I can do all my encoding in Windows XP and I've never had any trouble multitasking, especially with dual core processors. ;)

BTW any "encoder" worth his salt is working in Windows or has a Windows box as a frame server. Why? Because Avisynth is the one program you have to be running if you want to use the popular filters.

Also encoding video really isn't as processor intensive as most people think. Most of the processing will be spent on editing the video in a lot of cases. Some projects I work on are of horrible quality and require a lot of editing to obtain a decent end result. I've written some scripts (a collection of filters for editing video) that run at less than 1fps.

Imagine processing an episode that's 30 minutes long (24fps) at 0.25fps....takes a while..;)

Mac/Pc who cares the end result is still the same.Does it really matter if one machine can encode 1sec faster than the other.They both have their uses and their followers so if u prefer one over the other then fine,thats your choice.
Ive never had a mac - i went for PC since upgrading from Amiga 1200 and ive never looked back.Im not saying the mac cant do anything for me but im quite happy with my PC and all the problems it gives me.
Reckon windows rules over Mac though though its Userbase as PCs are everywhere and i dont know one person who owns a mac yet i know loads who own pcs.

Windows ;) Expecially with everything working with it and everyone basing around it as macs havn't been out as long as windows. Like companys use windows and schools.
Macs is like linux i guess, its a customized version of windows.

You should review your computer history. The first Macintosh shipped in 1984. At that time the IBM-PC and its clones where still using DOS and a command line interface. While Microsoft started working on Windows in 1981, they didn't actually ship Windows 1.0 until 1985. Microsoft Windows did not become popular or even viable until 1992 with release of Windows 3.1. It didn't really become mainstream until 1995 with the release of Windows 95.

By this time, the Macintosh OS was on version 7 or System 7 as it was popularly called. System 9 would later be released, though the architecture of the product had reached its end of life and needed to be redone. To do this, Apple built on top of the open source components behind the NeXT operating system. NeXT was a failed computer company pushing the limits in the 90s. NeXT was managed by Steve Jobs after he was ousted by Apple for not supporting licensing its hardware to clone makers. After the cloning project failed, Steve Jobs was asked to come back to correct the company's course. At that time they bought the iPod from its original developer, built Mac OSX (10) and redesigned the box that Macs come in. OSX and NeXT before it were built around the BSD operating system that has been around since the late 1960s.

Apple is actually one of the founders in the personal computer industry. They released one of the first desktop computers, the Apple I. Gained popularity with the Apple II. Floundered with the Lisa. Hit it big with the Macintosh. Dell, Gateway, HP and the others wouldn't be here if Apple hadn't forced IBM to compete and open its architecture allowing the use of off the shelf parts.

8 PC, 3 Laptops - All windows of some flavor or another.

I don't use fruit products.

Windows, Mac, and Linux

Why limit yourself?

And just to add to what Wayne posted Bill Gates and Paul Allen partnered with Jobs and are partly responsible for the OS on the first Apple computer.

They parted ways shortly before Lisa was released. Just before the unveiling of Lisa, Allen and Gates released a prototype of Windows 1. It stole all Jobs thunder and is partly responsible for the failure of Lisa. If Jobs had listened to Gates and incorporated his ideas we all might be using Apple computers today.