Mac Attack

[gore]

well that was just adorable. If you want to talk "rip off rip off rip off" "he used this first" "she used this first" you'd go all the way back to Babbage (and I'm sure you'll tell me who he ripped off).

I'll have to go ahead and admit that when I say "PC", I usually am really just referring to Windows and that isn't fair. Several of my friends also have built their own Linux machines and won't use anything else. I haven't gotten to do much with them so I don't really have a stance there.

BTW, you CAN right click on Macs...now...The magic mouse is beautiful :-)

Thank You! You have no idea how many times I've been in an argument with someone who was basically talking out of their asses about computing in general, and had no idea that ANYTHING could run ANYTHING but Windows.

The rip off part I don't actually care about. I mean Enlightenment, it comes with the Source Code so you CAN take it and make it into something else, that's not only legal, it's encouraged. So I don't personally care to much about it.

But when someone says "Well I don't like PCs because I don't like virii" it's like "WTF a PC is a Hardware Platform not an OS.... How the hell does a Platform get a virus???" lol.

I'm assuming your friends who built their machines with Linux are probably a lot like a Mac fan boy but in a different way. Once you use something that just works it's hard to not talk about it. I'm assuming they've told you to try it, or, made their desktops looks amazing and showed you.

One thing about Linux / BSD / Unix in general, is that the GUI that you use, is not only NOT required, it's a totally un-needed thing. Which means that it's in a way (SMALL way) like DOS was with Windows; You could load just DOS, and THEN load Windows when you wanted to, which means that if you crash the GUI (Which in Windows is so common it has a slang name called BSOD lol) then it doesn't matter, you just reload it and keep going.

Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, 7, and the rest, all have the GUI built in, and it can't be shut off, and if it does go down, so does the machine.

Mac doesn't REALLY have this issue, because it's based on Unix as well, so you can load a terminal, and use kill -9 on it and get rid of something before it takes the machine down.

Here is the cool part though:

X, which is the GUI system on Unix, Linux, and BSD, is only a BASE. Which means you can load ANY Window Manager you want! It's REALLY cool, because there is KDE and Gnome you can use which are actual Desktop systems like Windows / Mac, but, there is also Window Maker, which looks like NeXT Step, and there is FVWM, FVWM 95, and FVWM 2, all which look like old Unix stuff...

And then, there is Enlightenment.... Which is AWESOME. I'll show you a picture:

The picture is one of my machines, running Slackware Linux, and the GUI you're going to see, was running on a Celeron Processor @ 433 MHz, with 192 MBs of RAM, and an 8 MB ATI card, so, in other words, a machine SLOW as FUCK, and yet I could run this on that hardware without ANY Lag!

http://www.talkhorror.com/picture.php?al...ctureid=87

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This one is made to look like Mac OS X for people who like it, so, they make themes to make it look like that so they feel at home on it:

http://www.talkhorror.com/album.php?albu...ctureid=86

------------------------------------------

This one is the one called Window Maker that I was talking about, my favorite band is The Misfits and this has a theme for it:

http://www.talkhorror.com/picture.php?al...ctureid=84
----------------------

Here is another of Window Maker:

http://www.talkhorror.com/album.php?albu...ctureid=85
------------------------------

All of those, were the EXACT machine. Basically, when I turn a machine on, I see a log in prompt like most people would unless they have auto login set, and then, as I'm typing, I can click on a menu that asks me which Window Manager I want to use. I set the Window Manager, type in my username and password, and it loads the one I asked it to.

I can select any of almost 200 of them. they all look nice too! The following are NOT my desktops, because even though I use all of these, I haven't uploaded all of mine, so I just did a Google Images search for a few more Desktops, and, there they are! I found these on Google, so like I said, they aren't my destops, but screen shots of other people's machines:

[Daylight Yet Unseen]

i actually want a Mac. they're sweet machines.

[Psycho Stitch]

Mac

[Bojangles]

Gore, I told Trioxin the same thing. MOST big business' are probably going to use linux and just train the employees how to run a certain program. However, if you're going to operate a computer at a business, they're most likely going to go windows. They're not going to waste money on training people to use an OS that they're not already familiar with. Ala, MAC and Linux. They're not going to buy Mac's because they're more expensive, yet they lack specs-wise.

I'm actually quite curious about Final Cut Pro. I use After Effects and Premiere. Both of those are bad ass. Can any of you whom have had experience with Final Cut Pro compare that to the Adobe progs? I'm interested.

[justintfirefly]

Gore, I told Trioxin the same thing. MOST big business' are probably going to use linux and just train the employees how to run a certain program. However, if you're going to operate a computer at a business, they're most likely going to go windows. They're not going to waste money on training people to use an OS that they're not already familiar with. Ala, MAC and Linux. They're not going to buy Mac's because they're more expensive, yet they lack specs-wise.

I'm actually quite curious about Final Cut Pro. I use After Effects and Premiere. Both of those are bad ass. Can any of you whom have had experience with Final Cut Pro compare that to the Adobe progs? I'm interested.

Sure!

I have a degree in videography and editing. I was taught on solely the Adobe Creative Suite, so I was force to be fairly well rounded with After Effects and Premiere. Both are great programs, especially AE. After Effects is used by a TON of indie film makers for their special effects, and often times is listed in a lot of Hollywood crap. I haven't gotten to use After Effects a whole lot, mostly because the crack for the rest of my Creative Suite doesn't work for my After Effects and I haven't been able to find a patch for it. My iMac at work doesn't have it either because the CS4 that we bought didn't come with it. For the little bit of special effects I do now, I use mostly Apple Motion, which comes with the Final Cut Pro Studio. I can't say if it's better or worse than AE because I'm still fairly new at it, however, I'll have to say that right now it does seem a little more limited than AE, but this may be just because I don't know much about it. It is very easy to move things around in 3-D space, however, and comes with a great assortment of templates that are easily editable to hide their "templateness". One more thing about After Effects: I read in an official review yesterday that the CS5 that's coming out includes an AE with a rotoscoping brush! It may not work worth a crap, but it certainly sounds beautiful!

Okay, Adobe Premiere. If you're wanting to edit something semi-professionally and make it look 100x better than Windows Movie Maker, then Premiere is actually just fine. I haven't used it since CS2 was out, but from what I remember, it was a tad bit tedious and was difficult to separate your left and right audio tracks. All of your transitions have to be dragged and dropped in, which isn't a hassle, really, but stay tuned...I thought the exporting was a little bit of a pain in the ass as well until you learn all you can about customizable encoding, which I didn't when I first learned Premiere. Final Cut Pro has a fairly similar UI, so that doesn't take any getting used to, but it offers tools that are less confusing and more helpful. For starters, you can open as many "sequences" in the same project as you want and they hang around in tabbed format on the timeline. This has probably changed, but I don't recall Premiere doing this. Final Cut also has a built in audio mixer than you can adjust while the audio track is playing, which is extremely helpful if you have music playing behind your video's audio track. Color correction is really easy to manipulate and alter, again with live preview results. I remember the chroma keying working pretty nice with Premiere, and it's just as nice with Final Cut, allowing you to add a drop shadow to what you keyed to give a little more depth. All of the same annoying transitions are included like the wipe and the block spin thing, but since you really shouldn't be using these anyway, they're all hidden away in a menu. You can specify a "favorite" transition (I think it's cross-fade by default) and you just have to right click on the end of the piece you want to crossfade (or between the two pieces) and you'll have the option to assign "cross-fade" to that selection. Much, MUCH easier than dragging and dropping a transition, mostly because I often "dropped" it in the wrong place. By default, Final Cut exports as .mov, but it's very VERY easy to export to around 10-12 other formats, including Premiere's famous AVI and a still image (.png) and it works rather quickly, assuming it's a basic video. Export is sometimes slow if you've added a lot of keying or color correction.

One more thing I dig about Premiere: The export to DVD function, Final Cut doesn't have this that I'm aware of, and I've worked with it since college.

One more thing I dig about Final Cut: the keyboard shortcuts actually make sense. (a is arrow, z is zoom etc. )

Like with most software programs, this is just a matter of personal preference. And it has nothing to do with me being a Mac only guy now, but after I used Final Cut and got used to the interface, I quit using Premiere completely.

I know this wasn't a terribly exhaustive review of either program, but it will at least give you an idea of what you wanted to learn about. Hope it helps!

[Bojangles]

Sure!

I have a degree in videography and editing. I was taught on solely the Adobe Creative Suite, so I was force to be fairly well rounded with After Effects and Premiere. Both are great programs, especially AE. After Effects is used by a TON of indie film makers for their special effects, and often times is listed in a lot of Hollywood crap. I haven't gotten to use After Effects a whole lot, mostly because the crack for the rest of my Creative Suite doesn't work for my After Effects and I haven't been able to find a patch for it. My iMac at work doesn't have it either because the CS4 that we bought didn't come with it. For the little bit of special effects I do now, I use mostly Apple Motion, which comes with the Final Cut Pro Studio. I can't say if it's better or worse than AE because I'm still fairly new at it, however, I'll have to say that right now it does seem a little more limited than AE, but this may be just because I don't know much about it. It is very easy to move things around in 3-D space, however, and comes with a great assortment of templates that are easily editable to hide their "templateness". One more thing about After Effects: I read in an official review yesterday that the CS5 that's coming out includes an AE with a rotoscoping brush! It may not work worth a crap, but it certainly sounds beautiful!

Okay, Adobe Premiere. If you're wanting to edit something semi-professionally and make it look 100x better than Windows Movie Maker, then Premiere is actually just fine. I haven't used it since CS2 was out, but from what I remember, it was a tad bit tedious and was difficult to separate your left and right audio tracks. All of your transitions have to be dragged and dropped in, which isn't a hassle, really, but stay tuned...I thought the exporting was a little bit of a pain in the ass as well until you learn all you can about customizable encoding, which I didn't when I first learned Premiere. Final Cut Pro has a fairly similar UI, so that doesn't take any getting used to, but it offers tools that are less confusing and more helpful. For starters, you can open as many "sequences" in the same project as you want and they hang around in tabbed format on the timeline. This has probably changed, but I don't recall Premiere doing this. Final Cut also has a built in audio mixer than you can adjust while the audio track is playing, which is extremely helpful if you have music playing behind your video's audio track. Color correction is really easy to manipulate and alter, again with live preview results. I remember the chroma keying working pretty nice with Premiere, and it's just as nice with Final Cut, allowing you to add a drop shadow to what you keyed to give a little more depth. All of the same annoying transitions are included like the wipe and the block spin thing, but since you really shouldn't be using these anyway, they're all hidden away in a menu. You can specify a "favorite" transition (I think it's cross-fade by default) and you just have to right click on the end of the piece you want to crossfade (or between the two pieces) and you'll have the option to assign "cross-fade" to that selection. Much, MUCH easier than dragging and dropping a transition, mostly because I often "dropped" it in the wrong place. By default, Final Cut exports as .mov, but it's very VERY easy to export to around 10-12 other formats, including Premiere's famous AVI and a still image (.png) and it works rather quickly, assuming it's a basic video. Export is sometimes slow if you've added a lot of keying or color correction.

One more thing I dig about Premiere: The export to DVD function, Final Cut doesn't have this that I'm aware of, and I've worked with it since college.

One more thing I dig about Final Cut: the keyboard shortcuts actually make sense. (a is arrow, z is zoom etc. )

Like with most software programs, this is just a matter of personal preference. And it has nothing to do with me being a Mac only guy now, but after I used Final Cut and got used to the interface, I quit using Premiere completely.

I know this wasn't a terribly exhaustive review of either program, but it will at least give you an idea of what you wanted to learn about. Hope it helps!

Thank you very much. Honestly, I've thought of getting a mac before JUST for Final Cut. However, if Final Cut isn't as good as my Adobe programs, why the hell even bother? I know AE just blows me away. I've seen some amazing things people have done with it and it just looks limitless to me. I have the new CS4 and haven't even messed with it yet. I haven't done anything that impressive with it, but I do plan on learning much more of it. Especially since I'm wanting to do some really cool stuff soon.

Also, I plan on getting a blackmagic intensity pro soon so I can record some of my gameplay and hopefully do horror video game reviews, walkthroughs, etc... Therefore, I want to make some cool intro videos for them. Hell, I still need to make some cool intros for the TalkHorror show segments. Do you have any of your work I could check out? I'd like to see some of the stuff you've come up with.

Also, I do all of my chroma key stuff in After Effects and it's pretty sweet. However, I didn't have all that great of a setup at the time. Now, I have some much better lights so I'm hoping my chroma keying will look much better. Also, I got some time off so I took a step back and I'm going to start doing some things a lot better, in my opinion.

[justintfirefly]

absolutely. My portfolio site is www.justintsimpson.com. Under "videos" you'll see "The Return," it was made with Premiere. The rest of the videos were created with Final Cut. Graphics for "Local Flavor" and "Kingsport's Most Wanted" aren't terribly fancy and were just made in Photoshop, so no motion there. "Saturday Night Grindhouse" was the TV show I created (that's still barely alive...just not being shown anywhere anymore). It's website is www.saturdaynightgrindhouse.com. You can also see a few of my "test" items on my YouTube Channel, there you can find some of the "test" graphics I've made in Motion as well as some color effects I've done with Photoshop and Final Cut. Let me know what you think! Even if you hate it!

[justintfirefly]

Also, sorry all of my videos on my portfolio site are links to YouTube...We lost the masters to some of those and the only way I could give my site uniformity was to upload the rest to YouTube...Go figure. I'll be redesigning in the next year or so anyway.

[Maxx88]

I have the new CS4 and haven't even messed with it yet.

:eek: CS4 is amazing, that's what we're using now for school, I'm great in After Effects

[FreddysFingers]

Bo: I work with Final Cut pro a lot. Personally, FCP is really easy to work with and can be very professional. Compared to Adobe editing software, FCP can be fun. I strongly suggest it.

[Maxx88]

Oh, yea. FCP is good software to use, just don't, DO NOT, use Avid at least for rotoscoping.

[FreddysFingers]

Avid can suck itself. I hate Avid so very much.

[justintfirefly]

Thought I'd include this for my Mac friends kull:

[FreddysFingers]

I bet Darth Vader uses a Commodore 64.

[Friday The 13th]

I hate to say it, but another thing about mac's that sucks HUGE Cock! Is the names they give their software... I'm surprised they don't name the next one Zebra, Jaguar, or Woolly Mammoth. Or perhaps IFaG?

[Lilith]

I hate to say it, but another thing about mac's that sucks HUGE Cock! Is the names they give their software... I'm surprised they don't name the next one Zebra, Jaguar, or Woolly Mammoth. Or perhaps IFaG?

What about IpopPuss? It can be a new adult oriented social network! ROFLMAO

[Friday The 13th]

What about IpopPuss? It can be a new adult oriented social network! ROFLMAO

hahah true true

[FreddysFingers]

The iCock app. A huge dick shows up on your iPhone and you viciously shake the phone till it cums.

[Daylight Yet Unseen]

i just got a Mac today and i love it!

[Bojangles]

The iCock app. A huge dick shows up on your iPhone and you viciously shake the phone till it cums.