Charlie White's/Adobe's lies exposed -- by his own magazine!

[Charles Martin]

Those of you on the list who may have read, and been concerned about, a  
recent pair of articles in Digital Video Editing magazine comparing  
performance of Adobe Premiere on a 3.04GHz PC versus a dual-1.25GHz Mac  
and found the Mac significantly wanting can relax now. Sure, the White  
benchmarks were used in an inflammatory and frankly unprofessional  
attack on Apple by Adobe, but as of today it's pretty thoroughly  
discredited -- and we have the very same magazine to thank!

Numerous allegations of testing discrepancies and other oddities about  
White's benchmarks have come to light since publication of his  
articles, particularly once people checked back on this guy's history  
and discovered that he's been an aggressive anti-Mac zealot from the  
get-go. However, nobody could actually dispel his main claim: that a  
single-proc 3.04GHz PC outperforms a dual 1.25GHz Mac on a number of  
real-world tests of Adobe Premiere.

As this rebuttal column from White's own DVE colleague David Nagel  
shows, the problem isn't the Mac: it's Adobe.

Go here and read the entire article:  
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2003/03_mar/editorials/ 
smack105030326.htm

But for those who need the ammo right away, here's the bottom line:

Fact 1. Adobe Premiere is not optimized to use dual processors. AP on a  
dual-proc Mac runs 11% faster than it does on a one-proc Mac. Final Cut  
Pro, on the other hand, runs more than 71% faster.

Fact 2. If Adobe Premiere were as good with dual-processors as FCP is,  
using White's own benchmarks, the dual-1.25Ghz Mac would *beat or tie*  
the Dell Precision 3.04GHz workstation in *every test.*

Oh, and while Nagel is too polite to mention it, I'm not: White  
"conveniently" forgot to mention that the Dell Precision Workstation he  
used is over $3,400 (a "650" model outfitted to reasonably match the  
Mac 1.25GHz, with the only "extras" being a RAM bump to 512MB, a  
Superdrive for DVD burning and Adobe Premiere added for video editing).  
Let's see, how much is the "expensive" equivalent Mac (the dual 1.25GHz  
standard issue w/512MB)? Why, it's $2,324 plus tax, and the Apple  
includes things the Dell doesn't, like Firewire 800, Gigabit Ethernet,  
and all those wonderful iApps (oh, and an operating system that doesn't  
suck). To be fair, the Dell *does* throw in MS Office and the full  
Adobe Acrobat. I could add those items *and* AppleCare *and* an iPod  
*and* speakers and *still* be cheaper than the Dell!

Charlie White and Adobe owe Apple a serious apology for blatantly using  
"selective truth" to attack Apple and misrepresent themselves. And  
Adobe deserves to lose the mass exodus of video editors who are  
abandoning Premiere for FCP IMHO.

If you're going to get into this game, Adobe, you'd better be sure your  
emperor is clothed.

_Chas_

"The Box said 'Windows 95 or better' ... so I got a Macintosh."