General Mac hardware discussions: Dont see how Mac's are cheaper than PC's
about picking an apple
by maria Morris - 7/29/06 8:42 AM In reply to: eMac is ancient technology by batavierI have been at the apple store so much that all the guys know me. So here I go again, at the store I hear that I should buy an imac but I should go on line to buy it because I have to add more ram and up the video card to 256mb so that I can use final cut. But on the other hand when I was online doing im the other person I was talking to wanted me to only buy a G5 cause I was planning on using it for final cut. So I didn't know which way to go, so I went back to the store and they told me to just buy imac and just do the upgrades. What would you do?
emacs do work
by j_vencer - 8/7/06 8:49 AM In reply to: eMac is ancient technology by batavierThought I would drop my 2 cents worth. The way she has her emac speced out, it is more then adequate to run Final Cut Express 2. I guess it would depend on what program she is running she first called it Final Cut Express 2 then Final Cut Pro, there is a big difference.
I used to run a media education department and we ran 5 similarly speced emacs, with Final Cut Express 2, Photoshop CS and Intuos 2 tablets. 250 Lacie firewire drives. During the summers those emacs would run for at least 10 hours a day, and my students would be using them non stop. Never had a failure, crash etc. My only problem was when I failed to format one of the hardrives and even though media could be saved and seen it could not be recovered or opened.
From what Maria is saying I am guessing she has 3 problems.
1.) She is running out of hardrive space. If her finished project is 2 1/2 hours long and under ideal conditions of 1 min = 3 min raw. That still works out to about 7 1/2 hours of raw footage that works about 97 gig of hard drive space. her drive is only 80 gig.
2.) It sounds like the second problem she maybe facing is that she is trying to open up FCE in iDVD. FCE is not iMovie. If I remeber correctly you need to export out from FCE then bring it back into iDVD.
3.) Use the external. Who ever told you not to use the external does not know what they are talking about. Unless the firewire drive is a 5400 rpm. If its a 7200 rpm there should be no problems.
IMHO one of the main reasons people should look at macs is if you are serious about creating movies. Final Cut Express makes a great training tool for the price and if you master FCE, then making a jump to Final Cut Pro is easy. Pinnacle may have a simpler workflow but it is not considered as even a "semi-pro" program. You want to make movies mac is the most cost effective computer.
My reply to j_vencer
by maria Morris - 8/7/06 5:05 PM In reply to: emacs do work by j_vencerHi J, thank you for your answer to my problem with my emac. I'm tired of going to the apple store with my 50 pounds of emac and not really getting anywhere other than you need to buy a new computer cause that's all I hear from them. Now let me tell you I am using final cut express 2 and when I finish my project I sent it to my desktop so that I can drag it into idvd so that I can burn it. The first problem is making the right file so that I can drag it into idvd and have it burn for me. What happens is I get "its the wrong file type and it can't work for me that way" I brought quick time pro just so that I wont have the problems with making the files I need to burn my projects but it didn't help me. So you see I need someone to tell me the right way to sent my file to my desktop so that I can burn it without losing my project. Can you help me? Thanks Maria
Did you do it this way?
by mrmacfixit
- 8/7/06 6:08 PM
In reply to: My reply to j_vencer by maria Morris
Preparing your Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro movie to work with iDVD
You can use movies from Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro in iDVD.
In Final Cut Express, select your sequence and then choose File > Export > QuickTime Movie. If you've added chapter markers to your sequence, choose Chapter Markers from the Markers pop-up menu, then click Save. It's not necessary to make the movie self-contained.
To add a Final Cut Pro movie to your iDVD project, you export it as a QuickTime movie. Any movie in QuickTime format can be added to an iDVD project, but for best results, export the movie as a DV (digital video) file, as described below.
To export a Final Cut Pro movie as a digital video (DV) file:
In Final Cut Pro, choose File > Export > QuickTime Movie.
In the Export window, choose the NTSC or PAL DV format you want to use from the Settings pop-up menu. If you are using Final Cut Pro version 1.2.5 or later, make sure the Make Movie Self-Contained checkbox is not selected. (This will make the export process much faster.)
Click Save. A QuickTime file that references your Final Cut Pro movie is created on your hard disk. This is the file you will add to your iDVD project.
To export a movie with chapter markers, you must use Final Cut Pro 3.0.2 or later.
A reply for mrmacfixit:
by maria Morris - 8/8/06 7:13 AM In reply to: Did you do it this way? by mrmacfixit
I only have final cut express 2 will it still work the same way for me? And thanks for your reply. And why am I having so much bad luck with making files to put on my desktop? The other thing that is happening to me is I'm losing video clips on my timeline. What am I doing wrong now. I haven't been using my emac cause I lost my big project that took me a long time to do. To answer your question as for what I did I will have to go downstairs and start working on my emac again so that I can go thru my steps so that I can tell you what I did wrong. Maybe I'll do it later. I'm not happy with pinnacle either they have to many bugs in there software and my last project took a long time burn cause it kept hanging up on me in rendering and I had to keep doing over and over again.
One step at a time
by mrmacfixit - 8/8/06 3:13 PM
In reply to: A reply for mrmacfixit: by maria Morris
When you have finished working on your project in FCE or FCP, surely you save it to a file that FCE or FCP can open and allow you to continue editing, if necessary.
Only when it has been saved in that manner, should you even consider exporting it out for use with iDVD.
The information I gave you came from the Help file of FCE version 2.0.3 and should definately work with your version. Note that FCP and FCE use the same functions to get a DV project into iDVD.
Did you ever do any editing in iMovieHD?
P
One step at a time, reply
by maria Morris - 8/8/06 5:56 PM In reply to: One step at a time by mrmacfixit
Yes I have edited with imovie, but I wanted to move up to final cut because it was sold to me when I bought the emac. I know that there is a big learning curve with final cut so that when I want to learn final cut pro it wont be so hard for me to learn. And don't get me wrong I have finish some stuff with fcx and burned it using idvd I just don't understand why I had a problem the last time I used it. I still didn't get back to trying to use the emac. Maybe later. But thanks for your help, Maria
Cheaper Macs
by e3954 - 7/28/06 2:44 AM In reply to: Dont see how Mac's are cheaper than PC's by rohan.katipallyI have been doing a lot of comparison shopping for all sorts of products over the years. Since I live in England and find it extremely expensive (and so does everyone else here!)to buy anything here, when I wanted to buy a Mac I did shop around a lot. One thing I discovered was that no matter where I looked, the prices were almost the same, all things considered. Whether that is a result of price fixing I am not in a position to say; however, I still bought my first Mac (in England!)over a year ago and much more recently bought a MacBook to replace my aging Compaq. I have used Boot Camp to load Windows and it works perfectly, each in it own operating system. To say that it works 'perfectly' in Windows, especially, may be stretching the truth quite a bit.
Macs seem expensive; however, don't forget the age old expresssion: 'You get what you pay for.' I certainly have no regrets at having spent more to have a Mac; in fact, it was money well spent and for me, a very satisfactory decision.
(NT) Reply to 'Don't see how Macs are cheaper than PC's'
by dsteitz4 - 7/28/06 8:54 AM In reply to: Dont see how Mac's are cheaper than PC's by rohan.katipallyI've been a Mac user since 1979! As for your question, may I point out that most of today's Mac's come standard with 512MB of RAM? Most PC's do not and it's an upcharge. Also, considering what's PRE-LOADED in a Mac---- iLife, iPhoto, iTunes, Garage Band, and numerous other STANDARD software applications, it makes a Mac cheaper than a PC. Most PC's would require you buying these software programs as an upgrade. It's not just about the Intel processors, it's about how much you get right out of the box.
-Greg
since 1979? Preposterous!
by geoff.lus - 7/28/06 3:34 PM In reply to: (NT) Reply to 'Don't see how Macs are cheaper than PC's' by dsteitz4Your statments would carry more weight if you didn't start out with a blatent lie.
You claim that you have been a mac user since 1979? The Apple Macintosh was originally released on January 24, 1984, so I can't imagine how you were using a mac five years before they were released.
How would I remember the exact date? It was my 18th birthday, and at the time I was a rampant Apple II fanatic.
Now there is a word I really like
by mrmacfixit - 7/28/06 4:19 PM
In reply to: since 1979? Preposterous! by geoff.lus
Preposterous!
Doesn't it just sum up all BS we see in this thread. It just rolls off the tongue and succinctly sums up some of the posts.
I also like:
Atrocious, used to describe the state of Windows security.
and
Sinecure, used to describe my job(Part Time)as a Mac network administrator/Tech
Wonderful!
P
reply to 'since 1979? Preposterous!
by dsteitz4 - 4/20/07 8:24 PM In reply to: since 1979? Preposterous! by geoff.lusHey! I'm not a liar! Simply an oversight in choice of words and names of models. I meant to say an APPLE user since 1979. Mac was used as force of habit. I tend to call all Apples 'Macs.'
Sorry that I upset you. Jerk! And yes I HAVE BEEN AN APPLE USER SINCE THAT TIME!!!!!
I don't think so
by msgale - 7/29/06 9:19 PM In reply to: (NT) Reply to 'Don't see how Macs are cheaper than PC's' by dsteitz4Interesting post, excepting for a couple of points. The MAC did not exist until 1984, Apples did, but not MACs. Yes some software is included, but I believe there is no, full featured Word Processor, nor Presentation Graphics Application included. Any Desktop publishing application is big bucks for both PCs and MACs. Check out the pricing on Adobe and Macromedia products. P.S. iTunes is also free for PCs.
Do you take CD burning for granted?
by sierrarose44 - 7/28/06 10:21 AM In reply to: Dont see how Mac's are cheaper than PC's by rohan.katipallyOn of the other things I love about macs is that they just come with built in CD burning. I was called up the other day by a mom I know who needed to transfer a powerpoint presentation from her PC to an old laptop. She couldn't figure out how to burn a CD on the machine...and neither could I! Apparently, it didn't have the software to do the trick. I admit, it could have been my own inexperience or stupidity why I didn't find it, but I'm fairly confident it wasn't. Anyway, I used a USB drive to copy the file onto my mac, burned the CD she wanted (and I ended up giving her three of them -- it took just about a minute to burn each one), then copied that onto the old dinosaur laptop she was using (which of course, had no USB ports). In the end, I was credited with saving the day, and left $50 richer, all because I had a mac. They just work. I love it.
That must have been a very small file
by nutters - 8/8/06 10:08 PM In reply to: Do you take CD burning for granted? by sierrarose44This last year i had to make a slide show of all the sports pictures throughout the year for a school sports banquet. Our yearbook staff uses horribly slow eMacs with Adobe CS2. So i had to get 10 GB of photos from a Mac to my laptop so i could work on it at home. My 200GB external hard drive is in NTFS, so the Mac wouldn't recognize it, so i had to bring in my external dvd, it was either that or burn all the pics to cds. So i insert a blank dvd and open up the dvd folder and select the pics to copy on to the first dvd. The Mac then makes a "copy" on the dvd, meaning it puts the icons in the folder but nothing is burned to a cd. That takes at least 15-20 minutes. Then i do the stupid ctrl+click to get the right-click menu and hit burn it. The Mac then spends another 10 minutes preparing to burn, then it finally burns. But, oh no, it isn't done yet. It takes yet another 15 minutes to verify what it just burned. Now, on a PC, all i would have to do is drag and drop the files i wanted to the dvd folder and hit burn, with the built-in Windows burn utility. In 15 minutes i have a finished dvd with pictures. I ask all of you Mac fanatics who think they know everything and their OS is so much better, why the hell is that so long and complex?
| Forum legend: | |
 |
Locked thread |
 |
Moderator |
 |
CNET staff |
 |
Samsung staff |
 |
Norton Authorized Support team |
 |
AVG staff |
 |
Windows Outreach team |
 |
Dell staff |
 |
Intel staff |
