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  1. Member
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    I currently have a Win7 system that does a great job of playing AVCHD and M2T files. I play them in Windows Media Player, they are deinterlaced well and everything is great. It is about time to replace this system. Videos play great, but it takes several hours to encode 10-20 minutes of HD video.

    I am thinking of switching to mac, mostly because I can't stand the direction that Microsoft is heading with windows 8.

    If I bought a mac, how well will these videos play? Most mac forums say to use VLC, but at least on my current system VLC does a poor job of playing these files, they always play back very jerky. The same videos are very smooth in Windows Media Player. Does VLC work better on a recent mac?

    I also am not interested in converting them to another format. Way too many house of videos to make that practical.
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  2. VH Wanderer Ai Haibara's Avatar
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    I haven't had a problem with VLC on my Mac (a mid-2011 model), in that regard, that I can recall. It's not a perfect player, though - it doesn't always seem to interpret my ripped DVDs correctly, for example. I'd recommend mplayerX over VLC for a Mac, however - it's what I'm using for the primary player, on my Mac, and you can always have VLC installed at the same time, as well.
    If cameras add ten pounds, why would people want to eat them?
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  3. Banned
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    If anything, prior the recent VLC version 2 release VLC actually played WORSE on Macs. The Mac code base of VLC was many releases behind the Windows and Linux versions and may not have even been the same code base for all I know. The Mac version of VLC always had horrible bugs that never got fixed. It seems that the version 2 release is an attempt to finally get VLC up to par with the Windows and Linux versions and I am guessing that finally they all share the same code base. VLC 2 seems a lot better on a Mac than the 1.x releases, but I can hardly say I've done extensive testing.

    Having said that, you need to understand that when you buy a Mac, you are locked into the hardware. There's no CPU upgrades for you. You can put more memory in - if you have empty slots. EVERYTHING is harder to do on a Mac. They are great for surfing the web, sending email, etc. but I don't recommend them for any serious video tasks. From what I've read it looks like Win 8 is going to be a big sucky disaster just like Vista was, but remember you don't HAVE to buy it. I don't know why you're acting like you have no choice in the matter. Vista was a piece of crap and few people bought it by choice. Win 8 will probably be the same and then they'll rush out Win 9 a year or so later and make it more like Win 7 to woo back the people who got pissed off about Win 8. Win 8 is not even an official release yet so I don't see why you don't just get Win 7.

    Remember, what they used to say about IBM applies to Apple too - You may find better elsewhere, but you'll NEVER pay more.
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  4. Member LSchafroth's Avatar
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    I use macs all day long at work but when I go home I use Windows 7. The every day internet browsing on a mac is sluggish even on killer hardware. Go home and do the same browsing with IE9 and Windows 7 or even Firefox and it is smooth. No issues. Try loading Word 2008 on a Mac to do a quick edit. I can load Office 2010 Word, Excel and Powerpoint, close out and load Word again on Windows 7 in the same it takes just for Word 2008 to load on the Mac with faster hardware. The OS is not a very efficient system. The real kernal processes are seperated on the mac thus killing performance compared to other unix type operating systems. Makes drag and drop for software easy but performance takes a back seat to do so.

    Real smooth editing and performance will be better on a Windows based machine compared to a Mac. Take the same mac that is slow with 10.6 or 10.7 and put WIndows 7 on it and it will fly.


    Lannie
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  5. VH Wanderer Ai Haibara's Avatar
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    I can't say I've personally noticed much of a speed difference in general browsing between Firefox on my (recent) Windows machines, vs. Firefox on my Mac, except for the fact that my old router seems to flake a bit on wireless connections, sometimes. Firefox on my Linux tower can't be included in the comparison... because admittedly, it IS Y2K-dated hardware.
    Can't speak for office software performance - I only have OpenOffice installed on all my systems - but it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft didn't make optimizing any of its Office software on the Mac a priority.

    But, yeah, Alienated, jman98 is correct - if you're already running a pretty decent Win7 system, why would you feel you have to update to Win8? Heck, I still have two working Win98 towers, and an XP tower. Don't upgrade, if you don't have to.

    (Of course, Linux is an option, and you can experiment with a few LiveCDs, if you want. Just keep in mind that like any other OS, including OS X, it'll take a bit of getting used to.)
    If cameras add ten pounds, why would people want to eat them?
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  6. Member
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    I agree, I don't think you need to migrate from win7 just yet. I know a number of winXP users who are still happy.

    If you don't like the direction Microsoft is going with windows 8 I have trouble seeing why Apple would be an improvement.

    Not that I don't like macs. They're nice machines. But that image of apple as Luke Skywalker and microsoft/IBM as Darth Vader is so 80's. I'm amazed they still get away with that. Apple is another Darth Vader now, along with Facebook.

    If I really don't like the way Windows 8 is going I'll just start running Linux.

    I've definitely thought about it and I'd be doing it now if linux hardware support were better. As it is now it's a matter of balancing annoyances, ie., how much do I hate windows? My current solution is to try to stick to programs that are linux ports. That way I don't have to install 3rd party codec packs.
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