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New to Macs looking for one. Avid editor

V

videditgal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 5, 2013
1
0
Hi!
This is the second time I ever consider a mac except that this time isn't for fashion.

Iam/was a PC person and I used to defend pcs at all cost, but now after working with macs at my not so new job (11 months) I concluded Macs might be easier for video editing. I usually work on a 5,1 17 inch mac and sometimes on a 2010 15 inch mac, and on Avid xpress pro (discontinued long ago) and those macs also have great text apps.

I work at a tv station and I shoot with dslr (full hd) and my edits end up 3 to 5 minutes long.

I was thinking on getting a powerfull PC but then I wouldnt be able to edit with avid xpress pro since it doesnt exist anymore and the upgrade to MC7 is kind of expensive, plus, such laptop is at least 1200, which I cant spend at the moment, especially since I would be using it on weekends and or perhaps if I get sporadic projects.

After some research I ended up believing a Mac would be my best choice since I could invest in an old mac and not having to spend 1200 bucks.

Now, the big question is, which one should I get?
Avid Xpress pro's requirements arent as high as mc7, for macs it asks for tiger, 1gb minimun and 2gb for full h, graphics adapter supported by apple 128mb (or higher) memory on graphics quicktime 7.2

I am aware if its an old native tiger or older mac then there is a chance to partition the hd and install tiger on the partition hence xpress pro.

Right?


Now, you mac experts, what would you recommend? An affordable option that can run avid xpress pro and full hd.

THANK YOU!
 
videditgal said:
Hi!
This is the second time I ever consider a mac except that this time isn't for fashion.

Iam/was a PC person and I used to defend pcs at all cost, but now after working with macs at my not so new job (11 months) I concluded Macs might be easier for video editing. I usually work on a 5,1 17 inch mac and sometimes on a 2010 15 inch mac, and on Avid xpress pro (discontinued long ago) and those macs also have great text apps.

I work at a tv station and I shoot with dslr (full hd) and my edits end up 3 to 5 minutes long.

I was thinking on getting a powerfull PC but then I wouldnt be able to edit with avid xpress pro since it doesnt exist anymore and the upgrade to MC7 is kind of expensive, plus, such laptop is at least 1200, which I cant spend at the moment, especially since I would be using it on weekends and or perhaps if I get sporadic projects.

After some research I ended up believing a Mac would be my best choice since I could invest in an old mac and not having to spend 1200 bucks.

Now, the big question is, which one should I get?
Avid Xpress pro's requirements arent as high as mc7, for macs it asks for tiger, 1gb minimun and 2gb for full h, graphics adapter supported by apple 128mb (or higher) memory on graphics quicktime 7.2

I am aware if its an old native tiger or older mac then there is a chance to partition the hd and install tiger on the partition hence xpress pro.

Right?


Now, you mac experts, what would you recommend? An affordable option that can run avid xpress pro and full hd.

THANK YOU!
Click to expand...

I've never used Xpress Pro, but I do support Media Composer and NewsCutter in both Mac and Windows environments. Let me put this bluntly if you're considering these current, supported, products:

GO WITH WINDOWS.

I'm not joking, the Avid editors are simply far less glitchy on Windows. They just... work, no issues, no problems. On Mac, often I find myself having to delete preferences and things from user accounts and watching the whole thing get broken and need support help.

Yes, this is just one sample, but it's over enough editing stations (about 40) that I feel comfortable saying that I'd much prefer to dump every single Mac we have running Avid and go to an all-Windows environment!
 
You want a iMac (Mid 2007) that shipped with Tiger if you still want to go the Mac route. There is no Tiger installer for Intel, they were just disks that were specially made for each machine at the time as it was the PowerPC to Intel transition.

You'd really just want to do a bootcamp with Windows and get a newer iMac.
 
As others mentioned, if you intend on using only Avid xpress pro, you want to search for Mac with 10.4.
I think a Core 2 Duo iMac or MacBook Pro would work.
When you buy you should find one with original install disks, as most people have upgraded OS X beyond 10.4 by now.

Film makers such as Casey Neistat makes short videos for Mercedes and Nike using iMovie on his Mac.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb60rrtTddQ
 
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I bought a PC for video editing. After Apple dropped Final Cut, there was no real reason to stay on OS X, and you can get a much more powerful PC for 1/2 the cost of a mac.
 
handsome pete said:
I can't attest for MC on Macs, but that hasn't been my experience on Windows at all.
Click to expand...

Are you using Avid-qualified hardware configured EXACTLY as Avid specifies? This is critical, Avid (Mac or PC) is a picky little kid... but if you feed it what it wants, it's pretty happy on Windows.
 
markie said:
Are you using Avid-qualified hardware configured EXACTLY as Avid specifies? This is critical, Avid (Mac or PC) is a picky little kid... but if you feed it what it wants, it's pretty happy on Windows.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately we are, which sucks since we are heavily reliant on After Effects and C4D as well and I feel as though our marriage to Avid's specs hurts the performance of these others.

Maybe I just find Avid buggy in general. Random meaningless errors, settings that won't stick, etc. Granted, a lot of this could be due to the networked storage and our recent migration to Interplay. Maybe I'd be having a much smoother experience on my own personal machine.
 
handsome pete said:
Unfortunately we are, which sucks since we are heavily reliant on After Effects and C4D as well and I feel as though our marriage to Avid's specs hurts the performance of these others.

Maybe I just find Avid buggy in general. Random meaningless errors, settings that won't stick, etc. Granted, a lot of this could be due to the networked storage and our recent migration to Interplay. Maybe I'd be having a much smoother experience on my own personal machine.
Click to expand...

Interesting, we run Newscutter (which is, frankly, Media Composer but designed to integrate in a newsroom) on Windows since there's no Mac version (and even if there was we need to also use other Windows newsroom tools) and we use Media Composer on Macs. We do have one Windows Media Composer system.

Everything you describe happens on the Macs but never on Windows. Tons of random meaningless errors that only end up fixable by dumping that user's profile and resetting Avid to them. I hate it.
 
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