I have bought 2 Apple MacBook laptops for my video editing activities over the last 2.5 years, and always taken the extra Applecare extended warranty cover on these comptuter products.
The first MacBook was a low spec 13 inch which with Final Cut Express, Apple Tiger OS installed and a 80GB hard drive was my launch pad of video editing on an Apple Mac and served me for about a year before I sold it (to someone I knew) and acquired a more powerful and higher speced 15 inch MacBook Pro also opting to extend the normal one year warranty to three years.
Now with both Mac laptops, they have experieced a hardware failure around 18 months after purchase and the Applecare warranty product has saved the owners a very heft repair bill. Because Apples are more expensive and exclusive I would advise anyone getting them to always add the warranty extension. My Apple MacBook pro has failed twice and on the last occasion it cost over £700 (it was in workshop for 2 weeks) to replace a motherboard when the grahics chipset gave up the ghost!
You have been warned, even Apple Macs are not perfect!
Thursday 25 February 2010
Monday 15 February 2010
Valentines Video Production Love Message
This is a simple video production I put together for my wife to convey my love to her on Valentine's Day Feb 14th 2010.
Being a sunday, it was shown on my local church's IMAG projector screen, thus earning me a few brownie points with my spouse.
The video was edited on an Apple MacBook using Final Cut pro. The heart effect was created by using a simple color key filter over a heart matte graphic with 2 motion keyframes used for the Ken Burns zoom effect on the opening picture.
Being a sunday, it was shown on my local church's IMAG projector screen, thus earning me a few brownie points with my spouse.
The video was edited on an Apple MacBook using Final Cut pro. The heart effect was created by using a simple color key filter over a heart matte graphic with 2 motion keyframes used for the Ken Burns zoom effect on the opening picture.
Saturday 13 February 2010
Ghana goes to Winter Olympics 2010
Ghana has an athlete representing the country in this year's winter olympics being held in Vancouver from Feb 13th to 28th Feb 2010.
Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is a Milton Keynes based UK born Ghanian who took up the sport just 5 years ago when he got a job managing a dry ski slope in Milton keynes.
He has since honed his skills enough to reach the international standard required to qualify and participate in this years 2010 winter olympics and has arrived in Whistle, Vancouver, Canada.
He will be competing in two events the Men's Giant Slalom on the 21st and the Men's Slalom on 27th Feb 2010.
According to his official team, he is currently not getting any official monetary support from his home Ghanian country, and has only made the journey so far with the help of private and corporate sponsors.
Visit the Ghana Ski Tean Website to follow his progress.
Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is a Milton Keynes based UK born Ghanian who took up the sport just 5 years ago when he got a job managing a dry ski slope in Milton keynes.
He has since honed his skills enough to reach the international standard required to qualify and participate in this years 2010 winter olympics and has arrived in Whistle, Vancouver, Canada.
He will be competing in two events the Men's Giant Slalom on the 21st and the Men's Slalom on 27th Feb 2010.
According to his official team, he is currently not getting any official monetary support from his home Ghanian country, and has only made the journey so far with the help of private and corporate sponsors.
Visit the Ghana Ski Tean Website to follow his progress.
Thursday 11 February 2010
Apple Macs are not perfect computers
This is just my personal opinion based on the experience I've gained while using both an Apple 13 inch macbook and a 15inch macbook pro laptop computers for video editing personally and in my church environment over a period of 2 and a half years.
Prior to getting the 13 inch mabbook, I have never used an Apple computer before, and while I knew they were very popular for graphics and video editing work, I also had for some reason the belief that they were the perfect alternatives to Windows based PCs not only because they used a superior operating system that was virus free, but more stable and did not crash, but also had a more reliable hardware platform. Well I must have been dreaming, because Apple Macs do crash, and both laptops have been in for repairs at least twice within the first 18 months of their purchase, and I have only been spared the cost of expensive repair bills because I had Applecare warranty which extended the initial 12 months cover to 3 years.
I was actually very surprised the first time Final Cut Express crashed on me during some crucial video editing of a very important production, it was as if the impossible had just occurred, since then I have now gotten used to firefox closing unexpectedly and even the tiger and leopard operating systems giving up the ghost on me, while hardware wise hard drives have failed, graphic cards gone puff and a soundcard stop outputting sound from the headphones socket.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my Apple MacBook laptops, but I seem to have been give the impression that they were perfect computers which they are not, maybe more reliable that microsoft windows operating systems and the various manufacturer's offerings, but you still need the extended warranty especially since they are more expensive than PCs, but I don't think I will go back to PCs for my video editing software and hardware needs.
So if you are thinking of joining the Mac ranks, by all means go ahead, it is not as step a learning curve and you might have been made to believe, and while you might need some time to get used to things, there are popular programs like office suite, firefox and Skype that all work on tiger or leopard os.
Prior to getting the 13 inch mabbook, I have never used an Apple computer before, and while I knew they were very popular for graphics and video editing work, I also had for some reason the belief that they were the perfect alternatives to Windows based PCs not only because they used a superior operating system that was virus free, but more stable and did not crash, but also had a more reliable hardware platform. Well I must have been dreaming, because Apple Macs do crash, and both laptops have been in for repairs at least twice within the first 18 months of their purchase, and I have only been spared the cost of expensive repair bills because I had Applecare warranty which extended the initial 12 months cover to 3 years.
I was actually very surprised the first time Final Cut Express crashed on me during some crucial video editing of a very important production, it was as if the impossible had just occurred, since then I have now gotten used to firefox closing unexpectedly and even the tiger and leopard operating systems giving up the ghost on me, while hardware wise hard drives have failed, graphic cards gone puff and a soundcard stop outputting sound from the headphones socket.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my Apple MacBook laptops, but I seem to have been give the impression that they were perfect computers which they are not, maybe more reliable that microsoft windows operating systems and the various manufacturer's offerings, but you still need the extended warranty especially since they are more expensive than PCs, but I don't think I will go back to PCs for my video editing software and hardware needs.
So if you are thinking of joining the Mac ranks, by all means go ahead, it is not as step a learning curve and you might have been made to believe, and while you might need some time to get used to things, there are popular programs like office suite, firefox and Skype that all work on tiger or leopard os.
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