[MacDV] Re: question about which G4 to buy for digital vido

[Matthew Guemple]

>>>  Have to agree, a hammer doesn't make a carpenter.
>> no, but no one finds out if he/she is a carpenter by NOT picking up a
>> hammer...
> True, but one can pick up a decent economy hammer before one
> invests in an aerodynamic solid-titanium leather-handled
> Thor-Master (TM) special.

You know it seems to me we have a real split on this list. One side  
always seems to say "spend the money, get the good stuff, and the good  
tools" and the other seems to support a "low-tec" approach. Minimal  
tools for the job and all that.

Personally I've done both. I had a FrankenMac for years, and  
considering I could not afford better, it served me well. My experience  
was, that to some degree it limited my capabilities and hence my  
choices as a creative person. We are talking early 90's here, but  
still, I knew that if I applied that filter in PS that it would take 20  
mins to render... so often, even though I was not sure what the final  
result would be an would have liked to experiment I did not.

The OP says they want to do documentaries. So that implies that a  
"low-tec" approach might be in order. The question is this: Other than  
due to financial constraints why limit yourself with equipment or  
software?

My old (and hotly contested adage) is buy the best/fastest/loaded  
machine you can buy. Computing is the only place where I think this is  
true. You may not need dual processors and tons of ram, but my  
experience is that if you have them you will eventually use them. An  
overpowered machine is only that for so long... until you find out that  
using a different software package does something better and of course  
it want's more ram...

That's why I said get the SuperDrive. You may not use it, ever. But if  
you need it once, the trouble you will go through "working around",  
transferring files to an external HD, going to your friends house,  
loading your stuff onto that machine, realizing you forgot the music  
file, the fonts, the program whatever etc.... will be worth the money  
spent.

If the OP is a graphic designer (or am I just confused?) they will be  
well versed with what a pain it is to go to a service bureau. Think of  
the SuperDrive as a built in service bureau, should you want to show  
people something and don't want it to look like crap on a VHS.

my dimes worth.


________________
Matthew Guemple
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mo.og at verizon.net
646.734.6601
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