Andrew Kimery
Forum Replies Created
-
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) -
[James Mortner] “And where do you think “big-iron” machines are today ? Take a look at Baselight grading clusters, Flames or Smokes…”
They are being used in smaller and smaller numbers than they were a decade ago. Since Blackmagic purchased DaVinci how many users do you think are running Resolve on an off-the-shelf machine vs some monster with 16 GPUs in it? Now that Smoke is on OSX I wonder how many people will use it on an everyday Mac Pro? Sure, they won’t get top end performance but if they could afford the top end performance they’d probably already have Smoke running in their shop.
[James Mortner] “Honestly, good enough ain’t going to cut it round my area. People just dont have time to stare at operators waiting for renders etc”
And your area, like some of my areas, is a place Apple isn’t going to cater too. I’d say they never really catered to it but the tools they offered were good enough, and inexpensive enough, that a lot of people didn’t see the point in paying 10x the price for the performance difference. How many people opted to configure an entire FCP editing suite for less than the price of just an Avid Adrenaline? How many people opted to grade using Color (or FinalTouch before Apple bought it), Symphony or even FCP’s 3-way CC because they couldn’t afford to walk into a DaVinci suite that cost 6 figures?
There will always be a high-end niche that has the money, and the clients, to get the best & fastest gear out there. But it’s a small niche and an ever shrinking niche. The constant march of technology ensures that. Sure, we’ll find bigger things to throw at the machines (4k for example) but the landscape now has many shades of gray where as recently as 10yrs ago it was pretty black and white. A decade ago if I wanted to capture and spit out uncompressed video I was looking for a tower and some fast, expensive storage. Today any mac with ThB can do the job for a fraction of the price.
-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
Thunderbolt can solve a number of problems but not every problem. In situations where you need connectivity, but not necessarily the most horsepower, you were stuck with buying a Mac Pro even if an iMac would do. That’s no longer the case.
Where I used to work we had about 25 seats on an Xsan and video router and they all had to be towers for connectivity reasons even though half of them were basically capture stations. Now w/ThB the non-editing stations are either going to be replaced with iMacs or Mac Minis using ThB adapters to connect to the Xsan and video router.
I think we are on the cusp of another hardware shift. 10-12yrs ago you basically had ‘big iron’ machines (ex. SGI) for heavy lifting, desktops for everyday tasks and laptops for internet/email while on the go. Today I think desktops are approaching where ‘big iron’ computers were a decade ago, laptops are the new everyday machines, and iPads are the new laptops for internet/email while on the road.
When Apple drops the traditional tower from it’s line up (and this might not be until ThB goes optical) I think they’ll introduce a new vision of the desktop computer (I’m thinking something that looks more like a Mac Mini on steroids than a Mac Pro). Will it work for everyone? No. But it will work good enough for enough pros that it will help do to desktop towers what desktop towers did to ‘big iron’ rigs.
-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
I would be very surprised to see Apple do this because they are a hardware company. Everything they do is to sell a piece of hardware. Want Lion for $29? You have to buy a Mac to run it. Want Shake at a wicked discount or a $30k color grading app added to the FCP Suite at no extra charge (old examples, I know)? No problem, just buy a Mac to run them. What access to iTunes and the iTunes store on Mac or Windows OS? No sweat, just buy one of our iDevices.
It’s why other companies have trouble competing because very few of them offer compelling hardware and compelling software/content. That’s why I think Amazon could be the closest competitor if they can smooth out some of the wrinkles w/the Fire. Apple doesn’t necessarily need it’s services to make money because they want you to get hooked on their hardware. While Amazon doesn’t necessarily need to make money selling hardware ’cause they want you to hooked on their services.
Bit of a tangent I know, but I don’t see how partnering with HP fits into Apple’s MO.
Sure, we would love it ’cause it could be the best of both worlds. But why would Apple love it?
-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
From the article Andrew Richards linked to.
He attributed Apple’s recent high corporate sales growth rate to what he called “clandestine” acquisitions of Macs by higher-level employees — who are sometimes reimbursed by their firms — iPad purchases by IT departments and small businesses buying computers and tablets for both personal and business use.
“The Apple assault on the corporate market has so far taken place without much formal Apple support, and probably without Apple itself understanding its full extent,” Bartels said.
The growth numbers are huge, but at this point I’m not totally surprised. What is interesting, and I’ve said this before, is that Apple didn’t try to woo corporate America away from RIM by making a better Blackberry. Apple made a product that people just enjoy using more than their Blackberry, even if it lacked some of BB’s key selling points, and so the users went to Apple in droves (as opposed to Apple trying to go to the users).
Now that Apple has a ‘critical mass’ users base they’ll do a little to cater to it, but I don’t think they’ll ever go as ‘deep’ as RIM was just like Apple doesn’t seem to have a desire to go ‘deep’ into the entertainment industry(buying & killing Shake, Color, etc.,). I don’t think Apple is much interested in catering to small-niche, demanding / high maintenance users.
-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
Given the compressed media that is going to be seen on the iPad I wouldn’t worry too much about the upped resolution that it has. It will be great for crisper text, thus hopefully less eye strain for prolonged reading, but for video and games there are other hardware limiting factors (storage, processing power, etc.) that will keep the screen from being as looking as brilliant as it could.
-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
Although I agree w/Jerry, why not transcode a sample into each format and see for yourself? Heck, you could easily transcode a sample in to 4 or 5 different popular codecs, compare them and get first hand knowledge of how the different compression schemes impact the footage.
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
[Scott Sheriff] “I’m not accusing anybody, of anything. I’m just saying that my rule of thumb is to not get rick-rolled following blind links posted by people I don’t recognize. I’m sure I’m not the only one. You may recognize Franz, but I don’t have a clue who he is, nothin’ personal.”
How is it a blind link? The URL clearly says “Arstechnica” (which is one of the biggest tech sites around) and if you hover over the link it will show you the destination URL at the bottom of your browser.
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
[Steve Eisen] “Not true. It’s all based on the camera sensor. The P2 camera I have, HPX-500 has a native sensor of 960×720. When dropped into FCP, it detects the footage and stretches it to 1280×720.”
Slight correction, it’s based on the codec on not the sensor.-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
I’ve got to agree more with Philip on this one. Apple got the iPad and iPhone into enterprise through the back door. They made products that people really liked and wanted to use and that grass roots movement, if you will, is forcing companies and governments to figure out how to support the devices and fold them into their infrastructures.
A friend of mine works closely with IT for a large insurance company and what he told me once I think sums this up. Whether we like it or not people will demand to use these devices for work purposes so we need to figure out how to support them because not supporting them isn’t a realistic option.
-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5)