Comments on: Windows or Mac – What’s Best for Creating Web Videos?

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:07:08 +0000

I work in the Windows business side of things. I believe the Macs had better video output, color and clarity on the monitors. I am unsure if this gap has closed in recent years though. Obviously if what you look at all days means everything, the Macs would have been used by artists and video/photo/print editors vs. someone on the Windows side staring at a spreadsheet.

By: uconcept

uconcept — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:32:08 +0000

I kind of differ with you in that mac’s video quality are better than those produced in PCs. All is reduced to the type of software used and the quality of the clips you start with. Adobe Premier and After Effects renders the same high quality than that on Macs. With Adobe Premier Pro you get to see the your effects instantly without rendering as it used to be. The only thing I really envy from macs are their screens. But that is also changing with the new monitors for pc. Just my humble opinion.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:25:23 +0000

Alex…I run Windows XP on a Mac (I also have a separate PC running XP). I run Windows “virtually” using software called Parallels. That means you can open up Windows just like any other application on the Mac. And basically, Windows runs faster on my Mac than it does on the PC sitting next to it.

As far as running something like Sony Vegas, on a Mac, within Windows, it runs faster too…as long as no other applications are open on the Mac.

As you’ve found out, cameras that record to DVD or hard drives have poorer image quality than those that record to tape. That’s because compression is used on the footage for those cameras.

But the drawback with tape is the speed in transferring your video to a computer…and…always using the tape drive in your camera for transferring video can wear out the camera much more quickly.

If you want to record directly to your computer’s hard drive, both Premiere and Vegas support that feature out of the box (I think…don’t hold me to that). No extra equipment should be necessary.

But if you want to save your camera’s tape mechanism…and make life a little easier…you should use a feeder deck. They aren’t cheap, but then again, neither are cameras. Here’s a link to a popular tape deck:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=product&A=ShowProduct&Q=&sku=430959&addedTroughType=replacementLink

By: Alex Radich

Alex Radich — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:24:56 +0000

It just happens that I produce more comments than any other person on this site lately, it is just strange for so nice a site that I read daily. Dave, I believe soon you will have tons of comments.
Here in Ukraine where I live some people use PC and Mac operating systems on the same computer, so I am pondering over this option as I have never used Mac to this day yet. My friend movie producer once said that with Mac you always get what you planned, and PC sometimes produces unpredictable results. I experienced this a lot of times. Final video is corrupted in some points no matter what.
For me it would be great to know about boards for grabbing video. I use camcorders with hard drive and mini-DVD disks, and it is annoying to see the quality that they produce. I want a mini-DV camera and grabbing board to connect to my Adobe Premiere CS3 or Sony Vegas 8 (and hopefully to Final Cut, soon…). The prices vary from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Dave, can you elaborate on this point please?