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Understanding FCPX under the hood.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “[Chris Harlan] “What it is is that its cheeper for the non-discerning,”
But of course.
That does not describe the people that frequent this forum, however.
“True. I’m just talking about “the myth.” On our level its more about options than price–the array of available GPUs, Xeon configs and RAM.
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[Chris Harlan] “ertainly a lot of people are getting tablets, but Excel, Word, Quicken, and Quickbooks really aren’t really tablet fare. The decline in computer sales is, I think, much more because everyone already has one, and not because they are moving to tablets.”
I strongly disagree. I’m not inclined to dig up all the numbers at the moment but tables have replaced the need for computers for a lot of “pedestrian” uses. Those that are getting computers are getting laptops (which don’t have much in the DIY building department) so they can do their work “wherever.”
There are certainly very impressive apps along the lines of Word, Excel, Quicken. Granted not easy to use for any length sans keyboard. Heck Microsoft is aware of that given the design of the Surface.
It’s simply “everyone already has one” since there’d still be a replacement life cycle even if that grows longer. The decline in sales is significant. There are people who don’t buy a computer at all. While that number is a minority, it’s growing and, as it grows, computer sales shrink “permanently” because some aren’t getting replaced by traditional computers.
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[Jason Porthouse] “My own suite is a venerable MacPro 1.1 (the earliest Intel) that I’ve had since new – crashes I can count on one hand, and downtime due to hardware or software problems would be a few hours at most.”
I had that same build till last June – depending on the date, it might crash 3 times a day, downtime due to hardware was fairly extensive, memory costs compared to more modern builds were exorbitant and by the time it died I was almost glad to see it go. It seems mileage does vary.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Craig Seeman] “I strongly disagree. I’m not inclined to dig up all the numbers at the moment “
Nor am I, so we’ll just have to say our gut feelings strongly disagree. I DO agree that laptops will represent the lion share of future PC sales. I don’t quite follow what you are trying to say, though. I think maybe we aren’t quite on the same page about what it is we are talking about.
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https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/01/04/us-macbook-sales-drop-6-over-2012-holidays-npd-says
Sales of notebooks running Microsoft Windows were down 11 percent year over year, even with the much hyped launch of the new Windows 8 operating system.
The biggest hit for PCs came in the low-end market — a segment where Apple’s iPad has had the greatest effect. Sales of sub-$500 PCs were off 16 percent year over year, according to NPD.
and from Forbes
PC Sales Could Decline ‘For Years To Come,’ Analyst Says
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/11/12/pc-sales-could-decline-for-years-to-come-analyst-says/The Verge
NPD: Windows 8 fails to reverse declining PC notebook sales during holiday season
https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/4/3836222/npd-windows-8-fails-to-reverse-declining-laptop-sales-over-holidays -
Agreed. I’ve had my share of Mac adventures, usually related to OS X, Quicktime or iTune updates. The eSATA driver thing was a major PITA. And my experience with PCs has been about the same, which is to say every bit as rock solid and occasionally problematic. The major thing you have to do with PCs is keep folks from downloading a lot of cr@p, especially free games and virus-laden screen savers.
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This doesn’t help your argument at all. I’m not disputing PC sales are down. Of course they are.
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Amongst the reason PC sales are in decline is cannibalization from Tablets.
Of course PC sales are in decline: Mobile is where its at
https://gigaom.com/mobile/of-course-pc-sales-are-in-decline-mobile-is-where-its-at/There are people who are using Tablets as their primary computer. It’s a small but growing number and it is a significant contributor to the decline in PC sales.
You said:
[Chris Harlan] “My dad just got a nice little Windows 8 machine based on an i5 for under 500 bucks.”
Apple Insider says:
The biggest hit for PCs came in the low-end market — a segment where Apple’s iPad has had the greatest effect. Sales of sub-$500 PCs were off 16 percent year over year, according to NPD.So I believe that market is being lost big time to Tablets.
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I really agree with Jason. I used to work on PC machines, some put together strictly following the Videguys tips, some more randomly assembling parts, others bought from reputable vendors. I mostly work on long projects, in terms of time the project is being edited and in minutes of duration. I often experienced crashes, corrupted and unrecoverable projects (backups carrying the seed of the incoming crash), and a collection of more or less serious problems nobody seemed to be able to solve (it could be the OS, no, it’s an Adobe problem, no, it’s the motherboard that conflicts with the graphic card…..). I remember I was once saved by a Japanese editor on a forum when I could not export a project on tape and I was on a dead end. He asked me if the total number of frames ended with a “5” or a “7”, for what I recall. I said “yes”, and he answered that with that combination of motherboard and other components I had, on long projects it had happened before, so I could just add or cut one frame, and he was right so I could export after a few days of aborted trials. Five years ago I bought two MP and an iMac, together with FCP. I never experienced a single real problem since, and when there was something wrong, the “closed dumbed down” system with HW, OS and editing SW coming from the same vendor helped narrowing the odds a lot. I have a very reliable set I can work with, and for me it’s much more important than saving a few seconds on a render or a couple hundred dollars in a five years time lapse. It just runs as smooth as silk, and I’d never consider a different option unless I’m really forced to.
Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy -
I’m always a touch amazed at the “I had so many crashes on PCs and so few on Macs” stories. I have very few on either these days, and for a long time now.
Back when FCP was in earlier versions – up to about 4 – I habitually changed the autosave to 5 minutes from 30 on any new setup because it crashed so often. I only persevered because I thought it was a really good system despite the aggro. I had some very short tempered days though…..
Jason, further up, says-
“I’ve lost days before when using PC based systems – even with full tech support, I’ve had whole mornings where clever people have been ‘under the hood’ (this on HP 800 workstations so not cheap stuff) “One does have to wonder what year that was – sometime in the nineties? And what software he was using. I remember all that stuff too, but I was a lot younger then.
Bernie
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