No, all I'm saying is that OSX doesn't have apps I want to use,
and the ONLY important feature of any OS is that it runs what I need and doesn't crash. XP does that, OSX does not. The fact that XP cost only $90 in the last 6 yeras versus $600 for OSX is just a bonus. So charging current users of OSX $109 for leopard ( or any version of OSX after the original ) is insulting, because these new "features" are nonsense. First version of OSX and even couple after that just plainly broke some apps( like LIghtwave, it wouldn't run on a Mac for a while ), then they released newer versions to fix this, and still charged $109.

As for your comparisons , they are quite wrong.

Cinema4D ( which is also available on Windows anyway ) is a good app, but not in the same league as XSI, for any kind of work ( anybody in 3D who is worth anything will tell you that )

Fusion vs Shake is also an absurd comparison.

Vegas vs FCP has been discussed enough.

If people prefer the other side and are willing to pay more for it, that's fine, but it's ridiculous to justify that by spreading false information like: It's great OSX leopard has just one price of $109 for upgrades and, bla, bla, when in reality ( as I've already shown you )
over the last 6 years Apple stiffed you for 6 times more money than Microsoft. Or discussion we've had before how macs are priced competitively. Just not true.

Remember out laptop discussion? Exact same hardware will cost $500 more if you buy Mac book pro over something like a Sager.
If you want to go with ASUS, it will be even worse.

>>>>On the other hand I can see that OS X has great Core APIs that can give even the most junior programmer access to high level video and audio functions that even use GPU acceleration automatically. <<<

And it looks like those junior programmers are doing all the work on Apple's video and audio apps. Explains quite a bit.

Probably the iPhone is a very good example of what profoundly disturbs me about Apple.
You want one, it's tied to a carrier, sounds maybe harmless enough until you find out why. Apple get a 30% to 40% cut of your phone bill back from the carrier. But it doesn't end there, what happens when the battery final wears out. Well you can use your iPhone as landfill like everything else Apple sell or maybe if you're lucky Apple might repair the phone for some exhorbitant fee.

Apple stage manage the whole "i" thing, they want you with blinkered vision in their iWorld so they can exact a toll on your iLife.

Bob.

Farss --- PDP-11s, V, Coursedesign---- PDP-8 with 12 bit words and old 3 bit(0-7) coding-------- I spilled my espresso on my keyboard reading those posting( personal note-don't read vegas at Starbucks). After a hour or two, my laptop forgave me and started working again..... looks like my old battle harden IBM likes espresso too.

Farss, the iPhone battery is a problem for the owner in the near future, but sealing the battery in permitted a bigger battery, more up-time. but the you are right about the owner getting screwed if the battery fails.

I was reading through the manual on my new Archos 404 and came across the section on the life of the non-replaceable battery. I'm still not sure whether to be insulted or to just keep laughing my head off. The manual explains that, sure the battery will probably only have a useful charge life of a couple of years. And yeah, you could send it to an Archos dealer and have it replaced for a lot of money. But face it, in a couple of years you'll be bored with this thing and want to replace it with something a lot spiffier anyway.

I think more manufacturers should be this honest with their customers.

Wow, this is a great thread!!! Congratulations, coonass, you made my "blocked username list" as the number 5 entry in the 4 years I have been a member of this forum. As soon as I blocked coonass, there is a lot of interesting stuff discussed here by a lot of "lifers".

And it does remind me of the "good old days"(?) of Zippy, Billyboy, the Producer, etc..... and just like the leaves of autumn, they eventually fade away.

TomG

pity bill conduit isn't around for vegas, he'd certainly have added a touch of, well something or other........

leslie

Yeah - I guess those wannabe's who produce ABC's Nightline on Vegas are a bunch of amateurs."

Thanks for the info. That may explain their huge ratings drop and why they are on the verge of being cancelled.

If your going to blame their cancellation on their NLE... take a moment and look at all the other shows cancelled and their not edited on Vegas. Stop and think before you type comments like that.

If your going to blame their cancellation on their NLE... take a moment and look at all the other shows cancelled and their not edited on Vegas. Stop and think before you type comments like that.

Ahh... it's just some jerk mouthing off incoherent babble... probably an Avid user distraught over the discontinuation of liquid

BillyBoy may have been a pain in the ax the last times he was here but he certainly contributed a lot prior to that, well, "depressed period" of his last miles on the forum.
Just an example:

http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-menu.htm

...15 tutorials that still can be used by Vegas rookies nowadays.

Zippy, on the other hand, with his all capital lettered posts... :)

pity bill conduit isn't around for vegas...

And only us "old timers" from the rec.video,production & rec.video.desktop newsgroups know who you're talking about :-)

Mike

BillyBoy may have been a pain...

Speaking of Billy Boy, his Vegas forum at http://www.crossfade-forums.net/ has been down for some time now.
Anyone know what happened to it or him?

Mike

Video on OSX, what a joke, fine if you don't mind it wrapped in Quick Trash and stuck with 8 bit RGB.

Bob, you need to get a new mattress for your bed. Or a new wife, or whatever the problem is (out of decaf? :O).

Having worked with 10-bit video coming from my BMD Decklink card in QuickTime format (on Windows no less) since 2004, I'm baffled by your statement.

And of course the QuickTime wrapper handles both YUV and RGB.

It's Vegas that works only in RGB, and it's Vegas that until V8 handled only 8-bit video.

Windows doesn't manhandle your video so you can do what you want with it, that's why all the high end system runs on Windows.

Which high end systems are you thinking of? There are a lot more high end systems running on the Mac platform than on PCs, so what are you thinking of?

Nuke, it's laughable. Yeah I sat through a demo of it, poor sod, nearly puked when I told him I was comparing it to Fusion, all he could keep talking about was what Fusion did and it didn't, sad.

You may not have kept up with everything that's happened with Nuke this year. Many very high end shops in Hollywood have Nuke as one of their most preferred tools for film work.

Shake, another Fusion knock off.

Who cares if it is a knock-off? Apparently not Hollywood, where Shake seats outnumber Fusion seats by about 100 to 1.

Those Shake seats worked, amongst other projects, on the last six Academy Award (Oscar) winners for Best Visual Effects.

Fusion is a very good product, but their price keeps them out of consideration for many VFX shops today, because of the dramatically squeezed margins on VFX work. Digital Fusion is still trying to get people to pay $5,000 per seat, and when people can get even the new Nuke for half of that, very few companies bite. Additionally, because so few people use it, it is hard to find trained artists.

If you're really keen on Fusion, wait till next year and pick it up for maybe 1/3 of its current price. Assuming of course the company is still in business. Remember: this has nothing to do with the quality of the product, which is outstanding.

Shake is an old product, but for that reason it is the value deal to beat all others in nodal compositing. And it exports tracking data to Particle Illusion even :O)!

It is also highly capable, and will remain #1 in Hollywood at least until Apple brings out its freshly designed replacement next year, with frequent and massive input from Peter Jackson and technology from Silicon Grail.

Cinema4D ( which is also available on Windows anyway ) is a good app, but not in the same league as XSI, for any kind of work ( anybody in 3D who is worth anything will tell you that ).

C4D is well ahead of XSI for any work related to motion graphics.

It was also used to produce 3D for Ghost Rider, Spider-Man 3, Surf's Up, Open Season, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, Monster House, Eragon, Superman Returns, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Serenity, War of the Worlds, Polar Express, Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, The Flight of the Phoenix, Van Helsing, King Arthur, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Star Wars: Episode II - The Attack of the Clones.

But what do those dabbling amateurs know?

Overall, most Mac owners stick with the version of OS X that came with their computer when they bought it, because "it just works." Naturally there will be people who install a newer version just to access new features needed for their work.

You didn't suggest any features added in Windows XP since 2001, so I'll assume you concur there weren't any. Users got free security updates by the tens of thousands, in order to save them from the very poor underlying design (unlike Unix, it was never designed to be a multi-user system and security was a total and very much lacking afterthought). If your time is worth nothing or you're working for minimum wage, then it doesn't matter if your computer is choking or standing still or needing frequent reboots from the massive amount of ultra-annoying updates.

Exact same hardware will cost $500 more if you buy Mac book pro over something like a Sager.

It isn't the same hardware. For similar specifications on the other hand, you pay about the same, or less, for pro level notebooks.

I agree that Windows is the only choice if you want a $400 laptop from Staples or Office Depot, but even that is only because of a few manufacturers' late realization that Vista needs a lot of horsepower just to drive its eye candy (unlike OS X), and the low end laptops they packaged with pre-installed Vista were unusable without upgrading to Windows XP. That is too expensive for a manufacturer to do with machines that are already packed, so they blow them out.

You may complain about Apple's apps, but there sure are a lot of pros using them.

Of course, unlike you, they are all idiots who are given top jobs for $100M movie productions through dumb luck.

The sheer number of these "idiots" means however that no OS X user has to worry about not getting drivers for the latest cards from BMD or AJA.

OS X security updates are very rare, and I don't have to spend $25.00-$50.00 per year on virus subscriptions.

Aaaaah!

Now if only we could get Vegas on it!

Imagine if Vegas was ported (which should be vastly easier to do today, thanks to new developer tools and great libraries).

It would have only three competitors: Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Avid Media Composter.

Think about it. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it.

This thread really shouldn't degenerate into a MS vs. OSX debate... both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

The largest factors keeping me away from a MAC personally are the fact they do, for better or worse, tend to overcharge greatly for their hardware. Also, they don't seem nearly as customizable in the hardware department. I like being able to open my PC up and change things around or swap stuff out easily.

Personally, I'd love it if Apple would design an official version of OSX to run on PC hardware... I think they'd get a great many customers. Although I've been more impressed with XP over the years than I ever expected to be, I wouldn't mind trying out Final Cut Studio in addition to the CS3 products and Vegas I already use.

"Having worked with 10-bit video coming from my BMD Decklink card in QuickTime format (on Windows no less) since 2004, I'm baffled by your statement. "

QT is strictly 8 bit RGB, YUV it's either 10 or 12 bit, can't remember which. Might pay you to drop by the REDUSER workflow forum from time to time. Even Scratch, their grading system of choice is still running under Windows. Assimilate are a nice bunch of guys, sure didn't seem in any hurry to jump to OSX when I spoke with them.
IRIDAS weren't either and I've been watching to see how Cineform go getting Prospect2K RAW to work with FCP.

Bob.

teehee - If windows is so poor, why is it used by so many businesses, atm's (cash machinces or whatever you want to call them), major shops for tills, bootcamp etc.

At least one thing is agreed by all here it seems. Vegas rocks :)

I have one really big complaint against mac laptops. 1 mouse button. It seems like I should be wearing a mitten when using it, as I obviously am not agile enough to handle more than a pad and a single button... Reminds me of those coats parents used to make children wear in winter - you know, the ones with the gloves ties together through the sleeves with string. Odd visual alliance I know..

Ken

windows sucks. OSX sucks. I want a command line OS again. didn't deal with any of the BS i have now. Give me an autoexec.bat, config.sys & I'm good. I loved setting up cards manually. I loved that I could specify the specific settings each piece of software uses. I didn't have one issue getting sound to work, have programs run, etc.

that's my solution: go back to command line & let the programmers make their own GUI. Things were much more organized.

will also solve the problem of user like ass-man here: computers will be to difficult for him to use to be a pain in our butts.

A man after my own heart, I still have fond memories of MAPICS on an IBM 36, still a few systems running down here I think. Amazing how much can be done on a 1MHz CPU, even with 50 users pounding away.

Bob.

>>>>It isn't the same hardware. For similar specifications on the other hand, you pay about the same, or less, for pro level notebooks. <<<<<

What is the point of further discussion when you post things like that.

All you had to do was go to apple.com and sagernotebook.com

As of today: WUXGA LCD with Super Glossy Surface (1920 x 1200), 160gb , 7200 rpm drive, 2 gb of ram, nVidia 8700 card, 2.4 ghz cpu on Sager 5791 is $2124

Same thing on apple.com mac book pro with those specs:

$3049


So, I was wrong, it's not $500 any more, Mac will cost you $920 more for the EXACT same specs. Even the quad core ( 2.66 ghz ) option on sager 9261 is cheaper than mac book pro, and this is not Dell or emachines, Sager is a pretty good boutique brand.

And you're just as wrong on your points about Fusion and XSI.
Some of the movies you list under Cinema4D portfolio ( like Star wars and Spiderman ) had bulk of the work done in Maya, XSI and Fusion. Most of these movies use more than one app for 3D. I'm not putting down Cinema4D, it's a capable app, but what exactly is your point. It is available on windows too if you want to use it. XSI and Fusion are windows only. That is the point after all. Windows = choices of apps. OSX = take what we give you and stick your brain here. wash, rinse, repeat.

Is it true that when you boot Leopard, the first sound coming out when you see the desktop is a growl that when played backwards says: "Steve is god"

QT is strictly 8 bit RGB.

Sorry, not correct. I don't know where you're getting your information, but BMD and AJA both support for example 10-bit RGB QuickTIme, as does Final Cut Pro. There is no 8-bit limitation for RGB either.

Scratching my head to try to figure out where this urban myth could be coming from, I'm guessing it comes from some specific codec having problems.

I spent many hours with the top RED guys, and they are working very closely with Apple.

Assimilate Scratch was released in 2004, when Macs were still running pokey PowerPC chips, so OS X was not an option. Macs of that day simply did not have enough performance for 2K DI work.

Iridas lists their products as available for "Mac, Windows, and Linux" (in that order).

>>>Assimilate Scratch was released in 2004, when Macs were still running pokey PowerPC chips, so OS X was not an option. Macs of that day simply did not enough performance for 2K DI work.<<<

Oh really?? Back then the story was. Mac is up to 5 times faster than an equivalent PC. Just like today you tried to convince me mac hardware costs the same as pc.

Now you see why we shouldn't trust anything coming from Stevie boy's mouth ( or 90% of mac users' mouths ).

I have one really big complaint against mac laptops. 1 mouse button.

I felt a bit whacked by this also initially, until I found that it wasn't hard to put my left index finger on the Control key when navigating the touch pad to someplace I wanted to "right click."

Corollary to that: I have one big complaint against PC laptops. No two-finger scroll.

This means that I have to leave the touch pad and either go pinpoint up- and down-arrows in the app, or use a set of separately located scroll buttons.

I also have a Compaq laptop, and scrolling drives me crazy every time. I try to do the quick and easy two finger scroll like I do on my MacBook Pro, but nothing happens.

Why is Windows used for ATMs? That is most likely Windows Embedded. There is no equivalent for OS X.

Shop tills? Well, ... that would seem to be an application where Windows can finally be used to its fullest capability. Perhaps not the proudest moment for a Desktop OS. [Sorry, that was a gimme :O)]