Dvd Drives

[George]

The iMac will come with iMovie and iDVD for free. They are better than anything for under several hundred dollars that is available anywhere.

Final Cut Studio runs $1299

Final Cut Express runs $299

Unless you are a video professional, iMovie and iDVD are plenty good for any video work.

BTW, get the Intel processor iMac, don't get the G5. If you do decide on Final Cut Studio, wait 2 months and get the version of FC Studio that runs on both G5's and Intel processors. If you buy now, you will have to pay a small upgrade fee to get the universal version.

[Kestrel]

The iMac will come with iMovie and iDVD for free. They are better than anything for under several hundred dollars that is available anywhere.

Final Cut Studio runs $1299

Final Cut Express runs $299

Unless you are a video professional, iMovie and iDVD are plenty good for any video work.

BTW, get the Intel processor iMac, don't get the G5. If you do decide on Final Cut Studio, wait 2 months and get the version of FC Studio that runs on both G5's and Intel processors. If you buy now, you will have to pay a small upgrade fee to get the universal version.

George,

Thanks for the advice. Actually, I have to go ahead and get the G5 for now. I'm in the systems support industry and I have a client with a network of these and need to set up a remote station for support. I'll need immediate compatibility with their apps. (My cost on the apps will be a lot less, either way.)

I'm excited about the Intel Macs and will get one later in the year. Apple's Pro apps won't be out until March and I don't think any other software vendors have even announced a timeline for their Universal Binary versions. The current PPC apps I have, will run at very reduced performance on the Intel Macs.

So, I have to go ahead with the G5 for now and I'll wait until everything is converted over to Universal Binaries for the Intel Macs. I'm excited about the (hopeful) ability to run Vista on the Intel Macs. At first glance, WinXP doesn't appear to be able to boot on the Intel Macs, because of EFI, but there may be a workaround. Also, I don't know if Microsoft will update Virtual PC for the Intel Macs, but if so, WinXP should have quite a performance boost, since VirtualPC wouldn't have to do PPC emulation. Running on an Intel machine and only doing OS virtualization should be major improvement.

It's going to be quite an interesting year in the computer world. My primary business is supporting Windows networks, but if and when there are Intel Mac laptops that run Windows XP/Vista (and OS X) seamlessly, it will make my job easier.

An interesting note - It seems Microsoft is coming out with a Mac-specific keyboard and mouse. This is a first for them. It will have Mac OS specific keys. They've never done this. That tells me they are hoping to market to Mac users in a big way with Vista. They would love to sell a copy of Vista to all the new Intel Mac owners...

K.

Edited January 14, 2006 by Kestrel

[George]

I bought a pair of PB 17's last year and will probably be buying a pair of MacBook Pro's real soon now for my video business. They are the best choice for feeding high rez background images via DVI-D into this system:

Encore Presentation System

PC machines always require a re-boot anytime you repatch them to an Encore input, or they won't talk to the DVI-D EDID tag from it and then you can't get the video cards to deliver the 1920x1080 and 2048x1080 second screen output resolutions needed. They just default to the pitch of the main display and you are SOL ;-(

This is one professional application where Wintel machines are at a huge disadvantage. At a recent Adobe/Macromedia live event we could not even make client supplied PC's with new NVidia graphics cards lockup to DVI-D only inputs on the Encore video processor. We wound up using my personal pair of PowerBooks (again).

The Mac's allow hotpatch recognition of any DVI display mode on the DVI-I display ports. The pair of MacBook Pro's I am getting will be paired with the Encore system on all the events we do with it from now on. I am getting tired of clients showing up with hardware that won't supply the pixel pitch and then having to subvert my two personal PowerBook 17's for the duration of the event.

BTW, we did a 30' wide x 18' tall image at 1920x1080 resolution using a new 25,000 lumen (yes, 25,000) digital cinema projector that just hit the event rental market. I will post some pictures of it action as soon as I get a chance later today.

Barco XLM H25