iMac Pro thoughts

[Shane Ross]

Well, there is a BIG market for MacPros in my world….broadcast TV. But as it has been pointed out over and over and over again, we are a very small minority of all the video production that happens out there. Still, in Hollywood and NY and Atlanta and other broadcast markets across the globe, they could sell tens of thousands if not a couple hundred thousand units. Not just Avid people use them…premiere people do too, as well as more than a few FCX users. Will it be as profitable as the ipad or iPhone…no, of course not. But still, there is a market for them. If we don’t see them, you’ll see a huge migration to HP or Dell…not a lot of iMacs as edit stations aside from story producers….

Shane
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[Greg Janza]

[Shane Ross] “Still, in Hollywood and NY and Atlanta and other broadcast markets across the globe, they could sell tens of thousands if not a couple hundred thousand units. Not just Avid people use them…premiere people do too, as well as more than a few FCX users.”

That is definitely true but the difference in 2018 is that there no longer is a differentiating factor that makes a mac purchase any better than any other computer. Avid and Premiere work just fine on the PC side and some would argue that they work even better.

I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles

[Oliver Peters]

[Shane Ross] “Well, there is a BIG market for MacPros in my world….broadcast TV.”

I kinda have to ask why? Because at least right now, the iMac Pros and even many 5K iMacs deliver better performance.

[Shane Ross] “Not just Avid people use them…premiere people do too, as well as more than a few FCX users.”

Avid – I don’t see, since the bulk of Avid work for film and TV is in the proxy world and MC really doesn’t make much use of the GPUs. Any Mac would do. At least with Premiere and FCPX, you have a lot more people working in original, native media, where the machine performance is critical.

I realize that currently, Mac Pros (2013 and towers) are all over the place. But, will that continue? My own theory is that if Apple releases a new Mac Pro on the same schedule as the iMac Pro, then machines will be in the wild by January 2019. If they do what they did with the 2013 machines, then expect to see that machine in a similar variation for about 5 years. Given the development pace of computers, my own guess is that such a machine would be the last of its kind produced by Apple.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[James Sullivan]

I am still waiting to see the next tower. I am one of the very stuborn holdouts who is hoping to leapfrog all of thunderbolt one and two, and the doorstop that trashcans now represent, and come out swinging with only having to buy USBc compatible kit to make it through the next ten years of post.

I cannot justify 13,000 on a computer that cannot be repaired easily and is attatched to it’s monitor. I also cannot justify maxing out a 2017 macbook pro no matter how much I want to have two terabytes inside the machine. Two generations in I still do not see anybody using the touchbar in neat useful ways. Because Apple went for small I am tempted to buy the 13inch maxed out but they still dont have enough full bandwidth ports to make that a wise decision either and make for a productive dongle life at the same time.

I am very much a small time owner operator and cannot just invent cash flow that would let me hand Apple that amount of money that quickly. (I should mention I am not good at the business side of running my business so chalk this line of hate up to having to do twenty jobs instead of just creating moving images.)

Now that Ives is done building buildings I hope we can see the next generation of laptops and towers that reflect a more “professional” upgrade and maintainence path that will keep people like me stay in the game. I am still on a cheesegrater and god if I could swap out to the latest kit(CPU and GPUness) and be on MacOs would that not be wonderful? Or even run some threadripperness just to keep Intel on its toes. Would that help keep the competiton happening and consumers seeing some benefit on the price end of things?

All wishful thinking on my part but as I am part of the team who uses these tools to make my living instead of create them from scratch I want to communicate what it is that would work for me and hope others feel the same way.

I feel like we have made so many improvements over all to workflows in general but it is still like hearding cats to try and get both software and hardware to play nice and make things orders of magnitude easier. Am I happy I do not have to own and maintain a HDCAM SR deck? Yes! Do I want to edit on a 15inch screen all day? NO! (bring back a 17inch laptop and take my money!!!)

just venting to peers and looking foward to other’s responses and their own reading of the tea leaves,

James

PS I am glad they put 10gb ethernet in that puppy. I hope that trend continues as fiber is still stupid expensive and fragile to run on a small scale still.

[Shane Ross]

[Oliver Peters] “I kinda have to ask why? Because at least right now, the iMac Pros and even many 5K iMacs deliver better performance.”

The need for two displays and video IO to a client monitor…even in offline bays. Connectivity to servers. That little trash can did NOTHING to contain any mess. The amount of cables coming off that thing was embarassing, unsightly. And they got hot hot hot.

I have been in exactly ZERO edit bays/cutting rooms that use iMacs. All are on trash cans, or 2012 towers. The only iMacs I see in the process are on story producers desks.

Performance is one thing…but containing cable mess is also a high priority. And expanded connectivity. It will be interesting to see if ANY iMac Pros pop up in broadcast bays. I’m hearing more rumblings about getting HP Z6 machines or buying 2012 MacPros and upgrading them. We love our towers.

[Oliver Peters] “vid – I don’t see, since the bulk of Avid work for film and TV is in the proxy world and MC really doesn’t make much use of the GPUs. Any Mac would do. “

Yup…which is why many of us are still on 2012 Mac Pros.

[Oliver Peters] “At least with Premiere and FCPX, you have a lot more people working in original, native media, where the machine performance is critical.”

And Resolve. And more and more Resolve bays…and online bays in posts houses…are going PC. Or have 2012 MacPros with external boxes for GPU. Even Trash cans. No post facility or online bay has an iMac at it’s core. Online has demands that like machines with slots, or that are rack mountable. iMacs don’t offer that. If I hear of one in use I’ll let you know. But iMacs are mainly single user edit stations that are self contained.

Shane
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[Oliver Peters]

[James Sullivan] “All wishful thinking on my part but as I am part of the team who uses these tools to make my living instead of create them from scratch I want to communicate what it is that would work for me and hope others feel the same way.”

I would think that a new Mac Pro, which is destined with the upgradeability of the old Mac Pro towers, probably is wishful thinking ☺

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Oliver Peters]

[Shane Ross] “The need for two displays and video IO to a client monitor…even in offline bays. Connectivity to servers. That little trash can did NOTHING to contain any mess. The amount of cables coming off that thing was embarassing, unsightly. And they got hot hot hot. “

Hmm… I work with one nearly every day. I have i/o and additional connected items. In fact, with the help of BMD i/o and a dock, I’m running three connected displays, plus a video monitor. It’s not really any more messy than the back of a cheese grater. Plus I’ve seen some very good rackmount versions.

Mine doesn’t run hot at all. Certainly less than an iMac. This is with a lot of 4K original in Premiere and AE and Resolve. Hardly ever kicks in the fans. There IS a problem with the GPUs and Adobe apps, but that’s because only Apple apps are optimized for the dual-GPU configurations.

My main complaint is with the Thunderbolt connectors. They are terrible – and this seems to happen on all machines – they easily become disconnected and fall off or get pulled off. So Thunderbolt 3/USB-C is a definite improvement.

But, in regards to your original concern, I am currently doing that with the iMac Pros, too. And actually fewer do-dads, because I have 10GigE built-in.

[Shane Ross] “And Resolve. And more and more Resolve bays…and online bays in posts houses…are going PC.”

But, I think you are making the argument for me. People who want to stay in the Mac ecosystem will like and move to the iMac Pros. People who need a tower and all it offers will go to PC.

[Shane Ross] “No post facility or online bay has an iMac at it’s core. Online has demands that like machines with slots, or that are rack mountable.”

With all due respect that’s sort of an LA 90’s/00’s-era argument. We deliver online content to networks from iMacs, iMac Pros and Mac Pros. I think if you started from scratch and not legacy installations that were built upon, the hardware mix might be different. Take a look at several of the European facility user stories at FCP.co.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[James Sullivan]

Wishful thinking indeed! But they could still do it, so for now I am going to continue to believe they can make me happy again. I just worry their pushing into commisioning content is going to distract them from making hardware that lasts for more than ten years.

I dont want to watch your shows, I want to make them using your ecosystem.

James

Also let me plug an ipad pro into a mirorless dslr and show me what the camera sees and make me really happy! (Terradek does not count as it is more stuff to strap on and power)

[Oliver Peters]

[James Sullivan] “Wishful thinking indeed! But they could still do it, so for now I am going to continue to believe they can make me happy again”

It may well be that it uses standard and user-replaceable socketed/slotted ports for RAM, drives, or GPU. But slots for add-in cards? That’s where I think Apple will draw the line.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Shane Ross]

[Oliver Peters] “It may well be that it uses standard and user-replaceable socketed/slotted ports for RAM, drives, or GPU. “

Maybe…but as apple seems to be moving farther and farther away from ANY user customization that they don’t pre-configure, I’m not holding my breath.

[Oliver Peters] “But slots for add-in cards? That’s where I think Apple will draw the line.”

I wonder why that is? WHy did they go “NO! You can’t do this anymore…we don’t like it.” So stupid.

Shane
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