New to macs need guidence on what macbook pro to get for video & photo

Question

I see there are alot of what looks like good deals on ebay for macbookpros, is ebay a safe place to get a mac book pro? If I get one with OS leopard from ebay, can I get a discount or free upgrade to snow leopard?
among the features I have read about snow leopard, it has a "put back" feature for accidental deletions, does leopard have anything like this?
I am in California, if I get a macbookpro directly from mac online or a mac store do I pay tax? like a regular electronics store? why dont macs ever go on sale? they seem to be the same price all over.
what would be the bare minimum in specs to get in a macbookpro for smooth rendering/editing of all types of video like high def?
I may also need to run some windows programs; MS word, Excel, photoshop & roxio easy media creator. I have read about vm ware fusion & paralles for macs, which would be best for running my windows programs without problems. Will vm ware fusion or parallels run on OS snow leopard?
I had been using roxio easy media creator on a Dell Pentium 4 PC with windows XP home, editing .mpg movies clips taken with my Sony cybershot digital still camera & I could never make a DVD without some difficulty, until I cannot do it at all now, the video & audio are out of sync. I have talked to some people about this & alot have told me a mac would be better suited to what I do. So now I am looking at macs, they seem very expensive, so the less I have to spend would be better, but I am willing to spend a little to get good reliable performance.
Message was edited by: Sossity

Answer 1

Hi -
You will get a lot of different answers to your questions. Here are mine:
Sossity wrote:
I see there are alot of what looks like good deals on ebay for macbookpros, is ebay a safe place to get a mac book pro?
I my opinion, no.
If I get one with OS leopard from ebay, can I get a discount or free upgrade to snow leopard?
No.
among the features I have read about snow leopard, it has a "put back" feature for accidental deletions, does leopard have anything like this?
I believe you are referring to TIme Machine, which is a built in software back up feature in both Leopard and Snow Leopard. You will need an external hard disc drive to make it work.
I am in California, if I get a macbookpro directly from mac online or a mac store do I pay tax? like a regular electronics store?
If you buy a computer from the Apple Web Store, you will have to pay the sales tax your state charges - but you won't have to pay for shipping.
why dont macs ever go on sale?
They sell at full price so why should Apple discount them?
they seem to be the same price all over.
Yes, even at most reputable mail order companies the price is usually within 50 or so dollars of Apple's list price. This is another clue to be suspicious of the ebay prices.
what would be the bare minimum in specs to get in a macbookpro for smooth rendering/editing of all types of video like high def?
To edit HD video, I would max out the ram and you will also need to have fast (firewire) external disc drives to store the media as you will not want to have the media stored on your internal system disc.
I may also need to run some windows programs; MS word, Excel, photoshop & roxio easy media creator. I have read about vm ware fusion & paralles for macs, which would be best for running my windows programs without problems. Will vm ware fusion or parallels run on OS snow leopard?
Yes. There are reports that there are some problems with Snow Leopard, but these should be ironed out shortly, or have already been ironed out as the 3rd party software makers update their software for Snow Leopard.
I had been using roxio easy media creator on a Dell Pentium 4 PC with windows XP home, editing .mpg movies clips taken with my Sony cybershot digital still camera & I could never make a DVD without some difficulty, until I cannot do it at all now, the video & audio are out of sync. I have talked to some people about this & alot have told me a mac would be better suited to what I do. So now I am looking at macs, they seem very expensive, so the less I have to spend would be better, but I am willing to spend a little to get good reliable performance.
OK, well this is something I can't advise you on. If you were to get a new Mac, you would need to: Buy the Mac, buy Fusion or Parallels, buy a full copy of Windows to install on your windows partition, buy the ram upgrade, and buy external storage. Plus, you will have to learn a new operating system, and new software like iMovie and iDVD.
What the relative value this has to you, I don't know. If you have a long term commitment to working with photography and videography, then without a doubt, I would recommend doing it as eventually in your career you will need to be familiar with how to work on the Mac platform.
If you are doing it just to make better DVDs from MPG movies shot with a still camera, I would think about it.
Hope this helps, and good luck!