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Mac or PC? Adobe or Final Cut?

L

lukeman3000

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 20, 2007
122
0
I just graduated from a local technical community college with a degree in electronic media production. As such, I'm looking to purchase a good computer for editing so that I can start putting my skills to use and making some money on the side. I have 2 questions about a computer purchase as it pertains to video editing:

1. Should I stick with adobe products (which I am used to), or is there any significant reason I should try and start learning final cut?

2. If indeed I decide to stick with adobe, is there any good reason I would want to buy a mac over a pc to use it on? I've been a pc guy all my life, I know the ins and outs, but if someone tells me good reasons why I would want a mac over a pc even for adobe (which can be ran on both systems), I am willing to listen.

An as another consideration, I like playing pc games. However, many games are for windows and not mac. Now, I know you can dual boot windows on a mac, but can I take full advantage of the video card and the processor(s) on a mac and be able to play games just as if I was running it on a windows pc? Or could there be some problems doing stuff like that?

Anyways, those are my main two questions, and the whole games thing is just another factor that I have to take in when making my decision. I'm just looking for good reasons one way or the other, with all of my questions taken into consideration.
 
To my knowledge, if you run windows in boot camp it should run no slower than if it was on a dedicated machine and takes advantage of all the macs features so you would be able to run your games fine.
 
I have used both in the past and preferred Final Cut Pro. However, that was years ago. At the time I didn't like the UI of Premier Pro, maybe it has changed since. I also liked the utility of FCP better. It just seemed stronger. Like I said though, I haven't used Adobe in nearly 5 years so it could have greatly changed.

Good luck!!
 
I recommend taking a look at some Final Cut and Motion tutorials on YouTube to get an idea on how they work. They're quite intuitive and you can easily make great things with them. Otherwise, stick with what you're used to. But remember that for very professional things FCS is better.

Oh and about the games, they should run just fine under boot camp, taking full advantage of the hardware (ok, Windows never takes full advantage of the hardware), as if it were running under a PC.
 
I would recommend a Mac with FCP. As was mentioned earlier, the industry standard is FCP or Avid so you should really try to learn one of those. Avid is horribly expensive so it'd probably be cheaper to get a Mac.

Bootcamp is fine for playing games - everything works exactly the same as if you were on a regular PC with the same specs.
 
Used both, moved from Adobe/PC to FCP/Mac

Hi,

I started out using a PC with Adobe and I ran into stability problems despite building a PC specifically for video-editing. After three attempts I changed to Apple and FCP with which I am totally happy with it with one exception: A fast PC with a dedicated video-editing card (ie which does MPEG coding in hardware rather than in software) is much faster in compressing videos than an Apple. And I use a new MacPro! The upcomming CL standard should change this.

For me, having a stable environment where I could focus on editing rather tha the PC was more important.
 
EmperorDarius said:
(ok, Windows never takes full advantage of the hardware).
Click to expand...

Well, that probably explains then why Vista 64 (with 8 GB RAM in Boot Camp) runs circles around Leopard on my Quad Core Mac Pro and why EVERYTHING runs faster on Windows than on OS X. Or in other words: Your statement has no foundation in real life and you've just been parroting a rather weird interpretation of Apple's marketing FUD.

If you want performance, choose Windows over OS X. And if you need even more performance, use Linux or FreeBSD. This can easily be demonstrated on the very same Apple hardware, just install and boot into the different operating systems and see it with your own eyes on your own computer.

To answer the Original Poster:
Some CS4 applications already run as 64 bit versions on 64-Bit Vista. The versions for OS X are still in the 32 bit world. How much of an advantage that is is up to yourself to determine. Usually the performance is better on Windows (and that is also true for the 32 bit flavors), but for many people OS X feels more user friendly and they feel more productive on the Mac. But that is a VERY subjective thing that you have to find out for yourself.

Final Cut Pro might be -- an -- industry standard, but it certainly is not the only one. You've just studied this stuff and obviously your university/college had a different opinion on that matter, otherwise they would have introduced you to the Apple ecosystem and not to the world of Adobe - on PCs.

If you master one product and are productive with it, it's usually a waste of time to learn a competing product just because somebody wants to make you believe that "it is so much better". If you can make a good living with what you already master, it makes more sense if you improve your skills with your current tool set instead of throwing it all away just to learn something new. I doubt that the suite of Apple products can do anything you couldn't do with the Adobe tools. But this is your business, you have studied it and you should be able to answer that question yourself.
 
LouisBlack said:
Bootcamp is fine for playing games - everything works exactly the same as if you were on a regular PC with the same specs.
Click to expand...

Which is hardly surprising, because Boot Camp is nothing more than a drivers collection for Windows and Macs are nothing more than designer PCs that use exactly the same hardware as any 'above average' PC notebook or PC workstation computer. (Apple does not sell computers with regular desktop hardware, so everything that is not a Mac Pro or XServe uses notebook technology.)
 
Get a Mac and FCP.

You can play PC games in Bootcamp with no loss of processor speed, but not in a Windows virtualization program like Parallels or Fusion.
 
Winni said:
Which is hardly surprising, because Boot Camp is nothing more than a drivers collection for Windows and Macs are nothing more than designer PCs that use exactly the same hardware as any 'above average' PC notebook or PC workstation computer. (Apple does not sell computers with regular desktop hardware, so everything that is not a Mac Pro or XServe uses notebook technology.)
Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure what the point of this post is?

I was just trying to quickly and concisely say that Bootcamp is no different than a regular PC with the same specs... which it is.

And in response to your comment about sticking with what you know - If the OP wants to get anywhere in the industry, s/he will have to learn either Avid or FCP... there is no two ways about it. In fact, I use FCP and work in a post house that use almost exclusively use Avid and that is annoying enough. I wouldn't want to try to get into the industry with only experience with Premiere.
 
Winni said:
Well, that probably explains then why Vista 64 (with 8 GB RAM in Boot Camp) runs circles around Leopard on my Quad Core Mac Pro and why EVERYTHING runs faster on Windows than on OS X. Or in other words: Your statement has no foundation in real life and you've just been parroting a rather weird interpretation of Apple's marketing FUD.

If you want performance, choose Windows over OS X. And if you need even more performance, use Linux or FreeBSD. This can easily be demonstrated on the very same Apple hardware, just install and boot into the different operating systems and see it with your own eyes on your own computer.
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsgQcQbUG2M
 
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