Avid Pro Audio Community

Avid Pro Audio Community

How to Join & Post  •  Community Terms of Use  •  Help Us Help You

Knowledge Base Search  •  Community Search  •  Learn & Support


Avid Home Page

Go Back   Avid Pro Audio Community > Legacy Products > 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Mac)

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #11  
Old 12-09-2004, 10:39 AM
darkglass darkglass is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: New York
Posts: 319
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!

MUSIC XPC C2 smokes all PC's and Macs. Hint: It really is a PC LOL. See for yourself.

http://www.musicxpc.com/products/c2/c2_performance.htm
__________________
Mac Mini 2.4 5GB Ram Pro Tools 9 Logic X KORG Triton Extreme
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 12-09-2004, 11:25 AM
superlovemark superlovemark is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Denton, TX USA
Posts: 155
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!

Quote:
MUSIC XPC C2 smokes all PC's and Macs. Hint: It really is a PC LOL. See for yourself.

http://www.musicxpc.com/products/c2/c2_performance.htm
But it still runs on windows

oopsie
__________________
iMac G5 1.8/ 10.3.5 / 768 ram
Digi 002r / PT LE 6.4
Logic Pro 7
2 OWC 80G firewire drives
many nice noise makers
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 12-09-2004, 02:09 PM
KingFish KingFish is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Nashville TN
Posts: 2,660
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!

Quote:
MUSIC XPC C2 smokes all PC's and Macs. Hint: It really is a PC LOL. See for yourself.

http://www.musicxpc.com/products/c2/c2_performance.htm
Actually kind of funny I ran into this thread right now.... I have an extensive XPC story, that has been a journal entry of the last 2 days of my life....2 days ago, a client brought his XPC into the studio, with an assistant engineer, to double productivity in the studio.

We'd be in the main room, recording several vocal and overdub passes on everything, and when done, drag it over the network for the engineer to comp, edit, consolodate, and backup on the XPC using our 002 in our edit room.

Within an hour of our workflow, I was called into the edit room, to see if i could find why the XPC was taking forever for screen re-draws, PT constantly giving DAE errors, just being a total slug.

Re-booting the machine took about 6 minutes before I was able to navigate the computer.

long story short....the system pagefile was horribly fragmented, therefore the system drive was equally as fragmented.... I disabled the system pagefile, defragmented the system drive, checked all settings, DMA, and got the computer back up to speed.

half way through the afternoon, they started getting system memory dumps, and big ol' bluescreens.... I got called back into the edit room.

I convinced them that they needed to let me restore the OS from the CD's that came with the system, and quickly update, and configure XP, install and update PT LE with all appropriate updates to get em fully running, if they wanted to continue using the XPC, I offered them use of a G5, or a P4, both rock solid machines, they elected to get the XPC running properly.

I convinced them that I don't know "where this system has been, who's done what to it, and that it'll be way quicker for me to be sure it's set up properly, by re-formatting, and starting from scratch."

So... we did that, I ran back and forth between the control room, between takes, to spend several hours, re-formatting, installing, updating, tweaking... and we got er running, and man.... she rocks... wow, boots lightening fast, loads PT fast.... big difference... someone I figured, had messed about, with this system, and these poor lads wasted almost a full day, suffering the result of that.

Day 2....(yesterday)

2 hours into the day, I see the Ctrl room Light blinking away on the phone..... I get called into the edit room, same thing as day one, even worse... sluggish, slow, almost to a hault, and I disabled the system pagefile the day before, when we installed, and tweaked away.

I quickly navigated to the hardware manager, and the system drive, was tranfering in PI0 mode, not DMA5 so.... I deleted the hard disk controllers from the device manager, let windows re-detect, and instal on boot, and it worked fine... back to Ultra DMA 5 transfer.

For about an hour......

Then, for no apparent reason, back to PI0 mode, i show the engineer what to do, to delete the Hard disk controllers from device manager, and re-boot, every time it happens, that i'm certain it's probably a hardware failure with the HD, but he's WAY behind with work flow, and now, so am I, and rather then take warranty voiding risks for the client's machine, and time opening the unit to check HD jumpers and cables, to just continue, in this fashion, I offered about 7 times, to set them up on a different machine, there is a G5, and a P4 in the room they are in, that both have been on the same boot for over a month, and are blazing.... they declined, and continued to work on the XPC.

On the way out of the studio at 2:30 am last night (originally were going to be out of the building by 6pm) I asked them how many times they had to delete the HD controller from the device manager.

They said, probably around a dozen.

this is my only experience with the XPC, but i know it's probably the exception to the rule, i understand technology, it doesn't matter what machine you have, you'll sooner, or later, encounter some kind of problem.

I have several well built PC's configured properly, I have an HD 2 Accel rig on one of them, rock solid, trouble free, and a G4, and G5, that have basically been booted since they came home from the store, updated, and occasionally restarted for updates, and installations to re-take.

I'm sure, given the time to spend, tweaking, and pushing an XPC, after owning one or two of them, I may add one to the list of computers that treat me well, but i'll tell you first hand, our little XPC visitor, at our little studio, the last 2 days, did absolutely no "Ass Kicking" with any of my systems, including our office computers (G3's and P3's) If I were the one, given their workload over the past 2 days, I would have quickly taken a G3, or P3 from the office to work on, let alone the G5, or P4 that was sitting right beside them the whole time.

Why people are so stubborn ?? if something stops working for me, and i have another option, to continue optimum work flow, I have absolutely NO loyalty to the wounded machine, i set it aside, till i can effectively trouble shoot it, off the clock, and continue working on what is available, and functional.

Wow, my first "Rant" in a long time.

it's XPC's fault.
__________________
David

- MacStudio M1
- HDX II Sonnet xMacStudio
- 16x16 HD i/o x 6
- PT ULTIMATE
- SONOMA
- ProTools Dock / S1 / Control App
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 12-10-2004, 07:16 AM
darkglass darkglass is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: New York
Posts: 319
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!

wow... ya gotta know they must have dropped it in a fish tank or something. Digi endorses XPC with the emphasis on rock solid operation. Although, my notebook runs 6.7 without a hitch... just looking for a machine that will facilitate more plug ins. Actually, a nice tweaked version of WIN XP pro would be nice.... Ill take a copy.

If I were going to buy a Mac I would then consider very strongly LOGIC and leaving PT. Digi folks are not excited about supporting MAC as much as the past because Apple is doing their own thing with a following... LOGIC, Final Cut, etc. A turn key box targeted at a certain client population.

AVID and DIGI know that the future is on the PC and have shown an agressive move in that direction (longhorn). Film people who use AVID every day recognize that AVID software works better on a PC and in some cases is not even supported or written for the MAC anymore. The concept of a complete editing workstation in one box is attractive. However, industry standards always rule.


My last MAC: the venerable Mac Plus... I was really tempted by the new G5IMAC with the 20" screen.
__________________
Mac Mini 2.4 5GB Ram Pro Tools 9 Logic X KORG Triton Extreme
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Old 12-10-2004, 07:47 AM
Jon Dickinson Jon Dickinson is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 189
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!

Quote:
Man my PC runs rock solid. I cant remember the last time it crashed protools. Oh ya when i tried to load service pack 2 with 6.4 it blue screened. Thats a known issue with LE software though. You gotta get the right hardware. I stick with Pentium 4, Asus and adaptec. My computer is flawless. I have a dedicated drive just for protools running XP pro. G5s are very pretty machines and im sure they run splendid but there too expensive. I can see spending 2500 bucks on a computer when i can spend right at a 1000 and get a scream machine.

Stan
Scream machine maybe, but I wanted OS X, not Windows. If OS X ran on Intel PC-spec boxes I'm sure it would be lovely. but it doesn't.
__________________
Cheers
JD

G5 iMac 20" 1.8GHz 1GB 160GB / Lacie FW80GB
OSX 10.3.5 / MBox / PTLE 6.7
Reply With Quote
  #16  
Old 12-10-2004, 08:11 AM
GORILLA GORILLA is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Your Ma's house...hehehe
Posts: 1,812
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!

Quote:
Just a quick hiya, I've just junked my PC and got myself a G5 iMac 20" which arrived yesterday - I'm very impressed indeed with it. I'm running PTLE6.4 on OSX 10.3.5 with no problems whatsoever to report after a good few hours of testing. I'll try and pop up some davec scores for folk wondering about the new iMac's performance potential. Suffice to say though, it's a beauty. And, Altiverb rocks!
Cool, I switched a few years ago.
And yes yes yes...Altiverb ROCKS!
__________________
METAL LABS
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old 12-10-2004, 02:41 PM
MoreMeintheMonitors MoreMeintheMonitors is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: The Ether
Posts: 471
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!

Quote:
MUSIC XPC C2 smokes all PC's and Macs. Hint: It really is a PC LOL. See for yourself.

http://www.musicxpc.com/products/c2/c2_performance.htm
Hmm - those numbers aren't jiving with what my machine is able to do. I wonder if they kept processor performance on 'automatic' (the default setting) on the G5 when doing those tests....
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old 12-11-2004, 02:42 AM
WorldOfWiz WorldOfWiz is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: San Diego
Posts: 938
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!

Quote:
AVID and DIGI know that the future is on the PC and have shown an agressive move in that direction (longhorn). Film people who use AVID every day recognize that AVID software works better on a PC and in some cases is not even supported or written for the MAC anymore. The concept of a complete editing workstation in one box is attractive. However, industry standards always rule.
The reason why Apple bought Emagic was because of Avid.

Avid had a CEO who decided that since he uses a PC and alot of other people use a PC was was to drop Mac support. Alot of Mac users where upset over this. Macromedia developed a Film/video editing program but decided not to release it . Apple bought that program and cleaned it up a bit and called it Final Cut Pro.

People who loved using Macs, dumped Avid's system and started using FCP. After FCP market share grew by leaps and bounds. Avid started to once again support Macs.

Avid bought Digi to better intergrate audio to work with its video editing product. Apple bought Emagic for the same reasons.

Avid won't shoot it's self in the foot again and drop Mac support.

Other things to think about.

People buy Logic to run with Pro Tools. Digi and Apple are still working together promoting this.

Digi bought Bomb Factory and nobody said plug in companies are screwed since Digi makes their own plug ins.

Digi still makes most of its money off of Mac users.

And not all of Avid products are can be used on Macs.

Wiz
__________________
The underground is as fickle and shallow as the mainstream.
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old 12-11-2004, 06:24 AM
rockridge's Avatar
rockridge rockridge is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: NY, NY
Posts: 919
Default Re: I\'ve come over from The Dark Side!



[/QUOTE]...I'm sure, given the time to spend, tweaking, and pushing an XPC, after owning one or two of them, I may add one to the list of computers...Why people are so stubborn ?? if something stops working for me, and i have another option, to continue optimum work flow, I have absolutely NO loyalty to the wounded machine, i set it aside, till i can effectively trouble shoot it, off the clock, and continue working on what is available, and functional.

[/QUOTE]

Your story points out the problem most of us have at one time or another... a tendency to place mystical qualities to computers and operating systems...almost romantic involvement!

But you were more than helpful, reinstalling the system, which should have done the trick.

I've seen these little cases used in the XPC at Microcenter for a few hundred, and using them does seem like a cool idea, but the motherboard is usually included and a lot of corners are probably cut... by nesscessity.
__________________
Protools 10.3.10/11.3.2/12.6 | Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
HELP! I may be forced to the "Dark Side" Tim R. Post - Surround - Video 9 06-01-2007 09:19 AM
Help me! I'm slipping over to the dark side.... JCBigler 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Win) 0 06-23-2005 10:19 PM
OT: Dark Side SACD? ReniuR Tips & Tricks 4 01-02-2004 12:24 AM
Sould I go to the Dark Side? P. North East 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Win) 6 06-13-2002 12:58 AM
Mac converts from the dark side rigboone 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Mac) 8 01-18-2000 11:22 PM


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 05:30 AM.


Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited. Forum Hosted By: URLJet.com