Hanley

Okay, firstly I don't want this to turn into another handbag slanging match between Apple lovers and haters!!!

I'm really struggling at the moment to do much with the HD video taken on my Panansonic camcorder, mainly because I'm plugging it into a P4 PC with 2GB RAM.

Now I can basically import the files into Pinnacle Studio, if I'm prepared to wait 20 minutes for everythng to simply load up and then I can add them to a project and proceed to converting to the desired file format, takes around 15 minutes for 1 minute of footage

It's time I upgraded as I want to be able to do more, I have years of video footage of the kids and I want to try and create something a little more advanced, maybe something that chronicles the first 7 years of both our children.

I've spent the last few weeks trawling around PC Specialist, Computer Planet, Overclockers etc looking at custom built systems and I can get a very tasty system on my budget. I've been looking at the hex core i7 CPU with 32GB RAM and various other goodies, 2 SSD drives striped etc which should make for a pretty slick video editing system. Or for a little less I can go for the quad core i7 with lots of RAM and save myself a few hundred quid.

My only doubt is whether I should go for an iMac instead, now I'm a big Apple fan, in our house we have a MacBook Pro, 2 iPhones, 2 iPads and an AppleTV, the MacBook is nearly 2 years old and yet it still looks brand new as it did on the first day, I know I'm going to pay a premium for an iMac and I'm loooking at the 27-inch quad core i7 3.4Ghz, I'll stick with the Apple defined 4GB RAM as I can upgrade it myself from Crucial for half the price Apple charge, I would up the graphics to the 2GB variant and total cost is around £1,889 - obviously for this amount I can get the hex core i7 with 32GB RAM, SSd drives etc and fully specced PC, but in my opinion the iMac is one sexy piece of kit that would look gorgeous in my office.

I've trawled around a few video editing forums and the general opinion is the quad core i7 iMac with enough RAM is plenty capable of working with and rendering HD video files, it also has the added benefit of the 2 Thunderbolt ports should I wish to make use of them later.

I also want to get into digital photography a little more, I bough a good digital SLR a couple of years ago and have taken a lot of pics and I downloaded a trial version of Aperture last night and was having a little play, my MacBook is the dual-core version so it all worked, although a little sluggish at times, but I think this will be great on the iMac on that sexy 27 inch display.

I'm torn at the moment and struggling to make a decision, 27-inch quad core i7 iMac for just under £1,900 or a monster PC with hex core i7 with 1.21 jiggawatts of RAM, SSD drives, Blu-Ray writer etc for anything between £1,500 - £1,900

Any steer from the SN massive?

JackClark

Have a go with iMovie on the Macbook. The iMac is stunning but it's quite an investment when you already have a machine that will easily edit HD video.

Ant

if you didnt have all them apple products i would say go with a PC, but i would go with the imac just so they can all integrate together and plus everyone knows apple is the best

Hanley

My MacBook is the core 2 duo version and I've already tried importing my AVCHD files into iMovie, it's a no go.

JackClark

Ah! As you probably know you need the Camera attached to import from a lot of Sony Cameras.

My old Core 2 Duo worked pretty well, but nothing like my i7.

Hanley

Jack

I can import my AVCHD files okay from my Panansonic HD camera but as the MacBook is used a lot of the time by my wife and kids I can't take it out of action for long periods of time encoding video files.

I've already made the decision I need to upgrade the PC in my office, I'm just backwards and forwards between PC and iMac.

My head says go for a slightly cheaper PC but my heart says go for the iMac as it looks great and will still be worth something in 4 years time

I think I may need a trip to the Apple Store to have a play

JackClark

Always worth a look at the refurb page

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

A friend picked up a very nice 27" for £1100

Hanley

I've been keeping a close eye on the refurb page in case a 27inch pops up

boxst

If you are leaning towards the Mac, MacRumors has the iMac at a "don't buy" status at the moment as they think there will be a refresh in the next 4 - 6 weeks. And for Apple that means same price, better specification.

(they are normally reasonably accurate)

Markus

There was a 27" on there last week, and someone on here was looking at it, so perhaps they nabbed it As Jack says, well worth keeping an eye on it to save a couple of hundred quid, which you could use for the RAM upgrade.

I don't do video editing, but I was doing a lot of video encoding last week, basically ripping movies and videos I own to m4v format. Handbrake would take about 10 minutes to encode a file (pulling it from DVD as well) which is about 50 minutes in length, to their AppleTV2 preset.

The other factor in what you purchase is down to what software you currently / want to use. Is there something on Windows that has features that don't exist in the Mac version, or is there a Mac version of the app at all.
Don't forget that you can dual boot the iMac (just an intel pc in an pretty dress) so you can always run the app from Windows.

Hanley

Good spot on MacRumours

I may hang fire a little, although should a 27 inch appear on the refurb site I may be seriously tempted to grab it!!

Markus - I have no 'PC only' requirements so the switch to the iMac is fine, I'm dropping Pinnacle Studio and will move to Final Cut Pro should I take the imac route

jonc

Personally, I would go with performance over looks.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Check out these folks:

www.wired2fire.com

Good deals on high end custom build PCs.

I got mine from them and it's a real beast!

jura11

iTrader: (7)

For editing videos i would go with PC,cheaper and still easily to upgrade to better spec in future.

I'm doing lot of video,PS and Graphic works and really PC is in my view best


Jura

Iain Young

Agreed on the PC giving the best value for money, however if you already have a load of Apple stuff (and Apple software) then that might be the route to go if you don't want to shell out for new software.

I quite happily edit HD video (and burn it to blu-ray) on my desktop home PC, and it's nearly 5 years old now (quad core, 8 gig ram, 4tb of disk space etc - built it myself ). I'm using Premiere Pro CS4 at the moment, (works much better than Premiere elements).

Hanley

I think that's my problem Iain, I really need quad core CPU as a minimum, my old dual-core just doesn't cut the mustard!!

I'll hang fire for a couple of months as I'm not desperate, I can then see if there are going to be any major changes to the iMac at some point this year, unless a bargain pops up on the refurb store!!

An0n0m0us

It was me that was looking at the imac 27" on the refurb site but I didn't go for it in the end. I've gone with the Dell XPS 17 quad core i7 with 1080p 3d screen and 3gb 3d nvidia card. I've upgraded it to 16gb ram and a 2nd onboard 750gb 7200rpm hard drive and the thing flies and I took the 3 year warranty with it too.

The imac was stunning but even the refurb was too much for me being only an i5 quad core at £1199. To add the ram (myself for £60) and 3 year warranty would have taken it to £1400 where as the Dell with all the bits has cost me £1100 and the cpu is far better.

I'd loved the looks of that 27" screen but my head won with knowing performance was more important than looks as it's my test lab for work related stuff running a vmware farm as well as combining all my home pc needs.

Hanley

I've still got itchy trigger fingers on this.

There's a tasty 27" iMac on the refurb store, the 3.4GHz i7 with 256GB SSD, but as a refurb seems fairly pricey at £1,800

Or there's a 27" 2.7GHz i5 for £1,200

Is there a huge difference from the i5 to i7 and also the Radeon HD6970M with 1Gb to the Radeon HD6770M with 512MB to justify the price difference.

boxst

And the latest rumour is July for a refreshed iMac series. Macbook Pros first in April ...

Markus

I know this is not a direct comparison, but code compilation is also processor / memory intensive.

I took our latest project and compiled it (same target and configuration settings) on two machines, my work iMac and my home iMac. Both are 27" iMacs, mid-2010 models, and are running 10.7.3 and Xcode 4.3.2.

The specs are different though.

Work:
2.8 GHz Intel Core i5
12GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM

Home:
2.93 GHz Intel Core i7
4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM

Compilation on the home machine took 86 seconds, compared to 123 seconds on the work machine.

If you can wait, then do so for a month and see if any new models come out. You can then do a couple of things; get a brand spanking new machine, or jump on the refurb store and pick up a top-spec last generation machine for less than you would have paid the day before the new model came out.
If you wait a week or two more, then you may even find the very new model on the refurb store.

Hanley

Thanks Marcus that's very helpful.

I'll hold back my itchy trigger finger for now and see what the next couple of months brings