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Apple/Microsoft Ecosystems — If Mac Pro is EOL, why stay with Apple at all?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Have you tried it?
“Have I tried what? Editing on an iMac? I’ve looked at the newest ones. What is there to try?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Also, it’s old and crusty, but the MacPro is still on sale, officially, you can still buy one direct from Apple.
Whether you want to or not is another story….
Also, and I mean this in all seriousness, why won’t an iMac work for you?
Peripherals? That’s an easy one, but anything else?
“This is meant for Jason Wood.
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[Jason Wood] “That’s a beautiful sight!”
Respectfully, I think that the CEO making the vague promise in a single direct customer email of “something really great for later next year” while Apple ignores the current generation of workstations entirely — especially in light of the controversial changeover in professional video offerings last year — is not really a beautiful sight. It’s about the bare minimum that Apple can do.
They have invited the questioning of their commitment to the market. They have designed systems for tomorrow without regard for today’s needs. They have built obsolescence into every new product they’ve designed in the last year. And they’re compounding these issues by still not knowing how to talk to their customers after decades in the business.
2013’s really great professional Mac may be wonderful, and for the sake of everyone who is waiting for one, I hope it meets all their needs — but we just won’t know for another 6 to 18 months (and even then, we may not know).
To Jeremy’s point, what in the Apple ecosystem will require a “professional” Mac anymore, anyway? Looking at raw computational power, the 2010 Mac Pro is still a notably better machine than the 2011 iMac [link], yet the iMac somehow outperforms the Mac Pro in FCPX [link]. Their own software can’t exploit a workstation. Other software (animation, modeling, color grading, audio) works well cross-platform, and by ignoring the current generation of workstations, Apple risks losing whatever performance-sensitive customers they have left. If they do leave, what needs will this professional Mac be built to fill?
I like my Macs. I liked FCS. I even like a lot of what’s in FCPX. I respect Apple for their willingness to change, their ability to adapt, and their aggressive pursuit of their view of the future, but the amount of uncertainty that they’re wrapping around their products makes it very, very hard for me to know when to recommend Apple solutions.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “I like my Macs. I liked FCS. I even like a lot of what’s in FCPX. I respect Apple for their willingness to change, their ability to adapt, and their aggressive pursuit of their view of the future, but the amount of uncertainty that they’re wrapping around their products makes it very, very hard for me to know when to recommend Apple solutions.”
My problem is, I need a compelling reason to switch an entire workflow.
If Pr CS6 was the obvious choice for us, or if Avid was, or if there was a piece of windows exclusive software that we had to have, then yeah, the pain of switching to not only an NLE/grading worflow as well as an OS workflow might be worth it, and we’d pick up some CPU/GPU cycles along with it.
But right now, today, it just didn’t seem logical, let alone practical.
The very informal tests of Pr/Resolve of the Retina MBP from Juan Salvo on Twitter today are good, very good, even when comparing to a Quadro4000 for Mac, and also using openCL, not even CUDA.
I’m not saying a laptop is the way to run a multi-seat facility, but how much power do I really need? I honestly have no idea. I don’t run stereoscopic 48p 5k.
The clear answer hasn’t smashed me in the face yet, but I am also stubborn. I’ll pay in one way or the other at some point. In the meantime, there’ll be yet another year of NLE development underway. Maybe it will be more obvious to me which way is up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7BuQFUhsRM
By the way, Windows was preliminarily unanimously down voted in the office today. 🙁
It’s going to take a lot of convincing.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “My problem is, I need a compelling reason to switch an entire workflow.”
Totally agreed — but unless you plan to remain on FCP7 indefinitely, you will need to seriously alter your workflow no matter what NLE your choose.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I’m not saying a laptop is the way to run a multi-seat facility, but how much power do I really need? I honestly have no idea.”
Why not? It’s hardly déclassé anymore to run one on iMacs. What’s the difference?
[Jeremy Garchow] “The clear answer hasn’t smashed me in the face yet, but I am also stubborn. I’ll pay in one way or the other at some point. In the meantime, there’ll be yet another year of NLE development underway. Maybe it will be more obvious to me which way is up.”
A very prudent course of action when nothing else meets your needs as well as FCP7.
It’s a harder decision to make today if both Premiere and FCPX meet your needs better than FCP7 does.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Jeremy Garchow] “By the way, Windows was preliminarily unanimously down voted in the office today. :(“
Why do you think everyone was so opposed to Windows?
I’m not going to try to change your coworkers’ minds, but I am curious what their thinking may have been.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “Totally agreed — but unless you plan to remain on FCP7 indefinitely, you will need to seriously alter your workflow no matter what NLE your choose.”
That’s what I’m saying. Not only do we have to change NLE’s we have to change OS, install all brand new hardware and get it all working.
If we change NLE and not OS, the network is still running as we know it, it just a new app or seven, which will be challenging enough. I know you preach about “once you’re in the app”, but there’s so much more that happens when things aren’t working quite right, especially with multiple machines connects to the same storage.
[Walter Soyka] “Why not? It’s hardly déclassé anymore to run one on iMacs. What’s the difference?”
The ATTO fibre to thunderbolt boxes aren’t available, and we would probably only need a replacement if a MacPro we have melts down in a base of glory. If we switch to cs6, we will need CUDA, the RMBP is still really really new, and in order to match current PCIe cards, we’d have to repurchase some functionality there. With the future being so uncertain, it seems silly to spend a bunch of money on that today. In the future, maybe once an answer is clear.
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[Walter Soyka] “I’m not going to try to change your coworkers’ minds, but I am curious what their thinking may have been.”
With the switch of an entire workflow, the switch to a new OS and all that entails is daunting.
We are busy, and simply throwing all of that in a pot and mixing it up doesn’t make for a very good stew.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Not only do we have to change NLE’s we have to change OS, install all brand new hardware and get it all working. If we change NLE and not OS, the network is still running as we know it, it just a new app or seven, which will be challenging enough.”
Sure — the bigger the facility, the more variables for integration. I know it’s especially hard for you because you are expected to maintain your systems and your SAN on top of actually editing.
My setup is simpler than yours, with a managed switch, a few VLANs, a VPN end-point, and no SAN. Integrating the 5 PCs I added to the network this year was straightforward and worked exactly the same as adding a Mac from the network perspective: configure the new MAC addresses for reserved IPs and hostnames on the switch, then plug them in.
I’ve been holding off on buying the SAN because it’s a big investment to make. When I do buy, cross-platform support will be a requirement, and I’ll have to expect to lose some productive time getting it installed and tested.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I know you preach about “once you’re in the app”, but there’s so much more that happens when things aren’t working quite right, especially with multiple machines connects to the same storage.”
How do you troubleshoot Mac issues? Part of it is familiarity, and that’s something you’d have to reacquire with Windows — but that’s not as hard as you think, and I’d argue that it’s not part of a normal, day to day user experience for most people here. Googling error messages is cross-platform.
On your SAN — it’s got cross-platform support, right? Have you tried adding a PC? Did you set it up for your Macs yourself, or did you have some help from an integrator getting it up and running?
Even staying on the same platform is no guarantee that your SAN performance will be the same: look at the FCPX/SAN issues Oliver and Andrew have raised here.
I do not want to downplay the planning and effort that would be involved in switching your facility from OS X to Windows. It’s a lot to take on in addition to the work you get paid to deliver, so I believe you when you say it’s not a good choice for you. I just don’t see Apple going out of their way to make the transition seamless for customers in general if they stick with Apple hardware and software.
[Jeremy Garchow] “With the future being so uncertain, it seems silly to spend a bunch of money on that today. In the future, maybe once an answer is clear.”
The problem I see is that the date when we collectively expect clarity keeps getting pushed back. FCP Legend was getting creaky, and FCPX was supposed to be awesome last year — and then the SuperMeet scared the community. After launch, we all had to wait to see what “old” features Apple would add and what workflows third parties would support before we could adopt FCPX in collaborative workflows. There was supposed to be a new Mac Pro at WWDC, and now we have to wait until “later next year” for “something really great.”
It’s not just Apple. MC5.5/MC6 was going to make Avid relevant again among the FCP crowd, but MC is barely even mentioned here and maybe it’s merging with Symphony anyway. Adobe showed tons of improvement in Premiere Pro CS6, but it still has a few very notable weaknesses. Smoke 2013 is in pre-release, and has a gentler learning curve, but is still somewhat idiosyncratic and runs on suboptimal hardware when compared to the Linux version.
If you can hang on for a while longer to see how things shake out, that’s a good move, but I think the last year has given us more questions than answers.
It’s hard to tell people who have already been waiting a year (or two or three) to upgrade that they should wait another year — no, really this time — to see what the post landscape will look like.
We certainly live in interesting times.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Its not EOL.
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