Mac versus PC

[wcoetzee]

Do I dare comment on this?

people please!, if your pc or mac hard crashes its f'd up hardware. NO OS will work on it perfectly.

btw i can install OSX on my pc since 2006, and any other os's macs can install.
i have had my fare share of soft crashes on all of the above os's and yea linux too
none of them are perfect, it all depends on the software
and btw windows do graphics designing just as well as any other os's can
don't forget its only software and hardware is just electronics

 

[phiber]

any mac fans here who isnt into graphic design or a similar line of work?

ME! I am a mac fan, cos to me they truly have a superior OS with a very good hardware supporting that os!

 

[PeterCH]

MS doesn't need to; they have a vast software industry servicing the needs of Windows users. That said, I believe that the bundled Windows Movie Maker is as good as the cut-down movie maker on Macs. If you want professional stuff, you buy it - and Adobe make some nice software for Windows.

Which isn't as popular or as easy to use as FCP. Yes there is also Premiere
and AE for the Mac but FCP is just so much easier to use. As for Movie Maker,
did you actually use the Mac OSX equivalent iMovie and iDVD which come
with Macs? There's no comparison. iMovie is more of Adobe Premiere Elements
than Moviemaker which is incredibly basic and unintuitive.

Well that defeats what you said earlier - you said Macs are favoured by the media industry. I told you why - Apple made some good software or bought up
software packages like $25.000 Shake and $15.000 Colour and sold them for
R5000 for Shake (an app they used in Lord of the Rings Trilogy) and Colour
which is used by most professionals. MS simply doesn't care - they have their cr@ppy Windoze and their lousy Office suite.

PCs crash?

You didn't know? Your Wintel machines DON'T CRASH? DOESN'T GET SLOWER
as more apps are installed and uninstalled? Isn't reformating one of the consistent bits of advice Windoze users give each other when things go wrong?

I know. My point was that PCs don't only run Windows.

Macs can run everything PCs can AND Mac OS X which can be
hacked to sort of run, except you get numerous hardware/software
conflicts. For instance a friend tried that - and while his DVD-R drive
is recognised no software app from Burn to Toast on his Hackintosh
will load.

And you get the privilege of paying for overpriced hardware *and* you get to pay for an additional copy of Windows.

The Mac Pro was actually cheaper than a similar spec'ed Dell machine.
However included in that I got the best desktop case available, with drive
bays - no need to connect any SATA cables or power cables, drive
just slots in on its caddy. Yes you can get that for a PC too but with
varying success. Mac is just better.

I've been using PCs since 1990 and Macs are just in a superior class,
not in all aspects but in most.

 

[wcoetzee]

ME! I am a mac fan, cos to me they truly have a superior OS with a very good hardware supporting that os!

Intel cpu

 

[phiber]

Intel cpu

Your point ? Hardware integration into an OS is not down to a CPU alone!

 

[The_Techie]

Isn't reformating one of the consistent bits of advice Windoze users give each other when things go wrong?

Personally, that's the least preferred option. In fact, I made a point of not advising anyone to format their PC in the Hardware and Software FAQ, which is primarily aimed at Windows users. There are usually ways to fix problems without resorting to a fresh install.

 

[Zenbaas]

The Mac Pro was actually cheaper than a similar spec'ed Dell machine.
However included in that I got the best desktop case available, with drive
bays - no need to connect any SATA cables or power cables, drive
just slots in on its caddy. Yes you can get that for a PC too but with
varying success. Mac is just better.

I've been using PCs since 1990 and Macs are just in a superior class,
not in all aspects but in most.

Peter you keep on comparing to the Dell machine. How many PC users do you think honestly will go and pay such inflated prices for a PC..? Come on we would much rather actually put the extra money into the hardware instead of paying for the NAME BADGE....whereas with a MAC that is pretty much your only choice. I think for R38000 i could build a pretty MEAN PC One i would prefer to a MAC 400 days of the year

 

[PeterCH]

people please!, if your pc or mac hard crashes its f'd up hardware. NO OS will work on it perfectly.

Oh Really? So you mean buggy drivers, corrupt registry, incorrect DLLs
and other issues don't cause crashes? Office doesn't just die out of
the blue? Exlorer doesn't just die and won't draw windows when you
open more than a dozen tabs and reuse some of them a few times?
Yeah.... Windoze is one big frustration, I tell you.

I'm not even going to mention all the malware available for Windoze.
I won't mention all the junk which installs itself in the registry with
Windoze apps. You need to be a mini-IT expert to keep your
Windoze box clean, while with a Mac your grandma can work
and work consistenly well.

I get crashes on all my Windows machines. Both soft and hard. I only had
one series of crashes on my Mac and that was due to faulty RAM.
The crashes on the Intel machines ranged from video card and driver issues,
BIOS, shadowing, sound drivers, onboard video conflicts and many many other problems. The result is a lousy computing experience with brand name
equipment which is never overclocked.

There is also the little matter of Windows sometimes dying, then requiring
the Recovery console only that doesn't work on OEM versions of Windoze
and you need reinstallations. A reinstall requires re-activation of your
Office, Windoze and reinstall of all those other apps you have each
with its own SETUP and a dozen clicks per app. Mac OSX apps usually
install by drag and drop and unistall by deleting the app. Easy and fast
and no mess.

In the last 2 years I needed to reinstall Windoze XP 4-5 times on
my 2 machines, the 3rd is still OK.
The Mac has had Tiger when purchased 2 years back, that was upgraded (overwritten) to
Leopard and still runs well.

 

[phiber]

I agree with PeterCH, pc has many problem. Even running ubuntu i have had many problems..... Sound drivers don't work most of the time on any of my 3 HP/Compaq laptops. then you go to windoze and you just don't have a cool package manger like portage or apt. I tried gentoo and u get on to portage, you type emerge ANYTHING and then you wait 2 days before you can use you machine again....

Mac has a great integrated balance...

 

[The_Techie]

I agree with PeterCH, pc has many problem. Even running ubuntu i have had many problems..... Sound drivers don't work most of the time on any of my 3 HP/Compaq laptops. then you go to windoze and you just don't have a cool package manger like portage or apt. I tried gentoo and u get on to portage, you type emerge ANYTHING and then you wait 2 days before you can use you machine again....

Mac has a great integrated balance...

Happily my experiences with Ubuntu have differed vastly from yours (recent Linux fanboi ), though you do raise a valid point. It's always better to stick to an interface that you are comfortable with

 

[wcoetzee]

MS simply doesn't care - they have their cr@ppy Windoze and their lousy Office suite.

MS only does the os and office, thousands of software company's create brilliant software for xp/vista just like in macs

Isn't reformating one of the consistent bits of advice Windoze users give each other when things go wrong?

only if the user giving the advice is a n00b

Mac is just better.

nope, so linux users are wrong and so are xp\vista users?

 

[phiber]

I just came across this ....

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=143271

Anyways on the Ubuntu topic, i have shut it down, then tried to boot it and have it just not go anywhere. They also release a new version of the operating system every 6 months... I think that is pushing it. It is still the best OS out there for PC ...

I accept ubuntu as my sorry excuse for not being able to afford a mac...

 

[wcoetzee]

Your point ? Hardware integration into an OS is not down to a CPU alone!

dude this means, writing stuff for macs or pcs can be ported both ways.

 

[PeterCH]

Peter you keep on comparing to the Dell machine. How many PC users do you think honestly will go and pay such inflated prices for a PC..? Come on we would much rather actually put the extra money into the hardware instead of paying for the NAME BADGE....whereas with a MAC that is pretty much your only choice. I think for R38000 i could build a pretty MEAN PC One i would prefer to a MAC 400 days of the year

Zenbaas. It was not an issue of badge or looks for me. I noticed a 1000% efficiency and performance improvement from the moment go.

Let me illustrate. My previous PC, the HW render and capture card (Matrox RTX Extreme Pro) and the Adobe Premiere suite cost me actually less than the cost of the Mac Pro and Final Cut Studio.

However the improvements in performance were huge. We were actually
able to edit on the darned thing. With the Matrox or without it, Adobe Premiere would crash - everything was OK according to Matrox support
but the program would die after say 1 hour of use or would suddenly
freeze up - then you needed to restart the PC and waste 2-3 minutes
on bootup and then reload of everything. Without the Matrox the system
was dog gone slow. The Matrox allowed numerous effects, filters and renders
ALL in real time - without it, you needed to wait 10x real time. And even
so that would also die.

When I installed Final Cut Pro (a software package used by Hollywood studios, BBC, CNN and numerous professionals) on the Mac Pro,
the system started to kick a... It worked! We could work on the timeline
for 8 hours straight even - not just me but another person too.
It was amazing - no f-ups. There were also NO OS crashes (kernel panics).
There were very few FCP crashes - maybe 1 every 2-3 months.
The performance was on par or better even than the Matrox/PC combo
but this system could also edit and render High Def video all the way through
DVC Pro HD at 1920by1080 Progressive. Premiere Pro was SD only.

Matrox and Adobe Premiere were great. They are great software and hardware but compared to FCP and Mac they just loose out.

For me, this was a no brainer. The Mac was rock solid stable and without issues. The chief reason for using the Mac was FCP and the package
itself is not available on Wintel and its equivalent Premiere (which is
also available on the Mac) was MORE EXPENSIVE (yes Premiere being
inferior to FCP is actually MORE EXPENSIVE than FCP) and less powerful
than FCP.

Anyway I never bought a Mac for the badge or pretty menus. I bought
it because I was recommeded a Mac by others who worked on FCP
both online and IRL and when I finally made the MOVE - I discovered
that it was a good one.

 

[PeterCH]

MS only does the os and office, thousands of software company's create brilliant software for xp/vista just like in macs

Yes I know there is AVid Liquid or Autodesk AutoCAD or Maya. But for those systems you'll even pay more than the price of a Mac Pro, ie a Dell 8 core
workstation running WINDOZE.

only if the user giving the advice is a n00b

That's one problem. The other problem is that you need to have an
IT degree to give advice or fix a PC. Macs just don't break down
as much - both HW and SW side. You can be a n00b on the
Mac and use the tool for its intended purpose without having to
waste money (and time) on fixing all the stupid things Windoze
and the 1000's of different HW vendors do.

nope, so linux users are wrong and so are xp\vista users?

Wrong? Look there are apps which work well on PCs. I still use a PC. I type this on a PC. I still like the Windows classic (Win NT 3.51 interface). However,
and these people are not wrong but if you stepped into my shoes and did what I did (ie gone through the steps with first the PC then the Mac)
you'd be agreeing with me.

Oh but Vista is a lost cause, sorry .

 

[wcoetzee]

Oh Really? So you mean buggy drivers, corrupt registry, incorrect DLLs
and other issues don't cause crashes? Office doesn't just die out of
the blue? Exlorer doesn't just die and won't draw windows when you
open more than a dozen tabs and reuse some of them a few times?
Yeah.... Windoze is one big frustration, I tell you.

I'm not even going to mention all the malware available for Windoze.
I won't mention all the junk which installs itself in the registry with
Windoze apps. You need to be a mini-IT expert to keep your
Windoze box clean, while with a Mac your grandma can work
and work consistenly well.

I get crashes on all my Windows machines. Both soft and hard. I only had
one series of crashes on my Mac and that was due to faulty RAM.
The crashes on the Intel machines ranged from video card and driver issues,
BIOS, shadowing, sound drivers, onboard video conflicts and many many other problems. The result is a lousy computing experience with brand name
equipment which is never overclocked.

There is also the little matter of Windows sometimes dying, then requiring
the Recovery console only that doesn't work on OEM versions of Windoze
and you need reinstallations. A reinstall requires re-activation of your
Office, Windoze and reinstall of all those other apps you have each
with its own SETUP and a dozen clicks per app. Mac OSX apps usually
install by drag and drop and unistall by deleting the app. Easy and fast
and no mess.

In the last 2 years I needed to reinstall Windoze XP 4-5 times on
my 2 machines, the 3rd is still OK.
The Mac has had Tiger when purchased 2 years back, that was upgraded (overwritten) to
Leopard and still runs well.

Man you have some f'd up hardware there one laptop and one amd pc at home and none of that. plus 4 pc's at work on xp and still ....
btw. drivers crashing your pc's? man where do you get your drivers\hardware from?

 

[PeterCH]

MS only does the os and office, thousands of software company's create brilliant software for xp/vista just like in macs

This was in response to a statement that Apple has endeared itself to the
Multimedia community. My response was that APPLE itself either wrote from
scratch or ported expensive pieces of software. For example,
Final Cut Studio 2 has a program called Colour. This used to be called
Final Touch from a company called Silicon Color. That app cost $25,000
2-3 years back. Its now free in Final Cut Studio 2.

Last year, for example, Apple bought an application called FinalTouch from Silicon Color that was essentially video color correction on steroids. They changed the product name to Color, added a couple features, then rolled it into Final Cut Studio, Apple's top-end video application suite. Though FinalTouch sold for up to $25,000, Color is included in Final Cut Studio FOR FREE, which is a kick in the head to Apple competitors like Avid that don't have hardware sales to count on for profitability. This hardware-software one-two punch is how Apple has come to dominate media creation and is the main reason why those who think Apple will license Mac OS X to other hardware companies are simply wrong.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080111_003899.html

Apple Shake. This software package costs under R5000.
The original price of this software, when not owned by Apple was
$10,000! That's R100.000 for one licence!

From Wikipedia (for Shake):

Shake was originally developed by programmers and supervisors from Sony Imageworks including Arnaud Hervas, Emmanuel Mogenet, Ron Brinkmann, Louis Cetorelli, and Dan Candela[citation needed]. In 1996, Arnaud Hervas, along with Allen Edwards founded Nothing Real, and released Shake as its flagship product in 1997. Version 2 was released in 1999 for Windows NT and Irix, costing $9900 US per license, or $3900 for a render-only license.

What is Shake used for:

Shake has been used in such films as Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, as well as Harry Potter movies and Cloverfield. It was also used by The Embassy to create a television advertisement for Citroën with a dancing car. Shake was used by Broadway Video for restoring the release of “Saturday Night Live: The Complete First Season” DVD box set. It is also in use by CBS Digital for creating new visual effects for Star Trek Remastered.

Other major productions using Shake include the 2005 adaptation of War of the Worlds, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Fantastic 4, Mission Impossible 3, Poseidon, The Incredibles, Hulk, Doctor Who, The Dark Knight and Pirates of the Caribbean 2.

Shake is also used for video post-production, but in this field Discreet Logic (now Autodesk)'s Flint, Flame and Inferno systems are usually used in conjunction with Shake for a fast turnaround of projects. Shake's historical strength has been the ability to work better with very high resolution formats such as 2k, 4k and IMAX used in the motion picture industry.

You have to admit that Apple did a heck of a lot of good and the cost of buying a Mac Pro or an iMac outperforms the cost of having to buy those
two packages before Apple took them over and reduced their price.

 

[wcoetzee]

Zenbaas. It was not an issue of badge or looks for me. I noticed a 1000% efficiency and performance improvement from the moment go.

Let me illustrate. My previous PC, the HW render and capture card (Matrox RTX Extreme Pro) and the Adobe Premiere suite cost me actually less than the cost of the Mac Pro and Final Cut Studio.

However the improvements in performance were huge. We were actually
able to edit on the darned thing. With the Matrox or without it, Adobe Premiere would crash - everything was OK according to Matrox support
but the program would die after say 1 hour of use or would suddenly
freeze up - then you needed to restart the PC and waste 2-3 minutes
on bootup and then reload of everything. Without the Matrox the system
was dog gone slow. The Matrox allowed numerous effects, filters and renders
ALL in real time - without it, you needed to wait 10x real time. And even
so that would also die.

When I installed Final Cut Pro (a software package used by Hollywood studios, BBC, CNN and numerous professionals) on the Mac Pro,
the system started to kick a... It worked! We could work on the timeline
for 8 hours straight even - not just me but another person too.
It was amazing - no f-ups. There were also NO OS crashes (kernel panics).
There were very few FCP crashes - maybe 1 every 2-3 months.
The performance was on par or better even than the Matrox/PC combo
but this system could also edit and render High Def video all the way through
DVC Pro HD at 1920by1080 Progressive. Premiere Pro was SD only.

Matrox and Adobe Premiere were great. They are great software and hardware but compared to FCP and Mac they just loose out.

For me, this was a no brainer. The Mac was rock solid stable and without issues. The chief reason for using the Mac was FCP and the package
itself is not available on Wintel and its equivalent Premiere (which is
also available on the Mac) was MORE EXPENSIVE (yes Premiere being
inferior to FCP is actually MORE EXPENSIVE than FCP) and less powerful
than FCP.

Anyway I never bought a Mac for the badge or pretty menus. I bought
it because I was recommeded a Mac by others who worked on FCP
both online and IRL and when I finally made the MOVE - I discovered
that it was a good one.

mac specs?
pc specs?
specs makes a big diff

 

[PeterCH]

Man you have some f'd up hardware there one laptop and one amd pc at home and none of that. plus 4 pc's at work on xp and still ....
btw. drivers crashing your pc's? man where do you get your drivers\hardware from?

I run legit Windows on legit brand name components, such as Kingston, Gigabyte, Acer, Intel, Creative, Matrox etc.

I don't install warez. I don't install cracks. I don't run stupid registry utilities
and other garbage. I have updated AV software and FW software.

Windows just sucks and that is one of the biggest reasons WHY PCs suck.

 

[PeterCH]

mac specs?
pc specs?
specs makes a big diff

Systems were 'nt bought at the same time.
So PC was assembled and bought 2 years before the Mac.
However the PC had the Matrox RTX Extreme Pro - which can handle
many effects simultanously in Real Time. So they were evenly matched
when it comes to horsepower.

The RTX Extreme had a minimum CPU requirement of a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz. That
was in 2003 or 4.