board cache they can take the presure off of the cpu and ram during rendering

Andy
Your hardware drivers are most certainly the issue.
Assuming you have visited all the manufactures websites and updated the drivers to the very latest versions for your hardware including the motherboard then :-
I would get a cheap and chearful video card that requires no special drivers and remove your expensive video card, then run the machine without the expensive card. If the problem goes away you have found the culprit. If its not that then work your way through each piece of hardware until you find the culprit. My money would be the video card drivers you have are not compatible with the motherboard.

I would not upgrade the OS yet to windows7 as you might be introducing new issues.

Again assuming you have a legal copy of XP then I would not expect that to be an issue, just ensure you have done all the microsoft updates.

You should never need to reinstall XP unless you are a fiddler who can't fix what you break

I develop on my machines and mess heavilly with low level commands in the o/s and the worst I have to do is stick in XP disk once every 6 months and do a repair where I overwrite the O/S, reinstalling does work but its a bit like taking your MH to the garage for a new engine to be fitted when all you needed was the oil topping up.

 

[sagart]

Having moved through XP to Vista Ultimate and now Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit (with no problems at all!) I've found DriverMax - free driver updates a very useful source of the very latest drivers. It is MS approved as it is by Nvidia and quite a few hardware manufacturers.

 

[growlinson]

user friendly

Being the most 'user Friendly' does not in my opinion make a computer the best, personally I'm happy working in a command line on a unix machine.

Windows is just the O/S you can run Linux on a PC if you want, can you run Linux on an apple or free bsd ?

Where PC wins handsdown (imho) is the fact they are half the cost of a mac and will run a free O/S such as Unbuntu is you want, i can't see them sending Apple Macs to the third world for the schools out there to use at 1 grand a throw.

They won't ever bring the price down until people stop paying the hyked up price they ask

I would have thought that user friendliness was at the top of the list of criteria for judging the value of a tool that we all use day to day. User friendliness equals a pleasant experience. Obviously the machine has to be capable of all the tasks that is required to do. That is taken as read.

Linux etc? What does all that mean to the man in the street?

Ho hum...

 

[ajs]

.

just had my No 1 PC puter back after yet another rebuild

they found a rootkits trojan...
if you don't know what it can do.. google it
....i'ts a little nastid...

you don't want 1 of these... ohhh lordy no...

regards
aj

 

[biggirafe]

I would have thought that user friendliness was at the top of the list of criteria for judging the value of a tool that we all use day to day. User friendliness equals a pleasant experience. Obviously the machine has to be capable of all the tasks that is required to do. That is taken as read.

Linux etc? What does all that mean to the man in the street?

Ho hum...

Whoever said that PC's were intended for the man in the street?
A PC is a tool, it was designed for work like a spade or a spanner and as such was intended to be used by people who have been trained to use them. Many people trying to use a full blown pc now can't program their video recorder but expect to be able to use a pc out of the box without any formal training.

So long as its OK and does its job then that is enough in my opinion but my opinion is from the viewpoint of a business user. MACS which I do use are now designed for home use where design is as if not more important than function, but boy do we pay through the nose for that extra level of design

I agree user friendlyness is important but at the expense of capablilty or at too higher price then functionality always comes first for me, there are always those that will buy something because it looks good or its the latest thing and for me MACS very often come into that bracket most people use there machine at home for browsing the web and most people reading this post are on a PC or MAC which could have taken man to the moon but are using less than 10% of the capability. Buy a cheap note book, install Lynux and you have a great browing machine for less than £200 you can take it camping and throw it in the bin if it gets wet but of course it won't be sexy and you can't tell your mates about it down the pub unless your a geek

 

[Polly]

Hia
I got my new laptop on Wednesday a trip out to the Apple shop
My son-in-law and daughter are both apple uses so there is my support
It is gorgeous go on say it a tipical womans remark

 

[biggirafe]

Hia
I got my new laptop on Wednesday a trip out to the Apple shop
My son-in-law and daughter are both apple uses so there is my support
It is gorgeous go on say it a tipical womans remark

Not at all Polly, not one can argue that they arn't well made and good looking machines
Enjoy

 

[dai]

I leave my iMac at home and take my cheap Vista laptop with me when I camp. Plug my blackberry into it so I can use the net to check ahead for where to stay. it also doubles up as a TV if needed..

 

[growlinson]

eh?

Whoever said that PC's were intended for the man in the street?
A PC is a tool, it was designed for work like a spade or a spanner and as such was intended to be used by people who have been trained to use them. Many people trying to use a full blown pc now can't program their video recorder but expect to be able to use a pc out of the box without any formal training.

So long as its OK and does its job then that is enough in my opinion but my opinion is from the viewpoint of a business user. MACS which I do use are now designed for home use where design is as if not more important than function, but boy do we pay through the nose for that extra level of design

I agree user friendlyness is important but at the expense of capablilty or at too higher price then functionality always comes first for me, there are always those that will buy something because it looks good or its the latest thing and for me MACS very often come into that bracket most people use there machine at home for browsing the web and most people reading this post are on a PC or MAC which could have taken man to the moon but are using less than 10% of the capability. Buy a cheap note book, install Lynux and you have a great browing machine for less than £200 you can take it camping and throw it in the bin if it gets wet but of course it won't be sexy and you can't tell your mates about it down the pub unless your a geek

Eh ?
What was all that about ? MACs work, rarely crash, are very secure and are user friendly. In other words - they out perform PCs as tools, as well as a 'user experience'

 

[Deleted member 775]

.

just had my No 1 PC puter back after yet another rebuild

they found a rootkits trojan...
if you don't know what it can do.. google it
....i'ts a little nastid...

you don't want 1 of these... ohhh lordy no...

regards
aj

ha i got one of those little monsters munched thru my hard drive faster than billy bunter in macdonalds. only a cheapy laptop so its getting a new old hard drive. using my daughters at the moment thats running ubuntu summat like that but will i be able to use a internet dongal when on the move with this system if i istall the same system in my lap top

 

[Deleted member 2636]

When I used to sell computers if I had a customer come into the shop I used to ask them what they wanted to do with it.
If they were "of a certain age" and had never had a computer before I always used to try and get them to buy a Mac; the reason being that I knew that they would be running it within two hours of getting it out of the box.

Mac tend to have a lot of their components made specially for them. These are made in factories that have little or no idea who they are producing the components for. The security that Mac have invested in the production of their products is quite extraordinary

I would love to have a Mac Powerbook but
a - a lot of the programmes I run don't seem to run on Mac
and
b - I simply cannot afford one

I note this news story today; must be quite galling seeing that M/soft bailed Mac out a few years ago
The Big Apple: How Firm Overtook Microsoft - Yahoo! Finance

and