Giving up windows/microsoft cold turkey! I have some questions.

[romeo26]

I am a average computer user, i guess. I’am switching to OSX with a I7 15inch MBP. I do have some concerns. Most video content I have is in .avi form. Most of my video content is anime and I acquire them from torrents. I don’t really use any program to manage my music, I usually just put them in folders by album titles (bought and downloaded). I am also a photographer, and i current use bridge and cs3 for my photo needs, the photos are organized by canon software(year/month/date). Phone contacts are exported from my nokia phone and managed by the windows application. As of right now i dont game but i want to. Games i plan on getting is; half life 1 and 2, boarderlands, l4d2, maybe COD4 and starcraft 2. I’am also a radiology student and plan on just using iwork. Now come the questions!

Will OSX play .avi files natively? If not what software is recommended?
Can I use torrents with OSX, what should i use?
Is itunes easy to use, for music? Can i pick how it organizes my songs?
What does OSX offer to manage my photo’s? What type of features does it offer? Can it do it as i download the images from my camera?
What is apple’s alternative to CS3?
Can i store a copy of the contacts from my phone to OSX? how will that be managed?
Gamming I know I’am going to use boot camp but I’am wondering what screen should i get! the sd res or anti-glare hi-rez screen? with the sd rez i know it should be fine but i know i would like more screen space!

 

[miles01110]

Will OSX play .avi files natively? If not what software is recommended?

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Can I use torrents with OSX, what should i use?

Yes / https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/800143/

Is itunes easy to use, for music? Can i pick how it organizes my songs?

Yes / yes. You could try it out on Windows if you want.

What does OSX offer to manage my photo’s? What type of features does it offer? Can it do it as i download the images from my camera?

iPhoto

What is apple’s alternative to CS3?

There is no Apple alternative.

Can i store a copy of the contacts from my phone to OSX? how will that be managed?

iSync

Gamming I know I’am going to use boot camp but I’am wondering what screen should i get! the sd res or anti-glare hi-rez screen? with the sd rez i know it should be fine but i know i would like more screen space!

So get the high-res screen.

 

[Hackint0sh]

I'll answer some of your questions:

You can run Photoshop CS3 in OSX. Just contact Adobe tech support and tell them you wan to switch your license from PC to Mac. You may also want to upgrade to CS4 or CS5.

For photo organization, I use both Adobe Lightroom, and Aperture. IMHO the brush tool in Aperture is a little better. Edit: These applications are pro grade, and are not free. The free application to use is iphoto.

You can choose how to organize your file folders for your music, then import them into iTunes, but once you start using the iTunes interface I doubt you will care how your folders are organized.

I THINK you can play AVI files in VLC (a free video player). Maybe someone else can comment on that. Edit: I just checked the VLC site and AVI is supported. There is a windows version you can check out as well.

iPhone Contacts would be stored in Apples address book via iSync. Not sure about other phones......I think it depends on the brand of phone you are using.

 

[romeo26]

thanks you guys! i should of done a search with my questions!

 

[BlueRevolution]

You can run Photoshop CS3 in OSX. Just contact Adobe tech support and tell them you wan to switch your license from PC to Mac. You may also want to upgrade to CS4 or CS5.

Might be hard to upgrade to CS5 without a time machine.

Edit: And not the kind of time machine that Apple sells, either. The NDA on those things is a killer.

 

[Makosuke]

Will OSX play .avi files natively? If not what software is recommended?

Being something of an anime fan myself, a bit longer of an answer to this part of the question:

First, QuickTime (which is built in and very integrated with OSX) can play AVIs natively. However, AVI is just a container format (and a poor one at that), which can contain nearly any kind of video or audio stream (and, likely in your case, also associated subtitle streams), many of which QuickTime doesn't support by default.

But... install Perian and QuickTime will play damn near anything you throw at it. In fact, with MKVs with some subtitle formats (which if you're grabbing high quality fansubs you probably have more of than AVIs) I've seen it do a better job than VLC.

VLC, linked above, is a popular alternative, and will play nearly anything you throw at it.

However, after years of swearing by VLC, I now prefer the young project MPlayer OSX Extended. It's MUCH lighter weight than VLC, has relatively easy to understand prefs, and in my experience with a variety of fansubs does better than VLC on funky files (though I've seen a couple that VLC will play where MPOE chokes as well). I also prefer the interface, and it skips forward/back more consistently and smoothly than VLC. Aside from not having settings for everything you can imagine its only disadvantage is that it occasionally hangs when you first open a video, but it only takes a second to quit and try again. Oh, and it handles WMV files better than VLC (heck, in most cases even better than Microsoft's licensed Flip4Mac plugin), though you rarely see fansubs in that format.

There's a third similar project as well, but it didn't handle soft subtitles as well, and I can't remember the name of it right now anyway.

Of course, they're all free, so you can experiment and see which you prefer personally.

Also, if you're an anime fan, check out Hulu--I was surprised to find that they have a lot of good, and in some cases quite new (Baka and Test within a week of it being licensed, for example) stuff, much of it soft-subtitled, in completely legitimate, licensed form. If you install the Beta Flash player 10.1 (probably will only be beta for a few more days), it plays fullscreen video rather nicely even on an HDTV.