Newbie making the switch, questions and suggestions

[mrlunch]

Howdy folks, I’m new to the forums and will also be buying a Mac in the next few weeks after MW ‘06. My first Mac was a iMac Graphite 6 years back. Didn’t have a good experience with OS 9 and eBayed it about 4 month later. Now, I’m ready to make the switch again. I feel much more confident with the Intel Mac and OSX. Plus being able to run Windows gives me options I never had in the past. I’m getting excited I have been to the Apple store just about every weekend for the last few months playing with everything and almost cant refrain from buying something.

Quick questions... what are some good web sites other than Mac Rumors do you browse? What must have software for the Mac? I do podcasting on my PC any good podcasting software for the mac? Want to get more involved with video with my mac, my background is with Adobe Premier but want to move to Final Cut. My biggest decision, do I get a MacBook Pro or Mac Pro desktop. Hopefully after MW I can decide.

Excited!

 

[jonparadise]

Welcome mrlunch, good to see you're making the move back to Mac.

What sort of software are you interested in? A great site is macupdate.com for all the freeware and shareware out there.

Garageband 3 (http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/) had good podcast recording abilities, that will come free with your Mac, but you can search Macupdate for podcasting software too.

Recently I've moved to Final Cut Express from iMovie, which is great, and it flies on the new Macs.

Personally, I have a 17" Macbook Pro, mainly as I wanted a load of screen real estate as I use High end music software. My other half has a MacBook, and I have to say, that is extremely fast too.

If you are likely to be doing a lot of intensive video editing, it goes without saying that you should try and get the highest spec you an afford at the moment

 

[simontarr]

Jon gives good advice- if you're doing lots of video editing, the best you can afford is good advice. The only problem is that a Mac Pro can get very expensive before you even have a monitor.

If it wasn't for it's lack of upgrade-ness, I would suggest a 24" iMac. Theres a TON of screen real estate and it's no slouch either if you max out the CPU and RAM (Although 3GB would be the most economical way of getting a noticable speed increase) The top range model is also good for video editing because theres room for a 750GB HDD. With Firewire 800, you could add a fast external scratch disk as well.

So for bang for buck, the 24" iMac would be ideal.

 

[emptyCup]

If you are serious about video editing, in the I want to make a living from this sense, the Mac Pro is the only machine to consider. However, if you are coming from Premiere you are undoubtedly in the learning or for-fun stage. The iMac 24" is a good machine to consider. It is expandable enough for your purposes. Start with iMovie, which comes with the machine, and move up from there when you outgrow it. Best wishes.

 

[ero87]

www.macosxhints.com

mostly nerdy Terminal stuff, but some applicable stuff once in a while!

 

[mr_matalino]

Maybe before you make the jump to FCP (as you have to buy the Studio now - $1300US) I would consider Final Cut Express. It's the happy medium between iMovie and FCP (which FCE runs $300US). Just a suggestion...

 

[Mac'Mo]

in all honesty, MacRumors is one of hte best forums for information and pretty much all you need. I pretty much used MR and the Apple site for everything. The apple's support tab is quite helpful since it has some tutorials and stuff.