iMac Pro thoughts

[Eric Santiago]

Thanks Lance.

Cant really order from another country (Canada).
I guess I will know soon how the 2013s will fare against a base version.
Going to order Monday.

[Tom Sefton]

Vince LaForet just posted something really cool on his Facebook thread about the performance of the iMac pro with fcpx vs adobe vs resolve.

Have a look – very interesting!

Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk

[Greg Janza]

I read his review and you’re right it is interesting.

He added this at the end: “At the end of the day: we’re going to have to become proficient w ALL NLEs – Final Cut Pro. X, Adobe Premiere, Davinci Resolve and … well no: Not Sony Vegas …sorry. Is that still around?”

From a freelancer’s perspective though, the need to be proficient on FCPX is the lowest priority due to it’s lack of presence in post facilities.

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

[Gabriel Spaulding]

“From a freelancer’s perspective though, the need to be proficient on FCPX is the lowest priority due to it’s lack of presence in post facilities.”

That certainly doesn’t represent any of the freelancers who have been using FCP X the past 6.5 years. Also, it seems to me that what post facilities are doing should be largely irrelevant to most freelancers, who generally find their own clients through various avenues, clients who could not care less what NLE they use. If you were looking for a job at another post facility that’s a different story, but in that case you’d no longer be a freelancer.

Gabriel Spaulding
Creator & Director of ACE Enterprizes
Videographer | Video Editor | Motion Designer

How Can We Help You Tell Your Story?
http://www.aceenterprizes.com

[Tom Sefton]

Over twice as fast as resolve for encoding red raw, and adobe way behind even that. Freelancers are soon going to be using fcpx even if it’s for final export.

I’d be really interested to see how someone goes with an egpu connected to an iMac pro…

Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk

[Tim Wilson]

[greg janza] “He added this at the end: “At the end of the day: we’re going to have to become proficient w ALL NLEs – Final Cut Pro. X, Adobe Premiere, Davinci Resolve and … well no: Not Sony Vegas …sorry. Is that still around?””

Yes, except MAGIX bought it and calls it VEGAS Pro. Still very much around, with an active forum here at the COW. If you’re not using it, you probably don’t need to, but the people who love it are the most enthusiastic user body I’ve ever seen, outstripping even the most ardent FCPX-philes and “I’ll still be using Avid after I’m dead” Media Composers.

But I don’t buy for a minute that most people need more than one. The real takeaway of FCP going “poof” and vanishing is that, no matter how much folks loved it, and loved their lives using it, it was more likely than not NOT the best fit for their work. It was its own dead end, and to the extent that both Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve suggest a future for FCP that might have been, they both underscore to me all the reasons why FCP itself couldn’t have gotten there.

And I don’t say this with any lack of love. Remember, I adopted FCP when it was still at Macromedia running on Windows. LOL I loved it. But it was my 4th NLE by that point, and by the time I became Product Manager at Boris FX, I had to become at least passingly conversant with around 2 dozen NLEs and a half dozen more compositing environments. My overwhelming impression was, wow, there’s a lot of great stuff out there that does a lot of cool things! I think it’s kind of cool that circumstances led to so many other folks finding similar experiences.

That said, there are of course many thousands of folks still happily using FCP. More power to ’em. Noting again that before I left Boris FX to go to Avid, I was living and breathing FCP all day, every day. I understood why people felt it was all they’d ever need.

That’s why I think there was also a giddiness — preceded by anger, accompanied by nausea in the early days, but still, something of a euphoria — unleashed when people realized that they didn’t have to settle for what one developer offered them. If there’s something you want or need in one application or another, if a client wants you to use this rather than that, it’s not a crisis. It’s an opportunity. If you’re so inclined, it’s FUN to be using more than one.

So it’s not that anyone HAS to learn more than one. It’s that it’s fulfilling for ME to be the one to decide these things, and not fall into crisis if a client asks for a non-favorite. None of this is a big deal…whereas before 2011, it ALL seemed like a big deal.

But if using lots of tools doesn’t sound fun, or if you find enough of what you need in X, PPro, Resolve, MC, or whatever, heck, even Vegas, I don’t think it represents a failure of imagination to find that one developer has created a sweet spot big enough for you to find what you’re looking for for a while. Nobody HAS to do anything.

Which is a pretty sweet spot indeed.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Gabriel Spaulding] “If you were looking for a job at another post facility that’s a different story, but in that case you’d no longer be a freelancer.”

While it’s common to use ‘freelance’ as an umbrella term to cover both freelancers and independent contractors they aren’t the same thing. A freelance employee is still an employee of the company (W2) while an independent contractor is not.

Some employers will classify freelancers as ICs in order to avoid things like payroll taxes but that’s a bit shady and illegal. And some employers will hire freelancers to fill staff positions, becauset by hiring a freelancer they don’t have to provide staff benefits (not illegal, but still shady). This, and/or a freelancer staying with the same company for years, is usually referred to as ‘perma-lance’.

I went freelance/IC again about 6 or 7 years ago and I’d say 3/4 of my time I’m working as a freelance employee so I need to know the gear that companies typically use. In my neck of the woods it’s Avid and PPro for editing (an AE/PS for graphics).

[Andrew Ryann]

Hey Rich,

What are the specs on your iMac pros? There are so many variations, that I don’t even know where to begin. Like is the 3.0gig 10 core preferable to the 3.2gig 8 core?

We are also looking at a Qnap box, probably the QNAP TVS-1282T3-i7-64GB, loaded with 8, 10tb HGST Ultrastar Helium drives. Are you guys also using the Qtier functionality with the 2.5″ SSDs and/or the m.2 SSDs for additional cache? We are probably going to purchase the Qnap through SimplyNAS, as they build to spec, RAID and fully test before shipping, but any other vendors and/or specs that you might recommend would be thoroughly appreciated!

Thanks much!

Andrew

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Andrew –
you can get a nice 2017 iMac with thunderbolt 3 ports, and get the Sonnet eGFX box with the Vega 64 for $1299 right from Sonnet. And for your 10G port, you can just spend $177, and get the Sonnet Solo 10G which is a thunderbolt 3 to 10G adaptor. This will save you money on the iMac Pro. You will get 1000 MB/sec to the QNAP.

For the QNAP, the TVS-1282T is very nice, but for the same money, you can get the larger TS-1685, which can hold 12 drives instead of 8 drives, and yes, it’s expandable and comes for free with the dual 10G ports.

I have found that the SSD’s for Qtier or simple caching do absolutely nothing for video editing performance (for HD, 4K, 6K and 8K editing with Premiere, FCP X, Resolve, and Media Composer). Save your money. And the HGST NAS series drives or the WD RED drives (same product) work great, are super reliable, and cheaper than the Ultrastars.

I do these all the time.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Oliver Peters]

[Bob Zelin] “you can get a nice 2017 iMac with thunderbolt 3 ports, and get the Sonnet eGFX box with the Vega 64 for $1299 right from Sonnet.”

Bob, the only problem with that is that none of the editing applications (except Resolve) take much advantage of the eGPU. So if the main concern is rendering/exporting within an NLE like FCPX or Premiere Pro, then the iMac Pros will still yield superior results. Although we are mainly talking about a 10-20% bump for the iMP over a decked out iMac.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com