Anamorphic, I’m seriously considering getting an Apple now, actually. Specifically, a G5. Now I need to know, what’s the difference between Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro? I can get Express for 99 bucks with the purchase of a Mac.
Duderdude2: Considering only the hardware, a PC is definitely the best option. No Apple system, including the new dual-G5s, will be able to match the raw performance of a high-end P4 processor, especially not for the price. That Alienware system looks like a great box, my only concerns are that you’re spending a LOT on a videocard that’s going to go nearly totally unused, unless you plan to do a lot of 3D rendering. If you are able to build a system yourself, I’d strongly suggest you go that route, as you can save about $1000 and get a much faster system. If not, then that Alienware is a fine choice.
I can’t provide any input on the software side, being a hardware geek. Though, if the software support on the PC is that abysmal (though, I sincerely doubt it is), I promise won’t think less of you for buying a Mac:)
You might want to look over the Doom9 Video Forums, especially the Non-Linear Editing forum. There’s some good discussion about the new Adobe Premiere Pro, which is a completely new product, recoded from the ground up.
“The program you mentioned doesn’t seem to give too much freedom though, unless I misunderstood you.”
It’s not a program, its a machine. HEre it is:
http://www.buydig.com/shop.php?prod_id=PNDMRE50S
Duderdude2, I’ve never used Express myself, but I found this page a while back for someone else who was wondering about the differences.
That list is for FCP3, though, and FCP4 has added even more things. One is that most (all?) of the Cinema Tools usage is now part of the basic package; that is, 24-frame editing functions. If you’re staying on DV and outputting to DVD, it shouldn’t matter to you that Express doesn’t have this. Also, FCP4 has two new separate programs; LiveType, a title animation program, and Soundtrack, which allows you to compose scores with thousands of loops in a FCP like setting. I haven’t messed around with Soundtrack yet, but it’s supposed to be pretty great.
I of course don’t know your specific needs, but if you’re importing from DV and outputting to DVD, unless you need any of the very specific advanced features of Pro, you’re probably okay with Express.
Here’s Apple’s page on Final Cut Pro, and here’s their page on Express. Do you happen to live anywhere near an Apple Store? They give free demonstrations on these two programs. It might be good for you to check it out to help in your overall decision. The one near me does the Final Cut Pro/Express demos every Friday.
Feel free to ask me if you have any other questions, by the way.
Man, I’m over the map on this (I’m still not sure what direction I should go in). The price of the computers really hit me yesterday, so now I have another question.
Are there any good video software applications for the PC (That’s not made by Pinnacle) that will allow me to edit movies captured through composite cables with my current PC? My Sony Vaio is 1.6ghz and has 512 megs of Ram. I also need decent PC DVD burning software; I need to make my own DVD menus, etc. Any recommendations for Video/DVD software would be very helpful.
Why the need to customize? Apple has the best in there already, and it’s fully optimized.
Anyway, if you insist on staying with a PC, I would go with Premiere. But you can’t beat a Mac. Heck, I think my Mac is better for non-video stuff. There’s nothing I’ve ever needed to do that I couldn’t do on a Mac. Unless you want the latest and greatest PC games and don’t want to wait for the Mac port. But I don’t play those games, so it’s never been an issue.
I’ll step off my Apple soapbox. For now.
A side benefit of using a Mac is that you don’t have to deal with the problems of having a new Windows virus du jour every week. 
www.digitalvideoediting.com might be worth your time. You can ask the same question there as well.
In terms of switching to the mac - do it for the software, not the hardware. The site listed above routinely runs cross platform comparisons and the Intel box tends to come out on top most of the time. The G5 may well change all that though.
Here’s the latest head to head:
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/11_nov/reviews/cw_macvspciii.htm
Duderdude2, VHS doesn’t have very much resolution, I tried to do the same thing, capture & edit on a PC but I never got much better than VCD quality from VHS. If you use one of those Dvd recorders they make incredible DVDs from VHS sources because they have tons of filters you can’t get on a PC or Mac.
If it doesn’t review the G5, it isn’t exactly the “latest” and is therefore kind of useless.
It is the latest comparison on the site - that’s what I meant - note I said “the G5 may well change all that though”.
The G5 isn’t out yet anyway is it?
According to benchmarks, the G5 doesn’t change much. It still can’t compete against modern AMD or Intel processor-based systems, especially given its much higher price. If you spend an equivalent amount of money and get a server-level board with a 64bit AMD Opteron or dual Xeons, the gulf becomes even wider. If you want to buy an Apple based on the quality of the available media software, that’s one thing. It’s an entirely valid choice, just have no illusions about the hardware being competitive.
Well, Adobe Premiere Pro is due out in the next coupla weeks. Might be worth a gander to see if it fits your needs. Win XP only. *
*Disclaimer: I worked on this product, and it GM’d today (yay!) and I think it’s pretty cool, but I’m obviously biased. Your mileage may vary. 
Wait a minute–that’s just a link to someone’s personal site–some guy giving his personal take on the G5. I am sure we could find plenty of web pages “proving” quite the opposite.
I’ve read the big debates over whether the G5 is “there” yet or not, I’ve read them until my eyes glaze over and my jaw drops. There are tons of debates over whether Apple’s benchmarks are valid or not, all sorts of claims about how they “fudged” the tests, or didn’t fudge them, and I think it’s just too complicated right now to make a definitive decision about how it’s really going to perform. Maybe when it’s out on the market for a while and people can do some “real world” tests or something…
That’s because VHS quality is VCD quality… it’s all in most basic terms MPEG-1… and if all you’re doing is simply VHS conversion work, you might want to gun down a bit.
On another note, it does not look as if most of the people here who are against him buying a Mac really understand where the mac is today in terms of video editing… you can’t pick up a video editing magaziine these days w/o hearing about Final Cut Pro… it’s everywhere now. Face it people, Premiere sucks ass! Hell, they don’t even make it for the Mac any more simply because Final cut has squeezed it out of market share. You can buy all sorts of bundled software and hardware with Premiere on the PC side, but none of these solutions are better than a Highend Mac, FCP and a voodooHD card for highend work.
So I guess what I would suggest is a PC if you’re doing nothing but VHS work… but if you want to do anything with MPEG-2, DV or above, move to a G5 with final cut pro express…
yosemitebabe: Those are official SPEC benchmarks for the relevant platforms. You can confirm the results for yourself here.
Alereon: The debate rages. It is not cut-and-dried. If it were, people would not be discussing and debating it as heatedly as they are. And they are.
For instance, some guy from NASA did his own tests, and his tests say the G5 is faster. He discusses his findings more here.
yosemitebabe: Those tests show an older-model P4 beating a top-of-the-line G5. An AMD processor, if tested, would beat both (the P4 has an extremely weak floating point unit, AMD processors don’t). Having a 32% MFLOP/clock advantage is only impressive until you remember that the P4 has a 60% clockspeed advantage. As the person who performed the tests said, it was primarily a comparison between the G4 and G5. He wasn’t out to compare Apple and Intel processors, and he didn’t.
I think we can all agree, that with regards to video editing, the tests have not yet been done. I don’t doubt the G5 will be a very impressive machine, with more than enough capability for most. It certainly has some awesome specs. (1 gig bus?! up to 8 gigs ram?!).
Comp USA says they will have the G5 on September 30th, till then any debate is pretty much useless because nobody has done any testing with a shipping configuration G5 anyway.
Exactly my point, keithnmick. “Real world” testing hasn’t been done yet, and most of us will work in the “real world” with a commercially released model of the computers in questions.
Alereon, The debate rages on with the benchmarks on the G5 vs. whatever else. It is not cut-and-dried. If the results of these benchmarks were cut-and-dried, there would be no debate, and yet there is–for a reason.
I don’t really know which model of computer will be “faster,” or which model will eventually be deemed “faster.” But so far the impression I’m getting from all these pissing contests is that it’s neck-in-neck, that no one model is so outrageously faster (overall) than the other. I could be wrong, of course, but as I said, it’s still too soon to tell, and the debate rages on–for a reason.