Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

I'm due for an update on my primary system, which has been a trash can mac pro tethered to our Nexis system using Interplay Access as the check-in bridge between the Media Composer machines and Pro Tools machines.
I'm debating between purchasing a new Mac Pro or taking the leap to an Avid-qualified HP machine. I've tried to read up what I can, but I know there are always little quirks that I may not have considered yet. I did see that Catalina is not yet qualified with Interplay so that's definitely one factor.
Any experiences anyone has had in a similar environment with either machine would be appreciated!

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

If you are used to OSX, windows might be frustrating. I use windows pro tools all day every day and really like it but I'm the odd duck and I have used both OSs extensively. If you are OK with windows, pro tools works great on windows. HP machines rock but are expensive. If you are used to the OSX modifier keys, you can modify windows to work like a mac's key commands.

Good luck

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

If you run Dolby Atmos, then you will need to stay with Mac:o

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

I've just gone from a MacPro 5.1 to a HP.
The notable stuff for me has been that the PC was unusable before I began optimising. It wouldn't even reliably record 1 track for more than 5 minutes with no plugins.
I got it to 16 tracks each with 5 Reverb One plugs recording for an hour at a 128 buffer (48k). It still has it's weird days, but so did my MacPro.
I remapped my mac keyboard because I didn't feel like learning the PC equivalents.
I lost the use of Source Nexus (Mac Only), and Source Connect is a bit more involved (you need to make sure you have a Source Connect 3.8 license because there is no 3.9 for PC).
There is no ADR software for PC that I've found.
PC ProTools looks ugly.
I have been getting serious graphics glitches, and will submit a bug report when I get some screen shots.
I'll probably go back to Mac once the dust has settled with the migration away from Intel.

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

Without diverting this thread too much, what ADR software is missing for PCs? My software works on PC and so does EdiCue (there may be others too). Or is it streamers you are looking for?

Pete

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

That´s true if you use the DAPS, which is only available at the moment for MAC.

But if you have an external RMU running the Atmos Mastering suite, on a qualified MAC or PC, that´s not the case. Can use PT on a PC connected via Dante or MADI to the RMU.

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

It's more the prompt/streamer side of things I was referring to Pete.
EdiCue shows as Win compatible for sure, but EdiPrompt lacks windows support at the moment.
I'm not a heavy ADR recorder so I was previously getting by with the cheap and simple "streamers" from figure43 (also Mac only).
Currently I'm baking streamers in with Resolve which is less than ideal.
ADR Master from NLA is Mac only.
VoiceQ is also Mac only.
Video Satellite as a workaround to slave a mac for video is unsupported when slaved to a PC....
That's as far I got before I decided to bake in my cues in frustration.
Cheers
Dave

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

Video Satellite as a workaround to slave a mac for video is unsupported when slaved to a PC....

I have done this for years and years with no issues. try it. It works fine or it used to 3 years ago.

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

Thanks for the heads up Brandon!

Re: Recent experience with new Mac Pro vs. HP PCs?
 

And this "ProTools on Mac" vs "ProTools on PC" thing is something, I cannot understand. And this is not only about 3rd party software. It is about ProTools on Windows itself. To me, it looks and works like it was poorly "ported" from MacOS, not written and coded for Windows from the scratch.

For music composition purposes I use Cubase, which works really IDENTICALLY, no matter on which OS it is run on. The only thing to remember is modifier keys, which is obvious. But in terms of stability, functionality and overall user experience, there is absolutely no difference.

As I understood, Nuendo also works the same on both Win and Mac.

My friends report, that besided other problems, the video playback quality is much worse on ProTools/Windows, even if a dedicated video hardware is used.

So - lots of issues to resolve.


best,
Kuba