I just bought a 1999 iMac DV; What should I do with it?

I just bought a new (well, for me it's new) 1999 iMac DV with these specs:

OS 9.2
400 MHz Processor
64 MB RAM
10 GB Hard Drive

So, this is my question, based on the generalization that Mac is better than PC for video editing, etc., what do I do with it? Would upgrading the RAM, OS, etc. and putting a bigger hard drive in make it any better than the standard PC I have now? Or is a Mac this old not worth the hastle?

My PC's specs are:

Windows XP
Celeron D Processor
256 MB RAM

Not to mention updated with a GeForce FX 5500 256 MB Graphics Card and 200 GB Hard Drive.

Also I already bought and own my editing software that I use (Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Encore) on the PC and wouldn't really wan't to buy Mac versions of them.

P.S. Sorry about this technical question, but I just want answers specifically from people who work with video who might be able to give me a simple answer.

 

Well, that depends on the PC you've got now, I guess. That machine right there doesn't really seem like it could hack it as is, though, not without some serious chugging.

 

From those specs you might not be able to upgrade it enough.

I've never worked with Mac hardware, but with PC's they have different sockets for the different proccessors, not all proccessors can go on the same motherboard, so you might not even be able to get a good proccessor for that computer, so I would pretty much say that computer is worthless. I definately wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. I hope you either got it for free or didn't pay very much for it.

 

"You paid money for that? On purpose?"

Not worth the hassle. 7 years ago that was a great entry-level video-editing Mac. Now it's just waaaaay obsolete.

M. Scott

 

10 gigs of hard drive for video editing? I video edit and you need a lot more than 10 gigs on your hard drive, you probably need at least 50 gigs. Definitely not worth the hassle! 400 MHz processor, most bottom line computers now run at least 1 GHz, plus 64 MB of ram is okay, more is better for video editing. Just comments, not dissing you for buying a bad computer.

 

64 MB of ram ok??? Yeah, right. Im surprized that 64 MB would even run the OS itself without slowing down.

 

donate it to a museum...

 

Wouldn't it be cool though if you put a TV inside of it and used it... to... watch... TV?

...maybe?

 

It doesn't. I work with iMacs with those specs everyday, and the performance is maddening.

Don't get me wrong, Macs are my mainstay. But an iMac DV truely is a dinosaur.

 

Send it to me. I will decorate a spaceship's wall with it.

 

Well...do you have any dynamite?

 

Yeah, ten gigs. For a movie i was owrking on about a year ago, i used up like 200 gigs. (well, i did have 3 uncompressed versions of every video clip in the movie but thats besides the point) lol

But seriously. It sounds like your old computer is better. I have a pc and am happy with it, so long as you get the right graphics cards and stuff. Try just getting some upgrades for your PC, it'll probably cost less assuming its newer and ull get better results.

 

get a cheap external hard drive and final cut pro 3. more memory if you can

 

I have a PII 266 with 64MB RAM that runs Linux (it's a laptop). It's good for two things - checking email (and other web stuff), and testing all sorts of crazy things you can do with scripts and such at the command line. I guess it's also good to use to SSH into other Linux machines and do whatever I would do from any other machine...

Point is... That thar machine is roughly about as useless as the one you just bought. It's got it's purpose. And for what I need it for, that's fine. But I ain't gonna do no video editing with it.

 

Don't use it for video editing. Turn it into some kind of file server.

 

Right... Like, get a big HD and set up Apache on it (a very popular, easy to use, free web server).
Then you can host all kinds of stuff off of it without the restrictions of all these other services out there.

Really... That's a great idea. The server I run here in my house is actually about the specs of that machine (only it's a Frankenstein PC). It runs an older distro of Mandrake Linux. But it works great as a Web server, FTP server, and SSH server. Plus, I recently just got MySQL running on it, so I can use it as a database server as well.

It's biggest function so far, other than being a web server, has been a place where I could easily serve up, and receive work for misc. projects I've worked on. When Fig and I were working on the film we did together, all the file transfers for the video workfiles, were done through that machine.

Again... I won't be doing any video editing on it. But, it's a completely functional computer despite it's lack of power.


EDIT: I'm sorry, I forgot the obligatory emoticon -

Jebus... I have really become a computer nerd to the nth degree.

 

Well, given more thought, dropping a CRT from a balcony onto concrete is always a good time...