Oliver Peter’s Thoughts On The New Mac Pro

[Gary Huff]

[John Davidson] “[I]t’s no wonder I’m probably getting an ulcer from raw, unfettered impatience.”

Yes, I too am impatient to start being able to render down 4k footage to 1080p.

[John Davidson]

Hah! I think it’s more of the RAW capabilities I’m going to get out of my camera and the ability to zoom after the fact – in your 1080p timeline.
The FS700 is pretty great as is, but the 4.2.0 and 8 bit limitations leave lots to be desired.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Marcus Moore]

I agree with both you and Walter- however, it’s somewhat indisputable that over the last decade more and more professional users have seen their needs enveloped by “consumer class” machines.

I think it would take quite a bit of hubris on our part as Video Editors to think that eventual the wave of computing power won’t pass over us as well (especially what you consider what machines that do what we do cost 15 years ago).

While we like to think we sit atop the heap, above us is certainly 3D animation, which with ever more complex IK, ever higher textures, more computer intensive lighting and environmental simulations, and the same resolution and frame rate issues we deal with, will certainly be crying out for “specialized” machines long after we as video editors have seen our needs met.

[Marcus Moore]

Exactly. I’m less interested in 4K for the work I do for it’s raw resolution (though yes, the ability for instant CU shots is wonderful) as i am for the latitude benefits RAW provides.

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “Maybe semantics but I’m thinking of whatever you want to call it that needs Xeon CPU and higher end dual GPU use. Yes it may be a new niche if you’re defining a workstation based on internal vs external expansion. Also, given the Tube’s size it might be decided not a “station” as it seems designed to be small enough to move it to a new location as needed (not stationary, work cubicle based).”

I’m not defining workstation based on expansion alone. The Tube will be a fantastic machine, but it will not be the best performer at anything. You have a CPU-bound application? A dual-processor workstation will be twice as fast. You have a GPU-bound application? A quad-GPU workstation will be twice as fast.

[Craig Seeman] “Stating the obvious but Apple doesn’t play (or need to play) in every market niche. They seem to look for growth.”

Apple looks for markets where they can win. I think the Mac Pro will do just fine.

I don’t object at all to your reasoning here — it’s this statement that I disagree with:

[Craig Seeman] “Personally, given the decline in desktop computer sales, I’d think common sense would dictate “stay the course” would be a fail. Not that they have to be as radical as Apple but any company not doing a rethink is going to continue its decline in that market.”

I think that the new Mac Pro is a really smart computer for Apple to build, but I also think that the Z820 is a really smart computer for HP to build.

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

[Rick Lang]

Marcus, that’s true about the demands of 3D animation. Did you see (the video of) the presentation of MARI by The Foundry on the new Mac Pro at the WWDC? They were showing some quick painting of 3D objects for Monsters University. It’s a start. A long way to go to rendering complete animations and likely beyond Apple’s ambition to satisfy Pixar’s reach.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Oliver Peters]

Pixar has a massive render farm. You ain’t gonna see any MacPros do that type of heavy lifting. If anything, that sort of work is definitely cloud-bound. Not to mention that it’s also highly unlikely that Apple is running any type of standard Apple computer in their own data centers, either.

Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “Which points to stagnation or, at best, slow growth. Yes, that’s not horrible but if a computer company is looking to grow, it won’t be with workstations. It’s basically a “maintenance” mode market where much of the sales are replacement.”

Last quarter, the industry shipped 890,500 workstations. That works out to between 3 and 4 million workstations per year. If they average $4,000 per sale, that’s a $12-16 billion industry. It’s high margin and there are only three players with >10% market share. Any consolidation could be hugely profitable for the remaining players.

And workstations can get you into other businesses, too: displays, storage, networking, and the big one — services. We have no problem thinking big about Apple here on this forum; why do we think small about HP, Dell, and Lenovo?

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

[Rick Lang]

Yes, I believe that render farm was mentioned in the MARI presentation. And I recall reading that Apple no longer uses Apple servers in their data centres. I’m sure someone here knows what they are running.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Oliver Peters]

I doubt Apple ever ran their own severs in their data centers, seeing as the Xserve was EOL’ed before the NC center was built. Odds are they are running custom boxes running some flavor of Unix or Linux like Google does.

Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com