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What if there is no new Mac Pro?
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Great points, Andrew. We live in an era of “good enough” and when competition is as heated as it is today, as well as budgets ever-tightening as they also are today, then the price-to-performance formula makes “good enough” even more attractive.
I am still one of those audio guys that loves my SACDs and HDCDs, as well as my cherished DVD-A audio discs but I am a relic in a day of MP3s whose convenience alone makes them “good enough.” Even me the audio snob walks around and drives around with an old 120gig iPod with about 25,000 songs on it if I remember correctly. (It’s just a part of my collection.)
Even the major studios are calcing the costs and learning where the trade-offs are acceptable to them in the price-to-performance ratio. I just had lunch the other day with some of the people from Disney and they told me that even a powerhouse operation like Disney is transitioning so rapidly that in one of their facilities they have been through 3 iterations of infrastructure in just the last few years.
The bottom line in it was that they are transitioning downward, finding out what gets the job done at the least cost.
Sounds amazingly like the tale told by most of the people in this forum, doesn’t it?
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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It is true that these are mad times were living in. I well remember the days of “that’s just what it costs” and because options were limited that was pretty much what it cost. But these days options are seemingly limitless. As soon as someone states “you can’t do that kind of work on this then some guy or gal comes along with some box that allows you to do this on that. I know I would not stake my business on the assumption that people will never accept lesser quality than they were used to in the past. If that were true people never would’ve abandoned LP’s and there would be lines of people outside movie theaters that employ digital projection waiting to get their money back. We are indeed in transitional and transformational times. And where she stops – if indeed she ever does – nobody knows.
Tim
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If you play Tim Cook’s keynote forward you hear him say “postPC” wayyyy too many times! Got me really scared thinking why would a company tout the term over and over and show that 76% of revenues was from “postPC” devices ever come out with more PCs? Let alone innovate really powerful ones like all us Editor’s need and are hoping for?
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California -
The interesting thing about ‘good enough’ these days is how much it’s different from the ‘good enough’ of not too long ago. This is part of the shades of gray I was referring to.
When the DVX100 was the indie camera of choice the drop off between 35mm or 16mm film and the DVX100’s SD @ 24p was pretty huge. But now there are a plethora of cameras ranging from DSLRS like the 60D to prosumer cameras like ex3 to top end D-cinema cameras like the Epic & Alexa.
I have a MacBook Pro that kicks the shot of the first couple generations of Mac Pro towers and since it has ThB I can interface with fast storage (local or over fibre) and I/O devices for uncompressed workflows if I want. I’m still in the market for a new tower but a laptop purchase today is more functional than it ever has been, IMO.
I saw the video of Michael Cioni talking about the 4k workflow they did for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and I think it’s amazing that their pipeline had to push 1.1gigs/sec for real time playback of the full res film. They needed some serious CPU crunching for that workflow. I also dig Stu Maschwitz showing off what amazing things can be done on a DIY budget where you have more time than money. I find both ends of the spectrum inspiring and now, more than ever, there is a place for a whole range of content and workflows.
-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
[Lance Bachelder] “If you play Tim Cook’s keynote forward you hear him say “postPC” wayyyy too many times! “
It’s when he starts saying “Post Mac” you want to worry
Steve Connor
“FCPX Agitator”
Adrenalin Television -
[Steve Connor] “[Lance Bachelder] “If you play Tim Cook’s keynote forward you hear him say “postPC” wayyyy too many times! ”
It’s when he starts saying “Post Mac” you want to worry”
Exactly. I’m not quite sure what machine Apple expects people to develop all those wonderful apps on if they move completely post Personal Computers. You certainly can’t code from an iDevice.
Jeremy
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Post Production folks aren’t the only ones needing a fast workstation. Think of all the graphic designers, photographers etc everywhere. If Apple really believes we’re in a postPC world and fails to create viable workstations they’re gonna force us all to switch to other brands and OS’s. If you’re editing world was suddenly Windows 8 you’d want a Windows phone, then a Windows pad etc. etc. This is how Apple has grown over the last decade, would be interesting to see it happen in reverse…
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California -
[Lance Bachelder] “If your editing world was suddenly Windows 8 you’d want a Windows phone, then a Windows pad, etc. etc. This is how Apple has grown over the last decade, would be interesting to see it happen in reverse…”
This is my EXACT argument that I was trying to say to those who kept asking “What’s in it for Apple?” when I espoused letting HP build the high-end systems.
If I go completely to windows, trust me, an Android phone isn’t far behind. (I like them and think in many ways their rig is actually nicer than the iPhone.) And I already like my Kindle Fire more (and use it more) than I like and use my iPad.
It wouldn’t be hard at all to leave it all behind if they think that I live in a Post PC world.
They might. I don’t.
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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[Lance Bachelder] “If you play Tim Cook’s keynote forward you hear him say “postPC” wayyyy too many times! Got me really scared thinking why would a company tout the term over and over and show that 76% of revenues was from “postPC” devices ever come out with more PCs? Let alone innovate really powerful ones like all us Editor’s need and are hoping for?”
That’s what I got from it. It was somewhere after the 5th or 6th “post-PC world” that I really became aware of the weight of the statement.
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Sorry I just read your postPC thread – didn’t mean to start it again – but it will be interesting to see what Apple does next…
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California
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