04-12-2005, 03:39 PM

hey guys...switching to mac soon...i hope to become a videographer some day, and IIRC mac is what mos pros use, but i have a few questions.

On PC i used premiere pro...it was OK, but the non-pro version is horrrible unstable. I know mac doesnt have a pro, does is suck on mac too?

Final Cut, ive always wanted to learn it. Ive read that people who make a living doing movies/video use FCP, but what am i missing? i see on the apple page that FCP HD is 250$? lol im not complaining but that seems pretty cheap to me, im just wondering, is it really awsome? or is that version just have stripped down stuff in it.

AVID, i started learning avid, but never got through it far..is it the same on mac? do i need all the funky gadgets like back in the G3 days? the avid i/o card and all that

dvd apps, how does iDVD compare to lets say Ulead DVD workshop, or DVDLABpro or Sonic SCenarist?

and firewire cameras, do you exactly need a driver for them? i thoguht firewire just output a signal...

thats about it..i know mac is the way to go for multimedia, in your experiences, does the "real world" use macs? or just win boxes?

thanks in advance everyone.

EDIT: DIserguard my inqury on FCP, i saw final cut express, not pro..pro is a grand, thats what i thought it was.

04-13-2005, 03:06 AM

express is almost as cool as pro. if you are not in a hollywood movie industry you wont really notice the difference. main advantage of pro is its realtime capabilities and plus it coms with coolest extra apps like soundtrack and live type. user interface is basically the same. both are really easy to learn. as a matter of fact if you know one of them, you know them both. compositing is really easy and fun.

you do not need the driver for any firewire camera. all video apps recognize cameras with ease.

iDVD lacks the flexibility. you can not create your custom menus. otherwise its a great app. its nice for hobbists. DVD studio pro is the best i have seen so far. full photoshop integration. you can design any sort of custom buttons and menus in photoshop and import it to DVD studio pro. plus it has a compressor app. best mpeg 2 encoder ever. you can encode several files simultaneously (batch processing).
if your files are properly encoded it takes 10-15 minutes to compile a DVD master.

04-20-2005, 05:34 PM

oh thats all very good news!

dumb question, does garage band come with the mac? or do i hafta buy iLIfe?

04-20-2005, 05:39 PM

if you buy a new Mac from Apple, it will come with all iLife applications.