I guess it’s So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!

[David Cherniack]

[Craig Seeman] ” Once you put together a powerful professional PC workstation it’s not going to be that much cheaper than some Macs. Look at what a decked out HPZ400 or Z800 workstation costs. Consider why the cost what they do compared to other PCs.”

Craig, you keep tooting this horn, along with the rest of your repertoire of long play standards.

Those who follow this forum, and are reasonably knowledgeable, are aware of your biases…and your considerable rhetorical skills, not to mention a typing speed that must go well above 200 wpm. Does the lad work for a living? Despite being asked many times if Apple pays you, you haven’t replied, probably because you don’t want to dignify the question with a response, or maybe because you’d rather not admit to the nature of your relationship with the big red fruit. Either way, it doesn’t effect the essence of what you have to say, just your personal integrity, an area wise people appropriately leave to you.

Some of your analyses are thoughtful so I always skim your multitude of daily replies for interesting nuggets while bypassing the zealotry of hope you invest in FCX. While I don’t disagree with your vision…it may be or may not be true…the history of NLEs tells us it’ll be a few years, not one or even two, before FCX will be a mature NLE, leaving aside the speculation whether Apple ever intends to play in the high end.

A historical rule of thumb for the time frame of NLE development to maturity is four or five versions at 12 to 18 months per version. While Apple has the resources to throw at it to reduce the time, there’s a law of diminishing returns when more bodies are added. The problem is the complexity of functions that the NLE must provide across the wide spectrum of use that exists in the marketplace. Combine that with the second rule of thumb: that the architectural design of version 1.0 of an NLE sets a course that is difficult to change substantively, and you’re seeing today what FCX is going to resemble down the road. (In other words, those who dream of Apple providing the option of a fixed track timeline are probably dreaming an unlikely dream. BTW I know that’s not you, who invests a hope in the trackless paradigm.)

Now as to your assertions above, ” Once you put together a powerful professional PC workstation it’s not going to be that much cheaper than some Macs. Look at what a decked out HPZ400 or Z800 workstation costs. Consider why the cost what they do compared to other PCs.”

The reason why HP worksations cost more than other PCs is two-fold, they put a similar amount of effort into design as Apple does with Mac Pros but on top of that they throw in top notch technical support by phone and 24 hour on site replacement. Yes, I know, they’re exploring selling off the division. So? That just speaks to the general profitability of workstations. The real money is in low cost gadgets. And Thunderbolt, that you keep harping on about, that’s gong to future proof the Mac Pro? You don’t think that the technology won’t be on PCs? Sure, there may be a lag due to some unknown deal between Apple and Intel. Same thing that existed between Apple and Red and look what happened to that. A few years later Premiere Pro runs rings around FCP with Red material. Plus one can go to other providers to get the same performance without nearly the cost of the HP (or the Mac Pro, for that matter, without the disadvantage of the limited hardware ecosystem.)

So overall while you seed your comments with a certain amount of objective reasonableness, and admit your biases, the smoke you blow with your rhetoric should be inhaled with a thick, environmentally approved, filter of scepticism.

David,
NLE use: 21 years and counting.
Present NLE: Adobe CS5 on a rock solid Intel workstation board and rack mounted system that has biases, but no significant complaints.

[Craig Seeman]

[David Cherniack] “Does the lad work for a living? “
Far too many hours actually. It’s amazing how much time one has to type when doing compression though.
I don’t work for or have any direct business relationship or contact with Apple.

[David Cherniack] ” And Thunderbolt, that you keep harping on about, that’s gong to future proof the Mac Pro? You don’t think that the technology won’t be on PCs? “

Sony has already announced support and they’re building into a/some Sony Vaio laptops. HP has said no to Thunderbolt but who knows where that might go now if workstations are part of the spinoff sales. Actually for Thunderbolt to be well supported by third parties it has to command a profitable segment of the market (must include PCs). I do think Apple’s got a head start given their apparent relationship with Intel. As to whether that head start has an impact on Mac sales remains to be seen. I don’t think Apple is operating without a plan.

Again my comments are guided by Apple being an extremely motivated company when it comes to making money. That does not mean market share though. I do think the R&D in FCPX and hardware are not without a plan which may or may not be well executed. Apple is one of the very few companies that can pull rabbits out of hats. That doesn’t mean it happens all the time but FCPX and Thunderbolt are not “throw aways.” That’s not something that Apple does whether they succeed or fail. In fact the one thing that falls to that level is AppleTV which Apple has been upfront about calling a “hobby.”

[Gary Huff]

Some of us can actually build our own PCs and don’t experience any more downtime than a Mac with similar hardware would have if a component went out (plus, my PC doesn’t have that “issue” like the new Mac Pros where the mouse doesn’t work right if you have two monitors running on it).

I just spec’ed out my next upgrade (since I have a PC, I can just change out the guts and not the whole unit itself) and for the price of a basic Mac Pro tower, I can get Dual Xeon i7s (12 cores), Samsung SSD primary drive (the current speed leader), 16GB of DDR3 EEC RAM, and a GTX580, along with the new X-Fi Titanium HD sound card. Frankly, nothing Apple currently offers can compete, speed-wise, and I shudder to think what that would do with Premiere CS5.5 and H.264 footage (in a good way of course).

Plus, on my PC I have a Blu-ray burner, two DVD burners, and two external hard drive bays. Something else you can’t really do with a Mac Pro, but that comes in handy on a regular basis. Now, more than ever, we have choices. But I just wonder if Apple will remove that choice before too long by not even offering typical workstations anymore.

[Glen Hurd]

[Craig Seeman] “It’s quite possible that you’ll get the ROI on your purchase within 8 months though, given what you paid, and then you can move again as needed.”

Or it’s quite possible that Adobe won’t do anything so stupid as to force him to be hunting around for new solutions again. It’s not just about riding the best horse in the race. It’s also about riding a horse that doesn’t stumble when you need it most.

Go read Philip Hodgett’s piece on why, with FCP X, not only do we NOT need broadcast monitors for broadcast work, we don’t even need to calibrate our monitors anymore – and that’s after a conversation with his contacts at Apple.

Yeah, Apple’s on the right track.

[David Cherniack]

[Craig Seeman] “Again my comments are guided by Apple being an extremely motivated company when it comes to making money.”

True for all corporate entities, alas poor world.

The things is though, that software, especially extremely complicated software such as NLEs, is expensive to develop and the profit margin for Mac Pros, on which FCX may eventually run at the higher end of the market, is much smaller than for iPads. The whole tablet market is a new one and the prices and margins are high until they shrink from the pressure of cut rate competition. Apple can command a premium mark-up at present for iMacs and tablets because of its leading edge design and cultish fan base. Those things don’t last forever (That Samsung is leap frogging them by a large amount in pads and phones can be attested to by Apple’s patent suits trying to slow them down.)

So I think your optimism about the future of FCX is not necessarily justified by the pursuit of profits argument, unless its at the lower end of the market.

David
AllinOneFilms.com

[Darren Kelly]

“It might have been a good idea to wait and see what Apple has coming ”

I considered that we waited long enough for Apple to show it’s plans. By my count it was almost 18 months between 6 and the minor 7. Giving them more time will not make a difference.

DBK

[Craig Seeman]

[David Cherniack] “So I think your optimism about the future of FCX is not necessarily justified by the pursuit of profits argument, unless its at the lower end of the market.”

I’ve posted elsewhere my estimation on where they’re headed with MacPro (or what will replace it) and I suspect that will give the wider sales and possibly bigger margins. It will have a lower point of entry, my guess.

[David Cherniack]

[Craig Seeman] ” It will have a lower point of entry, my guess”

But not necessarily higher profit margins. The desktop market is that much more competitive, after all.

David
AllinOneFilms.com

[Darren Kelly]

This what I bought BTW.

HP Pavilion Elite AMD Phenom II Six Core 1045T Computer (HPE-500F): $399.00
AMD 6 Core@ 2.7, 8GB of RAM, 1.5TB hard drive(7200rpm) Windows 7 64

I upgraded the PowerSupply to a 700Wat: $58.00

Changed the Video card to a GTX 570: $339.00

Added 2 X 2TB hard drives on sale(7200rpm, 32 GB Buffer: $180.00

Total: $976.00

And for you boys down south, that;’s in Canadian Dollars! Find a Mac with this power for anywhere close to combination. Technically, it will be more than fine, more than powerful. I might downgrade the video card to save $200, as I am learning that CS 5.5 only uses a max of 96 CUDA cores.

I would have upgraded my Apple CS4 production bundle anyway, so it’s not a factor.

I edited going all the way back to 1/2 reel to reel tape(70’s). My first NLE was a Fast Video Machine – 1994. When I left the PC previously for Macdom, I lost multiple channels in real-time. I waited 12 years for Apple to see the light. This abomination called FCPX – that did it for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Macs, iPad, iPhone, and the virus freeness of the Mac. It will remain on my desk for things including the internet, mail, etc.

I’m not saying jump ship to anyone. I’m just saying for me, The idea of 8-9 streams, with FX and transitions in Real-Time suggested I should try it. If I hate it, I still have my FCP7 set up and a decent i7 iMac.

Interesting read though

Thanks for the comments

DBK

[Tim Wilson]

[Dominic Deacon] “Since the release of FCPX I’ve played with a bunch of the others and found that they’re not just competitive with Final Cut 7 but they make it look archaic in many ways. That video is a great example of the advantages on some of the other platforms. On top of which they are just so much faster.”

I could have quoted any number of folks above for a similar reply.

I’ve owned Macs since February of 1984, but when I was working for a developer who was using only Macs but starting to move into GPU acceleration, we were all blown away by the performance of a 5-year old PC that had been gathering dust in the corner. It was anywhere from 4 to 10 times faster than a top-of-the-line Mac.

Not for processing with the CPU of course. A new Mac beat a 5-year old PC running away. But as processing power increasingly moves to the graphics card, Mac users like me and many of you will find ourselves falling further and further behind. Apple has never yet been interested in supporting the very fastest graphics cards on the market.

Anyone taking bets on whether the next Macs will be the first in history to commit to supporting the fastest graphics cards on the market?

I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro, but well aware of what HP and others are doing with balls out GPU speed. Hey, and have you seen those HP laptops with the DreamColor monitors built in?

Apologies for making similar observations on other threads, but I think that this is the biggest sea change in our industry’s history. Desktop video started on Macs, and Macs will always be part of it, but this is the first time that video production pros — traditionally some Mac’s hardest-core fans — are looking at moving to PCs for exactly the same reasons they have used Macs: heavy-duty, bang for buck, committed to pros.

(Disclosure I shouldn’t need to make, but will anyway: yes, HP is a COW advertiser. Apple has been too…although it has been years since they’ve advertised in any pro-oriented publications or sites. I’m speaking strictly here as a money=mouth kinda guy, on my own behalf, and not for the COW.)