Microsoft updated it’s Virtual PC website today with a flash demo and FAQs about VPC 7 for Mac. On the “How to Buy” page it says that the full package with XP Pro is available for purchase now. All of the other packages are available through pre-order (estimated to be released on October).
Microsoft Virtual PC 7 for OS X available now
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I’ve been waiting for this.
dual2 g5 of mine should run it nicely.
are there any reviews out yet? i want to know about speed improvements on G4s and how native video drivers get along. i really hope this can be the end to me requiring x86 hardware.
hehe, from the flash demo:
if you need a PC for running Windows only application such as Visio or Visual Studio, or connection to servers on a network that isn’t Mac-friendly, then…
um, afaik, the only non-mac-friendly networks are windows networks, and windows networks are pretty much every-other operating system-unfriendly. there’s no such thing as a mac-unfriendly network, you either have a microsoft network (active directory, exchange, all that crap), or a heterogeneous network that any OS (even windows) can use.
what spin (and what a bunch of crap!).
sorry, but windows users actually put up with this kind of stuff on a regular basis??
Windows running on a virtual machine is less susceptible to viruses than Windows running on a PC. It is unlikely that a virus will affect the Mac OS or Mac files, but in certain circumstances your virtual machine running Windows exposes you to the same security risks that users running Windows on a Windows-based computer face.
they’re not even denying the insecurity of their product, or skirting around the issue. just a blunt: yes, you will have to deal with all the crap that windows users normally have to deal with.
Anyone know if it will run linux or FreeBSD like the older versions or did Microsoft cripple it.
for shipping.
i’d guess those are the unsupported operating systems. if it emulates a processor, my guess is linux will run on it.
The VPC flash demo mentions that you can use VPC to run QuickBooks and Dreamweaver….aren’t there native Mac OS X versions of both?
I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that the last time I heard VPC talked about, that MS had removed non-MS support (ie, Linux). Again… This is going back several months, but I believe that was the case.
Personally, I’ve got a PC on one side of my desk, and a Mac on the other. I only want VPC so that I don’t have to switch to the PC for tasks that either the Mac can’t handle yet (Such as mpeg2 editing, appending, etc – VERY frustrating that Quicktime can’t natively handle simple mpeg2 edits, such as editing out commercials!).
VPC is an x86 hardware emulator, not a windows emulator, even though the click-n-create environments for linux, QNX, various unix and other x86 environments have been removed, you can still use those environments. you just specify things by yourself
Amusingly, Microsofts toughest competition to PCAnywhere must be not Bochs or Darwine but Microsoft RDP Client for the Mac. Using this very cool little app you can remote-desktop into a Windows XP Pro PC and run apps on it remotely in a window or full-screen desktop.
Since many of the target market for VPC+WinXP must already have a PC capable of running XP: this free application, a copy of XP Pro and a network cable pose quite a competitive edge
This logic only fails where you consider Mac Laptops – although RDP over internet is possible, I do it all the time.
Quicktime? Why do you use that? The Player can’t even play full screen if you don’t pay for it. Even Microsoft include this functionality in their crippled crap products. I suggest you get VLC from http://www.videolan.org/
VLC is excellent and in my opinion one of the best multi-platform applications out there, because it refelcts the “style” of the OS it runs on: Using native interfaces, the Windows version is ugly, the Mac version is just as cool as the Mac is, and the BeOS version is so slick and, well, BeOS (except that it doesn’t use translators).
To get more on topic: Weren’t Linux and FreeBSD supported as host OS’s before Microsoft acquired VPC? Now surely they’re not, but i guess they will run as guests.
Personally, I use QuickTime (I’m on Windows) because… (well, in addition to the fact that its a nice product) is because of its video editing capeabilities. All too often people think of QuickTime as simply a media player. Thats a mistake. QuickTime (the player) is a simple multimedia editor with lots of really advanced functionality. If you only see QuickTime as a player and your gripe is that you can’t play full screen video with the non-pay version… you are seriously missing out (not to mention undermining a spectacular technology in its own right. I would strongly suggest that you pay the $30 (or whatever it is…shoot, pirate it if you must) and then make it your default player. Its amazing what you you’ll be able to do with your multimedia content on a whim after you switch.
You actually CAN full screen qt on a mac without having to pay. There’s an applescript you can get that’ll do it. I do believe Apple has a link to it somewhere. Look around.
On topic: YAY VPC7. I’m seriously looking to sell my POS Dell and just run Windows in an emulator on my G5 as soon as I can and right now my only option is OpenOSX Wintel and it’s way slow. I couldn’t sit through the installation of XP. I got too impatient.
“(Such as mpeg2 editing, appending, etc – VERY frustrating that Quicktime can’t natively handle simple mpeg2 edits, such as editing out commercials!).”
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/mpeg2playback/
^^^^^^^^^
And… What is this?
Yeah I have that plugin. It lets me playback mpeg2 but whenever I try to export it into anything else, it greys out the audio as if there is no audio track when I can sit and play the file and there is most definitely audio. It’s very frustrating. It even does it with mpeg1.
Be interested to see how fast VPC7 is going to be. Looking at their flash demo thing, they were saying it was going to be a “bit slower” than a native box… Hmmm…
I’m thinking of getting one of those iMac G5’s, VPC7 on it would be pretty good if it were a bit slower than native… We will see…
Julian: To get more on topic: Weren’t Linux and FreeBSD supported as host OS’s before Microsoft acquired VPC? Now surely they’re not, but i guess they will run as guests.
No, VPC’s host OSes were just Windows (9x and up) and Mac. VMware supports Linux (x86) as a host, with old versions of the Linux host working on FreeBSD, and Serenity Virtual Station is in beta on FreeBSD hosts. FreeBSD and Linux were previously supported client OSes for VPC – now they are working-but-unsupported clents.
“why would a mac user bother running windoze on a mac…”
For me, I get the opportunity to work at home from time to time, but I use a PowerBook at home and a WinXP PC at work. Work wouldn’t supply me with a laptop, but they were willing to buy me VirtualPC so I could use the apps I use at work on my Mac. I’m sure there are a lot of people in my situation.
“why would a mac user bother running windoze on a mac…”
Some weblog said, Mac is the best “swiss knife” for multiplatform computing. For me, it’s exactly this. I do development on Unix (darwin serves nicely), Linux (runs in VPC, fast!!), NetBSD (occasionally) and -of course- WinXP.
All this without cluttering my room with unnecessary cables and ugly-looking hardware; I’ve _never_ seen a beautiful PC yet, have you?
-ak
btw, I do enjoy OS X native stuff for everyday tasks, s.a. Mail, Web browsing etc. I bet you’d do, too.. ;P
…if VPC supports (or will support) DirectX? The reason I ask is that strong rumours persist about XBox2 being based on the PPC chip. Which got me wondering…will they use a ‘re-jigged’ VPC to provide backward compatibility for Xbox1 games?
My apologies for going a little OT.
Does anybody know of any reviews or leaks? What do the beta testers say? Did Microsoft hand out copies to tech journalists?
The information on the MacBU site is scant, and mostly mentions stuff that has been in VPC since version 5, like undoable drives or drag-and-drop.
I’m especially curious as to the G5 performance. I think that processor lacks a big/little endian change mode, which has been crucial to the functioning of VPC to begin with. This may cause seriously lessened speed on G5, compared to G4. Or, the same speed, but not the boost one’d expect.
So G5 owners, just beware..
And if I’m proven wrong, which I might, I’ll be very happy and eventually get myself a G5, too.
-ak
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/mpeg2playback/
^^^^^^^^^
And… What is this?
From the header portion of the page you linked (written in big bold letters that are hard to miss):
QuickTime 6 now has the ability to play back MPEG-2 content via the QuickTime 6 MPEG-2 Playback Component. It is available as an add-on to QuickTime 6 for $19.99 in the Apple Store online.
If you’ll re-read my post, or the portion you quoted, I said that I want to edit mpeg2 media, not play it back. Everything on that page you’ve linked indicates playback only. Quicktime can’t edit mpeg2 video!
Obviously you haven’t tried this yourself, otherwise you would have known.
So enough beating around the bush. How does it PERFORM.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/specifications.html
^^^
you are correct, Quicktime can only import mpeg-2, you would have to export them into another format such as mpeg-4.
Have you tried editing it in Quicktime Pro (or iMovie) and exporting it to iDVD? I would think iDVD could export to the Mpeg2 format, right?
I really really hope it does. Then I can switch the rest of the office to Macs.
If MacBU developed it, and if Bill didn’t touch it, it should rock.
Have you tried editing it in Quicktime Pro (or iMovie) and exporting it to iDVD? I would think iDVD could export to the Mpeg2 format, right?
Yes, that is correct, however I record video onto a PC I’ve built just for this purpose. Since a DVD uses mpeg2 as its native video format, I’ve setup my box to record the shows as mpeg2.
This works great as I simply have to “chop off” any commercials or credits I don’t want, and then I can burn the video file straight to DVD without having to re-encode it.
Mpeg-VCR, on the PC-side of things, works great for this as you don’t have to re-encode the output, as other mpeg editors would make you do (TmpGenc’s a great example of this).
While I could record my shows in an uncompressed, or more compatible format (AVI, for example), then drag them over to the Mac for editing, this is a long and space-sucking method, as uncompressed video eats up drive space fast. Not to mention the time spent dragging the huge file across the network to the Mac, re-encoding the video as mpeg for output, etc.
It just blows me away that a Mac, the media machine of champions, doesn’t offer a method to do simple edits to one of the most common video formats around. I can understand their focus on DV (uncompressed video) for initial edits directly off a camera, or some other hi-res source, but to deny users something that’s taken for granted as an easy thing on a non-mac platform, definately puts the Mac in a bad light as far as consumers, and so-called “prosumers” go (IMHO).
You have no idea how frustrating it was to buy a $2500 mac, only to find out that I’d have to revert to my PC whenever I want to do something as simple as chop off a commercial on something I’d recorded. The Mac has a lot of positive things going for it, but unless this is remedied rather soon, my Mac may be headed for ebay-land in the near future. Since my time seems to be equally spent between development and multimedia, I find myself still spending about as much time on the PC as I do my Mac.
Very disapointing. 8(
What are you using to import the video into your mac?
Any capture card you have for the mac should have an analog to DV function, as will most external widgets.
This is where I’m confuzzled by your comments about problems editing video.
Are you capturing on the PC and then exporting to the Mac? Why not keep it all PC then?
If you don’t want to capture directly on your PowerMac, but want to use it for pro-sumer level video editing, you’ll need to get a copy of Final Cut Express.
So enough beating around the bush. How does it PERFORM.
all the informat available (which is all marketing junk from microsoft) say 10%-30% better then VPC6. until a proper review comes out, we won’t really know what that means.
What are you using to import the video into your mac?
Any capture card you have for the mac should have an analog to DV function, as will most external widgets.
Capture happens on a PC downstairs in the house. I edit the video recorded by my HTPC (Home Theatre PC) on either a PC, or a Mac that’s upstairs in my office. The PC that records is simply for recording and playback of media.
Are you capturing on the PC and then exporting to the Mac? Why not keep it all PC then?
Because I’d love to be able to take advantage of some of the Mac-based software (iDVD, iMovie, etc.). Eventually, I’d like to do have the Mac become my primary machine, but things such as this make me wonder if I’m going to be able to switch to the Mac for a lot of what I use a computer for.
If you don’t want to capture directly on your PowerMac, but want to use it for pro-sumer level video editing, you’ll need to get a copy of Final Cut Express.
FCX is kind of overkill for what I want right now. I appreciate the info., but since I can achieve my needs with free, or relatively cheap software on the PC-side of things, I have to question why I would need to spend an additional $300.00 for the one piece of software that will let me do this on the Mac. Particularly after having to spend so much to get that Mac in the first place.
It just leaves me feeling that Steve Jobs and his cohorts aren’t interested in helping the average consumer, but rather they’re interested in building tools for what they want to do specifically (ie, edit DV, or Quicktime media only). Surely someone at Apple is aware of this huge gap in their current offerings. Mpeg 2 is an industry standard, and the Mac should support as well (and preferably a lot better) than their PC counterparts.
I shouldn’t have to record all video as uncompressed DV just to edit it on Mac, since in the long run, the Mac still has to convert to mpeg2 in order to burn a DVD (mpeg1 for a VCD).
What would be worthwhile trying just for the h@!! of it would be running Yellodog Linux on a Mac, running OS X under that, then Virtual PC on the Mac desktop, then running BeOS 5 Free or Phat Linux or Amiga or an Atari or Commodore emulator or some other more recent OS capable of being launched from Windows. There ought to be a prize for achieving that.
This sounds like almost as much fun as when I had 5 different OSes on my PC, selectable at boot using OS/2 Warp’s boot manager. Seven if you count the DOS and Windows 3.1 included with OS/2 Warp (I wouldn’t).
Mr. Banned wrote:
“Have you tried editing it in Quicktime Pro (or iMovie) and exporting it to iDVD? I would think iDVD could export to the Mpeg2 format, right?
Yes, that is correct, however I record video onto a PC I’ve built just for this purpose. Since a DVD uses mpeg2 as its native video format, I’ve setup my box to record the shows as mpeg2.
This works great as I simply have to “chop off” any commercials or credits I don’t want, and then I can burn the video file straight to DVD without having to re-encode it.
Mpeg-VCR, on the PC-side of things, works great for this as you don’t have to re-encode the output, as other mpeg editors would make you do (TmpGenc’s a great example of this).
While I could record my shows in an uncompressed, or more compatible format (AVI, for example), then drag them over to the Mac for editing, this is a long and space-sucking method, as uncompressed video eats up drive space fast. Not to mention the time spent dragging the huge file across the network to the Mac, re-encoding the video as mpeg for output, etc.
It just blows me away that a Mac, the media machine of champions, doesn’t offer a method to do simple edits to one of the most common video formats around. I can understand their focus on DV (uncompressed video) for initial edits directly off a camera, or some other hi-res source, but to deny users something that’s taken for granted as an easy thing on a non-mac platform, definately puts the Mac in a bad light as far as consumers, and so-called “prosumers” go (IMHO).
You have no idea how frustrating it was to buy a $2500 mac, only to find out that I’d have to revert to my PC whenever I want to do something as simple as chop off a commercial on something I’d recorded. The Mac has a lot of positive things going for it, but unless this is remedied rather soon, my Mac may be headed for ebay-land in the near future. Since my time seems to be equally spent between development and multimedia, I find myself still spending about as much time on the PC as I do my Mac.
Very disapointing. 8(”
What you can do is create multiple MPG2 cut clips from your video capture source file using MPEGinsu running in tandem with Quicktime Player. Once your commercials have been excised, then you can stitch the clips back together using MPGTx.
http://mpgtx.sourceforge.net/#Usage
There is a Mac-friendly interface for it called MPGTxWrap.
These UNIX apps ported to OS X. It would be nice to have a Pinnacle Studio 9 for Mac, though.
Saw it running on a g5 @ AppleExpo : it is still slooooooooooooooooow