John Cline said:

"I've been playing with Windows 7 and it may possibly be the best Microsoft OS since Windows NT4 and better overall that the current Apple OS."

Well I must admit that once all the UI whistles and bells are deactivated, using the legacy loo, it is very pleasant to play with Vegas on top of Seven 64 but the disk subsystem remains the iron ball.

It's been a long time that filesystems derived from the original BSD FFS outperform NTFS and it is also a sadness that when MS issued NT3.51 they absolutely wanted to guarantee backward compatibilty for applications. But, which apps ? I still wonder...

When working with large projects on the timeline I often go grumpy because the poor NT FS I/O performance makes Vegas to slow down. Disks are plugged thru FW800, they are 10K RAID0 units. If I had money to spend I would upgrade to an ultra SCSI subsystem with 12k or 15k disks arrays to get decent performance. If I ran OSX I would not have to get those so expensive devices.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to start another "*nix vs win" flameware, nor I want to enter et debate about the pros and the cons of apple vs PCs. I just wanted to speak about one fact that is a real PITA when I have more near to 1h of HD for the final work. For the remaining OS details like UI look and feel, this is more a user taste debate which has nothing to do with productivty.

Yeah, NTFS is crappy...

Latest thing from Apple:



Bob.

Hmmmm... I've never known NTFS to be the cause of any disk I/O slowdowns. You do realize that Firewire 800 is limited to about 100 MB/sec? Your 10k RAID0 array is being choked by the FW800 interface and NTFS has nothing to do with it. Some of my machines have a two-drive RAID0 set up using plain old 7200rpm Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB SATA drives and I can play uncompressed HD all day long.

I was gonna say ... NTFS may be a bit stodgy on navigating directories (though certainly way better than FAT32), but it's file transfer speed is about as efficient as such things get. Once NTFS has found the file it can read it about as fast as any other OS.

mdopp >> And yes: En emulated Windows runs much faster

An emulator can indeed run software faster than the native operating system since an emulator has the ability to improve upon the OS by using its own routines to do, for example, file I/O. This means that Windows and Vegas could run faster under, say, VMWare on Mac than native on a similar platform.

Bootcamp is not an emulator, it runs Windows by re-booting the computer and starting Windows from a Windows partition. It is impossible without divine intervention that a Bootcamp Windows session runs faster than a regular Windows session on similar hardware.

mdopp>> due to the fact that all file IO is handled by the much, much

This on the other hand is an erroneous statement. If there is one thing that is in need of an update in OSX it is the file system. There is no real possibility that an emulator could replace Windows I/O with its own and get a speed-bump since the underlying file system, HFS+ is no faster than NTFS.

>> Yeah, NTFS is crappy...

And so is HFS. Hopefully they will both be updated soon. If only the PC makers had gone with SCSI back then. Even in serial form ATA is an appalling way to connect a hard drive to anything.

"Even in serial form ATA is an appalling way to connect a hard drive to anything."

SATA is capable of 300 megabytes per second on each port, there is no hard drive that is physically capable of moving data off the platters at anywhere near that rate. There is nothing "appaling" about SATA. Besides, SATA and SCSI are interfaces, not file systems.

Hard drive transfer rates certainly have some effect on video preview. However, if there is any actual video rendering taking place, then the transfer rate of a modern hard drive has very little to do with it. The bottleneck lies elsewhere.

Once again... my rather scientific answer to this entire thread...

Mac = boat anchor
In fact, just about EVERYTHING apple puts out can equate to this. That includes FCP.... which BTW, ACE (American Cinema Editors) board doesn't seem too pleased with these days.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005566.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1

In another interview with some pro Hollywood editors, one called Apple a "gadget Company", and questioned the support that Apple is willing to put forth towards software. Not the kind of label one wants in this line of work.

Can you say.... sinking ship? I guess that boat anchor is a tad too......efficient.

Now maybe "sinking ship" is a tad strong at this point but it's clear Apple and FCP has possibly hit its peak. I will say though, I'll be the first out there to throw the life preserver when the time comes..... and then take away as they TRY to grab onto it :)

Unless something has changed since I got my 24" iMac in December, VMWare and Parallels don't support Firewire, which would make capturing and printing to tape impossible. I suppose you could capture using iMovie or something, but...

So I went with Boot Camp, but my experience using Vegas under Boot Camp apparently hasn't been as good as others have had. I find it glitchy and little things like font display quality are reduced under Boot Camp. Rendering is much faster than on my old PC, but my old PC is a 4-year-old P-4.

I bought an Apple instead of a Windows machine this time because I absolutely HAD to be able to use Final Cut Pro. It's gotten to where some clients insist on it, even though I try to explain I can finish their job much faster in Vegas. It seems like FCP takes three steps to do stuff you can do in one step in Vegas, and you have to go out of the program to do things you can do right from the timeline in Vegas. Maybe I'll feel differently about it after I've gotten better with it.

BUT: I've got to say although learning Mac terminology and using Finder instead of WIndows Explorer has been a pain in the... apple, and dealing with Mac snobs when you have a question makes me want to find 'em and punch 'em in the nose, this Apple is so freekin' quiet it makes everything else worthwhile. My days of putting up with a noisy PC are over. I also really like the attention to aesthetics Apple has given their products. The brushed aluminum case makes those shiny black plastic PC options look cheap and cheesey.

And, when all is said and done, I can run both platforms on one computer. Nice.

"this Apple is so freekin' quiet it makes everything else worthwhile. My days of putting up with a noisy PC are over. I also really like the attention to aesthetics Apple has given their products. The brushed aluminum case makes those shiny black plastic PC options look cheap and cheesey."

You're free to choose any one of thousands of third party cases, fans, cooling techniques for PC to make it as loud/quiet, stylish/ugly as you wish.... so your point is rather moot.

One thing that it is really nice about OSX vs. Windows is there is no registry in OSX. I did a major boo-boo the the other day trying to upgrade to a newer version of Final Cut and didn't have access to the install discs to repair my mistake. To repair, I literally copied the Final Cut App (which is the program install folder) from a working machine to the messed up machine and started editing. To uninstall a program on OSX you just drag it to the trash bin. Things don't get embedded and the OS doesn't wrap around the apps so tightly under OSX and I assume Unix is the same way. When you want tiddy up the computer dragging apps and crap to the trash bin solves it. Opps, you realize you did need that app, just drag back out of the trash and you can use it. They also have a permissions reapair feature that fixes most problems and a recommend boot into safe mode now and again reconnects things that might have gotten crossed.

People always act as if customizing PCs for certain tasks is all that wonderful. I guess for render farms, gaming, CD/DVD burning that makes sense, but for editing Macbook Pros, and Mac Pro towers are already tweaked enough, IMHO.

Doesn't OSX use "preferences" instead of a registry. Not that I'm any OSX geek but when things go south with FCP the standard fix is to trash the preferences.

Two Mac Moments in the past week:

1) Long term client still can't edit XDCAM EX on his new FCS system. I tell him to downlaod the new driver from Sony and he can simply drag the mp4 folders straight to the T/L. He says tried all that, spent ages on all the Apple forums and no one can get it working for him. Long story short, he'd downloaded the file. That's all folks. That's right, he did RUN IT.

2) Two old mates call in for a visit. One is a FCS user, the other another Vegas user. Mac guy shows me his new AVCHD camera. I ask how is he finding editing that in FCP. No problem at all he says. I ask how he's doing it because our tests show it's pretty painful. He says he just connects the camera via firewire, hits play on the camera and record in FCP. He didn't realise that the whole idea of recording to flash media....

Bob.

There is a library with preferences and junk in it, but no registry or database like Windows registry that everything gets registered into. From what I gather from the geeks is that you don't have DLLs and other things stepping on each other because applications are object based. Who knows, it works and I just recently had to trash the Final Cut Pro prefs for the first time in 2.5 years of daily editing and abuse. I'm fine with that. I also had very little problems with my Dell and Vegas, so no complaints there either.

As far as Final Cut vs. Vegas in regards to editing and accepting other formats, I won't defend Final Cut at all. It is long in the tooth in some regards and I'd like to see it behave better with newer formats. But, nothing is perfect.

"There is a library with preferences and junk in it, but no registry or database like Windows registry that everything gets registered into."

Total rubbish. There is a database folder that houses all of your preferences and such and if it gets scrambled (and HAS done so... do a google on it) nothing works quite right anymore. It maybe a slightly different system but amounts to the same thing.



"Who knows, it works and I just recently had to trash the Final Cut Pro prefs for the first time in 2.5 years of daily editing and abuse."

Well... you're one up on me then... I haven't had to go to that extreme with my PC yet.

"You're free to choose any one of thousands of third party cases, fans, cooling techniques for PC to make it as loud/quiet, stylish/ugly as you wish.... so your point is rather moot."

Oh. See, I failed to realize yours is the only valid point in this world. Silly me.

You, sir, are the PC equivalent of a Mac snob; and from the posts of yours I've seen here, you have the personality of an inflamed hemorrhoid.

I'll give mtntvguy credit for an insult that at least sounds funny, but why stoke the fire?

Some people like homebrew computers, that goes back a long time.

I used to spend months picking the best components: best mobos, quietest cooling, best cases, best PSUs, etc.

Today however, I want to focus on the editing, writing, and producing.

The Mac Pro is better built than any PC workstation I have seen. HP's workstations (same price as a Mac Pro) are very good, but not in the same league build-wise. Great support though, and HP put a lot of work into making them the best they could, including a lot of system software smarts beyond a basic Windows install. Kudos for that.

Mac, PC, who cares? As someone said above, it's the software that counts nowadays (an oversimplification to be sure, but a good beginning).

Basic operations are much faster in Vegas than in FCP or Avid Media Composer.

Media management is by far the best in Avid, second best in FCP, and Vegas places third, but that also means you have to spend more time on "managing the media management."

For many kinds of high end work, FCP and Avid have features that Vegas will never get. If you need those features, it doesn't matter how "clunky" the tools are, they're the only tools that will do the job.

It is also clear that Vegas will not be ported to OS X anytime soon (probably not ever). Why? Because the code is so intimately tied to the Microsoft Windows way of doing things, a veritable thicket of APIs (some like "Video for Windows" are imho beyond obsolete) designed by Microsoft to tie people to the OS forever.

OTOH, Adobe decided a long time ago to not to get so deeply entangled in MS's recommended Windows APIs. so Premiere Pro (and Encore, etc.) is cross-platform, and it seems that this has served them well (even if the company gave its employees mandatory unpaid leave next week, probably due to CS4 not being a runaway hit).

In the higher-end pro world, I never see Mac snobbery or PC snobbery. People talk about what they create, not what they created it on. Tools are seen as imperfect things, just necessary to get the job done.

"You, sir, are the PC equivalent of a Mac snob; and from the posts of yours I've seen here, you have the personality of an inflamed hemorrhoid."

Why heavens! Do hemorrhoids have personalities???

Blink>> Mac = boat anchor

Mac = PC, so PC = boat anchor?

A Mac is a well designed PC. Most PC makers do not even come close to designing their stuff as well as Apple does. Does it make it worth the extra $$s? If you have a strong opinion on that you have a serious mental problem in my opinion.

Well then...

By your rather questionable logic, mac should be able to run Windows on ntfs without boot camp. It should also be able to run Vegas in its native form and fit my sound card (X-fi elite pro). I should also be able to customize my mac seven ways from Sunday with parts bought from any small town drug store. I should be able to connect just about ANY programmable mouse I wish.....AND.... not have to jump 1000 hoops in burning Blu Ray disks.

Oh yes... and let's not forget about the other way around either. If Mac = PC then I should be able to run FCP on my PC based machine without issue.

Who's got the learning disability here???

Blink, deleting a program's "prefs" is just dragging 2 files to the trash bin and then restarting the program. It then creates fresh "prefs". Most of your custom settings in the program are saved such as window layout, etc. It takes 20 secs.

From another site regarding OSX having a registry:

"Windows Registry is like a huge manifest of every setting in your computer; if it becomes corrupted, your machine can have a lot of problems and often times you'll need to re-install Windows. --> Something many of us who run Windows hate.

Mac OS keeps each setting in an individual file called a "preference" which is sort of like the old ".ini" files from the Windows 3.1 days--However, preferences are much different in that the program(s) will rebuild them if the preference file is deleted.

If a preference file (for whatever reason) became corrupted, you would simply drag it to the trash, re-start the program, and you're back in business. Windows--another story--requires the registry keys to be fixed, or cleaned.

Installing a program on a Mac is simply "drag and drop" the program to your computer; uninstalling is dragging the program to the trash. There are some 'exceptions' to this, one being MS Office 2004 which seems to have some "issues" w/ fonts but for the most part is the same."

I thought the reason Windows needed Bootcamp to run on a Mac is that Macs use the more advanced EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) developed by Intel, rather than the 1970s punch card era BIOS,

But apparently Windows SP1 can boot from EFI.

And I swap hard disks (not from the drug store though) in my Mac faster than I can do it in my PC.
No cables, just a connector mounted securely.

Oh, and a Logitech programmable mouse too. If there is some other mouse from the drug store that doesn't work, I can live with that.

Blu-Ray? Video-wise that is practical mostly for large studios today, and data-wise conceivably for data storage (although we don't know much about their archival stability). Both internal and external drives are available for Mac, with software to burn both BD video disks and data disks.

well my amiga 200 still rocks!!!!

and just to voice again what's been quoted often - it's what you produce that counts, NOT what it's produced on.