So hating my HTPC - thinking Mac pro

Well you were smart enough to post here first

My other needs are Adobe CS2 for editing RAW shots from my Canon 20D

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Will the Mac Pro run Windows apps?


CS2 is available for OSX but is not a intel based native app yet so it runs a little slower than it would if it was a Universal Binary which is a native intel Mac application type. CS3 is a UB and so far looks pretty fast on my MacPro as a beta. There are two ways you could go here. Wait for the CS3 update in a few months and get it in the OSX version, I think Adobe allows for cross-grades, or you can install Windows XP and run it in pseudo-emulation under an application called Parallels. I say Pseudo because it is making native calls to the Intel CPU and runs pretty much as if it were running on a regular PC, a quad core Xeon in the case of the MacPro. This runs within the OSX environment like any other application and so it is quite convenient to run Windows stuff. The other option is through Apple's Bootcamp which lets you install XP on a partition on one of your drives inside the MacPro and you boot directly into XP. This basically turns the MacPro into a full fledged PC and runs pretty much like a similarly equipped PC would. This is a good solution for gaming or any 3D graphics intensive application because the one place where Parallels falls down is it can't do 3D stuff very well. Most 2D stuff, CS2 included, wouldn't be affected however.

Another thing to consider is Aperture for RAW work. It isn't as full featured for all out editing as CS2 or CS3 but is is designed to take most of the pain out of RAW conversions and cataloging. It is one of the cooler apps Apple has come out with in the last few years and can make RAW a whole lot more fun to deal with. It does basic touchups and correction stuff you'd do to photos most of the time and you can still use CS2 for the things that need more than a little work. Check it out on Apple's website.

Is it possible to add more Firewire / USB ports to a Mac pro?

Yes, should be no problem there. The MP has two FW800 ports, one front and one back, and the same goes for the two FW400 ports but they do have PCIe cards you can add for more.


Can the mac Pro deal with my hard drives and their ripped DVD's with IFO and VOB files?

Yes, I think VLC can do that among other apps but I don't do it myself. I'm sure someone else can confirm that.

Will my Dell 24" monitor work on a Mac Pro?

Yes, many people use Dell panels on their Macs.

What spec Mac Pro do I need?

Just about any Mac Pro would do what you need. They are powerhouses. I would probably stick with the 2.66GHz model if I had to buy one today as it is the sweet spot, the 3.0 GHz is nice but probably not worth the extra money unless you really use the machine to make money. I would recommend waiting a couple of weeks if possible though, with the imminent release of quad core Xeon chips by Apple, that means 8 cores total in the machine, the current crop of machines may see a price reduction in the coming weeks.

-Jerry C.

Welcome, Robert. I don't know if this will comfort you or not, but you are far from the first person to post here with these sorts of questions and in that specific situation -- and probably far from the last.

Most of us run the Mac OS and most of us are quite happy with it. There is a small group that prefers the WMC, so they run Windows. However, I would point out to you that running Windows on your new Mac, as Jerry described, will not likely solve the problems you are having now.

Having said that, let's move to your question about ripped films. Apple currently offers its DVD Player (free) that can open and play VIDEO_TS files from hard drives. However, as Jerry pointed out, VLC can do it as well.

If you have a large collection and would like to have an on-screen menu where you could scroll through your collection and point-and-click to play, there are a number of programs to do this, but they are mostly (if not only) shareware. One we have been discussing lately is called DVDpedia ($18) and seems to work very well.

Unlike Windows and Linux, Apple has offered hardware suitable for htpc use for a relatively short time. Some Windows software companies have announced Mac products (SageTV, for example) and some new companies have appeared to offer other htpc programs. Nevertheless, this is still early days for the Mac as htpc and the selection is not as great, nor as extensive as for Windows or Linux. OTOH, how many good DVD players do you need?

It is simply called DVD Player and is installed by default when you buy a Mac. It is a very simple app, you simply go to the File menu and select "Open DVD media", maneuvre to the VIDEO_TS directory you want and select it. VLC works the same way, but it does not come from Apple, but is is also free.

The main differences between the two programs are that VLC can play most media, while DVD Player cannot and that VLC has many more options than you will need, while DVD Player has relatively few. It probably won't be necessary since you ripped the films, but DVD Player cannot skip past the standard crap at the beginning of the DVD, while VLC can.

Robert:

The Intel-based Mac Pro is a nice way to go. You'll come to appreciate using Macs for photography. There are good reasons why so many pro photographers prefer them.

Keep in mind that you don't need more than 3 GB of RAM for OS X right now (if you're thinking of maxxing out the memory). Anything else would be wasted until a more capable 64-bit version of the OS becomes available...And don't sweat the timing of the next Photoshop release, which is soon. It will take you a month or two to get everything up and running smoothly anyway. You can use that time to familiarize yourself with the Mac OS. By that time, the new version of Photoshop should be be out...

"...15 Maxtor 500Gb (Firewire400/USB2) hard drives with my 1000 DVD collection and simply want to play them on my Sony Ruby..."

15 500GB HDs? Purchasing all the original movie DVD's? Wow. As a professional photographer myself, I salute you -- and your (apparent) respect for copyright law. Don't apologize for these purchases. If you have children, it teaches a strong ethics lesson about intellectual property and the rights of others. On behalf of all creative artists, thanks.

Back to the movies, are you running your drives as mirrored RAID arrays to keep all those ripped movies backed up? Or do you simply rely on the original DVD as the backup? Have you ever considered Apple's Xserve RAID?

It is a serious server product that is gaining much respect in small business and recently, even corporate IT managers have started to take Apple's revamped server business seriously. A pro photographer friend of mine started with a storage system like yours (though Mac-based) and kept adding FireWire drives until he had a bewildering rats nest of dasiy-chained drives and cables -- and serious system maintenance issues. Finally, he landed a couple of nice national advertising accounts and graduated to an Xserve RAID system and loves it. While expensive to justify for the home, if you've been successful in life and have the resources to do things right, it may be the way to go someday...The 1U rackmount server has a quad-core 64-bit Intel Xeon processor and starts at about $3000. It will house up to 2.25TB of storage, has two PCI Express slots, dual onboard Gigabit Ethernet, and a combo drive. The RAID box that can be added has fourteen drive bays that hold up to 7TB of storage (calculated with 500 GB drives).

The Xserve RAID greatly simplifies backup and drive maintenance/replacement, and gives you serious media streaming, Web/LAN serving and desktop management. It would be terrific for your raw and finished Photoshop files as well as movies. Someday, I hope Apple will produce a more affordable SOHO (and home theater) server system based on this very nice technology.

http://www.apple.com/xserve/
http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...clm=XserveRAID

Good luck.

Most apple graphics cards come dual link, so you can drive two monitors. Make sure you get one.

Well, I can't really answer that for you, however, there are many who have done it before you and I haven't heard of any who switched back. So, for that reason, I think you have a very good chance at not hating your new htpc

Even the stock 7300GT card in the Mac Pro has two DVI outputs on board. The card is fine for 2D and ok with 3D. For more heavy duty 3D stuff the 1900XT option is worth the extra $250 and it gets you a nice 512MB of video memory on it compared to the 7300GT's 256MB. Some of Apple's applications actually leverage the GPU power on the video card to do some interesting things. Aperture is an example of this.

wildrock referred to dual link but that is something different. Dual link means a single DVI port can handle higher resolutions than standard DVI connections can. The 30" Cinema display for example is too high a resolution to be handled by standard DVI implementations so dual link essentially ties two DVI channels into one DVI connector port. All of Apples current shipping cards have at least one dual link port so they can use one 30" Cinema Display and another normal display. Some cards like the 1900XT have two dual link ports so they can use two 30" Cinema displays at once.

For an Amateur photog who likes RAW I would definitely recommend you take a look at Aperture when you get the Mac Pro. They have a free 30 day trial which should be enough to help you make up your mind.

-Jerry C.

OSX can read and write Fat32 but can currently only read NTFS. Either way you should be OK.

-Jerry C.

Robert,

I've owned a Mac Pro (stock configuration) since September and find it to be a fantastic piece of equipment for the uses you'd like it for. Photoshop CS2 functions well for being a PowerPC application running under Mac OS X's Rosetta emulation, and the new CS3 beta (which any CS2 keyholder can upgrade to or install alongside CS2) is even faster. Once Adobe removes the debug code from CS3, I suspect Photoshop will absolutely scream on the Mac pros.

Also while DVD player or VLC both work to play ripped DVD folders, a little known fact about the Mac Pro's is that Front Row IS in fact installed by default. It just takes a little tweaking to actually get working. But once it's working, you've got a clean interface to display for your HT screen rather than just a desktop.

And of course, another nice feature with the Mac Pros is that they are whisper-quiet the vast majority of the time (assuming you have the stock config with the fanless 7300GT anyways--i don't know about the x1900xt), so the machine is unlikely to lessen your movie experience with fan noise.

I just ordered a Mac Pro myself (3ghz/4gb ram) for photoshop and video editing (my first mac!). Also got an imac for the kids.

If you're a photographer (as I am) take a look at Apple's site on Aperture - I was totally impressed by it and have purchased it. The x1900 video card upgrade is a must if you're going to use aperture and getting at least 2gb ram recommended.

Sorry if it's OT.

Edit: Oh, and I'm also dumping all my windows PCs after years of frustration with them. I think we have 6 in the house so I only have 4 more to go...

Good question, but if it uses a standard DVI interface when hooked up over HDMI I don't see why not. I don't have a Pearl to test it on, I hate cheapo projectors... jk but if you are concerned it won't you could bring it into a Local Apple store and hook it up to a MP and confirm that it does. Hopefully someone else here has one and uses one with it, you may want to cross-post over on the projector forum to see if anyone has though.

-Jerry C.

Any of you guys use handbrake? Its the best ripping app on the Mac IMO.

Hey Rob, those guys don't know what they're talking about, hate to tell you. the x1900 is a huge upgrade for Aperture because it offloads work onto the GPU.

Go to apple.com and then to support and into the discussions area - there is a whole area just for aperture and you'll see plenty of people's results - there have been many disappointed with macpro performance until they upgraded to x1900.

Cheers

P.s. - this is my first message sent from my new Mac system - I can't tell you how impressed i am with OSX thus far. I'm not so impressed with Safari thus far, but I'm trying to learn.

http://www.caminobrowser.org/ is Mozilla with a cocoa front end, I have been playing around with it and so far it seems pretty nice. There are many other options as well like Opera, OmniWeb and Firefox to name a few.


-Jerry C.

I've seen that referenced. One thing I think I've caused problems with in the past is installing too many programs on my computers (PCs). I hope Macs are more stable, but for now I'm trying to stick only with the installed software and then Aperture and CS3 when available and Final Cut Pro Express for movie editing.

Anyway - to keep on topic I'm pleased with my Macpro noise level - it's not silent but very quiet except when waking up from sleep it runs fans full speed for a sec or so. I may eventually replace the fan on the x1900 as I'm told that is the man noise I'm hearing, but for now I'm keeping my warranty fully intact.

I somehow glossed over this post but PAP is correct in that the 1900XT will help in Aperture. If you are considering doing Aperture definitely consider the 1900XT as it will help. You don't have to get the card with the MP however. You can purchase it as an upgrade and put it in yourself if you want to see how it runs w/o it. You save $100 I think by getting it in the machine. I think you said you are gonna put the MP in a closet so sound isn't an issue but the base MP with the fan-less 7300GT is close to silent, the 1900XT has a fan which at idle only adds a slight bit of noise but under heavy load can be noticeable.

You do want to put more than the stock RAM in the MP though. It uses a quad channel memory system and the stock 2x512MB only really accesses 2 of those channels. Going with 4 sticks is the way to go as each stick you add in a FB-Dimm based system adds unwanted latency so 4 is the magic number. I have 4GB currently in mine which I think is good but I'd say 2GB is the minimum recommended for a happy Mac Pro. If you want to buy elsewhere I have found some good memory deals from reputable suppliers. I paid $370 for a 2x1GB kit which is pretty good. DO NOT BUY generic FB-DIMMs w/o Apple spec heatsinks, they will eventually cause you problems. This isn't some Apple FUD, I have tested this myself and with normal memory spreaders the dimms will eventually get too hot and cause massive errors.

-Jerry C.

This is true in some respects. OSX doesn't have a registry which applications can dump all manner of trash into and cause fatal corruption. Applications not in use don't really have anyway to cause problems on OSX. In use any program can theoretically cause issues but even so OSX is a based on UNIX and has built in memory protections and it makes it pretty hard to take down the whole system but it is not impossible.

-Jerry C.

I've been using Camino for years, and even though I often use Safari, I still think Camino is better in many ways, and it's definitely more compatible with a whole bunch of sites. (And my wife does not like Safari:-)

For local.live.com, which offers arguably the best mapping, one has to use Firefox, since both Camino and Safari default to a Beta page. Haven't used Opera for a while, but I would assume that ti too, has better compatibility than Safari.

As to Aperture, it is great. But, IMHO, iView is still the best photo database out there, and Bridge is not bad either.

Depending on what you do with photos and images, you may or may not need a lot of horsepower. From Robert's description of his needs, he may be just fine with something like an iMac 24" (can get a refurb for $1,700 at the Apple store,) which would also provide a better screen than the Dell (I tried buying a couple of Dell monitors last year because of the lower cost, but they didn't cut it color-wise (and what's with that hideous logo?!) so I am back to Apples.)

Hey I didn't metion if you're shopping for mac pro - check out the apple refurb area. I got the 3hz system for about $800 off - making it about the same as the 2.66 system plus mine came with 2gb ram. It came like new. I also bought aftermarket RAM bringing my total to 4gb. the ram I bought is exactly the same as apple - I looked at the chips and heatsinks when it came and it's identical but about 1/2 the cost.