I'm looking at getting a new system. After a visit to the store I'm all screwed up. Was planning on the Sony Vaio 620 and the the salesman suggested the Mac, a G2 or 3 i cant remember the model. Does anyone have anyexperiance with the Apple or Mac?? Thanks

I've used Mac stuff before, and its awesome. The multimedia capabalities are generally better than PC stuff and the interface is simpler, although this appears to be changing with each new version of Windows. The biggest drawback to Mac stuff is the availability of software. Mac stuff has less selection. Its not that you cant find a particular program to do a certain task, its more that where PC will have 9 or 10 choices by different companies, a mac might have only 1 or 2. onthe plus side, there are less virus' made for mac and they are generally more secure. Macs are also usually more expensive, although this is not necesarily the case. just about any company can make a PC, but only Apple can make a Mac, and that affects price. Upgrade components like RAM and Hard Drives will be much cheaper on a PC. I would highly recommend the Mac stuff, I dont think you will be disappointed. Personally, I have an older mac laptop, but a PC desktop. I bought the PC desktop because the software I require to tap into my work network from home required a PC at the time, as they did not ahve the software for mac. About a year and a half later however, they did.

ALL OF THE BIG WIGS USE MACS <BR> <BR>WITH THE FINAL CUT PRO VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE <BR> <BR>expensive but worth it!!

actually they use a mix of platforms(PC and Mac) and use Avid Symphony and Nitris DS. <BR> <BR>George Lucas "invented" Avid, hence the cost, and Peter Jackson's team uses Avid as well. <BR> <BR>but alot of editors use FCP as well. But the cream of the crop tend to use Avid.

I'm a Mac guy so I would recommend one of those. One can edit DV video "all day long" with a 20" iMac G5 which is an all in one solution or if you want the top of the line one of the new dual core Powermac G5's. If you're going to edit HD go for the PowerMac. <BR> <BR>I personally like and use Final cut but Avid is great software as well. The cost of admission is a little higher with Avid SW but as Tool pointed out it's the standard out there at this point. If you're a student you can get a <a href="mailto:h@ll">h@ll</a> of a deal on Avid DV thru journeyed.com. <BR> <BR>I don't totally agree with Duncan on his take on hardware costs though. The PMacs take the same off the shelf drives and RAM as PC's so where's the cost difference? - super easy to install and setup as well. There really are no other cards or peripherals needed so you don't get nickel'd and dime'd to death.

Customarily Macs have dominated the multimedia circa. But lately there has been a shift because of server issues and Mac compatibility with them. <BR> <BR>I can speak from experience(my edit firm has 3 Mac Adrenalines and 3 PC Adrenalines, along with 8 other Mac and PC Xpress Pro suites) that the PCs tend to have less issues hooking up to the LanShare server. The Macs are very quirky in this area. <BR> <BR>As far as functionality, end product, and speed, they are equal.