O/S question I guess

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sun, Jul 18, 2004 at 01:33:05AM -0400, jason wrote:

As Greg says: "Format recovered" -- please improve your karma by
pressing the return key occasionall while composing your e-mails.

> FreeBSD team,I'm a video editor and computer builder/repair tech in
> a small town. My bussiness partner and I are considering switching
> to a new AMD 64Bit machine. We've been ptting it off due to o/s
> issues. Win XP will run on a amd64 machine but will not full take
> advantage of the new technology. Microsoft has a free trial beta
> version of its 64 bit o/s but that expires 365 days from
> innstallation( wich would mean a loss of data/programs/archives,
> quite a headache. Microsoft also has said that initally the new o/s
> will only be available pre installed on multi $1000 machines or to
> big companies.( I can build a 64 bit machine for c$1000 so I dont
> want to buy something that the manufacture jacks up in price by
> $3000 when I can do it for less) I noticed your web site says your
> o/s is amd64bit compatible and I like that idea. My question or
> questions are : Do you know if the PinnacleSystems software,
> speciffically Studio 9 can work on FreeBSD? and two if not is there
> someting compareable that could be used on FreeBSD? Also is there
> anywhere where I can see screen shots of FreeBSD and does it support
> most common devices as windows and many linux gu do?(i.e.:
> 1394/firewire, usb, sound, vidoe,dvd-r drives etc etc) as this is a
> must to continue video editing.sorry this has been kind of lengthy
> but as you can tell I am intreted in possibly switching to FreeBsd,
> I will not go to linux as I've tried that and not liked it, I also
> dont get on with apple, so that leaves you or microsoft or writing
> my own os(wich I dont think i can do lol )With regardsJason
> Marinsmall Town geeks

You've got a tricky choice here.  Do you want an amd64 machine for the
64-bitness? Or just for performance reasons?  If you need 64-bit
support, so you can have multi-terrabyte filesystems, and deal with
enourmous files that's going to be a bit troublesome for you.  If you
want it to be the first person in your town to own an amd64 box or
just for speed, then you'ld probably be better off getting the most
powerful ia32 based system you can afford, and carrying on using much
the same software environment as you have at the moment.

As I see it, if you have to switch to a 64bit OS, you've got basically
3 ways to go:

    1) Microsoft: 64bit support not yet fully available, and will cost
       an arm and a leg when it does arrive.

    2) Free OSes -- basically Linux or FreeBSD.  Amd64 support is
       there, but you'll almost certainly have to switch to using a
       new software environment to do your video editing.  There's no
       guarrantee that you'll be able to get editing software with any
       sort of commercial support, if that's important to you.  Free
       and Open versions of editing software where available will
       usually work very well, but probably will need a quite
       different mindset for you to use -- for instance, you might end
       up having to write shell scripts to do various routine
       operations.

       Typical of the sort of software available is avidemux -- see

          http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

       Other applications ported to FreeBSD will be listed at:

          http://www.freebsd.org/ports/multimedia.html

       Device support -- firewire, USB, etc. is basically there, but
       you would be well advised to test everything for compatability
       before you buy.  Manufacturers generally only find it economic
       to build devices to a standard that will work on Windows --
       Free OSes usually need to get loans or donations of equipment
       in order to provide support of devices that don't conform
       correctly to the published standards.

       You'ld probably find a FreeBSD or Linux box more appropriate
       for providing network storage and other services, as a back-end
       to your client machines where you do the actual editing.

    3) Apple -- has the 64bit platforms now, and video editing etc. is
       their meat and drink, so there shouldn't be any problems with
       finding software or support.  Probably more expensive than
       commodity hardware -- but check carefully.  Apple machines are
       much closer in price to *equivalently* specc'd PCs than you
       might think.  And if you need plenty of storage, the Xserve
       RAID kit is a real bargain[1] for small to mid-sized SANs:

        http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/

	Cheers,

	Matthew
       
[1] Not that you have to use Xserve with MacOS X -- it works very well
    with other OSes.

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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