G5 iMac vs. 15" G4 PowerBook

From those of you who use FC Studio each have their pros and cons, but overall which would be a better buy a 20 inch G5 iMac or a 15 inch Power Book.

As far as running the more complex programs (motion) obviously the iMac would be faster but is the portability and the extra money (money most likely won't be an issue) of the Power Book worth it?

Just a general Question about running FC Studio i am thinking i will probably look into getting my first mac and FC Studio setup in janruary or february.


Thank You for any input i really appreciate it because as i said i am approaching a time when i'l buy a mac.



Sean

Sean - instead...go with curtain number 3 - the fastest, most smok'n G5 Tower - the new ones may have rocket flames coming out the exhaust.

I edit on the 15 inch powerbook and a dual 2 gig G5 tower - the G5 tower is significantly faster in virtually everything. Doesn't mean the 15 inch isn't workable...it's fine for portable editing...but unless you set your render qualities very low.....you will be in render hell for what are essentially real time effects on the G5 Tower.

The towers are expandable...and as you expend your editing experience, you will appreciate expandability.

The powerbook's your choice only if you need to be portable. Andy

You might have misunderstood me when i said money won't be an issue as far as choosing between the imac and powerbook money isn't but right now the towers are too expensive.

At this point i have to choose between the imac and powerbook.


none the less andy thanks



Sean

they'll both work.

but should come as no surprise that the iMac, being a G5 will give much better performance.

it all comes down to wether you need to be portable.
in which case get the Powerbook.

only you know the answer to that.

cheers,
nick

Biggest drawback to the G5 iMac is the complete inability to expand ANYTHING on it. You can't add drives, you can't add an additional firewire bus...

If you have to choose between the two, I'd have to go with the PowerBook. It can take a FW bus card and give you that little bit of expandability that the iMac just can't.

But if render speed is more important than drive reliability, then iMac is your choice.

it really is a little bit of expandability, in my experience.

i've got 2 powerbooks.
one is an older model, 800Mhz, i think
i got an extra FW bus card for that.
i wasnt having problems capturing, i just needed a FW 800 socket

the second one is more recent, and had a FW800 socket.
i never got an extra FW bus for that one, and i've never really felt the need for it either.

i think it wall boils down to whether you want to be o the road or not.

cheers,
nick

Thanks for the advise i appreciate it as far as rendering on the powerbook what about buying a 1.25GHz mac mini and rendering off that so then i could still use my powerbook??

I'm fairly new to this so i appologise if my questions sound stupid or ignorant what i'm asking is it possible to render off a 1.25GHz mac mini? (of course i'n get an 80 or 100 GB HD) and to use the powerbook as a monitor then when rendering starts just unhook the mini and check back every little while? I understand it will be slow but is that possible?



Thanks,


Sean

naw,

at 1.67Ghz, Powerbooks are faster than Mac Minis.

go for the iMac.

unless you need portability, in which case get a powerbook.

nick

Ok Nick thanks for the advise.




Sean