On 10.2.04 11:12, "Matthew Klahn" <mklahn at mac.com> wrote: > > On Feb 9, 2004, at 21:19 , h christmas wrote: > >> On 9.2.04 10:37, "Matthew Klahn" <mklahn at mac.com> wrote: > >> you do have to note, however, that Apple has built many of their cases >> to >> limit the number of optical drives you can add. If, for some reason, >> you >> wanted a ZIP drive and two optical drives in the Quicksilver line, you >> were >> out of luck. The new G5s also have an insane limit of two internal hard >> drives, I believe, which makes it impossible if you want to have a >> raid and >> a separate boot drive. Bad decision on Apple's part I would say. But >> then >> they want you to buy the Xserve if you want to raid. Much of your >> expansion, >> should you want to expand either with optical or hard drives, must be >> done >> with external drives which are more expensive and take up more space. > > True, true. They do push for external storage more. But, I think that > their cases are marvels of engineering compared to any PC case I've > ever seen. They are better laid out, but more limiting. Again, I also > hope they will change this in future revs like they did with the G4 > cases. > I hope so too. their cases are beautiful, but I like having internal expandability because I do not want a bunch of external drives sitting around. I worry because Jobs is the one who originally wanted to seal the cases closed so that users could not touch the insides at all (before he left the company the first time). hopefully he will let the users control their machines a little bit more than he would like. >> This is actually surprising and not all that true for the film industry >> where some houses have moved from Sun to Linux lately. I work with a >> film >> major who would not consider doing his editing on compositing on a mac >> as >> there are better software packages (for less money) for his PC. > > Ok, I guess Pixar itself is only just now switching over to Macs now > that the G5s are out (they've ported Renderman to Mac OS X, btw). But, > while I don't have names of studios, I do hear that Final Cut Pro is > becoming widely adopted for film editing. I know the Coen brothers > recently did a film using FCP. From what I understand, it's becoming > widely adopted, but maybe I was overstating? I think for major film editing and compositing apple is not a front runner, Linux may be moving into that position replacing SUN. But the g5 xserve/xraids may change that. A Unix based system was a very smart move for Apple as it is really making the platform more accessible. > > And, also from what I hear, Final Cut Express ($299) is pretty darn > good for the cost. Are you sure this file major isn't > misinformed/biased? Have they researched all the options? $1100 G4 > iBook + $299 FCE seems like a pretty darn good deal now that they've > added real-time rendering to FCE... The real-time rendering in FCP has a ways to go, from what I have seen. In fact, we were noting the other day that iMovie seems to do better in real-time rendering. FCP will not even attempt real-time rendering if you do not have the hardware apple has blessed, where other applications will. My colleague uses Vegas Video (now owned by Sony) and its price for him, as a student, was around that of FCP and it has done real-time rendering longer than FCP and with more features, and better. He has tried FCP and even his Apple-devoted roommate prefers Vegas to FCP, which he has been using for some time. Plus his machine was way more powerful than an iBook and cheaper for him to build. He does love his powerbook, though. <snip> > > I think you'll find zealots on all sides of this argument. In my > experience, Mac people tend to be more defensive (hey, they just spent > thousands of dollars, what do you expect?), Windows people tend to be > more scornful and Linux people tend to be more arrogant. Heck, I was > once an arrogant Linux user! But, it's basically a holy war; as you > say, all are good for certain things. But, my original thesis wasn't > that Macs are the best, but that for what Steve does, maybe it's a > better alternative. I guess that got lost in the noise & fury. I didn't take any of your comments as those of a zealot and I apologize if it seemed that I did. I work with people who will rampage if you even mention that apple may have done something not very well. those are the zealots. not the people who present views weighing facts and opinions and have a preference one way or another. holly > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com >