Jason,

Our numbers and experiences do not align. This is why the world goes round. I too have run the numbers long before I start buying mac equipment I did the price comparision. What I found that when you truly try to match the specs of the mac hardware by any known vendor the costs are very similar. I can tell you when you go looking for a mac pro (with 8 cores) equivalent it is no cheaper.

I am not talking about the 300 dollar laptop at walmart.

Since you pulled the I am in the business card I have been a professional developer longer than you listed in your previous post. I can tell you windows 7 is a dream compared to earlier versions of windows but it is no way as stable and reliable as my Macs. I have purchased many video editing and used the free stuff on windows 7, Sorry they do no hold candle to the mac versions.

If you are happy with Windows great, I am too. Up until just a few months ago, I was a full time windows developer. When I come home and want, email, browse the web, basic tools, I am going to pick a mac over windows. Just simply more stable. A simple test, on you laptop, open the list, close the lid, repeat about 10 times. Does windows come back, for me on my dell the answer was a resounding NO. My macs work every time.

But lets remember Mac started on desktop publishing and video editing. It is still ahead in this area, which does not make sense to.

Not going to bore the rest of the folks here with this anymore. We can just agree to disagree, as I'm sure no one wants to hear any more about support volume and return rates on various systems. I was indeed assuming top-end hardware for both platforms, as there's no point in discussing reliability of the low-end stuff on either due to what it takes to get to those price points. To address your test, both of the Windows laptops (one with Win8 and one with Win8.1) and the Mac laptop here all passed your test, even when I extended it out to 20 cycles. I got the Mac and one of the Windows laptops to have to think about it for about 20 extra seconds at the end by varying the time I left them open before closing again, but the Asus Zenbook Prime Touch with Win8.1 never even slowed down. That Asus doesn't really count, though, as it's my daily use laptop and I have it tuned for speed/reliability since I'm in and out of meetings all the time. The amount of effort I put into making sure it's reliably isn't practical on the scale of systems across a large business. With that amount of work, nearly any system would be dead reliable.

To get back to the original topic, what cameras have you guys been using to get good quality video from the firing line of targets while they're being shot? Bonus points for recommendations that can mount to a spotting scope. The only recommendations that I've gotten from the serious photographers start at $1500, and I don't want good quality video that badly.

Jason, I too am done now but have to say. You are the only one I have every heard of who can report windows as being able to go to sleep and wake up repeatedly. I have worked with 100s of developers and they all have my experience it does not work. <humor>You should sell what you are doing to make this work because there is a market for it</humor>

I do sell what I do. It's what paid for college and everything since. Apple, Dell, HP and Microsoft have all made generous contributions to my rifle collection over the years...