Where’s our 5K Retina Cinema Display?

[Blair Thornton]

That’s a great guess – 3 months away.

Technically Apple can’t push 5K Cinema display on Thunderbolt 2 which maxes at out at DCI 4096 x 2180, so we’ll need a MacPro or something with an interum solution like USB 3.1 with display port 1.3 for a 5K display to happen.

Thunderbolt3 could do it, but that’s 9 months away !

Blair Thornton
https://www.girafxmedia.com/
416 917-9740

[Marcus Moore]

This is the advantage in the iMac that they’ve figured out an integrated solution.

I only see one way that a 5K ACD works with the current generation MacPros, and that’s some kind of Dual Link solution like we used to have- and those can be problematic.

I’ll be disappointed as anyone, but I don’t think there was another solution to be had, unless it was waiting to release the MacPro for another year. Which would have driven people mental.

A 5K screen isn’t the be all for me anyway. If I want a higher density display, there are really great 4K options out there now for a pretty good price. And the difference is much more negligible between 4K and 5K.

You don’t grade to your computer displays anyway- I’ve honestly been wondering if my better bet isn’t 2 current generation ACDs and a good 4K TV instead for monitoring.

[Mitch Ives]

[Marcus Moore] “A 5K screen isn’t the be all for me anyway. If I want a higher density display, there are really great 4K options out there now for a pretty good price. And the difference is much more negligible between 4K and 5K.”

Agreed… I’d just like to see an Apple 4K Cinema Display…

Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill

[Marcus Moore]

I think we’re out of luck on that one. This 5K display is the one Apple have wanted to do, because its a straight doubling of the current resolution, which means it works great for the OS scaling modes.

I think 4K displays will be left to 3rd parties. The good news there is those displays will be cheaper.

[Ryan Holmes]

[Lance Bachelder] “Wondering if the maxed out iMac will be all one needs for editing – meaning do I need a new Mac Pro?”

Good question! I found it interesting that when Apple wanted to sum up it’s product line offerings into a singular graphic slide it left off the Mac Pro, but included the unreleased Apple Watch.

That doesn’t seem like a strong vote from Apple Management for the Mac Pro. But as Lance asks, there’s a good chance that for the vast majority of video, audio, and graphics professionals an iMac may be more than sufficient. The horsepower on the new iMac’s has me looking at them as a solution for some of my edit suites.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[David Lawrence]

[Ryan Holmes] “That doesn’t seem like a strong vote from Apple Management for the Mac Pro. But as Lance asks, there’s a good chance that for the vast majority of video, audio, and graphics professionals an iMac may be more than sufficient. The horsepower on the new iMac’s has me looking at them as a solution for some of my edit suites.”

Agreed. This article from Marco Arment adds further support to the idea that for many pros, the new iMac will be a better choice than a Mac Pro.

https://www.marco.org/2014/10/16/retina-imac-vs-mac-pro

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[Lance Bachelder]

That’s my thought – 4Ghz quad i7 with 4GB gpu is pretty nice and there is no 5K or retina option with the MacPro. Now if they release a 5K Cinema display that could sway back toward Mac Pro. Not saying I need 5K by the way, I don’t even have 4K yet and love my dual LG 27’s.

It was at a Vegas premiere that I resolved to become an avid FCPX user.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Marcus Moore]

As Marco says in his own article, it depends on how much a part of your workflow involves parallel processed tasks.

You certainly aren’t going to get as good performance running RED RAW files on this machines as you do with software that has GPU enabled debayering- Pr, Resolve [and hopefully soon FCPX].

But for single threaded tasks, the horsepower in a MacPro has always been a waste.

You’re going to be limited on the Thunderbolt side as well, with only two ports. Do we know if those 2 ports share a bus or not? That could be a big limiting factor as well.

But undeniably the useful performance gap for most people will continue to narrow. I’d say the iMac would catch up, but until we see a good levelling off of capture Resolutions, the pure GPU performance in machines like the MacPro will continue to make a difference for higher-end uses. And next year’s 40Gb/s Thunderbolt 3 will continue to allow us to externalize hardware that previously needed internal PCIe.

[Robin S. kurz]

All seems to me like more of a logical fallacy then anything else. Since who wants to be monitoring what (and why) on a 27″ 5K screen? Just the desktop? Then simply get any 27″ monitor. You’ll be seeing the exact same thing. 4K video? So are you looking to watch it with a black frame around it or simply scaled? In which case neither strike me as terribly attractive compared to simply getting a “real” 4K monitor instead. Monitoring 5K material? Do I want or need to be doing that?

So yes, I guess one has to question the actual sense of Apple offering a more expensive 5K monitor as opposed to one simply buying a (possibly even better) less expensive 4K monitor, if that’s in fact what you need. And for whatever it is you are monitoring at that resolution to begin with…

Especially since the 5K iMac is in fact already giving you “native” 4K monitoring within the normal FCP interface, with enough room for events and timeline to spare. In which case the 5K actually start making some sense. Go full screen and you have the exact same thing that you would if you had a standalone. So… why do I need it or does Apple need to make one? Honest question.

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[Marcus Moore]

I don’t think 5K has much of anything to do with viewing 4K content specifically. You don’t use a computer display as a colour accurate monitor anyway.

The Retina initiative from it’s launch on the iPhone4 has always been about doing away with visible pixels. 10 years from now we’ll look back at a lot of displays today the same way we look at ones from 10 years ago.

Text will be sharp and clear. Interface elements will be detailed and completely devoid of aliasing. Photos incredibly detailed. And yes, 4K content can be viewed at full size (with Room to spare).

But let’s not confuse the purpose of a 4K TV with a computer monitor.

I’m a bit disappointed this MacPro won’t be able to run the eventual 5K ACD. But I think Marco Arment is right, that external displays have to wait for Skylake, Thunderbolt3 and Displayport 1.3. That won’t be until late 2015 or early 2016. So its not like I’m missing out on anything until then.