If you’re editing video, you’re probably using Apple’s Final Cut Pro. It’s used by everyone who’s serious about video editing, from Francis Ford Coppola to my friend Julie’s son. (And me — a serious beginner on the software.) But what if you don’t already own a Mac? Over the past few months, I’ve been doing my video editing at the local community media and technology center. I can book four-hour blocks of time, for free, two times a week. A fantastic resource, but hardly an ideal situation. Especially when I need to make a tiny edit and can’t without waiting days.
So if you’re doing a fair amount of video editing, does it make sense to switch from PC to Mac?
Not for me. I refuse to pay $2500 for a desktop — the starting price of a quad-core Mac Pro. This entry Mac Pro includes a paltry 3GB of RAM, a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB video card and no monitor, of course. Hardly any hardware for a $2500 layout.
Instead I decided to build a Hackintosh — a Mac clone that can run the Apple operating system, which means it can then run Final Cut Pro. I planned to build this new box over my week off between Christmas and New Years, so I checked out the build at LifeHacker (How to Build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, Start to Finish [09-03-09]) and another at Videoguys (DIY7.7: Intel Core i7 8-core [03-24-09]). I combined the ideas of both then priced out the components and came up with an i7 box that would cost about $1100. A lot better than $2500, right?
That’s what I thought until I ran across iBuyPower while jumping between Tiger Direct and Newegg.
I priced out the same build for about $50 less than building the system myself, plus it came with Windows 7.
Wow! I’ve had the box for about a month now and I can report that it has zero problems. I must admit I was looking forward to building my new box, but I must also admit that I was very happy to just plug in the computer and get down to the business of finding out which of my software programs would actually work with Windows 7 (all of them except Adobe CS2, the most expensive, but it was time to upgrade anyway).
I haven’t installed Snow Leopard on the box yet; I’m so pleased with it as is that I’m a little afraid to Applify it. However, the build meets all Mac specs, so I don’t expect any problems (famous last words, right?). I’ll be following these instrux at LifeHacker — Install Snow Leopard on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required.
Stay tuned for part 2: Installing Snow Leopard.