Post house Mac -> PC

[doug kaufman]

Our post facility (5 Media Composer edit suites, 2 PT audio suites) will likely be converting over from Mac Pros to HP Z8s.

If there are others who have gone through this process, I would love to know about any unexpected issues that may have come up as you switched Pro Tools over to PC in a post production environment.

We share central Avid storage, and sequences are shared through Interplay.

Thank you for any insights!

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by doug kaufman

Our post facility (5 Media Composer edit suites, 2 PT audio suites) will likely be converting over from Mac Pros to HP Z8s.

If there are others who have gone through this process, I would love to know about any unexpected issues that may have come up as you switched Pro Tools over to PC in a post production environment.

We share central Avid storage, and sequences are shared through Interplay.

Thank you for any insights!

No issues here. All PC for mixing and I playback the sessions on macs and PC's. All good. I would adjust the modifier keys to make them function like a mac. It's easy. Just use a macro editor like autohotkey or change them in the registry with keytweak.

[smurfyou]

Hey Doug,

These days PT and MC run pretty much the same on PC and Mac. As Brandon said the keyboard shortcuts are the main adjustment. Also window management under Windows is inferior compared to Mac. For multiple displays you have to stretch the main parent window across both, then you can arrange the Edit and Mix windows. Window configurations are your friend.

Other OS differences abound obviously but I bounce back and forth between the two and PT is fairly equal.

[smurfyou]

Also it will be an adjustment for IT. But that shouldn't be an issue.

The HP Z series are fantastic workstations.

[Hugh-H]

Hello,

I echo the above comments - it's a mostly fine transition. Often slightly more performance with a high-spec win system but nothing outrageous. The largest issue as smurfyou mentioned is window management - if you're used to moving individual windows anywhere it's confusing at first but you deal with it.

The largest issue for us is pipeline - keep in mind all the places you get sessions and files from. You mentioned Avid storage, that's interchangeable as you know. However if folks deliver a lot on HFS+ you'll need to get some workflows going. There are utilities to read/write mac volumes in windows but don't run a session from them.

Allow time to adjust, it's weirdly different but fine.

Hugh

[Manu101]

I have found that some plugins are not "cross-OS compatible"... meaning that you loose parameters and automation going from one OS to another.

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by Manu101

I have found that some plugins are not "cross-OS compatible"... meaning that you loose parameters and automation going from one OS to another.

Which plug ins? I haven't run into them but I don't use any exotic plug ins.

[Brandonx1]

For all talking about the way pro tools on windows works with edit and mix windows. Yes it's not the best. I just use one display for pro tools and a small display for plug in window.

[Bob Olhsson]

While I happen to prefer windows, a huge amount of tomorrow's post is going to be Dolby Atmos and it is Mac-only so far.

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

While I happen to prefer windows, a huge amount of tomorrow's post is going to be Dolby Atmos and it is Mac-only so far.

That's not true at all. The RMU doesn't care if you are windows are mac. PT acts the same for both. If you want an all in one solution, You can run the RMU on the same computer as PT. The only thing you don't get is the atmos bridge. I think it has too many problems anyway.