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2013 Franken Mac Pro Tube – FCPX editor upgrades 2013 Mac Pro
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[Tom Sefton] “There aren’t any 8K monitors available for playback at present, just a couple of models announced.”
That is what I thought.
[Tom Sefton] “Much of our work goes to large projection screens for install in visitor centres/museums where high resolution displays are achieved via edge blended projection or video walls.”
Matrox makes good graphics cards for video walls.
https://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/
[Tom Sefton] “We’ve worked extensively in 4K and 6K where the CPU and GPU of the new Mac Pro is worked extremely hard, but performs incredibly well – offering realtime encoding from 4K Dragon to ProRes footage, and butter smooth playback. The new 8K Helium camera is stunning but obviously taxes your desktop machine even more for editing and post – hence my interest in what a PC can do with similar budget to a maxed out new Mac Pro with an external RAID.”
On the PC side you can opt for Dual 8 core Xeons and Dual Titan graphics cards. Keep in mind AMD is going to be releasing a 16 core 32 thread CPU soon. AMD will also release the Vega graphics cards soon. I doubt I will get a new PC myself because I am not editing feature films. I wish I had an excuse to get a new PC but I don’t. My little Haswell CPU works OK for my needs just like a lot of FCPX user can edit just fine using an iMac. For those that must edit 8K at full resolution will AMD be a better option than Intel? Only time will tell.
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[Tom Sefton] “I’ve also noticed vast performance differences from CC to FCPX with raw media on more recent cameras from Red.”
The performance differences are not limited to Redcode Raw. Editing 4k H264 multicam on my 2015 iMac 27, FCPX is more responsive at “Better Quality” than Premiere CC 2017 is at 1/8 resolution. When fast forwarding on a two-camera 4k H264 timeline, Premiere’s multicam monitor is more like a slide show — it updates about every five seconds. Likewise, JKL keyboard lag is much worse on Premiere. This is on the same hardware and using the same media files.
Of course you can compensate for these performance issues in Premiere by building a fast custom machine, but you can do the same thing for FCPX if needed. Here is an easy-to-build $998 machine that’s faster than a 6-core nMP with dual D700 GPUs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ZJWPi_CBc
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[Tom Sefton] “Yes I can upload some shorter clips for you.
I’ve done plenty of my own testing with Red One media – I’ve also noticed vast performance differences from CC to FCPX with raw media on more recent cameras from Red.”
I will try to play the files.
I will admit Premiere Pro 2017 did take a hit in real-time performance. Will it get fixed soon? Who knows? Premiere Pro 2017 is buggy because Adobe got rid of the beta testers. Adobe used to be a good company but not anymore. They are mediocre at best these days.
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Yes thanks for the link – my first edit suites were Matrox powered.
Most of the video walls we need are either interactive or require some form of show control for which Dataton Watchout is usually perfect for us.
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
[andy patterson] “I will admit Premiere Pro 2017 did take a hit in real-time performance. Will it get fixed soon? Who knows? Premiere Pro 2017 is buggy because Adobe got rid of the beta testers. Adobe used to be a good company but not anymore. They are mediocre at best these days.”
Some say that Premiere CC has developed stability and performance issues, but I have also encountered plenty of these on FCPX. 10.3.1 introduced a significant performance regression (so-called “drag lag” problem) on longer timelines and even shorter timelines with many connected clips. It is supposedly fixed in 10.3.2 but it still seems a bit laggy to me. There are also an uncomfortable number of crash reports on 10.3.x, and I spent a week isolating one for Apple which involves an immediate reproducible crash on import.
Despite my previous post about FCPX being faster than Premiere on 4k H264 multicam, I just tested a 2 hr 2-camera 4k timeline on FCPX and it is unusably slow without proxy — on a top-spec 2015 iMac 27 with all media on a 4 x 2TB Thunderbolt 2 SSD RAID-0 array. Now that Adobe finally added proxy support to Premiere it is pretty fast on H264 4k. If you have to use proxy for 4k H264 on both Premiere and FCPX, you could argue what’s the actual performance difference?
Maintaining software quality in a complex product is like pushing a huge boulder up a hill. A moment’s inattention and it gets out of control.
Years ago of the CEO of FoxBase would walk among his developers with a stopwatch on a lanyard around his neck and demand impromptu timed performance tests of their code. I suppose that is not done anymore.
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[Joe Marler] “Some say that Premiere CC has developed stability and performance issues, but I have also encountered plenty of these on FCPX. 10.3.1 introduced a significant performance regression (so-called “drag lag” problem) on longer timelines and even shorter timelines with many connected clips. It is supposedly fixed in 10.3.2 but it still seems a bit laggy to me. There are also an uncomfortable number of crash reports on 10.3.x, and I spent a week isolating one for Apple which involves an immediate reproducible crash on import.”
Interesting.
[Joe Marler] “Despite my previous post about FCPX being faster than Premiere on 4k H264 multicam, I just tested a 2 hr 2-camera 4k timeline on FCPX and it is unusably slow without proxy — on a top-spec 2015 iMac 27 with all media on a 4 x 2TB Thunderbolt 2 SSD RAID-0 array. Now that Adobe finally added proxy support to Premiere it is pretty fast on H264 4k. If you have to use proxy for 4k H264 on both Premiere and FCPX, you could argue what’s the actual performance difference?”
On my system I wouldn’t use proxy but one a laptop it might be wise. I am willing to state FCPX might get better performance on a laptop than Premiere Pro but others have state on a desktop it is more equal. With the PC we just have more hardware options.
[Joe Marler] “Maintaining software quality in a complex product is like pushing a huge boulder up a hill. A moment’s inattention and it gets out of control.”
Perhaps you are correct.
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In regards to the $8K Mac vs $800 PC, I am sorry but the day I start working on PCs that cheap I might as well get out of this business.
I’ve had numerous PC workstations from Dells, BOXX, SGI (yes SGI!), HP, Compaq, Intergraph (uh oh I’m dating myself) and even the cMP (Mac Pro legacy in BootCamp).Since 1994, the practice of going cheap with PC workstations went as far as trying to keep that one printer alive for longer than 2 years 😛
Now, of course this was during my heavy CGI days with Maya, Softimage, 3DSMAX and etc….
I use both one being a loaded nMP.
I will still use my trusty BOXX for 3D work, but my nMP will always handle the Adobe updates as oppose to any Windows options.
For some reason everytime Adobe does an update, the PCs tend to throw up for a few weeks before finally settling in.
Just my opinion of course.
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In regards to the $8K Mac vs $800 PC, I am sorry but the day I start working on PCs that cheap I might as well get out of this business.
Couldn’t have put it better. Cheaper isn’t always a good thing.
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
[Tom Sefton] “In regards to the $8K Mac vs $800 PC, I am sorry but the day I start working on PCs that cheap I might as well get out of this business.
Couldn’t have put it better. Cheaper isn’t always a good thing.”
So if the 2013 Mac Pro had the option to have a Kabylake 4.2 GHZ Quad Core CPU and a GTX 1070 for $980.00 you would not use it? I think you would use. In fact you would probably buy it faster then you can say FCPX. What if I built a system with those parts for $980.00? I think your are both upset that you cannot get an ass kicking editing system for under $1,000.00 from Apple so you mock those who can. By not using the Xeon CPUs and ECC RAM you can save money. Also using generic ATX parts is inexpensive.
For the record I have an OZC 750 Watt modular power supply that usually sells for $120.00. I bought back it in 2014 on Black Friday for $70.00. The next week it was back up to $120.00. See my point about ATX parts boys? Now you are both wiser.
I feel sorry for foolish people who would rather pay $120.00 for the exact same part that could have been bought for $70.00. Paying more money does not equate to a better product.
If Apple had an Easter Sale blow out and sold the $2,999.00 Mac Pro for $999.99 I bet you would both buy one : )
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Who is mocking? I don’t like buying cheap hardware – mostly because I’m not technically minded to spend my time either building or fixing it and would sooner spend my time doing my job. I’ve trusted Apple with my business for the last 7 years and so far it’s gone pretty well.
You’ve built a PC that can edit for a smaller investment. Good for you – nobody is knocking that. I asked repeatedly about performance benchmarks and from what I can gather, to get similar performance to the Mac Pro for raw playback and export with tech support included, it isn’t as simple as using a cheaper model because so far you have only said you can just about play 4K red one which is an obsolete format. Yes, someone out there can build a hackintosh system that will do it and will far exceed this – like Maxx does, only with thunderbolt 2 and 3 and Mac OS support, but that isn’t me and there isn’t a shop I can buy it from.
Paying more money does not equate to a better product? How so? You’re mixing that up with saving money by having the expertise and patience to DIY. More expensive cameras and lenses are always a better product – otherwise the films you watch in the cinema or on Netflix would be shot with a £300 DIY camera. Plus with added investment comes potential revenue streams in hires which you asked me to disregard.
Let’s just agree to disagree – I think that external peripherals have given great opportunities and performance boosts, along with the new Mac Pro being a great machine – it just needs an update to be able to produce the sort of projects that will be coming along in the next few years – like high resolution VR for instance, and if that means some more connectivity then fantastic. If you want to build your edit suite on your own, have the expertise to shop for parts and service them, great job – I don’t. It doesn’t make us any different – both editors. FCPX leverages performance from a screenplay system in a pretty fantastic way – more grunt for the machine and the next few years will likely be impressive.
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk
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