Happy with 6.0, not so happy with the Mac Version

[David Mcgavran]

Hi Jim,

Again this are tricky questions to answer. As far as parity between Mac and Windows the main difference in CS6 is that Mac has OpenCL options for AMD users and Windows doesn’t. There are a few older bits that are windows only but we haven’t had requests for that on the mac. As far as code in general about 80% of the code is identical on mac and windows. In the past 6 releases or so we have spent much more effort on the mac. Examples Port Classic to Carbon, CFM to Mach, Carbon to Cocoa, PPC to Intel and now we are starting to look at porting to a brand new tool set that Apple is providing and to sandboxing. If you look at just the Mercury code it is almost identical on Mac and Windows so the question becomes why is windows faster (or is it?)? Again no straight easy answer here. Apple chooses to move its platform ahead faster leaving behind legacy support. This is great for users but makes it difficult for programmers. One of the features of the mac that is great for users is the windowing model. You almost never get flashes or artifacting and it is able to use the GPU for normal drawing operations. This is great and I love it as a user. However, as a programmer it puts us one step farther away from the raw performance of the machine. Also on windows we can work directly with our card manufacturers and they can put performance fixes directly into the driver. On the mac it is a different process to get fixes. With all that said I will promise you that we do everything in our power to use all the power of the machines our customers buy. So for CS6 we decided to focus on adding OpenCL support for mac users as that is the supported GPU tech there. This is our first time doing OpenCL and we are working closely with our partners to make it faster and performant. We will then look to expanding which cards we support. At any rate I look forward to you trying out the mac version of CS6 and continuing to give us feedback.

Cheers

Dave

[Jim Wiseman]

Tom,
I can live with different views, have all my life. Try installing over 100 NLE’s as a business for 7 years. You will run into plenty of different views from customers who were paying between 50 and 100k for Avids and Media 100’s. You had to listen to them. They deserved it. And every system worked perfectly just as it was designed to. I would just like to see better performance and more attention to Mac configurations of Premiere Pro. I think we deserve it. The current FCP Mac market is the prize. Sounds like from the Manager of Engineering at Adobe below that they are doing it. They even do their programming for PP on Macs. All this is very encouraging. Please, just no more rants about Macs and Apple. I’ll try to keep it civil myself.

It is absolutely nothing personal. I apologize if it was taken that way.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1, Premiere Pro 5.0 and 5.5, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe

[Jim Wiseman]

David,
Thanks very much for your very detailed reply. I understand your situation. The depth of your explanation really indicates your dedication to solving all of these issues. It is so much better to get a detailed explanation from someone at the top of the chain rather than “it is in the works”. Rare in this industry. Also glad to know you appreciate some of the differences in the Mac that most Mac users do, whether they consciously realize it or not.

Thanks very much for taking so much of your valuable time to explain these systems and software. And congratulations on CS6, it looks like a very large step forward. Anxious to try it on my new 17″ Macbook Pro. Keep up the good work!

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1, Premiere Pro 5.0 and 5.5, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe

[Andy Edwards]

Jim,

As someone who has been living the transition pain of CS5.5 on a mac for 2 months, I can tell you that I hope CS6 solves a ton of issues that are on the Mac. The marketing hype at NAB is one thing, the actual implementation in a 24 hour TV Network is another. We are doing our part by upgrading machines to newer model macs, making sure all GFX cards have updated drivers, all OS installations are up to date…. but still the playback on CS5.5 with Kona cards is horrible. AJA has admitted their drivers have issues, so we are trying to find work arounds till CS6 ships. I hear the Adobe team has put a large effort this year into re-tooingl their 3rd party interface with the software. I sure hope this will solve the issues I am seeing in multiple edit bays. Nothing like running into so many issues that we have to fall back to FCP 6 just to get projects to air on time.

Here is to hoping next Monday will be the shipping day and we can get a copy of CS6 to put through immediate testing. Going through such a large transition to CS5.5 has not been a pleasant experience after being in the FCP world for so long. Yes, FCP has had its issues as well, but we moved to CS5.5 believing it would be a simpler transition. I have high hopes for CS6, but for now I’ll just have to wait and see what the real world implementation holds.

Andy Edwards

[Chris Tompkins]

Well put Andy!

I think you speak for many in this regard.

Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC

[Tom Daigon]

Deal. 😀

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.7.3
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3

[Wil Renczes]

I don’t know if AJA testers are free to talk yet about the state of the CS6 drivers as it’s still in beta, but to give you an idea, at the AJA booth, they were demonstrating 4K realtime (sic) output on one of their stations.

[Tom Daigon]

Andy and Chris, I can tell you that my experience using CS6 with Adobe Transmit & Kona 3 is a totally different experience then Premiere 5.5. Wil can explain the technical stuff Im sure, but as a user its smooth, no dropouts and uses just a regular Adobe sequence now. Thus we benefit from CUDA acceleration. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Truthfully, I was laughing for joy when I tried it out.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.7.3
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3

[David Mcgavran]

Keep in touch and let us know how CS6 with the AJA drivers works for you. We were aware we needed to address the 3rd party io workflow and we are confident we have.

Cheers

Dave

[Andy Edwards]

Dave,

Thanks for chiming in. Monday can’t come soon enough 🙂

I was wondering if you can put me in touch with someone using PPRO in an Isilon NAS environment. Lets just say that is another piece of the headache with the 30 seat deployment. I know Isilon had someone from Adobe demonstrating PPRO work flow, but I did not get to the show to meet up with the Isilon folks. Also if you have any best practices white papers dealing with PPRO and NAS environments would be appreciated.

Andy Edwards