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Waiting for Apple again. And again. And again …
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[Walter Soyka] “Assimilate SCRATCH? It’s the real deal, an officially-licensed Apple ProRes encoder on Windows. We’ve been using it for our ProRes deliverables.”
So when I’m in Ppro and go to export media will ProRes come up as a listed codec? And when I send it to my clients will their Macs be able to read my hard drives? If the answer is yes, I’ll strongly consider switching over.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “So when I’m in Ppro and go to export media will ProRes come up as a listed codec? And when I send it to my clients will their Macs be able to read my hard drives? If the answer is yes, I’ll strongly consider switching over.
“No. You’d have render from Premiere Pro in some other format (maybe Uncompressed), then transcode to ProRes in SCRATCH as a separate step. We use MacDrive on our PCs to deal with Mac hard drives, and Tuxera NTFS on our Macs to deal with PC hard drives.
Another only-slightly-crazy option is a separate iMac or Mac Mini on your network, running Adobe Media Encoder and a watch folder.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “Another only-slightly-crazy option is a separate iMac or Mac Mini on your network, running Adobe Media Encoder and a watch folder.”
In which case I’m transcoding with a mac mini and wasting my Nvidia 1080 and Xeons.
[Walter Soyka] “We use MacDrive on our PCs to deal with Mac hard drives”
Does Mac Drive write as well as read? I thought it was read only.
I’m not being difficult, I’m actually considering going PC as an option. I’m also considering buying another 2010 MacPro tower and upgrading it and living without Thunderbolt. Time will tell.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “Does Mac Drive write as well as read? I thought it was read only.”
Read and write. Once place I work at has a Promax server for shared storage, which is Windows based, but they use Mac formatted drives with it all the time (all of the other computers are Macs).
-Andrew
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[Herb Sevush] “In which case I’m transcoding with a mac mini and wasting my Nvidia 1080 and Xeons.”
Rendering is hard. Transcoding is easy (and for ProRes, CPU-only anyway). Your beefy PC would still be doing the heavy lifting. The downside, of course, is the two-step dance required to get to a ProRes deliverable.
[Herb Sevush] “Does Mac Drive write as well as read? I thought it was read only.”
Yes. With MacDrive on our PCs and Tuxera NTFS on our Macs, I never have to think about where a hard drive came from, I can just plug it in and use it, completely transparently.
[Herb Sevush] “I’m not being difficult, I’m actually considering going PC as an option. I’m also considering buying another 2010 MacPro tower and upgrading it and living without Thunderbolt. Time will tell.”
Sure. And I’m not being pushy, just trying to explain your options and what we’ve considered. There are pros and cons.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “There are pros and cons.”
The one thing that is consistent is my bad timing. The last time I needed to configure a new system was — spring of 2013. 3 months too soon for the first nMPro. Now it’s 3 years later and I’m waiting on Apple again. I don’t sweat it when it comes to peripherals like GFX cards or monitors, but it is irksome when it comes to buying the heavy metal. Oh well, at least I’m not buying a house.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “The one thing that is consistent is my bad timing.”
You and me both, Herb. In 2013 I got tired of waiting for the nMP’s to actually ship so I bought a 2009 MP as a ‘stop gap’ that I figured I’d have for a year or two and then I’d pick up a V2 nMP. Jokes on me. Or not as what I’ve spent on the ’09 MP plus upgrades is still way less than what I would’ve spent on a nMP.
[Herb Sevush] “Oh well, at least I’m not buying a house.”
At least with houses you have more options and even though their are ebbs and flows you know more inventory is always incoming.
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[Herb Sevush] “Need to put together another editing station by first week in October. Just for the convenience of Thunderbolt I’m thinking about going nMpro. But who wants to buy a 3 year old machine when Apple is supposedly upgrading the line in the fall.”
I have 64 terabytes of Thunderbolt RAID on my 2015 iMac 27, split between a couple of RAID-5 boxes and three RAID-0 boxes. It works OK but I’m not sure the iMac is a better choice at this point. If you are doing any 4k and especially if using Premiere you really need all the CPU and GPU horsepower available. Even a three-year-old nMP if properly configured delivers more of that than a top-spec new iMac.
There’s a good chance the iMac update will probably have a significantly improved GPU due to the new 14nm products from AMD. The nMP refresh (assuming that happens) will probably be an even greater jump because it’s been three years.
OTOH if you are on Premiere and intend to stay there, a Windows machine might be a better option. You have a lot more configuration and upgrade options and can get a higher-performance machine for a given price.
I don’t know what I’d do in your situation. I suppose you could just get any of these options then plan to resell it.
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Why not buy a used nMP from eBay?
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You can always check the tea leaves over at:
https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac
Noah
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