Nikon Coolscan works better on PC?

[Xnet]

I have heard from one Mac user that after physical scanning is done (with a Coolscan 5000 ED), a 1 GHz Powerbook will take a significant amount of time (3-4 min) to process the image.

We were both told recently by the same Nikon rep, that the Coolscan 5000 ED has issues with the Mac and that it simply works better with the PC and that getting a faster mac would make no difference. (!?)

Has anyone heard of this or had experience with these Nikon scanners?

Thanks...

 

[osprey76]

I have a Coolscan V ED. Post-scan processing depends on what options you are using. Options like the Digital EE (I think) which do things like an auto-exposure layer can take quite a while. I usually just use the ICE/GEM stuff that is done via hardware in the scanner and do not add much to the scan time.

I have not used any Nikon scanner on a PC, so I don't know the difference there. Also, I haven't used a 5000, just the V. I'm assuming that with a 1 GHz PowerBook, your friend's machine has USB 2.0 ports. If it does not, or the scanner is on a USB 2.0 bus with a USB 1.1 device on it, you'll see long transfer times as the image comes over at 12 Mbps max. instead of about 480 Mbps max. At full resolution, the V produces 67 MB scans.

 

[Xnet]

thanks I'll ask him what his settings are. What has me confounded is the fact that the Nikon rep is saying that the PC works better with the scanner than the Mac. I hope this is not true, if it is I will have to look elsewhere for a film scanner.

 

[osprey76]

The performance could simply be the scanner was connected to a USB 1.1 port on a Mac. Apple was a little slow to add USB 2.0 to everything. That would make a huge difference in overall scan times.