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I think the time of the large tower are coming to an end – and the bloated software suits with it :-)
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html
Why on earth would you build a large, limited number of slots tower when you can do all the expansion via Thunderbolt now?
Might not be fully bullet proof now but I think this is the future of where at least Apple will be heading (no proof, just speculation!)
This also fits into the trend I think Apple is following and making less software that can do all, but more smaller packages which covers the majority of users and leave the specialised stuff for 3rd party.
Just an observation and open for discussion 🙂
Happy editing
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82 Replies
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[Carsten Orlt] “Why on earth would you build a large, limited number of slots tower when you can do all the expansion via Thunderbolt now?”
Because the towers have slots that are 16 lane speed. Thunderbolt is only 4 lane…so very slow in comparison. Plus top out with a two slot chassis, no? MacPro’s have 4…one with a graphics card. Many apps want a nice BEEFY card (Motion, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Resolve to name a few) that might take up two lanes. Or multiple cards. And then you also need your capture card, and expansion for storage or Red Rocket.
So…you are very limited with this option. Having a PC with more than 4 slots (a lot have 8) is a better option anyway.
[Carsten Orlt] “Might not be fully bullet proof now but I think this is the future of where at least Apple will be heading (no proof, just speculation!)”
Correct. Apple is proving over and over that they are going to make consumer level stuff and rely on third parties to make it pro. Witness all the add ons you need to make FCX work at a pro level. Notice the expansion chassis needed now to add pro level hardware…notice that Apple is pushing Minis, iMacs and laptops with recent upgrades, but the towers are 2 years (now 2.5) behind.
[Carsten Orlt] ”
This also fits into the trend I think Apple is following and making less software that can do all, but more smaller packages which covers the majority of users and leave the specialised stuff for 3rd party.”Yup…meaning they can’t be bothered with doing things many pros need. They only want to make stuff that most people (non-pros) use, and let other people work on the other things.
Every day I use Avid or Premiere, and note a small thing it can’t do, that FCP Legacy, a 3 year old app does, I shake my head. Every day I think about FCX and what it can’t do, and where it is now…ugh. I know it’s not for me. But they took all of this great stuff that FCP 7 had and just tossed it. And a lot of it is better than what current NLE’s offer. And Apple cast it aside.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Shane Ross] “Every day I use Avid or Premiere, and note a small thing it can’t do, that FCP Legacy, a 3 year old app does, I shake my head.”
I would be interested if you could provide examples to what you mean specifically. Not because I doubt you but because I’m curious!
[Shane Ross] “Because the towers have slots that are 16 lane speed”
I might be wrong but the Sonnet chassis has 16x. Do you mean thunderbolt can’t transport more than 4x?
Happy ediying
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[Carsten Orlt] “Why on earth would you build a large, limited number of slots tower when you can do all the expansion via Thunderbolt now?”
A small, inexpensive system with Thunderbolt expansion is a great choice for editorial for a lot of users.
Some users (not all, not most) have high-bandwidth expansion needs that may be beyond Thunderbolt’s limitations (like GPUs or higher-speed RAIDs).
Some users (not all, maybe not most, but probably still a good deal) can really benefit from the additional CPUs and RAM that you can stuff in a big tower but cannot throw on an expansion bus. I’ll quote myself [link]:
[Walter Soyka] “A 2012 Mac Pro with 12 cores and 24 GB of RAM renders Brian Maffitt’s Total Benchmark AE in 45 seconds. A 2011 iMac quad-i7 3.4 with 16 GB of RAM takes 101 seconds. (A 16-core Xeon E5 PC workstation with 32 GB of RAM like the ProMax ONE does it in 24 — and that’s why a modern Mac Pro would be important for creative pros on the Mac platform!) https://barefeats.com/sandy01.html https://barefeats.com/macs11_01.html“
A sizzle core beast workstation rendering something 4 times faster than an AIO iMac gives the artist using it more opportunity to iterate or refine his or her work. Computer performance has a real impact on creative output.
As with so many things we discuss on this forum, I think it’s all about picking the right tool for the job, and understanding that different jobs may call for different tools.
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 -
[Carsten Orlt] “I would be interested if you could provide examples to what you mean specifically. Not because I doubt you but because I’m curious!”
The ability to mix audio levels with keyboard commands by simply highlighting the clips I want and…using the keyboard. With Avid, I have to make keyframes first, even if I want to lower the overall level. Then, I need to lasso ONLY those keyframes. Adobe? Don’t get me started at how tedious audio mixing is there. ONE clip at a time, not really easy to do.
The fact that FCP can output 23.98 as 59.94 via any hardware option (AJA, Decklink, Matrox)…the PLAYBACK option sets up the signal feed you are sending the card. Avid rigidly sets it to the project frame rate…a pain for people who’s TVs or monitor’s can’t do 23.98.
Copy and paste clip properties.
The ability to deactivate clips…keep them on the timeline but make them invisible. Or silent.
Output a split track digital master (Avid can do this…Adobe? NOPE!!)
Log and Transfer… You can mark IN and OUT points on the footage you want…you don’t need to ingest the full clip. Avid have this? No…well, yes, if you go through like 15 steps and transcode. Adobe…yes, if you use Prelude. But then in FCP if you lose a drive, or delete the clips and want to BATCH CAPTURE (import/transcode) again, you can! Adobe? NOPE! Avid…sure.
The media management in FCP…I can put the clips where I want, organize them on the Finder Level, THEN import them into FCP. Talking about captured or imported clips. I might have a capture project where I capture it all, then organize…then import. I can keep my footage organized by project type. AVID? NOPE!!! All media goes into one folder. You have no clue what clip is with what project. You can’t import just those clips, you have to use the Media Tool…organize inside the project only. But then again Avid has strengths with this…but still, in FCP it was so easy. Adobe? Only if you use Prelude and transcode. Go native and things might get complicated. Oh, and Adobe’s media management SUCKS!! Reconnecting clips is more complex than FCP…and that isn’t rock solid.
The sheer about of plugins and effects I have. In Avid, I’m severely lacking. Adobe is getting better, thank GOD FX Factory works there too. Still, pickin’s are slim.
Can capture and output to tape via a hardware card. DIRECTLY into the NLE. FCX…NO! Adobe…not really. Full of issues, so people capture with FCP, or the IO capture tool. Output with FCP or the IO Tool…same with FCX. Avid…yeah, that works WELL. Even with third party. It’s solid.
The mixer works on a CLIP level. The mixer in Adobe? TRACK LEVEL. Royal pain. Never seen anything do that, and I don’t get why it functions like that. I’ve been told why, but still, it’s inane that you cannot adjust clips at this level, and gang audio to do multiples in one swoop.
Ability to modify timecode of clips, and it change it on the QT file.
I could go on, but I don’t know the rest at the moment. And it is late, and I’m getting off a 12 hour 6th day.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
I understand all this, but if you think that you would build a very powerful central CPU unit that is small and inexpensive and can expand by Thunderbolt I think you have the same.
Basically I envision an Macmini on steroids and stackable to build as many CPU units as one wants and than you expand by external Thunderbolt connected expansions. Total scale ability.
Of course if Thunderbolt can’t throughput at PCIe speed you have a bottleneck, but I think this will be changing.
I see a system of dedicated CPU, GPU and IO units coming that you can stack together like Lego 🙂Don’t know if it is technical possible but I think it would be cool. If a new faster CPU comes out, you just switch the CPU unit and all the rest works as before. Would be way better than having to replace everything every time.
Happy editing.
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I can hear your pain 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to answer.
Happy editing.
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[Carsten Orlt] ”
I might be wrong but the Sonnet chassis has 16x. Do you mean thunderbolt can’t transport more than 4x?”That’s it. Thunderbolt is as 4x right now.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
I know I can always trust Shane and some others to let Adobe have it with both barrels. Ouch!
In all seriousness and Shane will hopefully agree, Adobe is aware of the issues and listening to the customers and most importantly working on correcting many of the common complaints on things like Premiere Pro.
To be fair, Premiere Pro gets these complaints now because we’re offering an alternative that is acceptable in many cases (but not all) to FCP7 users. It should be any software vendors purpose to delight their customer. We’re doing that with many but we see more that can be done to please you.
We are aware of all of the things mentioned in this thread and we are hard at work… 😉
Finally, I will mention some of the things that Premiere Pro does really well because it is these things that makes people want all of the other things. Apologies if I sound a bit ‘market-y’ here:
– Best overall real-time performance
– best use of GPU
– best ability to mix and match media on the same timeline
– best overall integrated workflow with things like Photoshop, After Effects, Adobe Media Encoder, etc.
– best playback engine (does’t stop playing and lets you adjust effects while playing)
– adjustment layers
– cross platform compatibility
– solid (perhaps the best) overall support of new cameras and formatsIn the end, I’ve always stated that every NLE has it’s pros and cons. To say otherwise is to betray your bias. Use what you want and be sure to obey this one rule – have fun!
Adobe’s promise to you – keep working hard to make you happy and earn your business.
Dennis – Adobe guy
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Carsten Orit: Don’t know if it is technical possible but I think it would be cool. If a new faster CPU comes out, you just switch the CPU unit and all the rest works as before. Would be way better than having to replace everything every time.
As great as that sounds, it doesn’t sound like Apple to me. Everything they make is based on planned obsolescence. And that rate is accelerating. The business is built on volume and Apple is fantastic on monetizing every piece of it in their ecosystem. A laser focus on what most people do most of the time. Hardware, OS, purchasing, content (application or whatever). The latest OS update notification only seems to notify for applications available via the App Store, if not, the application now needs to update you whereas before it didn’t and was part of the OS notification. Just little things that indicate a play with us or you’re not really part of the Apple experience (all for a 30% cut). iOS is an even tighter ecosystem where Apple can also judge what goes in – some for good reason, others not.
All in the name of protecting the user experience… what was that 1984 commercial again?
I love my Macs, I love my PC’s, but most of all I love the work I do and try to keep OS out of it, but it is a very interesting thing to watch Apple become the new Sony as an entertainment company from content to how it’s consumed.
Michael
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Didn’t avid add the FCP style mixing feature in the latest update? Manipulation from the keyboard?
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