Originally Posted by murphy
This just isn't true. I wouldn't recommend junking perfectly good PC hardware and replacing with Mac, but if you're starting from scratch, the PC hardware/software combo will in no way be cheaper than the Mac hardware/software combo. With the Mac, you get the workflow Pinniped was requesting, without using software from five different companies. And it's included with the hardware.
As I noted in another post, there are standalone software packages for the PC that incorporate the entire workflow into a single program. Like all jack-of-all-trades, however, they represent signficant compromises and won't produce the best results. The same is true of the Mac -- I'm not sure, but I suspect you can burn a DVD from the timeline in Final Cut Pro, just as you can with Premiere Pro. However, I can't imagine anyone working in FCP (which is a very, very fine editor) using it to produce fully-authored DVDs.
As for relative cost, I again must respectfully disagree. My current editing machine, a 3 GHz P4 with 512 meg of RAM, cost me about $400 to assemble. I don't know whether Macs now accept PC-standard hard drives. If they do, then that's an advantage the PC no longer can boast. If not, however, PC-standard drives are virtually commodity items -- you can get a 200 meg drive for well under $100. Video consumes huge amounts of hard-drive real estate; my editing sysem has 1.25 terabytes of storage and is practically full.
The only "pricey" software that I use is Premiere Pro and Encore. There are very low-cost, entry level alternatives to both. Studio lists for around $99, and is frequently discounted to about half of that. The Windows XP operating system comes with Microsoft Movie. Studio can author and burn from the timeline (I'm not sure about Movie). Better authoring programs run in the $50 range. Tmpgenc is, hands down, the best software transcoder for the money on any platform and only costs a whopping $35 -- it's a far better transcoder than anything built-in to off-the-shelf software (including FCP and Premiere).
I assume you're referring to iMovie in your post. Everything I've read indicates that it is comparable to Microsoft's included product. Both are, essentially, toys. Yes, they'll capture video, allow nominal editing, and burn DVDs. However, doing more than the most casual transfer of video to DVD requires more powerful software. There's a huge selection in the entry-level range for PC; far less for the Mac.
To a great extent, Mac vs. PC is a matter of personal preference and, having used both, I admit to a bias in favor of PC. However, there are two factors which clearly favor the PC: overall cost (for equivalent functionality) and number of available titles.