brady1983

Hey Everyone,

My names Matt, and Im a student in a media program. Im very interested in programs such as maya, after effects, photoshop and adobe premier and final cut pro. I want to purchase a new computer this summer but am not sure whether I should buy a mac or pc, and which would be better for such programs that ive listed. I only have around $900-$1200 towards one. I dont need such things as a monitor or accessories. Im just looking for the actual computer. If you have any advice or comments please let me know. Thanks

ArtistSeries

This is a Mac forum, so I'm quite certain the direction of the answers you will receive...

To answer your question about the software, they are very similar on the Mac or PC. Adobe Premier is more advance on the PC as the mac version has been dropped. You don't have FCP on the PC side.

stillmot

For any media program, I think the chances are very high that you will need to know FCP. In my opinion, if you don't care about stability, cosmetics, functionality, and an awesome OS then go for a PC. All of the people I know in media, broadcasting or journalism programs use and love macs, it is what all the cool kids are doing now days.

shoe

What computer do you like best? PC or mac if you cant stand one opperating system over another why force yourself to use it? If your curious about the mac platform play with it see if you like it try b4 you buy get someone to go over the whole system with you. ( by this i mean dont go shopping for one on a buzy saturday afternoon).

Other things to consider what system is your school teaching on?

I see you want this as a learning machine will the abundance of pc games distract you? ( chat distracts me from doing my work sometimes)

With your budget looks like you will have to get a used or slower less powerful mac, but you could get a cheap pc with newer functions either thaht or raise some funds.

shoe

ps good luck in school

enaj

If yould bump it to around $1500 (a bit more from tax) you could get a nice iMac which haas plenty of power and memory. There is another post saying that London Drugs is selling the iMac 1.8 for $1399.

__________________
Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.
--- Pete Seeger

Mantat

Seems like I answer these posts on a daily basis...

First, why do you have to learn Maya? Do you want to learn Maya or 3D? Maya is a ridiculously priced software and you are probably never going to be able to own a licence of it for your personal projects. You better learn something simpler to start with. Switching from one software to the other isnt such a pain until you have many years of experience. I recomand Cinema4D. Its a great package. The rendering might not be as good as what is done with Maya (it doesnt have Mental Ray or RenderMan) but since you probably dont know how to set the setting of these renderer anyways, you better start with something that give good results right from the start.

Anyways, I would go Mac all the way, unless you are thinking about modeling hi poly scene (millions++) because Mac dont have pro level 3D cards. But this is just a marginal problem since you shouldnt do such stuff at your level anyways...

Elias26

Mantat, Mantat, Mantat...

Don't shoot Brady's hopes down. Maya is a powerful tool for animation. If he cares to learn it I say go for it! They have plenty of visual tutorials online, built-in to the *free Personal Learning Edition of Maya (yes you heard right Brady, you can learn Maya FREE), and even cheap DVDs you can buy that will have a teacher instruct you on Maya all the way. Also, depending where you live, schools like Sheridan College teach courses in Maya. I used to take Soft Image and Maya at this school called Applied Multimedia, but their Calgary, Regina, and Winnipeg schools all went bankrupt.

Brady, if you're going with a Mac product for Maya, it is recommended that you use a machine with a G5 and atleast a Gig of RAM. That machine would be woefully out of your price range. So if I were you, I would go the route of a Windows machine, simply because you'll be able to get a higher-end Pentium 4, with the amount of RAM you need, most likely a generic model for around $900-1,200 Cdn.

Attack it this way.. What do you have a larger background or knowledge of? Apple or Windows computers? What does your budget allow? What machine would fit the needed requirments to run said application?

As much as Apple computers are much more reliable and attractive looking when compared to pretty much every Windows machine out there, it may best serve you to go the route of the Windows machine. You can get a pretty good machine for what you're willing to pay. Maya is also more widely used on Windows computers, so take note of that. Although, with time, that may change.

thejst

God I wish you wouldn't. You provide the worst 'help' or 'advice', ever.

__________________
MacBook Pro C2D. It Rules.

Klaatu

Where? Every Futureshop I go into never has the screen properly calibrated, and it's always the bare minimum of RAM. Even Apple stores rarely have any files to play with so you can really stretch its legs. All you can do is open app/close app. Wee!

Anyway, in the media world (especially video) Mac is the way to go. What machine to get is another matter.