Does This Kill The Mac Pro?

[Tom Wolsky]

Edit your next picture on an Air. I’m not seeing FCPX in compatible with everything, but maybe it is. Maybe needs another T-bolt port to be able to pass through?

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2011 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press

[Rafael Amador]

That’s look great.
[Tom Wolsky] “Maybe needs another T-bolt port to be able to pass through?”
Right.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Walter Soyka]

[Kevin Patrick] “Do products like Blackmagic’s Ultrastudio 3D, utilizing Thunderbolt, obsolete the need for a PCI based product? Taking away one of the unique advantages of a Mac Pro computer? “

One of them? Yes! All of them? No.

I’ve written about this at length before [link], but in summary, simple video editorial no longer requires a proper workstation. A powerful, consumer-grade computer will do. Adjacent fields, like effects, motion graphics, compositing, advanced color work, and 3D animation still benefit from bigger iron.

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]

The AJA one is a bit better (in my opinion). Dual link/3G, pass through, HDMI, up-down-cross, etc and so forth:

https://www.aja.com/products/io/io-xt.php

Also, you could get something like this and attach a kona card to your thunderbolt mac:

https://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp

I am sure with Thunderbolt 2 (or whatever it’s called) and speeds get up over 4x PCIe, then the need for PCIe will dwindle, for now, Thunderbolt is a beginning.

So yes, the MacPro might go away at some point. I hop we get another few years of refreshes out of them yet so the technology can catch up a bit.

Jeremy

[Paul Jay]

Thunderbolt Cubix.
https://www.cubixgpu.com/Blog/1/42

Full power DaVinci on an iMac or MacBook Pro.

Latest iMac performace VS MacPro on Pro Apps.
https://barefeats.com/macs11_01.html
When a Mac Mini will have the GPU power of the fastest iMac, you don’t need a MacPro.

Stil there are situations for a MacPro with 12 Cores and 64 RAM, because After Effects or 3D apps will use them all.

But the scenario’s become less and less with thunderbolt.

[Herb Sevush]

Pardon my stupidity, but with the benefits of Thunderbolt obvious even to me, why hasn’t there been more acceptance of Tbolt in the PC world? Is it a licensing question ?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Tom Wolsky]

I think I read somewhere that Apple has it exclusively on computers for one year or something like that. Part of its joint development agreement with Intel.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2011 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press

[Kevin Patrick]

I think I should have done a better job phrasing my question.

Apple states that in early 2012 they will add what they refer to as Broadcast Quality Video Monitoring. Blackmagic’s Ultrastudio 3D (and others like it) will provide iMac FCP X users with video monitoring.

So is Apple’s thinking that the current (and future) high end iMacs will have enough CPU, GPU and RAM they need? While Thunderbolt provides, video monitoring, video capture and storage.

The GPU in the current iMac comes fairly close to the best graphics card in a Mac Pro, even for Motion.

https://barefeats.com/wst10g12.html

So the question I was thinking (but did a poor job posting) is whether video monitoring Thunderbolt products (or FCP X support for) are all the Apple is waiting on to finally end of life the Mac Pro?

They might feel that works for Apple’s products, even Motion. It won’t work for people who also use products like Premiere Pro, since it needs a CUDA engine. But, that’s not an Apple product.

As a Mac Pro user, I don’t like thinking about this. But, I do wonder why the Mac Pro is still around, even though it has not been refreshed in quite a while.

[Chris Harlan]

[Kevin Patrick] “So the question I was thinking (but did a poor job posting) is whether video monitoring Thunderbolt products (or FCP X support for) are all the Apple is waiting on to finally end of life the Mac Pro?
“

Non PCI i/o has been around for a long time in the form of ExpressCards and even 1394b (ioHD), so the fact it is now available through TBolt, as well, is not really a game changer in the sense you are talking about. I also believe the importance of video i/o is low to nonexistent on Apple’s dance card. It is coming into FCP X, after all, either late or as an afterthought, depending on your POV.

Personally, I think they will do themselves some long-term harm if they off the Mac Pro. Even if they are not profitable on their own, it seems to me that Apple should partially subsidize these “trucks” in the interest of supporting their OS X/iOS eco system. But maybe long term isn’t what it is about anymore.

Of course, Apple’s long term plans are hard to fathom. Why, for instance, is it paying so incredibly much to insure that its management team stays in place until 2016? All, except Jony Ive–who you would think would be the one person to keep there.

[Martti Ekstrand]

What really kills the MacPro for me is the beef between Apple and nVidia with the result that CUDA enabled video cards are not a really feasible option. Having seen how a mid-range gaming PC just shines with Premiere Pro, running circles around my MacPro (with a ATI card) has really forced me to for the first time ever to consider buying a Windows box next time I upgrade. Sure, it’s not a ‘workstation’ class computer but that definition looks like it’s becoming more and more irrelevant.