You know those Apple logo stickers you get when you buy an Apple product?

Yah. I haz em. Dey maek mah hack legitz. Srsly.

http://www.fluther.com/disc/19608/are-hackintoshs-legal/

Need comp ASAP! Video files to be edited...

And I still haven't got the parts.

I'm now looking for a P5E-VM HDMI board rather than a DO... I don't know the diff (monitor connection?) but it seems to have more troubleshooting info already developed, so I won't have to do much myself.

I want a true Apple keyboard and mouse, because I'm used to that design.

And I want a case with lots of fans and noise reducers.

I want it all! Still researching the specs....

Dot Project

As if I didn't have enough projects on the go. Enter the Dot Project.

I need a new computer for editing video - specifically, AVCHD. I was looking at a MacBook Pro, but I'm worried that whatever I buy will become obsolete within the next year (and that I'll have more trouble with external hard drives - AVCHD, when converted for editing, takes up a lot of space and I'd be basically living off of external hard drives. Not my idea of a good system).

I've been asking for many people's opinions on the dilemna. The cheapest and most exciting option so far is.... (drumroll please?) the Hackintosh. Unfortunately, that would mean building my own computer. Which, as I said, is exciting. It's also time-consuming, though. I'd have to track down the best parts, then assemble the thing. Then there are licensing issues with the Mac OS.

But wouldn't it be worth it?

Basically, I've given up mobility and convenience for a longer-lasting, more flexible system. Cornelius will be my mobile option - the iBook still has the audio software on there, which is (so far) what I mostly use the computer for (aside from web browsing) .

I'm going to pursue this option for today (tomorrow I may change my mind again).

And I'm going to name the new desktop Dot. So it will be a "Dot Hack-intosh". I'm a geek - so what? Thus, the Dot Project. I wonder if this project will actually work out?

Let's Get Reasonable.

So, Saturday I was acting a little unreasonable. I take back what I said about Advance - they're good guys.

I think I was overreacting. I thought I was in an unsolvable position, but now it seems that I have options.

AVCHD... is cool. If only it worked with my computer. Or ANY computer. I now understand that the intermediate format that it's converted into in the editing suite is 10x the size of the original file. No computer I will ever own will be able to hold that much information, and I would HATE to keep buying hard drives for some of this crappy video that I shoot. Yes, some of it is crappy, I'll admit.

I was misinformed when I bought the camcorder. I thought it could record SD. It can't. I thought I could find a converter for my computer. I can't. I thought that a newer computer would have no trouble editing the video. It wouldn't - it would run out of hard drive space after filling the camcorder's memory card 8 times.

Obviously, I could make it work. But I don't think any computer I can afford can handle AVCHD.


I hate to say it, but Job is gonna get replaced. And Cornelius is probably still going to get a younger brother. I wanted to wait until an exciting Macbook release came out, but it seems that now is the time to get a new computer. I had a blind spot when it came to my iBook - I didn't want to give it up or step outside of my comfort zone, so I kept making excuses. "It's four years old, so it can't handle it." "It has a crappy processor. But it does its job." No... it does not do its job. I need a computer that can edit video, and Cornelius is not going to cut it.

Technorant

I was extremely excited to buy a Panasonic HDC-SD9 yesterday. And I was extremely excited when one month ago I purchased a LaCie 500 GB external hard drive for a sweet deal. Unfortunately, both purchases have come crashing down on me.

Maybe I shouldn't criticize these items. Really, the problem is Cornelius*, my Apple iBook G4, which has carried me through four years of audio and video editing, amongst other things. Cornelius has a sad 1GHz processor, a measly 40 GB of hard drive, and 1 GB RAM, and it is struggling to stay alive through all of my resource-heavy rendering.

What bothers me most is that I love Cornelius and my new camcorder**. But they don't love each other. There is virtually no software for Mac OS 10.3 that supports the AVCHD format, and I'm working extra hard to find a codec to play/convert the video files I've captured. It doesn't help that most purchasers of said camcorder use Windows or more recent Apple computers.

Why is it that purchasers of new equipment are always forced to update in order to keep up? I can't afford this shit. I bought a gorgeous new camcorder because I thought it was snazzy and handy, and I've discovered that it'll cost me another couple thousand dollars to be able to do anything with it.

I still have 6 days to return the camcorder without charge.

On to an even more frustrating item, the LaCie hard drive. I bought one, loaded it with files, then discovered that my system would randomly disconnect the thing. I exchanged it for another and still encounter the problem, but to a lesser extent.

Then, Sunday, I accidentally disconnected the hard drive without ejecting it first. No files on the drive were in use, so I thought I would escape free of injury.

THE DAMN FILES WON'T OPEN NOW and I have to completely re-edit the videos I was working on. Yes. Videos, plural, because I tend to create more than one sequence in a FCP file. The vids were supposed to be up this week, and I'm SCREWED.

I can't return the thing because (a) all my Final Cut files are configured to recognize those specific pathways (changing them takes FOREVER) and (b) I'd need to buy another hard drive to transfer them to. It's important to note that file recovery (should the hard drive kick the bucket) is at least $80 where I bought the thing - almost the price I paid for it to begin with.

I've run into so many technical problems lately that I don't even want to look at my hard drive anymore. While I love playing with my camcorder, I don't record video because I know for a fact that it won't work on my computer, and I'll have to go to school and test the files out there. But I'm almost ashamed that I knowingly bought an item that doesn't work with my system, in the hopes that somehow everything will work out.

Why do the gods smite me so?


* ... Yes, I named my iBook "Cornelius". So sue me.
** I named my new camcorder "Job".