[dthompson101]

An eMac could indeed be what you need to get you started, but if you are looking for something to last you the duration of your university career, then you want to spend the extra bucks now (if you can afford to) and get yourself a single or dual processor PowerMac. With a faster frontside and backside bus, faster processors, DDR Ram, expandability and the ability to hold up to 2 GB or RAM, there is no comparrison between the eMac and the PowerMac, except in price.

The PowerMac is what most people in Hollywood are beginning to user with Final Cut Pro. Take the Lord of the Rings for example that uses FCP and Shake on the movie, but you can guarantee yourself that it's not being completed on an eMac.

As the old saying goes, Power and Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?

I could be totally off base here and someone else who is in a video school and uses an eMac might be able to tell me different.

By the way... Welcome to the world of Apple (hopefully) They are the best machine on the planet!

 

[Ohenri]

DV?? You want a tower dude. I do agree with all that D101 mentioned, and to add to that, I must admit that the eMac - as much as it is sound on all fronts (specs vs cost), it has been documented to be flawed. There have been reports of CRT defects. I was about to get one until I kept reading posts about various challenges. Even MacDoc finally gave it the thumbs down. I would say to get a tower, and you have plenty to work with dude. I mean, older towers are out there by the plenty - tons of deals. You can even find good Ti 400+ deals out there (MacDoc has a Ti 400 + 40G 7200 ext for $2222 - that's hot), so keep your eyes peeled.

eMac upgrade? Outside of RAM, all ext though I assume that you can upgrade the int HD to something of your choosing much like the older iMacs. You could easily drop a 80 G 7200 HD in there, if you chose, but I believe that the standard HD is 5400. But again re: the eMac, purchase at own risk. I say go looking for a PBook. The deals are out there young Jedi...

 

[robert]

Hi GW (gee-dub-ya)
I know nothing about film editing, but I do about buying. You live in the best spot for purchasing a mac. If you have the time, check out these places for great deals.

accurate technologies - sheppard/yonge
cpused - dupont/bathurst
ehmac - trading post
first avenue - waterloo ON
macdoc - mississauga
mostly macs - london ON

They all sell used macs which is what I recommend. You can pick up a 350-867Mhz G4 tower for less than $2000CDN. The trick is patience as once the new powerbooks come out, some will dump their desktops. As well, rumor has it that the G4 is going to get a speed increase. The bleeding edge crowd will again jump on this and their "old systems will hit the market.
Hope this helps,
Robert

 

[robert]

Oops,
missed putting this in.
http://www.hummingbirdservices.ca/dealers.html

Robert

 

[The Great Waka]

I've been a PC user for my whole life, and it that year that I am going to buy a new computer. I will (hopefully) be going into a film program at university in september, plus I do film work myself. Thus I was planning to make the switch and go for a Mac. I was looking at the eMac specifically, since it has everything I need without costing me too much. Since I havn't had much experience with Macs, I have no clue how to judge whether or not this would be right for me. I mean, since I'm just used to the PC world, an 800 mhz computer sounds extremely slow; however I have been doing my research and learning about the power of Macs.

So it comes down to this: Is an eMac enough for me, an student film maker (I will be useing mostly DV), or do I need to buy a G4 tower? Also, what about upgrading; anything possible on the eMac?

Thanks in advance


EDIT: Oh yeah, does anyone know what the hard drive speed is in one of these? I'm assuming that its fast enough, but still.

 

[coyote]

Personally, I would consider more the professional equipment, a tower or PowerBook, if you can afford it. If you buy a PowerBook, you'll pay a premium for portability and it won't be as fast as a new tower, but you can take it anywhere to work. The tower is more expandable and has more horsepower.

I don't work in digital video, but a collegue of mine does. He's using a PowerMac G4 733mhz and Final Cut Pro 3 and says it's suitably fast. I don't know how much RAM he's got installed, but probably a lot. He's using this for commercial video production at an advertising agency.

The newer dual processor would be faster, but you could probably pick up a used single processor or early dual processor at a reasonable price that would suit you needs and not be as painful to the bank account/OSAP. Keep in mind, with getting a tower you'll have the ability to expand/upgrade the machine with better video, more RAM, more internal hard drives, etc. and still be able to add external firewire and usb devices should you need to upgrade before you finish school.

I'd talk to Mainly Mac in Markham. Ask to speak with Ted, or talk to MacDoc on this forum.

Welcome to the Mac community.

 

[VertiGoGo]

I have an 800MHz eMac with SuperDrive and I use it for DV. Granted, I am an amateur, but it is certainly fast enough. It processes transitions very quickly and is a no-brainer to use.

For the record, I have had NO PROBLEMS with my crt, but I have read of the documented problems. I think these have largely been taken care of. If you are going to go with an eMac, be sure to max out the RAM.

Your main criteria in looking for a Mac should be how much power do you need and for what types of projects. If you are going to get into a lot of hard-core DV...you will likely want to go and get a dual processor machine. As an earlier post says...go big now and then that will save you in the long run.

Please keep up to date on what you end up doing...and good luck! You're going to love going Mac!

 

[The Great Waka]

Thanks a lot everyone. Well, it looks like I'll be going for a used tower then. I've had a look at a few websites, and I like Macdoc's used systems tailored by use.

I'll be looking around, and let you know.

Thanks again

 

[PosterBoy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by VertiGoGo:

For the record, I have had NO PROBLEMS with my crt, but I have read of the documented problems. I think these have largely been taken care of.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As far as I have read and seen the problem was pretty much contained to the 700 MHz CD-RW Drive model, which was replaced with a Combo Drive model. i have not seen or heard of any problems with a SuperDrive model, but I haven't exactly looked either.

--PB

 

[MacDoc]

For the record also WE didn't see any problems with the eMacs we sold BUT there were simply TOO many reports and where there is smoke when it's new - = big time potential problems down the line.
G4 towers have dropped as have Powerbooks so the niche for the eMac has narrowed. There are really cost effective upgrades for earlier G4s as well now. 800 with a 2 meg cache is a good processor. I know I use one. Most stable Mac I've ever owned.
Towers rule for video and for getting started don't be too concerned about processing speed. Things like a good monitor, more RAM and drives are better use of funds.

 

[MannyP Design]

I opted to wait to reply to this thread, but feel that a Tower for a student would be major overkill.

An eMac and Apple FinalCut Express is more than reasonable for you (anyone for that matter). In all seriousness, unless you can afford it, a tower and FinalCut Pro will set you back more than most can comfortably handle. You mentioned being new to the Mac... I think an eMac or iMac would be right down your alley.

eMacs & iMacs are perfect for DV and suffer no real world losses compared to towers. The speed loss is minute unless you delve into the high-end, thousand dollar real-time NLE cards that would most likely be overkill for the kind of work you will start off doing.

I've used two iMacs (G3 400 & now a G4 800 -- planning to move to a dual soon once my student loans are cleared this October -- yay!!!) and can say with great conviction that I can do a great deal of editing and visuals (3d, motion graphics, visual effects, etc.) without suffering major setbacks, hardships -- and video quality. I personally have produced 3 videos totaling in 4 hours of edited footage complete with animations and effects.

There's a reason why Rick McCallum said (about getting in to the movie biz):

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Make movies. Go out and buy an Apple iMac. Get Final Cut Pro and a video camera.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You don't need to go nuts and spend money hand over fist to get decent Apple hardware. It's all good!

Cheers,

 

[SOLID]

I've had an eMAC 800 with superdrive for about 6 months. I wanted to start doing some Digital Video Editing, nothing serious just iMovie stuff. It works great. The price point of the eMAC was very appealing. I just added another 256 MB of ram for a total of 512 and definitely notice a performance difference. I have had no problems at all with the monitor.

My daughter just purchased a base model eMAC in December and she loves it. Again no monitor problems, but both of these machines are relatively new. I guess time will tell.

 

[GreekGuy]

I think it depends on the complexity of your projects.
I have an emac and do quite a bit of dv editing.
It is my second mac (previous was a g3 imac)
I've takent he ram up to 768 and it actually works quite fast.

I also invested in a 120 gig lacie drive. You definately will need more space. 40 or 60 gigs isn't enough if ou want to work on more than one movie or movies that are more than an hour.

It all depends on your budget. Keep in mind, that you can sell the emac after a year or two and its value will definately be higher than that of an equivalent pc..

My advice, if you are on a budget and want g4 power, get the emac. its the best bang for the buck.