what laptop for tv&film production?

mgmayo

My son is starting the fetac tv and film production in dun laoighaire with a view to doing the same in IADT. He has saved for an apple mac but is unsure if windows is most used there. When we were there for the open day it appeared to be all windows laptops in use. Would the apple be an expensive mistake? any opinions greatly appreciated.

long march home

If his 'fetac tv and film production course' was anything like mine he won't need to do any real editing work on his own equipment, the college should have all the editing equipment he'll need. he'll have to get something for writing etc, but there shouldnt be any real need for a high powered piece of equipment just yet.

- note that this is based on my own experience in a different VEC, this course could be operating out a prefab at the bottom of a field for all I know. you won't need any equipment for a while at the start of the year regardless, so you'll have plenty of time to decide whether or not it's worth it.

atgate

mgmayo wrote: »

My son is starting the fetac tv and film production in dun laoighaire with a view to doing the same in IADT. He has saved for an apple mac but is unsure if windows is most used there. When we were there for the open day it appeared to be all windows laptops in use. Would the apple be an expensive mistake? any opinions greatly appreciated.

Not sure what the use in the fetac college (I'm presuming it's DL college of further education?). But in IADT we use PCs and Macs. The only lab that is specific to Film & TV production currently uses PCs for offline editing (with Avid) software. For online we use Macs with Avid and (to a lessor extent) Final Cut Pro. However, we're in the process of moving the offline to Macs so all the editing will be on Macs (Avid works on both Macs and PCs). My advice is that if cost isn't the no.1 priority then Macs are a better bet (I'm pretty sure if I polled the film & tv students as to whether they'd prefer a mac or a pc they'd go for mac). FYI most of the tutors have moved to mac also - not sure what that says though. Remember you can run windows on a Mac also.

mgmayo

Thanks for helpful info. I am now comfortable that the expense of the mac would not be a waste.