[Jeff Carpenter]

I would think price, and maybe screen size…
====

What else do you need? I just tried to configure an iMac and a Macbook Pro as closely as I could, spec-wise.

The ONLY differences are these:

* iMac has a 20″ screen to Macbook Pro’s 15″
* Macbook Pro has a card slot
* iMac has 250 GB hard drive to Macbook Pro’s 100 GB
* Macbook Pro costs $425 more than iMac

If you take the computer with you eveywhere, moving all over, working in airports and on planes…then the laptop wins. But if you just bring it somewhere in the morning and just leave it set up all day…well, I’d call the iMac a winner. The screen speace alone makes it well worth the trouble of moving it in. I’ve taken my iMac places, it’s not a huge pain to move.

[Jeff Carpenter]

As Walter said, it’s really because the same ads are everywhere on the site BUT…even if that were not the case, it makes more sense to advertise to the people who AREN’T using your product than to the ones you ARE.

If Avid spent money advertising to ONLY Avid users…well they’d be wasting their money.

[Jeff Carpenter]

No, it won’t help your rendering speeds. That comes down to processor speed and hard-drive connection speed.

RAM would help you do the things you are actively working on. Like, if you open a clip, drag something in the timeline, or switch between programs. Anytime you do something like that and have to wait for the computer for a second, that’s a RAM issue.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Also, at the risk of raising the ire of people here, is there a Windows-style task bar available for OSX?

============

If you’re talking about the way it displays running programs, then no, I don’t know of anything. But if you’re talking about the Start Menu I can help you there:

Open up your main drive and drag a copy of the Applications folder onto the dock next to the trash can. (Folders have to stay at that end of the dock.)

Then, right click that folder on the dock. Instant “Star Menu!”

[Jeff Carpenter]

You should burn any project files you have to a CD or put them on a flash drive. Anything so that you have back-ups.

You should also keep your media drive disconnected during all of this.

If you follow both of those rules I’d think you’d be fine. Do you have any preferences that you’ve set? Like, have you put any transitions inta the “Favorites” bin or anything like that? You’ll lose stuff like that. Alghthough it’s POSSIBLE to back up those kinds of preferences I’d suggest not doing that. It’s possiblea you’ll back-up whatever the problem is. Just take a look at what you’ve got set and maybe write it all down so you can re-create what you want later.

I wouldn’t worry about the projects messing stuff up later…it’s possible, I guess, but not very likely.

I would trash the application first, then search the hard drive for any other folders with “Final Cut” in the name and trash those too. Then re-load everything from the original disks. Don’t forget to run system updator when you’re done. Then plug your media drive back in. It’s possible you’ll have to manually re-connect some media once everything’s back up but you’ll only have to do that once, it shouldn’t be a big deal.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Your first question can actually be answered with marketing answers as well.

Namely, you should always tell a couple before they book you WHAT will happen if something happens to your main camera at their shoot. That’s a marketing choice, pure and simple. It doesn’ matter what you say, just remember that the sale is probably riding on it.

I offer 2 and 3 camera packages. I tell the 2-camera people about the 3rd camera and say I have it with me in case something goes wrong. I tell them that in the AMAZING chance that something happens to two of them I will continue to shoot with 1 camera, they’ll still get a very nice video, and they’ll get 50% off at the end. Obviously, nothing like that is probably going to ever happen, but they feel better knowing there’s a plan.

My 3-camera package gets the same deal, it’s just SLIGHTLY more likely that there’d be a problem since only one camera would have to go down to invoke the deal. It’s never happened, though.

You have to decide what you’d be willing to give up. If have to tell people “A problem with my main camera will result in ‘X’ and for that you would get ‘Y.’

As long as you tell them up front you can make ‘X’ and ‘Y’ whatever you want. Just remember that they have to make the client comfortable enough to hire you. A better ‘Y’ can allow more latitude in ‘X’ and visa versa. It’s up to you to balance thm.

[Jeff Carpenter]

The first thing I do in these situations is to shut down Final Cut and open iMovie.

There is a little switch on the program that switches you from “edit” to “capture” mode. Mess around with iMovie until you see an image on the screen from the tape. Once you do, go back to Final Cut.

I do this because iMovie is such a simple program that it quickly lets you establish that:

1) The deck is working and all its switches and menus are properly set
2) The firewire cable is good
3) The firewire port on the Mac is good
4) OSX isn’t having any sort of firewire conflict between devices or something

If I can’t get it to work in iMovie I’d mess around with those 4 issues first. If it DOES work in iMovie you can feel pretty safe that poking around in Final Cut setting-menus is worth your time. It’s a good way narrow down your options.

Oh, and before you do any of this, turn off the computer, make sure the deck is on, and turn the computer back on. That SHOULDN’T fix anything, but sometimes it does. Worth a shot.

[Jeff Carpenter]

1) Make sure you’ve upgraded yourself to Final Cut 5.1

https://www.apple.com/universal/crossgrade/

Earlier versions won’t run on Intel Macs.

2) I understand what you mean, but just so you know “G5 = Not-Intel” so calling something an “intel G5” doesn’t really mean anything. Here’s a handy chart for upgrading the “old” to the “new” in terms of language:
IBM G5 –> Intel Xeon
Powermac —> Mac Pro

3) Assuming #1 is taken care of you should go for the Mac Pro over a G5 machine. I haven’t heard of any major problems yet, but if you’ve waited this long you might as well wait 2 or 3 more weeks. Usually any sort of problems that matter will have surfaced in that amount of time. Check back with us in September just to make sure, but I’m betting that waiting ’till next month should give you a chance to be extra sure.

[Jeff Carpenter]

FILE > EXPORT > TO COMPRESSOR

Set it up to make an audio AC3 file and a video MPEG II file and then import both of those into DVD Studio Pro.

[Jeff Carpenter]

From what I’ve heard, nobodby makes CRTs anymore.

They’ve all got warehouses of monitors that were made, boxed, and put on a shelf…you can still buy a new CRT monitor…but I’m pretty sure the factories themselves have all moved on to other products.