Several Questions

[knucklescraper]

Hello Everyone, I'm looking at purchasing a mac but have several questions.

1. Apart from surfing the net, playing music and storing digital pictures, one of the main purposes of my mac will be to burn DVD movies from my digital video camera. I have a PC that I've been using to do this but the process takes about a full day to burn one DVD. Will a mac do this any faster? My PC is a 2.0 Ghz w/512 Mb RAM. What are the minimum mac specs that would enable me to download, render, and burn in a shorter time? Would a mini with 1GB of RAM do the job?

2. Monitor's: While I like the Apple monitors, they seem a little expensive compared to other vendors. My question is what is the difference between Dell's 24" monitor and it's 26" LCD HDTV with PC input? The prices are about the same which makes me think the 26" is the better buy. Does the 24" have better resolution when connected to the computer?

3. External Hard Drive: Firewire or USB and why? Is Firewire faster?

Thanks!

[Brad]

Welcome to AppleNova, knucklescraper! :)

3. External Hard Drive: Firewire or USB and why? Is Firewire faster?FireWire. FireWire is generally faster and uses less CPU power. Also, I do not believe you can boot from an external USB drive, but you can boot from an external FireWire drive.

[Stevuh]

1. Apart from surfing the net, playing music and storing digital pictures, one of the main purposes of my mac will be to burn DVD movies from my digital video camera. I have a PC that I've been using to do this but the process takes about a full day to burn one DVD. Will a mac do this any faster? My PC is a 2.0 Ghz w/512 Mb RAM. What are the minimum mac specs that would enable me to download, render, and burn in a shorter time? Would a mini with 1GB of RAM do the job?


This depends of what your doing to it. If all your doing is just taking the video off the camera and putting directly on the DVD it can be done in just a few hours (3-4 approx. for a full DVtape). If you want to do editing to it as well, iMovie is the simplest program out there for it and should take you less time than your PC program once you get to know it (low learning curve).

if your doing editing and burning I'd look at the G5 iMac.

HTH

[flail]

2. Monitor's: While I like the Apple monitors, they seem a little expensive compared to other vendors. My question is what is the difference between Dell's 24" monitor and it's 26" LCD HDTV with PC input? The prices are about the same which makes me think the 26" is the better buy. Does the 24" have better resolution when connected to the computer?
For the 24", I assume you're talking about this (http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=320-4221&c=us&cat=snp&category_id=6198&cs=19&l=en&Page=productlisting.aspx) one ($1199). It supports 1920 X 1200 resolution, but I'm not sure it works with all video cards.

The 26" (http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/lcd_w2600?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz#tabtop) ($1149). Fifty bucks cheaper and a bigger screen, yet its native resolution is only 1280 x 768.

Both support DVI. By the way, Apple's 23" Cinema Display you can get the same resolution as the 24", (1920 x 1200) plus Firewire and USB hubs! They're cheaper on eBay (http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2 F&fkr=1&from=R8&satitle=cinema+display+23&category0=).

[losslesshead]

In general, I think you should go with the 20" iMac. It is one fast machine (especially with a gig of ram), and for me, DVD and CD buring has been relativley fast. Plus the 20" screen is REALLY REALLY nice, and it does a resolution of 1650x1090 (a nice widescreen). And it will get any video editing done easily.

[geneman]

1. don't do video, sorry :)

2. If you don't plan on using it as a TV (mainly), definitely go with the 24". The Resolution on the 26" is not really suited for computer usage IMO.

3. Why not get a HD that supports both? While FW is faster, USB is more widespread, so if you ever want to use it with a windows PC, all you need to do is format (or you can even have different partitions, I think).