So OK, obviously the Mac is a better purchase for video and performance.
BUT, at the end she's seen leaving with a laptop and a 'bag of goodies'. My guess was she was hiding her iPhone and new iPod in there, but they couldn't show it.
I've known the PC are for decades... 25 years of hard work configuring systems to do this, or that... 25 years i've worked on MS-DOS, Windows, Win9x, Win2K, WinME, WinXP etc...
I bought my Macbook Pro 2 years ago. It was a dare for me to prove (mainly myself) that a Mac would fail at even the most basic tasks i had devised for it. Boy was i wrong...
Not only did this little endeavour cost me a new computer but i also got rid of my OLD COMPAQ LAPTOP, a beefy, bulky laptop with tons (supposedly) of power.
Today, i run Macs... nothing but Macs... At the office, everyone around me wonder how i can work with a Mac in this Windows environment. Recently, my director (and friend) asked me howcome i never complained about computer freezing anymore... I said: "I switched to Mac"
You should have looked at his face.
Micro$loth forgets in their ad campain that Useability is worth more than the actual computer. Vista does not come close to OSX for useability...
Yes it's cheaper to buy a PC... but how much time do you spend trying to get it to work compared to a Mac and how much is that time worth?
-----------
GSXRikal
Precisely, not to mention the cost of administration. I love my Mac at home for just this reason. Don't have to look out for viruses and other malware (disclaimer: you should via a third party antivirus app...but really you don't), defrag hard drives, download hotfixes and updates as frequently, installation of software to try and get it on par with a Mac, etc.
I think we have something in common in that I too have been working with PCs for most of my life, and in addition, continue to work for a company that is a Windows run shop...so, it is quite refreshing to go home to a practically worry free Mac at home.
Precisely, not to mention the cost of administration. I love my Mac at home for just this reason. Don't have to look out for viruses and other malware (disclaimer: you should via a third party antivirus app...but really you don't), defrag hard drives, download hotfixes and updates as frequently, installation of software to try and get it on par with a Mac, etc.
I think we have something in common in that I too have been working with PCs for most of my life, and in addition, continue to work for a company that is a Windows run shop...so, it is quite refreshing to go home to a practically worry free Mac at home.
Plus I can just get a lot more done in a shorter period of time on the Mac verses the PC. When I'm up against a tight deadline, I know I can depend on the Mac to get it done fast. Major productivity advantage in my opinion. Add that into the equation over a 5 year cost of ownership and it really skews the numbers.
My wife has an HP laptop, [...] it prints over my Airport Extreme network without any issues.
As a recent switcher, this was one of the biggest surprises.
I used to have two PCs, with an inkjet printer connected to one. It used to share the printer, and it usually worked. If it glitched out, shutting down both PCs and restarting them in sequence usually fixed it. ("Shut up and reboot!", the accepted standard Windows fix.) One day the sharing suddenly stopped working completely. Many, many fruitless hours went into troubleshooting, even tearing down and rebuilding my home network.
Shortly after getting my MacBook, I picked up a Time Capsule, and relocated the printer to it. Not only was it slicker than snot with the MacBook, it was the easiest and most reliable Windows printer setup I've ever done!
This is the worst Microsoft and yet which is saying something. The women in the ad sounds and acts like a nutjob. The HP is a plasticly piece of junk with the lowest quality, cheapest components HP could buy this week from China. Also good luck getting service from HP. 1366X768 on a 16-inch screen? Puh-lease. HP also nickels and dimes you for everything such as bluetooth, larger batter, backlit screen. While I agree that a $2000 laptop should come with 4GB of ram I bought my Unibody MBP for $1699 after $150 rebate. I added 4 GB of memory and a 320GB WD Scorpio Black drive and bought Applecare from eBay for $139. Check Apple Insiders price guide and you will find there is no reason to pay anywhere near retail or tax on most Macs. More importantly OS X spanks Windows hard up to and including Windows 7. Windows 7 is Vista with a simplified interface. Still all that crappy code and legacy code cruft that does nothing but take up resources and cause instability. Still full of memory leaks and poor multi-processing. It is marginally faster than vista ina few areas and slower than Vista in other areas if you read the benchmarks. Good luck with that!
The 17 inch MBP will take 8 GB of ram. They should do the same with the 15-inch although some people are running 6 GB in 15-inch macs. OWC sells a 6 GB kit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Foxy
You cannot run Avid on a laptop, it's to heavy and needs at least 8GB of ram to make it usable. Avid is a software for workstations of this big:
I believe that most of you aren't seeing the true intention of these ads.
The ads are intended to make most people think that a laptop capable of editing video will cost $2,000, and that they could get a MBP for slightly more. Let's face it, people don't remember the prices that these actors paid, they remember the $2,000.
However, when people go shopping, they expect to find the MS advertised computer for $2k and instead find out it's $1.3k. Suddenly it seems to be a MUCH better deal.
The purpose of these ads is to magnify the importance of the price difference by managing expectations.
Just my opinion, but it's a technique I've used in my marketing, and it's proven to be effective.
I did that once, in my youth, with car insurance. Went to an underwriter who found me the cheapest option. It was so much lower than the All State I had started with and that my father told me to get. I finally was in an accident, not my fault but they didn't have insurance. Took over 6 months to get the car repaired as the insurance company had to send out a rep to okay new repairs for what couldn't be seen and they only did that once every week or two. They also tried so many ways to not pay the medical and car rental bills. To a point that it was stressful and anti-productive to fight with them. Years later, back with All State, a similar occurrence happened again. It was a simple process and well worth the extra money I was paying.
I used to do that but with computers. Back in 1999, I bough a cheap laptop to use for my graduation project. It lasted exactly 14 months before the HDD died on me (cheap computer = cheap HDD). I replaced the HDD and sold it for 10% of my purchase price. Next, I bought another desktop PC (cheapest) but with high performance. Again, the HDD died on me a year and half later. I sold that one too. I lost many important files in both cases.
I used to buy more expensive computers before those two machines but everyone was telling me I was crazy for paying a $2000 when I can get the same spec for $700. The funny thing is that my $2500 Gateway desktop that I bought in 1998 never had a single hardware failure and worked perfect until I bought my iMac in 2005. I used my my iMac from 2005 until last year when I decided I need a portable and bought a MacBook Pro. I sold than iMac for %50 of the purchase price ( 2 years and 10 months later) and only needed extra $900 to buy the MBP.
I learned the hard way. I guess some people will learn the hard way but many will never learn. You get what you pay for.
You obviously know nothing about iLife if you are comparing those apps to iLife.
Macs and PC's do not use the "exact same" internals.
You are completely negating the differences between OS X and Vista. if you are willing to settle for Vista have at it.
Apples service is wayyy ahead of HP as is resale price.
Next time know what you are talking about before you post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by camroidv27
Alright, lets do a price point comparison.
From Best Buy (and we all know we can find better deals)
HP HDX 16: $1,149.99
Minuses: Screen size, DDR2.
Add: $110 for Sony Vegas/ACID for iLife like compatibility. Use Picassa and other free tools to replace iPhoto, iWeb. You can find free AV online too to protect yourself. AVG, Comodo, etc...
Total: $1260 (Add 150 for OS X if we wanted a hackintosh: $1410)
From Apple (and we all know that you can't find a better price that doesn't involve rebates)
MacBook Pro Basic: $2000
Pluses: Screen, DDR3, OS X.
Minus: $80 for iLife (to make comparable to Windows PCs with out that software)
Add: $30 for additional 2GB Ram upgrade. $90 for HDD upgrade to 500gb (assuming we do these upgrades ourselves)
Total: $2040
So yeah... I dunno. Remember, Macs and PCs use the exact same internals! Is your Apple really worth 700 dollars more? To me it isn't. $700 for a label and a sexy case. Keep in mind, I won't buy an HP either. If I were to buy a real laptop: Lenovo. Those are some durable machines!
The funniest part of the Blu-ray argument is those that think they can see Blu-Ray quality on a low res screen. Still I wish Apple would offer the option.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
Thank you for validating my point as to why BRDs are not possible or viable in Mac notebooks.
Video editing has virtually nothing to do with processor speed, since standard DV footage is a.) edited in realtime b.) low res and c.) doesn't have to be rendered. If she's adding effects, it'll have an impact on the render time, but little else. The GPU and system memory will likely be more of a factor in these processes, in addition to the processor bridges that they use to interact with each other. The fact that she accepts the sales idiot's answer of "Oh yeah, it's good" suggests that she knows absolutely nothing about the equipment she's using. A professional filmmaker would first select the software that's going to be compatible with their workflow - be it AVID, FCP, Premiere or what have you - and then figure out which hardware is best to run it. If she works for a company and they start handing out copies of Final Cut (we wish) she's screwed. Conversely, if she's a freelancer, which I suspect, she's going to have to invest some cash in some legitimate software. Her clients are not going to to be very enthusiastic about her editing their $10,000 spot on something their 10 year old nephew is using. For the record, Final Cut Express is only $199 and handles HD video, NTSC and PAL formats, 99 separate audio tracks, and even comes with LiveType 2. I have no idea if Windows has something comparable, but it's not going to be cheap.
The funniest part of the Blu-ray argument is those that think they can see Blu-Ray quality on a low res screen. Still I wish Apple would offer the option.
I wish Apple would offer the OS support for the HDCP so Blu-ray movies can be played with a 3rd-party BRD. But expecting Apple to invest heavily into bringing a 9.5mm BRD to their systems when they are pushing for digital media, moving away from optical media and with a price point that is too high to be useful to all but a few is a fruitless endeavor. Even the 12.7mm tray loading BRDs in the SOny TTs are a $500 upgrade. I'd figure a doubling of that price for a 9mm drive that Apple has to fund. Who would seriously go for that or expect a company to lose money to satisfy so few.
Hardware aside, how much do you think she's going to have to fork out for some software to compare with iMovie?
Premier Elements will get you a similar end result, but no where near as fast and fun... it doesn't do real-time previews for example. It's about $100. I've used it plenty on a PC, and it is the best of the consumer-end apps on a PC. That said, I couldn't stand it any more and it was the compelling reason I went to a Mac.
That was 1 1/2 years ago, and now I have an iMac, MacBook, iPod Touch, Airport Extreme, Airport Express, Logic Express, and Final Cut Express.
I sold Final Cut Express after realizing that iMovie does 99% of what I want in about 1% of the time... I just didn't have time to tinker (another reason I went Mac).
I really think once you bust the $1000 barrier, it is hard to compete with Apple unless you are putting a lot of weight on an extra .1 Ghz...
They're both really solid companies, both in terms of hardware and customer service.
I've dealt with HP's customer service many times regarding our Indigo at work (HP bought Indigo, and inherited all the pain that comes with them). The service has always been top notch.
I am willing to pay some premium on a Mac but there is a difference between premium and outright insane pricing. The worst of the lot is the Mac Pro. There is just no excuse for a single Quad processor desktop to cost so much money. It makes me angry.
What "premium" are you willing to pay then? 50 bucks? 100?
One thing I've learned after ten years of being a Mac Fanboy and spending the 10 previous that as a windows tech support specialist is that a lot of people are just cheap.
I always drove Dodge trucks, and Ford Cars. Then I got a Benz. I paid a premium for it, and it was used, but you know what? It smokes everything else I've ever driven. There simply is no comparison to brilliant, precision engineering. I WANT that in my life. I want the reliability, I want the peace of mind, I want the unparalleled aesthetic.
You do too, so stop complaining, because you're clearly willing to pay whatever premium you paid for your mac, and the only thing you have to gripe about is a few dollars more you spent on it?
And how many viruses have you had? How many times has your mac BSOD'd?
Its all perspective. You don't think about the stress you've missed until its right up in your face asking "Cancel or Allow?"
Comments
BUT, at the end she's seen leaving with a laptop and a 'bag of goodies'. My guess was she was hiding her iPhone and new iPod in there, but they couldn't show it.
I've known the PC are for decades... 25 years of hard work configuring systems to do this, or that... 25 years i've worked on MS-DOS, Windows, Win9x, Win2K, WinME, WinXP etc...
I bought my Macbook Pro 2 years ago. It was a dare for me to prove (mainly myself) that a Mac would fail at even the most basic tasks i had devised for it. Boy was i wrong...
Not only did this little endeavour cost me a new computer but i also got rid of my OLD COMPAQ LAPTOP, a beefy, bulky laptop with tons (supposedly) of power.
Today, i run Macs... nothing but Macs... At the office, everyone around me wonder how i can work with a Mac in this Windows environment. Recently, my director (and friend) asked me howcome i never complained about computer freezing anymore... I said: "I switched to Mac"
You should have looked at his face.
Micro$loth forgets in their ad campain that Useability is worth more than the actual computer. Vista does not come close to OSX for useability...
Yes it's cheaper to buy a PC... but how much time do you spend trying to get it to work compared to a Mac and how much is that time worth?
-----------
GSXRikal
Precisely, not to mention the cost of administration. I love my Mac at home for just this reason. Don't have to look out for viruses and other malware (disclaimer: you should via a third party antivirus app...but really you don't), defrag hard drives, download hotfixes and updates as frequently, installation of software to try and get it on par with a Mac, etc.
I think we have something in common in that I too have been working with PCs for most of my life, and in addition, continue to work for a company that is a Windows run shop...so, it is quite refreshing to go home to a practically worry free Mac at home.
Precisely, not to mention the cost of administration. I love my Mac at home for just this reason. Don't have to look out for viruses and other malware (disclaimer: you should via a third party antivirus app...but really you don't), defrag hard drives, download hotfixes and updates as frequently, installation of software to try and get it on par with a Mac, etc.
I think we have something in common in that I too have been working with PCs for most of my life, and in addition, continue to work for a company that is a Windows run shop...so, it is quite refreshing to go home to a practically worry free Mac at home.
Plus I can just get a lot more done in a shorter period of time on the Mac verses the PC. When I'm up against a tight deadline, I know I can depend on the Mac to get it done fast. Major productivity advantage in my opinion. Add that into the equation over a 5 year cost of ownership and it really skews the numbers.
Have you ever heard of Avid, Einstein?
You cannot run Avid on a laptop, it's to heavy and needs at least 8GB of ram to make it usable. Avid is a software for workstations of this big:
http://www.custom-consoles.com/image...orkstation.JPG
Yet artists still prefer macs.
She needs to carry this:
http://www.geniusdv.com/weblog/archi...ojo-Large1.jpg
Along with her HP laptop + with at least 8GB ram
With Mac, she only need to carry a MacBook Pro with Final Cut Pro installed.
My wife has an HP laptop, [...] it prints over my Airport Extreme network without any issues.
As a recent switcher, this was one of the biggest surprises.
I used to have two PCs, with an inkjet printer connected to one. It used to share the printer, and it usually worked. If it glitched out, shutting down both PCs and restarting them in sequence usually fixed it. ("Shut up and reboot!", the accepted standard Windows fix.) One day the sharing suddenly stopped working completely. Many, many fruitless hours went into troubleshooting, even tearing down and rebuilding my home network.
Shortly after getting my MacBook, I picked up a Time Capsule, and relocated the printer to it. Not only was it slicker than snot with the MacBook, it was the easiest and most reliable Windows printer setup I've ever done!
Mac: Works better with Windows than Windows!
You cannot run Avid on a laptop, it's to heavy and needs at least 8GB of ram to make it usable. Avid is a software for workstations of this big:
http://www.custom-consoles.com/image...orkstation.JPG
Yet artists still prefer macs.
The ads are intended to make most people think that a laptop capable of editing video will cost $2,000, and that they could get a MBP for slightly more. Let's face it, people don't remember the prices that these actors paid, they remember the $2,000.
However, when people go shopping, they expect to find the MS advertised computer for $2k and instead find out it's $1.3k. Suddenly it seems to be a MUCH better deal.
The purpose of these ads is to magnify the importance of the price difference by managing expectations.
Just my opinion, but it's a technique I've used in my marketing, and it's proven to be effective.
Have you ever heard of Avid, Einstein?
Despite what you wannabe "filmmakers" think, it's still the standard.
I did that once, in my youth, with car insurance. Went to an underwriter who found me the cheapest option. It was so much lower than the All State I had started with and that my father told me to get. I finally was in an accident, not my fault but they didn't have insurance. Took over 6 months to get the car repaired as the insurance company had to send out a rep to okay new repairs for what couldn't be seen and they only did that once every week or two. They also tried so many ways to not pay the medical and car rental bills. To a point that it was stressful and anti-productive to fight with them. Years later, back with All State, a similar occurrence happened again. It was a simple process and well worth the extra money I was paying.
I used to do that but with computers. Back in 1999, I bough a cheap laptop to use for my graduation project. It lasted exactly 14 months before the HDD died on me (cheap computer = cheap HDD). I replaced the HDD and sold it for 10% of my purchase price. Next, I bought another desktop PC (cheapest) but with high performance. Again, the HDD died on me a year and half later. I sold that one too. I lost many important files in both cases.
I used to buy more expensive computers before those two machines but everyone was telling me I was crazy for paying a $2000 when I can get the same spec for $700. The funny thing is that my $2500 Gateway desktop that I bought in 1998 never had a single hardware failure and worked perfect until I bought my iMac in 2005. I used my my iMac from 2005 until last year when I decided I need a portable and bought a MacBook Pro. I sold than iMac for %50 of the purchase price ( 2 years and 10 months later) and only needed extra $900 to buy the MBP.
I learned the hard way. I guess some people will learn the hard way but many will never learn. You get what you pay for.
You obviously know nothing about iLife if you are comparing those apps to iLife.
Macs and PC's do not use the "exact same" internals.
You are completely negating the differences between OS X and Vista. if you are willing to settle for Vista have at it.
Apples service is wayyy ahead of HP as is resale price.
Next time know what you are talking about before you post.
Alright, lets do a price point comparison.
From Best Buy (and we all know we can find better deals)
HP HDX 16: $1,149.99
Minuses: Screen size, DDR2.
Add: $110 for Sony Vegas/ACID for iLife like compatibility. Use Picassa and other free tools to replace iPhoto, iWeb. You can find free AV online too to protect yourself. AVG, Comodo, etc...
Total: $1260 (Add 150 for OS X if we wanted a hackintosh: $1410)
From Apple (and we all know that you can't find a better price that doesn't involve rebates)
MacBook Pro Basic: $2000
Pluses: Screen, DDR3, OS X.
Minus: $80 for iLife (to make comparable to Windows PCs with out that software)
Add: $30 for additional 2GB Ram upgrade. $90 for HDD upgrade to 500gb (assuming we do these upgrades ourselves)
Total: $2040
So yeah... I dunno. Remember, Macs and PCs use the exact same internals! Is your Apple really worth 700 dollars more? To me it isn't. $700 for a label and a sexy case. Keep in mind, I won't buy an HP either. If I were to buy a real laptop: Lenovo. Those are some durable machines!
Thank you for validating my point as to why BRDs are not possible or viable in Mac notebooks.
It does weigh 1LB more, but if ONE FRICKING POUND is a deal breaker, lift some weights...
The funniest part of the Blu-ray argument is those that think they can see Blu-Ray quality on a low res screen. Still I wish Apple would offer the option.
I wish Apple would offer the OS support for the HDCP so Blu-ray movies can be played with a 3rd-party BRD. But expecting Apple to invest heavily into bringing a 9.5mm BRD to their systems when they are pushing for digital media, moving away from optical media and with a price point that is too high to be useful to all but a few is a fruitless endeavor. Even the 12.7mm tray loading BRDs in the SOny TTs are a $500 upgrade. I'd figure a doubling of that price for a 9mm drive that Apple has to fund. Who would seriously go for that or expect a company to lose money to satisfy so few.
Hardware aside, how much do you think she's going to have to fork out for some software to compare with iMovie?
Premier Elements will get you a similar end result, but no where near as fast and fun... it doesn't do real-time previews for example. It's about $100. I've used it plenty on a PC, and it is the best of the consumer-end apps on a PC. That said, I couldn't stand it any more and it was the compelling reason I went to a Mac.
That was 1 1/2 years ago, and now I have an iMac, MacBook, iPod Touch, Airport Extreme, Airport Express, Logic Express, and Final Cut Express.
I sold Final Cut Express after realizing that iMovie does 99% of what I want in about 1% of the time... I just didn't have time to tinker (another reason I went Mac).
I really think once you bust the $1000 barrier, it is hard to compete with Apple unless you are putting a lot of weight on an extra .1 Ghz...
Apples service is wayyy ahead of HP.
They're both really solid companies, both in terms of hardware and customer service.
I've dealt with HP's customer service many times regarding our Indigo at work (HP bought Indigo, and inherited all the pain that comes with them). The service has always been top notch.
I am willing to pay some premium on a Mac but there is a difference between premium and outright insane pricing. The worst of the lot is the Mac Pro. There is just no excuse for a single Quad processor desktop to cost so much money. It makes me angry.
What "premium" are you willing to pay then? 50 bucks? 100?
One thing I've learned after ten years of being a Mac Fanboy and spending the 10 previous that as a windows tech support specialist is that a lot of people are just cheap.
I always drove Dodge trucks, and Ford Cars. Then I got a Benz. I paid a premium for it, and it was used, but you know what? It smokes everything else I've ever driven. There simply is no comparison to brilliant, precision engineering. I WANT that in my life. I want the reliability, I want the peace of mind, I want the unparalleled aesthetic.
You do too, so stop complaining, because you're clearly willing to pay whatever premium you paid for your mac, and the only thing you have to gripe about is a few dollars more you spent on it?
And how many viruses have you had? How many times has your mac BSOD'd?
Its all perspective. You don't think about the stress you've missed until its right up in your face asking "Cancel or Allow?"