Mac or PC

[Nightingale 0]

The problem you're having doesn't seem to be a mac/pc issue. You'd have the same problem if you were running a new version of Office on a PC and your boss was running an old version of Office on his PC.

My school has an older version of Office than I do, so when I want to print something, I have to hook my laptop straight into the network, because if I save the file and transfer it from my PC laptop to their PC desktops, the file turns out all wonky.

My PC laptop and my iMac have no troubles with reading office files generated on either system, as they're both running the newest version of office.

Out of curiosity, why has your boss not upgraded to the newer MS Office to solve the problem?

[jumper03 0]

because it gets expensive to upgrade everyones software dept wide every 6 months when someone new comes on board with a newer version.

and to add a bit more - I think it is a cross platform problem - older versions on PCs have no problem. it's weird. you loose the formatting etc that is available in the newer version but it still comes through intelligible. Going to his mac looks like it was sent through a klingon translator.

we both have the same versions of Canvas and i can read his files, but when I send him something, every object is grouped in one corner. again weird crap.

Scars remind us that the past is real

[weegegirl 2]

that sounds like a pain in the ass... if you are dealing with a big network. but i guess they would be interchangable between my own personal Mac and PC if I had the right software versions.

[freeflajankie 0]

Ok,

I have the same problem I want to buy a new computer and wondering if I should go with Mac since they are suppose to be a much better video computer.

So I now have a Laptop with 3.2ghz and 512mb ram and all the good stuff.

So Why should i go Down to a mac with only 1.6ghz??? Why do they have so much less speed?
Or how do they count it?

Thanks
Ankie

Skydivers are a bunch of insensitive jerks...
And that's why I don't skydive anymore!

[Nightingale 0]

you're not going down. Macs work differently.

[Dougjumper 0]

Mac's are nice and have tons of features. But one thing here is PC's seem to be much more Cost efficient with doing the things you want.

Remember Tons more Software for the PC. Not to knock the Mac but the Idea is doing want you want to do nicely for least price. Anything Apple and your gonna have to lay down the Bucks.

If money is not the Issue..Hell get Both

[RevJim 0]

Quote

So I now have a Laptop with 3.2ghz and 512mb ram and all the good stuff.

Simple. You don't need a new computer. An external drive to store video on, maybe, but that computer is plenty fast to handle pretty much any video editing you might throw at it.

It's your life, live it!
Karma
RB#684 "Corcho", ASK#60, Muff#3520, NCB#398, NHDZ#4, C-33989, DG#1

[AndyMan 7]

Quote

So I now have a Laptop with 3.2ghz and 512mb ram and all the good stuff.

There is absolutely no reason why you can't easily use that for perfectly good video.

If you need pointers, try posting in the photo and video forum.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[RevJim 0]

Quote

Quote

So I now have a Laptop with 3.2ghz and 512mb ram and all the good stuff.

There is absolutely no reason why you can't easily use that for perfectly good video.

If you need pointers, try posting in the photo and video forum.

_Am

Mmmm, hmmmm.

I use two computers here for video. My 1.8 Athlon M lappy w/512 megs and my 2.0 Athlon XP with only 256 megs of ram. Both get the job done very well, with no frame drops, and pretty damn quick rendering (in Pinnacle Studio 9, I quit using Premiere).

It's your life, live it!
Karma
RB#684 "Corcho", ASK#60, Muff#3520, NCB#398, NHDZ#4, C-33989, DG#1

[freeflajankie 0]

It's not fast though.
The computer keeps locking up all the time, especially if I have more then 2 programs running.
CTRL Delete is a very common combination for me.

And it takes me over 20hrs to convert a movie in Premiere from the timeline to the AVI format.
And I'm talking about a 15-20 min video.

When I make adds the pictures with all it's layers and stuff is often over 100mb and it's so slow working with it.

Ankie

Skydivers are a bunch of insensitive jerks...
And that's why I don't skydive anymore!

[RevJim 0]

OK, I'll rephrash that. It should be plenty fast enough.

XP home or Pro? How much crap is running in the taskbar? Background programs? Desktop icons? Do you have all the fancy effects disabled?

XP can run VERY fast, but was designed for fast computers, so it ships to look pretty. A few tweaks later and viola! Screamin machine.

It's your life, live it!
Karma
RB#684 "Corcho", ASK#60, Muff#3520, NCB#398, NHDZ#4, C-33989, DG#1

[weegegirl 2]

Quote

you're not going down. Macs work differently.

Can you explain??

[freeflajankie 0]

XP Pro.

And all I really have running all the time is the messenger.

I had it reinstalld a few months back because it was totally crapping out.

I did notice that my compression is in NTFS and not FAT And I thought tha FAT was better, but I don't know.

Ankie

Skydivers are a bunch of insensitive jerks...
And that's why I don't skydive anymore!

[murrays 0]

Quote

It's not fast though.
The computer keeps locking up all the time, especially if I have more then 2 programs running.
CTRL Delete is a very common combination for me.

And it takes me over 20hrs to convert a movie in Premiere from the timeline to the AVI format.
And I'm talking about a 15-20 min video.

When I make adds the pictures with all it's layers and stuff is often over 100mb and it's so slow working with it.

Ankie

So, now that we're talking about speed of the processor and how long it takes to really get things done, here is my example....my 3 year old 800mhz G4 iMac (that's 1/4 the clock speed of your machine) takes about 6 hours to render 2 hours of video into Mpeg2 (two pass variable bit rate encoding) when it burns a DVD in iDVD. I thought that was a long time but after hearing how long it is taking you my old iMac seems like a speed machine! I don't know if exporting to AVI is a similar compression task but that seems way too long for 20 minutes of video.

I think that there is something that needs fixing on your machine. I don't use Windows but I would think that it is plenty fast enough to do all kinds of video work.

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[champu 1]

Quote

Can you explain??

You have to understand a bit about computer engineering to follow the difference between the x86 (PC) and Power PC (MAC) architechtures.

Suffice it to say, "Macs can get more done in a clock cycle than a PC" How much more depends heavily on the nature of the application.

/eta: back to your original question. I use XP Pro on my desktop at home, and a combination of Win2k/Redhat/HP-Unix at work, but if I was going to get a laptop today, I'd probably get a powerbook.

OSX let's you have your cake (Unix environment/filesystem) and eat it to (very good/polished application set and gui)

[jdhill 0]

Quote

Remember Tons more Software for the PC. Not to knock the Mac but the Idea is doing want you want to do nicely for least price. Anything Apple and your gonna have to lay down the Bucks.

Office for Mac is cheaper than Office for PC by about $100... Apple hase wordprocessing and presentation application bundles that are equal to or better than Word and PP for $79... Final Cut Express is cheaper than Premier... the other Adobe products are the same for either platform...

There are more games out there for PC, but that gap is closing...

You are not laying out any more $$ for Mac stuff than PC stuff, and there are plenty of Mac apps to get done just about anything you would need to around the house or DZ, and most offices too.

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[weegegirl 2]

Wow! There are some smart cookies on dz.com. I'm impressed. Thanks for taking time to explain everybody!!! This has turned out to be a very informative thread.

[murrays 0]

liz,

Here's another thought or two for you....

Apple produces the hardware and operating system....and likely a lot of the software you will be using...iMovie/Final Cut, iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, Safari, iDVD, etc. If you are having a problem you only have to call Apple tech support. You won't get told...that's an OS issue, call them, that's a problem with your software, call them, that's a problem with your "peripheral", call them.

Apple also is usually one of the top companies in Service and Reliability surveys by PC World and PC Magazine. Here's one by PC Magazine

Here's a quote:"As you peruse the results, you'll see that no company is beyond reproach. Each is guilty of selling machines that need repair and providing poor technical support at times. The leading vendors—Apple in the desktop and notebook categories, Dell in desktops and servers, and IBM in notebooks—are those that keep criticism to a minimum."

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[nacmacfeegle 0]

I was chatting to a 'Mac head' in the pub last night, he tells me that there are PC 'simulators' that can run on Mac that will run Windows apps. Is this the case?
If so, the choice to me would be clear...Mac!

Dayumm, I just forked out for a new Dell.

--------------------

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[ChangoLanzao 0]

Quote

Quote

Can you explain??

You have to understand a bit about computer engineering to follow the difference between the x86 (PC) and Power PC (MAC) architechtures.

Suffice it to say, "Macs can get more done in a clock cycle than a PC" How much more depends heavily on the nature of the application.

No. That isn't sufficient. Architecture is just one of the variables and "work done in a clock cycle" needs to be balanced against the cost of the system. Architects and engineers are usually at odds with each other because of this. Show me the numbers


P.S. Have you iPatched your MAC today? If you're running OS X, your iSystem is iVulnerable to this:


iDEFENSE Security Advisory 02.21.05: Multiple Unix/Linux Vendor cURL/libcURL NTLM Authentication Buffer Overflow Vulnerability




*********************************

[jdhill 0]

Vitrual PC runs Windows XP on a Mac... I have it, it runs fine, maybe a little slower than a native machine, but that is probably my set up... the only thing I need to use it for is MS Project (since I don't use it enough to justify buying a Mac PM app and work gave me the MSP)... otherwise I use the Office on the Mac side.

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[LaDonna 0]

Quote

I was chatting to a 'Mac head' in the pub last night, he tells me that there are PC 'simulators' that can run on Mac that will run Windows apps. Is this the case?
If so, the choice to me would be clear...Mac!

Dayumm, I just forked out for a new Dell.

The program that simulates the PC does not work very well. We were told at the Apple store that we could use the program and run all our PC based programs that were custom written for our company and have the mac for doing all of our design, one computer. So I got the company to get me a new Powerbook G4. Well, we had to go and get a PC laptop so that I could do my work and I use my Mac for everything else.

The program, called Virtual PC, yes simulates the PC and allows you to run PC programs, but it is like you are running on a 486 machine. It is sooooo, sloooow. Don't let them try and convince you that it works very well. I have talked to many people who all feel the same way.

My vote is for the Mac.

FGF#3

[murrays 0]

Quote

I was chatting to a 'Mac head' in the pub last night, he tells me that there are PC 'simulators' that can run on Mac that will run Windows apps. Is this the case?
If so, the choice to me would be clear...Mac!

Dayumm, I just forked out for a new Dell.

On my iBook at work I run Virtual PC in order to run some PC tax programs and accounting programs. I use Win 98 as my Windows OS as it isn't as slow in the virtual environment. It takes a bit of configuration but you can drag and drop to and from the OS X/Win 98 desktops, use all the printers attached to your mac and it will recognize everything in the disc drive.

One day I had Win 98 running, in OS X, while also running an old OS 9 application using the OS X Classic emulation and I also had a Terminal window open and was fiddling around with some Unix procedure that I had read about. 4 OS at the same time. Pretty neat.

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[Clownburner 0]

Quote

because it gets expensive to upgrade everyones software dept wide every 6 months when someone new comes on board with a newer version.

and to add a bit more - I think it is a cross platform problem - older versions on PCs have no problem. it's weird. you loose the formatting etc that is available in the newer version but it still comes through intelligible. Going to his mac looks like it was sent through a klingon translator.

we both have the same versions of Canvas and i can read his files, but when I send him something, every object is grouped in one corner. again weird crap.

Amusingly, this is because Microsoft deliberatly engineers Word so that new versions are NOT compatible with old ones, and that only the same version is compatible across platforms. The reason they go to all this trouble?

So that people can't make products that are 'Word compatible' and reliable read or write MS Word files. So you're forced to buy the upgrades for everyone in the company once a few people get the new version.

Yep, the product is designed to make interoperability difficult.

Simple solution: Try doing a 'Save As...' and pick the RTF format. You should be then able to open that on another machine in almost any program (including Word) and it should at least be intelligible, and preserve most of the formatting.

Good luck.

7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez
"I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

[jumper03 0]

Quote

Simple solution: Try doing a 'Save As...' and pick the RTF format. You should be then able to open that on another machine in almost any program (including Word) and it should at least be intelligible, and preserve most of the formatting.

Good luck.

Tried it. It works going from newer to older mac and newer to older pc. going from newer pc to older mac? nope. Going from newer Mac to older pc - that sort of worked.

It's a constant pain in the ass we've just learned to deal with.

Scars remind us that the past is real