My bad experience

[chchaisson1]

I am a Mac user. I was using Final Cut Express to edit a film my friend and I made, and it suddenly said it was unable to import the footage because of the timecode. So, I went into iMovie (the beginner program) and imported there because it has scene detection. Then, I put it into FCP. I put it on the timeline, and it asked me to render the audio!!! After that, I tried to add a transition and it said "Error; frames dropped". So, I finally figured it all out and was editing fine. I clicked "Effects" and the program quit and lost everything.

Sorry about that. Anyway, my question is "Should I get a PC? Do they freeze alot, and what kind of PC do you use?"

Thanks.

[Themovieman44]

PC.....erm, they have the same problems at times, but not as common. They have been known to become bogged down if you don't have a sufficient amount of RAM, and the harddrives normally aren't big enough for all you need. All in all, I think PC's are better then MAC's but it all comes down to opinion.

[justin!butcher]

The movie man is right. Hardrives and RAM are essential, could be costly, but it will be worth it....trust me

[Adam]

The advantage with a PC is there are many more manufacturers producing PC components and software so there is allways other options if something goes wrong.

[Grant]

PCs are also cheaper to maintain and upgrade usually. easier to find someone to fix them also

[tallman_house_pictures]

I had the exact same problem with my power mac G4. It quit, froze ect, had time code errors, dropped frames...
Then I got a Power Mac G5 with a dual 1.8 processor and it works perfectly. If ur gonna buy a new comp, my advice wold be to go with a power mac G5 with a dual processor. Final Cut Pro is also so much better than premiere.

[Themovieman44]

Final Cut Pro, does have it's advantages to Premiere but I would still advise a PC. Simply for the fact that as Grant said, there are so many parts manafactuers, prices vary for different brands and so on. Macs have one distributor, one parts maker.

[U.S.Amateurfilmaker]

Buy a PC and get Vegas 5, the most user friendly NLE I have ever used. It also has the best simplicity to features ratio of the many professional level editors out there. The best part is that it has won Videomaker's Best NLE award 2 years running, and can do many of the things FCP can do only in a fraction of the time.

The only down side is that it is of course not the industry standard, and FCP and Avid are. But if you're simply looking for a great editor to use for personal projects, like films, it's great. The 5.1 mixing and the free magic bullet plug in that comes w/ it aren't bad either

And as far as a PC, I would build your own. That way you don't make the mistake I did by going w/ a pre-made comp and getting ripped off on parts. It's pretty simple, just buy a guide book and you should be on your way.

[chchaisson1]

Isn't it more costly to build your own?

[U.S.Amateurfilmaker]

Depends entirely on parts and features. If you buy using a site like newegg.com, it may be cheaper.

[ALove]

Ah newegg.com... best website ever. Will be buying a 250GB HD today, bringing my comp to half a terrabyte.

[chchaisson1]

Whoa.

[Truggy]

Alove, a guy down at a gaming center has a server he runs...bunch of skuzzy drives or whatever the hell they are, 2.5 terrabites.....cost him 8500 after everything, runs like a f*** dream with 2 gigs of ram.

Topic : BUy a PC, i usually keep all my files in 1 folder until im done with it, totals probably 10 gigs after im done, then just delete it.