which laptop for editing……..

[Tim Kolb]

I’m curious to see if Tiger helps the Mac’s speed standings.

AE not only runs faster on a PC, it runs faster on a 32 bit Xeon vs a 64 bit G5, which I have to believe is just poor processor management.

There is something to the notion that Adobe has changed it’s development platform in at least the video segment to PC and the Mac versions are largely ported applications…I guess AE is the only video app left on Mac…Photoshop is counted primarily as a print tool.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Matt Rogers]

Thank you all for your input and advice on this subject.
I didn’t start this postm, but I took alot out of it.

-Matt

[Charley King]

[Tim Kolb] “I’m curious to see if Tiger helps the Mac’s speed standings. “

Tim,
I’m not sure how reliable this information is, but I have seen and heard a lot of problems with Tiger, hardware not compatible, software not compatible, etc. This sounds somewhat like Win XP did to some hardware, but at least they warned us that there might be problems with some older hardware.

Charlie

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Tim,

not to add any more confussion to this post, BUT even though Tiger is 64bit inabled, you would need the program to run at 64bit to see any speed improvements in regards 64bit processing. So even though Tiger is 64bit, when running AE, it’s pulling from 32bit code. Not only that, but you would also need to make sure EVERYTHING on the computer is running at 64bit, otherwise, as soon as it hits a older 32bit writen code, the OS will ‘port itself down’ to 32bit to run the code. So if a plug-in was written in 32 bit, or anything other 32bit code it ran into while running a program, it would be slow down the 64bit throughput. It will probably be a couple of years before anyone is running on a computer that has everything running at native 64bit.

I read an interesting article about 64bit. It metion that even IF you rewrote all the software to run native 64bit, for G5 or a dual Xeon for that matter, the computer would actually run slower!! Computers/Software is at a transitional stage right now and software is a little ahead of hardward. What happens in 64bit is all these little ‘pointers’ that tell what the computer to do, and where to go, suddenly double in size. 2 problems with this, one the pointers DON’T need to be any bigger (since it’s just ‘pointing’ where/what to do) and now your computer is chewing through Cache and RAM twice as fast, but still not doing anything different. So now your cache and RAM have to dump data, to make room for more, twice as much as before. This continual dumping of cache slows down your computer. So we’ll bus/cache speeds double for it to catch up with 64bit programs. Yikes! I’m sure it will happen, it’s just a matter of when.

Somebody feel free to clarify any of the technical stuff I might have missed. I very computer literate, but there’s a point where it’s just too much info!

So, I imagine that if Adobe wrote AE in 64bit tomorrow, PC’s and Mac’s would stay about the same distance from each other.
Kind of like ending up where we started…
😛

Cheers,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Bob Bonniol]

Well, all I can say after rolling out Tiger across alot of studio’s machines (we’re a mixed mac/window house… about 10 of each), is that the only hardware problem we’ve had is with our Cinewave (something we expected with Avid’s purchase of Pinnacle), and we’ve experienced no software conflicts, and have seen a modest speed bump with some apps. I think any time a new OS revision comes out wome will have problems and others will not. I don’t see this as widespread, unless I’ve missed something.

Regarding some of the other talk about disappointment in Apple’s 64bit performance vs some of the chipsets on the windows side, up to now OS-X has not taken advantage of most 64 bit functionality, and virtually no apps (that I know of) are natively using the 64bit architecture (except, possibly, Motion or FCP… and I don’t know that for sure). So until we see full implementation of this, I don’t think it’s a comparison you can make.

We recently moved our laptop editing setups off of the One Beyond platform (which was amazing, but which weigh’s about 500 pounds… or so it seems) to FCP equipped laptops. The G4’s have proved to be totally up to the task, and better to travel with to boot (which is the point, right ?). I know that One Beyond (and others… Alienware jumps to mind) have slimmer, lighter weight options, but we hadn’t tried those out. With our main suite’s shifting from PPro to FCP with Cinewave and Kona2, that’s how our pipeline went. We still do alot of compositing, and all of our 3D work on windows machines (by BOXX… Mmmmmm Good).

Cheers,

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Tim Kolb]

[Bob Bonniol] “Regarding some of the other talk about disappointment in Apple’s 64bit performance vs some of the chipsets on the windows side, up to now OS-X has not taken advantage of most 64 bit functionality, and virtually no apps (that I know of) are natively using the 64bit architecture (except, possibly, Motion or FCP… and I don’t know that for sure). So until we see full implementation of this, I don’t think it’s a comparison you can make”

When using CineForm HD editing systems, the AMD Opterons are measurably faster than 32 bit processors. There are no applications written for 64 bit yet, this is certainly true, but we see a performance advantage on the Windows side of the fence with a 64 bit pipeline, even though it’s not the same as if the apps were written for 64 bit, it’s there.

….while Mac 64 bit performance in applications that are cross-platform (like AE) that require serious render cycles, has been struggling to keep up with 32 bit Windows machines. My point is precisely that Mac has not taken any advantage of this…up to now anyway (I haven’t seen Tiger) as you mention, Bob.

The one area where Mac has an advantage in that the laptops are up to the task of doing production work without charring your desk ot your lap…my GoBoxx runs VERY hot with it’s desktop processor and 2 Ggs of RAM and internal RAID…

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Bob Bonniol]

I’ll give you that Tim (BTW missed you at NAB… Cruised by the Canopus booth a bunch… you still with them ?)… But this whole 64bit question seems academic in a discussion about laptop editing. Is anybody making laptops with 64bit opterons ? Now that will be one toasty laptop.

Regarding thermal issues, we have the same warm lap syndrome with our One Beyond and DVLine laptops (which I think are all the same chassis made in Taipei when you get right down to it).

Cheers,

BB

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Oliver Peters]

Several issues to be mindful of. Avid Xpress Pro and Avid Xpress DV will run cross-platform. I personally have had problems with Xpro on Tiger on my PB (worked fine with 10.3.8) but others report success. The main issue I’ve seen with Avid Xpress on PC laptops is that many of the newer audio cards – especially Realtek surround cards – seem to be incompatible with the Avid software. Premiere Pro on the other hand, seems to work just fine on these same machines.

Sincerely,
Oliver

Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Tim Kolb]

Yes, I’m sure I’ve seen an Opteron laptop somewhere…

I was in the Adobe booth with CineForm this year at NAB…just across the aisle.

Maybe we’ll run into each other someplace else…

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net