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Why FCPX Seems Faster on Thunderbolt Macs
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Make disk images of all install disks while you can!
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Very cool graph, but I think the scales are deceiving. A logarithmic scale might better show the tails.
The graph says that SSD is currently $1/GB, and HDD are currently 20x cheaper at $0.054/GB. I don’t know enough about the state of the art SSDs or HDDs to know at what rates they’re improving, but if SSDs halve in cost per gigabyte every year, it’ll be 2019 before they reach the level that mechanical HDDs offer today.
I think the crossover may still be a while away. (I’d love to be wrong!)
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 -
[Jeremy Garchow] “Make disk images of all install disks while you can!”
This is a great idea for speedier re-installs, too. Legend installations were a breeze with disk images. Mount all the images, run the installer, don’t worry about feeding the DVDs, and you’re done before you know it.
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 -
[Craig Seeman] “Imply pro (vs consumer) and I say commodity. Commodity is NOT consumer. Two Thunderbolt ports on a $2200-$2800+ laptop is not “consumer.” “
But commodity is a technical term, and I don’t think it applies to Apple’s highly-differentiated products at all. I see your point and I think you’re on to something, but there’s got to be a better word than commodity for it. Broad and disposable both come to mind.
You may argue Thunderbolt on a $3K laptop is not consumer, but I’d argue that professional is not well-defined as “not consumer” — whatever consumer and professional mean.
I agree with those who have said that Apple doesn’t do traditional marketing. They are not segmenting the market and designing products accordingly. A consumer and a pro can both buy a MBPr and get something out of it. There aren’t too many consumers lining up to buy HP EliteBook 8760s or BOXX GoBOXX 1840 laptops, because they are purpose-built for high-end professional mobility and offer no value at all for consumers.
[Craig Seeman] “Personally, only when the ability to do something is completely dropped would I be concerned. If less frequently used connectivity is done through an adaptor, it’s no less “pro.””
To be clear, the “less frequently used” connectivity we’re talking about is Ethernet and FireWire 800 — two mainstays of current video production infrastructures.
Adding back the “missing” stuff will reduce your expansion options, requiring two end-of-chain Thunderbolt adapters (and a USB hub plus an external optical drive if you care about that), completely negating the space and weight savings of the new design.
Don’t get me wrong, this looks like a great laptop, but I would have been even more excited about a retina display and extra Thunderbolt port on the erstwhile 17″ form factor.
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 -
[Walter Soyka] “Very cool graph, but I think the scales are deceiving. “
The essential issue with ALL graphs. Whoever determines the scale and the increments, determines the graphs visual implications.
That said, it’s still a useful trend snapshot if you’ve had some experience in graph reading and can figure out what this choice of data to plot and that particular scale reveals what it obscures.
I think this one is pretty clear even if the lifetime costs scales make it harder to distinguish the rate of convergence once the huge hit of development and tooling have been covered.
Personal note to the young forum followers.
If schools haven’t taught you this stuff yet, (and hardly any do) it IS gonna be important in your life if you don’t want to be regularly bamboozled by pretty charts coming from those who want to manipulate you.One of the most important days in my life as a visual communicator was the day I sat down with Tufte’s Visual Display of Quantitative Information to learn a little more about how charts are properly or improperly formed. It’s pretty huge skill in this increasingly visual world.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Walter Soyka] “But commodity is a technical term, and I don’t think it applies to Apple’s highly-differentiated products at all. I see your point and I think you’re on to something, but there’s got to be a better word than commodity for it. Broad and disposable both come to mind.”
Broad and disposable may be close to accurate. Are you saying that’s commodity but there needs to be a better term? I think Apple’s lack of user replaceable internals are part of the move towards “disposable” although actually they just move down market as used goods when the time comes unless they truly break.
I also think Apple’s changes are to broaden the reach.[Walter Soyka] “You may argue Thunderbolt on a $3K laptop is not consumer, but I’d argue that professional is not well-defined as “not consumer” — whatever consumer and professional mean.”
I think it’s difficult to define consumer and pro these days. I also don’t think they’re directly relevant to Apple’s approach. Generally I see a trend towards shorter life cycles across their product line. I would say that $3k price is more likely to be purchased by content creators whether it be “business” people, photographers, video post. Even iPhones and iPads are used as content creation tools though but a large number of people purchase them to “consume” content . . . whereas, proportionally, a larger number of people buying a $3k laptop are going to be content creators.
Basically I do see Apple moving towards short life cycle products, Some very powerful and relatively expensive such as MBPr and some less expensive such as iPads. There’s no solid cutoff in distinction. I do think there are differences in the proportion of content creators and content consumers relative to the amount of money they spend on devices and what they use them for.
[Walter Soyka] “To be clear, the “less frequently used” connectivity we’re talking about is Ethernet and FireWire 800 — two mainstays of current video production infrastructures.”
But I’d differentiate between Desktop and Laptop especially with Ethernet. Ethernet ports are more important to desktops than laptops. Laptops the push is towards greater portability (lighter and more flexibility relative to size) while minimize “power” features.
[Walter Soyka] “Adding back the “missing” stuff will reduce your expansion options, requiring two end-of-chain Thunderbolt adapters (and a USB hub plus an external optical drive if you care about that), completely negating the space and weight savings of the new design.”
Only some of the time. The nature of a laptop means having to cut corners and prioritizing such corner cutting. Something HAS to get cut. Priority is lighter and smaller (to some extent) even amongst most pros (not ALL, MOST and that’s the commodity tradeoff). With Thunderbolt you can, at least, still have everything. You don’t ALWAYS need to bring every imaginable adaptor. You don’t have to have EVERY imaginable port built in. Bring ONE Belkin Dock which has Thunderbolt pass through and you have nearly everything eSata, Ethernet, Firewire, 3 more USB3 ports. It’s not end of chain. Many more times one just needs a portable workstation and the MBPr all by itself will be sufficient.
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[Walter Soyka] “This is a great idea for speedier re-installs, too. Legend installations were a breeze with disk images. Mount all the images, run the installer, don’t worry about feeding the DVDs, and you’re done before you know it.
“But how is this more of “a breeze” then just connecting to the App Store and downloading a fresh copy directly to your device?
Seems to me that App Store distribution has changed all that.
BTW, not arguing against a disk image at all – maybe you’ll have to cut a documentary on the Amazon whilst actually ON the Amazon far from internet access – but for the “connected shop” I see less and less benefit to thinking of my local copies as the “go to” backup.
On another thought, as I’ve read this thread, I find it increasingly interesting in how different “camps” are conditioned to seeing workflow issues so differently.
For me, my laptop is mostly just one of several peripherals that now hang on my editing system.
It’s not the “hub” anymore. Neither is my desktop editing system. I’m increasingly seeing my “editing system” as a virtual thing built of various interchangeable parts. This seems much more like what multi-editor facilities have been doing forever, but for a small practitioner like me, it’s a pretty big change in thinking from seeing my “editing machine” as something sitting on a desk.
FCP-X was actually the catalyst for that change in thinking – since it was the first program central to my business life where I didn’t have a single “master copy” of the data in a fixed location – but rather a system where a variety of devices running the same software could be transformed into “my editing suite” simply by attaching portable storage – and unlike my habits with Legacy – everything about that project from the edit to the graphics to the audio files would re-load and become functional on boot.
Old hat to many. A significant change for me.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Bill Davis] “But how is this more of “a breeze” then just connecting to the App Store and downloading a fresh copy directly to your device? “
Show me where I can download FCS3 on the AppStore and I’m all for it, Bill!
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[Andrew Richards] “It is nice that FCPX is so attuned to the baked-in efficiencies in Intel’s new CPUs, and that the mainstream ones found in iMacs and MacBook Pros can be so effective because of it. But more is still more, and new E5 Xeons are way more. If they had done a new Mac Pro around them it would have been truly stunning performance.
The only thing that would be slowing FCPX down would be all its UI animations. 😉
Best,
Andy”I get this Andy, but I’m not sure you can design efficiently for both.
At huge risk of a metaphorical backlash ; )
I think a lot of people fantasize about shoehorning that indy engine into their commuted sedan – but I’m not aware of anyone who’s made a functional business model out of that.
It’s fun to watch the pit crews and the racing teams push performance to the limit. But it’s a small class game for the few that most people just can’t participate in – nor do they want to.
And in fact, getting from place A to place B fractions of a second faster – or even at 150 mph rather than 75 mph is all well and good – but it’s not how most of us want to drive at all.
The magic is when a vehicle comes out that has exciting quickness and performance, but combines the speed and efficiency with fine “normal speed” handling, cabin comfort, and enough cup holders.
These are the cars that make driving better as it’s practiced by most people day in and day out.
And I still think that the innovations in X (and remember they WERE fundamental innovations in the software at this class and accessibility) are in the end going to prove more important than how fast it chops through lines of code.
If someone is a member of the class where code processing speed is the holy grail – then I’m delighted there are tools out there for doing that.
Enjoy them, one and all.
For the daily drivers for whom the journey is more critical than the arrival time – we’ve got excellent tools as well.
That’s what makes ME happy.
My laptop isn’t right at the top of the processor benchmarks – but the editing is way more than satisfying for me as it sits today. I’m looking forward to it improving in the future – but it doesn’t actually need to work any faster to do what I need to get done today.
Win/Win!
My 2 cents, as always.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Craig Seeman] “Are you saying that’s commodity but there needs to be a better term?”
Commodities are fungible; they may be replaced with a similar product from another supplier. Apple’s products are differentiated, and given the number of people here who refuse to use Windows under any circumstances, they are clearly not fungible. When we talk about commodity PCs, I think of a generic computer with no clear differentiation from other similar systems.
I agree with your point that Apple’s product strategy is different than it used to be, and I agree that they’re pushing their customers into shorter refresh cycles, but I’m not really sure what term best captures 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
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