Tough Decision, GOOD Camcorder or FAST Mac?

[PegasusMedia]

"Just a question, what kinds of stuff do you edit? It boggles the mind how you could use such old machines to do projects and still make profit..."

Heh. Well that's the hardest question to answer that I've seen on here. We do a little of dern near everything, focused mostly on higher end corporate type stuff. Vignettes for the United Way drive...Promo for the builder of a new neighborhood...sales hype for the annual meeting, that kind of thing.

But here's an important point...the old M100 can do almost anything a fancy new machine can do. Of course, when I do more layering & vertical editing, I go to the fancy box...but an old machine can still do a good percentage of the typical daily grind editing. If what you do is mostly Horizontal editing (this shot, cut to that shot, dissolve to this shot) a 10 year old system is 100% perfectly good. We charge $150 per hour for that room and do quite well.
I will admit to putting only low end "consumer" or unsupervised (no client present) edits in there, but a good bit of our work is unsupervised. In the end, they have no idea on which machine their work was done.

My favorite analogy, which i use often, is this...

Imagine you walk into the Sistine Chapel. You look at the walls, the cieling...you see an ablolute masterpiece of art. Do you find yourself wondering whose paintbrushes he used to paint it?

Of course not. The work is impressive because of the artist, not the artist's tools. Obviously great tools make the work easier to create, but great work comes from an artist, not from his "brush", which in our case is a computer/software.

Deep, eh?

Enjoy your camera dude.

 

[LethalWolfe]

My favorite analogy, which i use often, is this...

Imagine you walk into the Sistine Chapel. You look at the walls, the cieling...you see an ablolute masterpiece of art. Do you find yourself wondering whose paintbrushes he used to paint it?

My favorite came from a photographer on another forum when someone said, "Nice pictures. What kind of camera do you use?" He replied, "If you have a great meal at a restaurant do you ask the chef what kinds of pans he used?"


Lethal

 

[3dit3r]

My favorite analogy, which i use often, is this...

Imagine you walk into the Sistine Chapel. You look at the walls, the cieling...you see an ablolute masterpiece of art. Do you find yourself wondering whose paintbrushes he used to paint it?

Of course not. The work is impressive because of the artist, not the artist's tools. Obviously great tools make the work easier to create, but great work comes from an artist, not from his "brush", which in our case is a computer/software.

You better believe it that other artists are wondering what tools other artists are using! As a person who used to call himself a 'painter' and was active in the 'fine arts' world, I, and all the other artists I knew would often try and figure out what materials our favorite artists used. It's the norm; trying to pick up various techniques by discovering their methods. This often led to the invariable warning from security for getting our noses to close to the canvases...

Now, as an editor, I don't wonder how someone made that cut, but what box was used to handle that effect or color,etc.,etc....

 

[FF_productions]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

It has really changed my perspective on computers.

The only reason I would get a new machine would be for speedier rendering/encoding. Does it make ME better at editing? No. Do I get loads of projects? No.

My friends think this machine is a super-computer, they always come over because their PC's can't do the job.

This Mac has a lot more value to me now, and I'd like to thank everyone for giving me confidence in this machine.

I'm ordering the camcorder saturday, and expecting it to be at my house sometime during next week, I'll post again whenever it comes!

 

[FF_productions]

I have officially ordered the DVC30!

The excitement is mounting!!

 

[notjustjay]

Congrats!

I didn't see this thread soon enough, or I would have chimed in about buying the camera first.

A slower computer is just an inconvenience -- ultimately you get the same end result that you would with a faster one, but you have to wait longer for it.

A lower-quality camcorder can never give you the same end result as a better camcorder. You can't just "upgrade".

Plus, a good camcorder, particularly the pro ones, will last you many years. I've watched Sony's consumer camcorder line degrade over the years in favour of consumer-grade "features" like making them ever smaller and smaller, giving them touch screen, and making the costs lower at the expense of essential features like external mic jacks, usability, longevity, low-light ability, CCD size, etc. Every year something new comes out, and every year they are worse than before (from a video production perspective). A few years ago I saved up and bought a Sony VX2000. That camera was on the market for about 5 years, before finally being replaced by the VX2100, and even that was just an incremental upgrade and a change of casing color. Pro cameras last.

Maybe one day I'll buy a new HD cam, but for now DV is still the dominant standard and my VX2000 will continue to give me great video for as long as it lasts. Meanwhile, I've gone through 3 or 4 different editing computer configurations, and will continue to do so as things progress.

 

[FF_productions]

Congrats!

Thanks, I agree with your post as well. I know/hope this camcorder lives up to it's expectations. It will surely blow away my digital 8 camcorder.

Yeah, having a slow machine is a inconvienence but it isn't a necessity to have the fastest one. My videos will render faster, never was it said they would be better.