Mac vs. PC - Multimedia Superiority

Macs are often praised for the quality of their graphics and multimedia advantages. As the first computer to feature a graphical interface, it is appropriate that Macintosh should continue to lead in the visual and multimedia fields. Ask any Macintosh Support London professional and they will probably tell you Macs outperform Windows PCs for the following reasons.

QuickTime is a built-in feature of the Mac OS. QuickTime allows you to play digital video files and movie DVDs. It includes authoring tools for creating closed-captions, inserting texts and dividing videos into chapters. For musical applications, QuickTime is fully MIDI compatible and includes many voices with QuickTime Musical Instruments. Quick Time video can also be used in Quick Time VR.

Apple Support users have been raving about the superior graphics abilities of Macs for years, and with good reason. With QuickDraw 3D, workstation-level 3D graphics are a standard feature of the Mac. QuickDraw 3D’s intuitive interface makes drawing, editing, shading, texture mapping and lighting of three-dimensional graphics easy. The program’s cross-platform file format also makes it easy to share 3D drawings with other computers.

Apple includes its virtual-reality software, QuickTime VR with every Mac. With QuickTime VR, users can make 360-degree panoramic movies with digital photos or CGI (computer generated images). The software allows users to pan left, right, up and down, move forward or backward and zoom in for 360-degree close-ups. Graphics accelerator cards or additional hardware are not needed to take advantage of QuickTime VR’s capabilities.

Photographers, developers and designers love the colour-matching abilities of ColorSync, Apple’s colour-matching software. This technology keeps colour display consistent between the input devices, monitor and output device. ColorSync is the unofficial industry standard due to the large number of third-party printers, scanners, monitors and apps that support it. Such Colour-matching software is not included in Windows.

Mac OS has been leading the industry in speech synthesis capabilities for years. With Apple’s “text-to-speech” technology, the Mac can read text aloud as it appears on the screen. The software has several reading voices to choose from. You can make you Mac responsive to voice commands by adding the PlainTalk speech recognition software and moving an alias of any item into the Speakable Items folder.

Graphics and multimedia formats are more standardised on the Mac than they are on PCs, making it easier to work on an image or video in multiple applications. It is fairly simple to cut and paste data from application into another on the Mac. This even works with three-dimensional objects and videos, thanks to QuickTime Media Layer. Windows users are much more likely to run into snags caused by a multiplicity of graphics and multimedia file formats.

From the start, Macs have outperformed their Windows PC counterparts in graphics and multimedia applications. This has definitely been a contributing factor in the continued popularity of Apple Mac computers with graphic and design professionals as well as ordinary users. If you have technical questions regarding the multimedia capabilities of a particular Mac, you should consult an Apple Support London expert.