Best Mac/PC for video editing?

If you have experience with digital editing home videos please let me know your desktop configuration/software and if you like the setup. I may be in the market and I'm looking in the $2000-2500 range for everything (including firewires/software etc.)

It's a toss-up between Gateway and HP. I know the Mac's are superior at digital editing, but I want my old software to be compatible. Is there anything specific that I need to ask for when shopping around? i.e. how much capacity RAM and HD?

what sort of editing are you doing? You can definitely get an out of the box mac that will be superior to anything Dell or HP can offer, and Apple's iLife software (bundled with every new Mac) contains a pretty good movie editor, iMovie. For 99 bucks you can upgrade to Final Cut Express and really cook.

Figure a DP 1.8 Gig G5 is 2400, another 100 for FCE and you're set at just under 2500.

they ship with a 120 Gig internat drive, DVD burner, and multiple FW ports. I think they also ship with 512 RAM.

Home movies for the grandparents and kid's sport teams, mainly. In fact, I'm looking for something quick and easy. If I go Mac, I may have to just use it as a dedicated video editor.

Does anyone know how Mac and Gateway stand up as far as the company is concerned?

get the 17 incher and use iMovie. Put another hundred bucks into RAM and you will have a rocking little video editor.

Applecare and Apple service are excellent programs. Their machines tend to stand up well. I bought a G3 350 iMac new six years ago, now my Dad is using it to write a book. All I ever did was put a little RAM in it.

What level of editing are you planning to do?

The most complicated thing I plan to do is to take sport shots for a webpage.

I'm on a 17" Powerbook with a Gig of RAM and Firewire 800 support so it's absolutely a cinch, but my son's teeny little ol' iBook (2 years old) running OSX 10.3 works just as well.

My Sony camera hooks directly into the thing with it's iLink to Firewire cable and it couldn't be easier. I've been making DVDs of my sister's trip to Finland and it's been a blast.

iDVD, iMovie, Final Cut Express and just announced today, Garageband, comes in the box, so if you've got the firewire compatible camera, you could be checking out the videos literally within minutes on your tv, add a soundtrack and some cool transitions (iMovie is so easy to use it's hilarious). and burn the whole thing to a DVD to pop into your home DVD player easily by the end of the day.

Really, at least check this out before you decide:

http://www.apple.com/ilife/

btw, I also just set up a brand new PC I needed to get for my business and a week later, I'm still trying to get it just hooked up to my printer... ARHGG!

I'll give it a look. When shopping for video editing PC's, it's always best to compare Apples to App...er... well, you know.

Today's the first day of MacWorld, so I'm a little over-enthusiastic perhaps, but really it is so freaking easy to do video on a Mac (not to mention fun!).

(btw, if you do end up with a Mac, you got check out this app, if not just for the coolness factor. http://www.cesoft.com/products/translucy.html. It displays DVD on top for your desktop and you can "work through" the translucent video images. It has to be seen to be believed.)

what did you need to ask for?

or spend 700 on a pc that does the exact same thing. or you could spend around 2500 and get an Alienware pc that COOKS.

Comes with Adobe Premiere.

I use the median blur effect to reduce VHS grain, but it's not necessary and isn't always worth the effort...

I also use Pinnacle Clean and Cool Edit to resample and clean the audio to DVD quality (48000hz). This is usually worth the effort.

I've made a few DVD discs. No problems, everything went through nicely. (though I had stopped working for several months, rebooted the capture PC, and Chkdsk thought a few captured files were corrupt and erased 'em... sigh. But that was my fault for not doing the work the first time then deleting the files there and then.)

Forget the Mac. All you're getting is a name for boatloads of money.

The Pinnacle device is $800, but you can home-build a decent PC with 1GB RAM, 40+200GB hard drives (40 for OS and 200 for data), GeForce 4600 video card (you don't need a radeon 9800 or Geforce 5900 fx ultra video card), Athlon XP 3000 CPU for less than $700 by now.

Of course, I bought the pinnacle DV500+ three years ago. Since then they've released newer products that cost less.

Also, do these Macs say "F U" if you try to rip copy-protected material? Pinnacle is the only PC brand that I know of that overlooks the copy protection. (Avoid WinTV and especially ATI like the plague, though their capture solutions are dilettante shite anyway...)

My $47 dollar
WinFast works great for my needs. :)
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Lasso of Truth

messages on my Mac like that ('cept for those I see in Message boards).

The Mac also does not make it's users blame themselves for problems that the computer is responsible for.

And I have found ample freeware and shareware that enable me to do the nefarious activities so I desire.

Also, I've been using Macs for going on 20 years and saved more than boatloads of cash being able to get my work done instead of spending all my time trying the get the damn machine to work. On average, I go through about 2 to 3 PCs to every Mac I purchase for my work.

they'll build you a custom system with whatever the hell you want. ibuypower.com will do that too. These are better and often cheaper than any gateway or HP. Get the fastest processor and largest hard drive in your budget. and the most RAM too.

and have for 20+ years.I would like to say, before anyone starts the flame fest, I am agnostic when it comes to the platform wars, I have both, I use both for graphics, motion graphics .
Your best bet for editing is Final Cut, hands down a truly great program. I like it better than the full blown Avid Media Composer.


But.... for doing home movies you don't need FCP, but, you never know , you may like it and want to go further.You might as well cut your teeth on a good system and FCP is the one.