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Thunderbolt on iMAC?
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Well Thomas’ points are well taken. The iMac seems to be a limited tool for it’s expensive price. But i for one am not yet trading in my perfectly fine macpro 8 core just because a shiny new i7 shows up. To be clear, apple is playing catchup with these models as i7s have been in wide (and cheaper) availability in windows/Linux for longer, and yes, they do outperform my Mac in every case, especially rendering output. So good that apple catches up.
However , it’s great that apple takes off with Lightspeed ahead of the crowd. I think it’s a leap forward for field use. Everyone will be using it in 5 years.
However, if I just bought a limited expansion iMac, I would be pissed if apple didn’t offer a cheap upgrade path. You can imagine what the apple marketing discussions were like making that decision. Sadly,the bulk of those users are consumer/prosumer, and likely will be forced to sell their new machines to get the throughput. I doubt many pros would buy the limited iMac. It’s really not fish or fowl. I dont know why i would want my monitor built into my desktop. I know it didn’t appeal to me (though I consider myself a prosumer). But I am waiting now for a W7 laptop with thunderbolt to run Premiere on in the field!
Alf
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The iMac is not currently a perfectly good editing machine. It’s fastest i/o port right now is FW800. Even if the current models had TB, they’d still be limited in ability. I do lots of work in After Effects to support my FCP projects, and on a recent project I was using the 2.93 quad i7 iMac w/ top of the line GPU available and 8 GB of RAM. It was extraordinarily slow, and the 8 GB of memory left me with several hundred MB of page outs.
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“The iMac is not currently a perfectly good editing machine. It’s fastest i/o port right now is FW800. Even if the current models had TB, they’d still be limited in ability. I do lots of work in After Effects to support my FCP projects, and on a recent project I was using the 2.93 quad i7 iMac w/ top of the line GPU available and 8 GB of RAM. It was extraordinarily slow, and the 8 GB of memory left me with several hundred MB of page outs.”
I totally understand the limitations of the iMac, especially its (annoying) lack of express card and no where near broadcast accurate screen for grading. However, I think to argue they’re slow is mute, and wrong. They have the latest 1333 RAM. If 8 isn’t enough, put in 16. In terms of speed, the benchmarks are on a par with the previous model upper- spec mac pros. The NEW mac pros have certain technological speed advantages such as quick channel, but for standard use of After Effects, with 16GB Ram and editing onto a separate internal drive connected by esata (im talking about the OS running of an SSD and using the other internal drive as an edit drive), its is DEFINITELY fast enough for even prosumer use.
😀
Tom Morter-Laing
Freelance Editor
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
http://www.depictproductions.co.ukSony Z5, with Rode NTG2.
iMac 27″ intel i7 2.93GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD5750 [1GB GDDR5], 2TB Int. SATA with 2TB External HDD; (FW800), with Elgato Turbo H264HD. -
To add to this… I would bet that AfterEffects was not setup properly. My top of the line iMac is faster than my 2007 Octocore 3 ghz with 8 gig of RAM. I, too, have the same iMac as you, but I’m concerned why yours is slow. Mine screams. Motion and AfterEffects are faster than I have ever seen.
Look at your setup of the programs and make sure they are using all the processors possible. Qmaster has to be setup, too.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com -
Oh… I forgot.
I can also capture HDV to ProRes422 in realtime to a FireWire 800 CalDigit VR drive. And I have my Sony M10U HDV deck connected to the CalDigit VR using a FireWire adapter. It’s perfectly fine.
So… Give me something to try since the system isn’t viable for professional work. I’ll show you something that may just amaze you. By the way… I’m not doing 4k work so it’s just fine for my needs.
My point is… Don’t bash something because it doesn’t fit your needs. Just accept that iMacs are viable for most.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com -
[Wayne Carey] “To add to this… I would bet that AfterEffects was not setup properly. My top of the line iMac is faster than my 2007 Octocore 3 ghz with 8 gig of RAM. I, too, have the same iMac as you, but I’m concerned why yours is slow. Mine screams. Motion and AfterEffects are faster than I have ever seen.”
8GB is nowhere near enough RAM to feed an 8-core machine running After Effects with multiprocessing on, so I’d expect the performance to be poor on that configuration. AE really benefits from 2-4 GB per core with multiprocessing. Since After Effects performance is very dependent on CPU and RAM, a well-configured Mac Pro still runs circles around a well-configured iMac on AE. See https://barefeats.com/imac10c.html for some numbers.
[Wayne Carey] “My point is… Don’t bash something because it doesn’t fit your needs. Just accept that iMacs are viable for most.”
The iMac is certainly a workable machine, especially for offline editorial, but its I/O limitations really do made it totally useless for finishing. No high-speed RAID, no video I/O, no RedRocket, no CUDA, no jumbo packets on the gigabit Ethernet — these things may not affect everyone, but they are crippling limitations in many workflows.
That said, I certainly understand the appeal of using the most cost-effective tool for the job, and if/when Thunderbolt comes to the iMac and makes high-speed disk access and video I/O possible, the iMac might be worth another look.
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 -
Is not about which is better, which is faster or which fits me; is about what will Apple will sell us. Is Apple who decide the features/specs, and not around the users needs.
The offer now is too uneven to satisfy nobody.
The difference between both lines is TOO BIG.The fact is that Mac Pros offers more than the average FC editor needs while iMAC simply doesn’t cover the needs of the average FC editor. We are cached in the paradox that, or we buy more than you need or we are dead limited from the first moment.
Makes not sense that the the only in-between option is a MBP17″.I think that Apple have no other solution than to wide the iMAC line, implementing more connectivity and expandability on some models. We may heard soon discussions about iMAC vs iMAC-Pro.
rafael -
[Rafael Amador] “The fact is that Mac Pros offers more than the average FC editor needs while iMAC simply doesn’t cover the needs of the average FC editor.”
Perfectly said!
[Rafael Amador] “Is not about which is better, which is faster or which fits me; is about what will Apple will sell us. Is Apple who decide the features/specs, and not around the users needs. The offer now is too uneven to satisfy nobody. The difference between both lines is TOO BIG.”
This thread has touched on the expansion limitations of the iMac, but I’d like to point out that the Mac Pro is frustratingly limited, too. I’m hopeful that Apple will expand the capabilities of both the iMac and the Mac Pro lines. Four expansion slots in a workstation is just not enough — the HP Z800 has seven. It’d be great to see the Mac Pro match that.
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 -
Jeez! I agree with Rafael !!! Yes, there are significant gaps in the apple lineup and adobe and dare I say Sony are fighting for them. I just edited a multi camera shoot on Vegas tonight with no transcoding for either the avchd or 7d footage. Spent four hours earlier today transcding on fop. A waste of time for the budget I was on. The rendering went fine, even with Boris fx.
I also agree with the arguements against the iMac. It should be faster than a 2007 macpro, that’s just dog bites man stuff. nothing new with that. New processors beat old…yawn..
Alf
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