3 Reasons To Use Macs In Your Church Production Facility
I love communities, especially when it comes to media. I’m part of several different Facebook groups that connect church media people from production and lighting, to graphics, advertising and communication. I can always find useful information there, fun quips about the life of a church production team, and more. About a month ago, an acquaintance of mine posted a picture with the caption, “this happened this morning, nothing I could do about it.”
The picture was of their Sunday morning screens, with a huge alert window on it that simply read, “Windows Update: Now Installing”. The auto-update feature had kicked in, couldn’t be minimized, and had just started updating. It’s a fear of anyone who works in production. It’s the fear that something will go horribly wrong. I immediately and strongly suggested he invest in a Mac. When he asked if that was a good use of his money, I gave some pretty good reasons why he should be using Macs in every area of their church media.
Here are three huge reasons why you should be using Macs in your production process.
1. No Frustrations
A friend of mine always says that PCs were made for people who want to tinker. Macs are made for people who want to get stuff done. Mac computers are just all around workhorses. They don’t need much attention to their operating system which really leaves you free to work in peace. The low-maintenance required for a Mac is incredibly freeing. There is very little to worry about in the way of updates, viruses, cleaning, etc.
The upgrades themselves are simple and non-obtrusive. There is always an alert which asks if you would like to update later instead, and very rarely if at all will a program cease to work without an update being applied.
I’m always happy to watch my PC user friends when I open my laptop and it instantly pops to the desktop, ready to go. There’s no process to return from sleep, meaning less “waiting around”, and more “getting stuff done”.
Not too mention that when it comes time to upgrade, Macs hold their values. Buying a Windows PC is great, except that it drops in value like a new car the moment you drive it off the lot. Within six months it’s obsolete and requires an upgrade. Macs are simple. They keep their fine-tuning for a good long while after they’re purchased and won’t require that you buy a new one for several years. A Mac is easily sold in used condition after a few years of use and tend to hold their value well, meaning in most cases you can use the money or trade-in value towards new equipment.
Suggested Tweet: "When it comes time to upgrade, Macs hold their values. @TravisWalser"
2. Built For Media
Mac computers are built from the ground-up for processing sounds and images. They’re geared to be graphically superior in every way. If you’re looking for sound processing, Macs are where it’s at. I personally have used my iRig on several occasions to throw a quick riff into the background of a good vocal recording on my Macbook. With so many peripherals geared towards capturing and processing sound, Macs are a powerful tool for sound processing and music creation.
Macs also feature top of the line graphical displays that are perfect for image processing. The clarity, color, and image representation are fine-tuned to give you the most accurate representation of color and imagery. The new retina displays can give an amazing resolution quality that can aid in working with fine detail on just about anything.
The user interface is simple, but beautiful. With less distractions happening on the desktop you’re able to focus on what’s really important: what you’re working on. That’s just on the inside too. Macs are some of the most compact, simple, and visually pleasant pieces of equipment that are available on the market. A Mac-Mini for example is small enough to be barely noticeable on your desk, allowing you more room to work with illustration, instrumentations, and other important technical duties free of the clutter of a large computer with tons of cables and wires running across your desk.
There’s a reason Macs are the industry standard for designers. It’s because they’re good at what they do, and while Windows has been branching into the media world with new products such as Microsoft Surface, they have a long way to go before they’re outperforming Apple in that market.
Suggested Tweet: "With less distractions on the desktop, with Macs, you’re able to focus on what you’re working on. @TravisWalser"
3. Inter Device Connectivity
The one thing that I’ve been learning about Mac that is now invaluable is the inter-connectivity between devices. I don’t know many creatives anymore that don’t have iOS use on an iPhone or iPad. It’s seems so simple to me know to take a photo or video on my iPhone, and Airdrop it over to my Macbook to use in a file. Not to mention using the several Adobe CC programs available in the Apple Store. I can use Adobe Capture on my iPhone and instantly port it over via CC to the Adobe programs on my Macbook. The ease of flipping graphics and other files back and forth between my laptop and my iPhone allows for moments of quick creativity that I wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
There’s also the issue of moving files back and forth between Windows PCs and Macs. While the file structure of a Windows computer is easily readable by a Mac, the reverse isn’t true. In fact, most Windows computers can’t read Mac file structures. So if you format a USB drive for a Mac file structure, a Windows PC won’t even see that it’s there. It will have to be reformatted before you can use it. If you format a USB for a Windows computer though, a Mac can easily read it, making the MAc far more versatile for file handling.
To get the best of both worlds, you can also easily run a parallel system on your MAC, giving yourself a piece of equipment where you could easily have both a MAC and PC together on the same laptop/desktop.
There’s also Time Machine! The backup system used by Mac is incredibly intuitive. Simply plug-in a drive, run through a quick setup process, and then every time you connect the drive to your MAC a new Time Machine entry is created. It’s not only a backup though. If a few weeks pass before I realize I’ve accidentally deleted a file I was working on, I can simply hop back through my Time Machine entries and restore only the deleted file back to my computer. I can also restore any version of it that is saved throughout Time Machine.
Overall, it’s clear to see that macs were made for media. They’re free of intrusive interruptions, easy to use and maintain, and really help to get the job done with media and production work. And if you’re worried about the pricing for Mac computer, don’t. Most stores offer payment plans to help with the purchasing process, and a Mac-Mini can usually be purchase for between $600-$700. The time saved in efficiency would be well worth the money spent.
Take your production to the next level by upgrading to Macs throughout your production facility.
Suggested Tweet: "Macs are made for people who want to get stuff done. @TravisWalser"