Do you get irritated/raged when having the PC vs Mac debate?

[RedTomato]

If this was short enough, it would be in my signature.

Your signature is obviously lacking - you should really consider getting a PC signature - it fits so much more in.

What I did in a similar situation as the OP was I went up to the guy and his fully spec'd i7 laptop with 8GB of ram i was arguing with and raced him in a reboot to windows with my mid '09 2.66 C2D with 4gb ram. I booted in 12 seconds to windows 7 and he took 58 seconds. It was a glorious 46 seconds....


I didn't actually say I had an SSD in my MBP

But did shut him up

Careful there cowboy. If he challenged you back to see who could copy a AVCHD film onto DVD fastest, you'd still be standing there waiting for OSX to finish, and he'd have time to finish, go out for a meal, have a postprandial nap and come back.

OSX and iMovie are still dreadfully slow (last time I looked) at transcribing AVCHD into DVD format, which is a shame considering most cheap USB video cameras use AVCHD and Jobs said some time ago USB cameras were the way forwards.

 

[yg17]

What I did in a similar situation as the OP was I went up to the guy and his fully spec'd i7 laptop with 8GB of ram i was arguing with and raced him in a reboot to windows with my mid '09 2.66 C2D with 4gb ram. I booted in 12 seconds to windows 7 and he took 58 seconds. It was a glorious 46 seconds....


I didn't actually say I had an SSD in my MBP

But did shut him up

You should race your laptops to see which one can start playing a Blu-ray movie the fastest.

You know what I do in a similar situation ? Walk away and ignore. You know, the mature thing to do.

This.

 

[ctt1wbw]

Ah, the Blu Ray thing. Computers were not invented to watch movies on. That's what home theaters are for.

 

[KnightWRX]

Ah, the Blu Ray thing. Computers were not invented to watch movies on. That's what home theaters are for.

Funny you should say that, my first DVD player was a Creative DXR2 kit, back in 1998. The kit had full SPDIF support for 5.1 Dolby Digital audio and hardware MPEG-2 decoding along with S-Video output which for its 250$ pricetag made it compete with high-end players of the time at half the price.

I hooked it up to my then Home Theater setup and enjoyed many DVDs with it.

These days, I use a LG570C blu-ray player to stream stuff using DLNA from a ... dum dum dum, PC (well, to be fair, a QNAP SoC NAS box with Linux, essentially a PC).

Computers might not have been invented to watch movies on, but computer is such a broad and general term (your PC is a computer, but so is your DVD player, your Blu-ray player, your iPhone, your Microwave's micro-controller and so on..) that it's very hard to say what it can't be used for successfully. Computers are just big programmable calculators. Digital Media these days is just a big bunch of math. Computers are perfectly suited to media consumption in this form.

 

[notjustjay]

What I did in a similar situation as the OP was I went up to the guy and his fully spec'd i7 laptop with 8GB of ram i was arguing with and raced him in a reboot to windows with my mid '09 2.66 C2D with 4gb ram. I booted in 12 seconds to windows 7 and he took 58 seconds. It was a glorious 46 seconds....


I didn't actually say I had an SSD in my MBP

But did shut him up

Fun. But the trick is to not say "Hey! You! Let's have a race!" Just do whatever you're doing and if your Windows loving friend happens to see you reboot, let it be on him to notice and say "Holy cow!!! That was fast!"

I reiterate that this is how I eventually bought a Mac of my own to try out -- simply watching Mac users "do their thing" and realizing that they can do things that I couldn't. Not by being challenged in a pissing contest.

Incidentally, it's not always fun and games on the Mac side. As much as I like telling my Windows projector BSOD story (a page or two back), I have also been on the other side where my Mac was connected to a projector to show a PowerPoint slide show, and someone gave me a PPT file that simply wouldn't open. I was getting a little flustered and some wag in the audience of university students said "Probably because it's a Mac".

If that had happened today, I would have said "Yeah, you're probably right, hold on a second" and fired up Windows in VMware.

Careful there cowboy. If he challenged you back to see who could copy a AVCHD film onto DVD fastest, you'd still be standing there waiting for OSX to finish, and he'd have time to finish, go out for a meal, have a postprandial nap and come back.

OSX and iMovie are still dreadfully slow (last time I looked) at transcribing AVCHD into DVD format, which is a shame considering most cheap USB video cameras use AVCHD and Jobs said some time ago USB cameras were the way forwards.

You might have seen a post I made in a recent thread about AVCHD/Final Cut/Blu-Ray. I had to do exactly this. A 1.5 hour Christmas production, recorded on AVCHD, took a total of about 8 hours to burn onto one DVD, not including the actual time spent in iMovie and iDVD doing editing and setup work. It was two hours in before I could even SEE the footage I imported. My Windows friend had got that far after about 10 minutes.

 

[bruinsrme]

Ah, the Blu Ray thing. Computers were not invented to watch movies on. That's what home theaters are for.

I disagree with that especially since Apple provides some of the largest monitors out there with wome of the highest resolutions.
Why settle for the lower resolution of DVD when there is blu-ray with a much higher resolution?

Personally I wouldn't built an HTPC, but I have hooked up my dell XPS 1530 to a number of large screen TVs and its a nice feature to have.

Plus many movies now are coming with DVD/blu-ray/digital copy bundles for a few bucks more than the dvd alone.

 

[randomerratum]

I find it's just too difficult for PC people to grasp the idea that I use a computer to do work that is not related to computers.

All I can tell them is that a Mac is easier, more reliable and all around more efficient for what I (and I think MOST people in the world) use them for: non-computer related work. I work with professional video in a very technical capacity and despite relying on computers heavily, I don't consider myself to be "working with computers"... I "use" computers to work with video.

For some reason, this is a difficult concept to get across to PC people, but non-computer savvy people seem to understand what I mean precisely. That gets frustrating.

 

[yg17]

Ah, the Blu Ray thing. Computers were not invented to watch movies on. That's what home theaters are for.

Computers weren't invented to watch porn on either, but 98% of the people watch porn on their computers and the 2% who say they don't are lying

 

[randomerratum]

You should race your laptops to see which one can start playing a Blu-ray movie the fastest.

Blu-Ray is dead. It was dead on arrival. It's a half-baked spec that Sony rushed out to kill of the HD-DVD and cash in before video inevitably goes streaming. It was designed specifically to be a short-lived HDTV jump-starter with absolutely no longevity. It's un-refined and cumbersome for it's users, it has absolutely no support for most content creators.

As a professional DVD authorist myself (and owner of about 30 Blu-Ray titles) it seems entirely clear to me why Apple is skipping Blu-Ray support... it's simply an unnecessary short-term investment.

 

[ctt1wbw]

Computers weren't invented to watch porn on either, but 98% of the people watch porn on their computers and the 2% who say they don't are lying

That's because you can get porn online, not necessarily using a blu ray player. I don't watch porn.

 

[KnightWRX]

That's because you can get porn online, not necessarily using a blu ray player. I don't watch porn.

You can get movies online, not necessarily using a blu ray player.

Am I just not seeing your point in all of this ?

 

[ctt1wbw]

My point is that it's annoying to hear people say that the Mac is undperpowered or whatever because it doesn't have a blu ray player. My point is that blu ray is for watching movies. That's what home theaters are for.

Would anyone consider weather computers or other IBM type supercomputers that can do petaflops all day long underpowered because you can't watch a blu ray movie on them?

 

[mrochester]

My point is that it's annoying to hear people say that the Mac is undperpowered or whatever because it doesn't have a blu ray player. My point is that blu ray is for watching movies. That's what home theaters are for.

Would anyone consider weather computers or other IBM type supercomputers that can do petaflops all day long underpowered because you can't watch a blu ray movie on them?

No, but it's just what is now expected to be present in a premium machine.

 

[glocke12]

Ive had this discussion with others. I don't get enraged or irritated, but I do find it amusing because their argument usually just consists of them saying they are anti mac or that they dont like mac but they cant come up with a very good reason. A few people use the argument that they don't like macs because they are expensive, which to me is justifiable somewhat.

Just as a side note, I saw a nice windows notebook running whatever the latest windows software is. The UI and the dock looked like it was designed by Apple software engineers.

 

[roadbloc]

Ah, the Blu Ray thing. Computers were not invented to watch movies on. That's what home theaters are for.

I'ma let you finish but people need blu ray for more than watching movies.

 

[takao]

Ah, the Blu Ray thing. Computers were not invented to watch movies on. That's what home theaters are for.

i remembered when Apple pushed the iMac calling it a "personal multimedia hub" for all your personal media including movies ... or when Steve Jobs called out "the year of HD" during a keynote .. do you ?

that the very same company which on numerous occasions to advertized and had presentations about using your computer for all your multimedia needs _and_ also was a big supporter for HD productions/cutting software etc. now doesn't support blu-ray simply isn't making any sense.. in fact i expected apple to be one of the first supporters of the format since digital media is so integral to their strategy


and that is coming from a person who didn't like the blu-ray/hd-dvd industry farce ... but now with a format decided on this holding backjsut doesn't make sense .. after all what is there to lose for apple to support blu-ray ?

 

[glocke12]

I'ma let you finish but people need blu ray for more than watching movies.

I think it is borderline criminal that Apple refuses to put a blu-ray drive in their products. Id love to have bluray in my mac-mini that I use as a media center for my television, but since Apple does not allow bluray, I had to by yet one more electronic device to watch bluray on.

Biggest advantage by far though would be the ability to use bluray discs as storage.

 

[Ubuntu]

Ah, the Blu Ray thing. Computers were not invented to watch movies on. That's what home theaters are for.

Computers were not invented to do many things that they are popular for, just so you know.

 

[calaverasgrande]

It is a silly argument. I have to say I get far more annoyed by Mac elitists than PC fans. PC fanboys tend to be more wrapped up in AMD vs Nvidia or AMD vs Intel stuff to care about Macs. Mac fanboys are always making statements about pcs that just arent true. My favorite was when an IT guy at a place I worked said something to the effect of "PCs cant run multiple Monitors". Uh, Win XP supports up to 10 monitors if you have that many video cards lying around. With Matrox products you can get many more.
OTOH, macs are certainly superior to PCs in one respect. They are far easier to build an image of and duplicate across your enterprise. PCs are a pain in this regard.
Still, its like arguing Chevy vs Ford or Jazz bass Vs Stingray. Whatever suits your workflow best, is best.

 

[mKTank]

Blu-Ray is dead. It was dead on arrival. It's a half-baked spec that Sony rushed out to kill of the HD-DVD and cash in before video inevitably goes streaming. It was designed specifically to be a short-lived HDTV jump-starter with absolutely no longevity. It's un-refined and cumbersome for it's users, it has absolutely no support for most content creators.

As a professional DVD authorist myself (and owner of about 30 Blu-Ray titles) it seems entirely clear to me why Apple is skipping Blu-Ray support... it's simply an unnecessary short-term investment.

Facedesk.

Blu-Ray dead? You had your head in the oven?
Blu-Ray is selling like hotcakes. It's a half-baked spec? 50GB on a disc is half-baked? Streaming is no-where close to practical usage. 720p is the best iTunes can do and it's quite a big difference from Blu-Ray. It's not as HD as Blu-Ray...nothing else is.

I mean, the typical movie on a Blu-Ray disc is, what, 30GB? Yeah, have fun streaming that. See what your ISP says. Not to mention streaming video of that bitrate along with audio of that bitrate is pretty much impossible on the vast majority of home connections nowadays.

 

[KnightWRX]

My point is that it's annoying to hear people say that the Mac is undperpowered or whatever because it doesn't have a blu ray player. My point is that blu ray is for watching movies. That's what home theaters are for.

There's a 4000 post thread about it in the News section. I suggest you read it before you start again with the debunked points. Just to address your points :

- Home theater is where to watch Blu-rays primarily. However, people buying Blu-ray discs will also probably be traveling. If they want to take a movie they bought with them, without a blu-ray laptop, they can't.
- HD camcorders shoot in AVCHD and Full HD these days on the cheap. This video should be transferable to iMovie and you should be able to then burn it as a Blu-ray disc to preserve the HD part of your HD camcorder instead of having to downscale it to SD to make it a DVD so that you can watch your home movies on your Home Theater setup and bring it to grand ma's to watch on her 100$ Blu-ray player.
- Then there's the whole thing about optical archival, which is more reliable than hard drives with spinning parts and cheaper than Flash based media...

So much for your "point". Again, I strongly suggest a read through the 4000 post thread in the News section. I doubt you can bring forth a point that hasn't been debunked. You're basically arguing to hold back the Mac from current technologies for ... no reason at all. Blu-ray on Mac doesn't hurt you, but it sure does help those who need it.

Would anyone consider weather computers or other IBM type supercomputers that can do petaflops all day long underpowered because you can't watch a blu ray movie on them?

No one does because no one owns s390 based consumer devices. I also don't consider any of my RX series or BL series HP boxes "underpowered" with their 16 cores/128 GB RAM because they can't read a Blu-ray. But that's not the point, they aren't exactly sold at BB either.

OTOH, macs are certainly superior to PCs in one respect. They are far easier to build an image of and duplicate across your enterprise. PCs are a pain in this regard.

No, they aren't. Are you the same IT guy you complain about ?

There are multitudes of imaging solutions for PC, even remote imaging solutions using Intel Pre Execution Environnement (PXE).

That you don't know how to do this stuff with OS X server and Netboot on a Mac does not make it easier to image Macs, it just makes it easier to you.

 

[Sounds Good]

You might have seen a post I made in a recent thread about AVCHD/Final Cut/Blu-Ray. I had to do exactly this. A 1.5 hour Christmas production, recorded on AVCHD, took a total of about 8 hours to burn onto one DVD, not including the actual time spent in iMovie and iDVD doing editing and setup work. It was two hours in before I could even SEE the footage I imported. My Windows friend had got that far after about 10 minutes.

This is one of the things holding me back from buying my first Mac (curious as I am) since all the video I've shot on my last 2 cameras are in AVCHD format.

 

[317342]

I import AVCHD to iMovie fairly regularly. As I understand, it has to convert from AVCHD -> Apple Intermediate Codec for editing.

Final Cut Express edits AVCHD natively, however.

Offering plenty of creative options, Final Cut Express 4 lets you edit footage captured in the most popular formats — including AVCHD.* Simply connect your camcorder to your Mac, preview and select the AVCHD clips you’d like to import, and start editing your video. * = Requires Intel Processor
http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/

As far as the Mac vs. PC debate, I'm pretty comfortable with the fact that I use Mac and others don't. I really don't care if they don't want a Mac, most times it's out of ignorance of what the Mac is/does. Rather than argue with them on why Windows is "superior" to my inferior Mac, I just smile and say, "You're absolutely right, I must be an idiot."

 

[KnightWRX]

I import AVCHD to iMovie fairly regularly. As I understand, it has to convert from AVCHD -> Apple Intermediate Codec for editing.

Final Cut Express edits AVCHD natively, however.

Neither of them will let you write out the result as a Blu-ray disc. And importing AVCHD to iMovie takes quite a while as another poster explained in this thread.

As long as Apple refuses to support standards for HD movies in their software packages (that includes Blu-ray authoring/playback), they are seriously behind the curve on that front.

 

[notjustjay]

I import AVCHD to iMovie fairly regularly. As I understand, it has to convert from AVCHD -> Apple Intermediate Codec for editing.

Final Cut Express edits AVCHD natively, however.

I haven't tried it yet with FCE 4, but according to MacWorld, it doesn't. They said:

"Part of the reason for queuing material is that Final Cut Express does not import the AVCHD footage natively. As with HDV footage, AVCHD is transcoded to Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) for editing within the program; this is the same behavior you’d see in Movie ’08 and Final Cut Pro 6. ... The transcoding step does add time to the ingest process. For a simple example, a one-minute clip took 1:34 to ingest on my 2.33GHz MacBook Pro; ingesting several clips totaling around six minutes in duration took 6:27."

MacWorld's experience jives with mine -- their import times suggest a little over real-time. As I said in my post above, I had about 1.5 hours of AVCHD footage (in one long non-stop clip), and it took about 2 hours to import on my 2.2 GHz MacBook Pro.