Andrew Richards
Forum Replies Created
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[Walter Soyka] “Metro is certainly different and takes a bit of getting used to, but humanity somehow survived without a start button prior to Windows 95, and we collectively managed to learn to use a bunch of other new computing interfaces, including DOS, Win 3.1, Win95, OS9, OS X, iOS, and Android.”
And aside from DOS, what do all of those have in common? Visual cues in the UI. Once users wrapped their heads around pointing devices, they figured out that there were “buttons” on the screen that did stuff when clicked. DOS did not, and that is why the Macintosh and later Windows was so popular. DOS was hardly mainstream, only hardcore early computer users used DOS or its command line peers. The GUI and the pointing device brought general purpose computing to the masses and made the tomes of command line syntax obsolete. Users could find their own way via visual conventions being established for GUIs and pointing devices.
Where Win8 and Metro fails on the desktop is that there are no visual cues for essential functions. The vast majority of the world’s 500,000,000+ Windows users will be utterly lost in Win8 because they are expected to know secret-handshake “gestures” (which are not really gestures when you aren’t using touch) that they must perform with a mouse pointer when they are used to 15 years of having visual cues to click on with their mice. There is no on-screen indication of how to access the Start Screen from the desktop (once you’ve figured out how to get to it), how to close a Metro App, or a host of other essential navigation functions.
To wit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU
There’s a guy who has used Windows for years, prefers it, and is utterly lost in Win8. I can relate (to the being lost part- I’ve always disliked Windows). I found myself poking around in vain like he did, and ultimately having to google how to do things in Win8. Even though I dislike Windows, I consider myself an above-average user, and I was lost. I can only imagine how frustrating it will be for the rank and file.Yes, Microsoft can add tutorial videos that play when a user logs in the first time, but that’s still a failure. Memorizing gestures and having to perform them with a mouse on a large screen is just bad UI design. Think of the headaches this will cause for IT departments who might deploy it to hundreds or thousands (or tens of thousands) of corporate users, virtually all of whom will be as lost as I was. The training expense will be considerable.
[Walter Soyka] “Like FCPX, Metro requires retraining, though I don’t think that it requires thinking different to the degree that FCPX does. Also like FCPX, I think that some people will find they actually prefer Metro after getting used to it, and I’d suspect that you’ll have go pry the Start button from the cold, dead hands of others.”
FCPX requires retraining for veteran NLE users, but it is reportedly a very quick uptake for novices. That’s the big difference between FCPX’s UI and Win8’s UI- you can sit down with no instruction and stumble though FCPX. In Win8 you’ll reach dead ends in the UI that you cannot escape without a secret-handshake gesture.
[Walter Soyka] “There are a few cool things to like about Metro. It’s clean and uncluttered with very little chrome, and a big emphasis on design, layout and large type to convey information instead of dozens of on-screen widgets, icons, and doodads. It’s eminently touchable, but still reasonably keyboard-friendly with instant search.”
Metro is nice looking, and I like the design language. It is clearly designed for touch first, and even then you need to know the secret-handshake gestures to navigate. Gestures are a great option for power users, but for the vast majority of users, on-screen UI indications of what can be done is the only way they will know what they can do to navigate. How many iPad users do you think know about and use the gesture to swipe between apps? How many do you think know about double-tapping the home button to switch apps?
Microsoft saw what was happening in the market with iPad sales and figured they needed to out-flank Apple on the seemingly inevitable convergence of iOS and OS X. This is ironic, because Apple has doubled down on the desktop by accelerating the release tempo of OS X to match the annual cycle of iOS. The day may come when you can dock an iPad or iPhone with a screen, keyboard, and pointing device, and get a modified UI with windowing that resembles OS X, but I think that day is still several years away at minimum.
WARNING: ANALOGY/METAPHOR APPROACHING!
Microsoft is jumping off the high dive into a pool that hasn’t finished filling.
[Walter Soyka] “While it will create a lot of headlines, I don’t know if Metro will really big a big deal for most of us. Without a Metro-native NLE, Metro will be a bit like Launchpad. I won’t be spending a ton of time in it: the vast majority of my time on my workstation is spent in the apps I do my work in, not on the desktop or in the start menu. Whether I launch AE, Pr, or C4D from the start menu, the task bar, the dock, or a tile seems immaterial.”
I agree, for a dedicated workstation there is less poking around the OS. You get your handful of apps pinned to the task tray or Start screen and learn the secret handshakes. You’ll get situated and get on with your work. But can you really argue that Microsoft isn’t making things unnecessarily obtuse with the hidden UI in Win8? If the premise of this thread is that Win8 will tank worse than Vista, I’ll buy that. Unless Microsoft makes some significant adjustments to the UI before launch (and they could), I think they will have a very upset user base on their hands.
Best,
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[Greg Andonian] “Demolition Man is becoming reality.”
I hope we also get the Securefoam on impact when the car kernel panics!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnyhkBU1yaw
Best,
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How are your clients accessing the Terrablock? Which protocol, filesystem, and physical connection type? You may be able to use SAN Locations, but it will depend on how your clients are accessing the Terrablock.
Best,
Andy -
[Bret Williams] “Wait for the smoke to clear.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CdVTCDdEwI
Best,
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[Shane Ross] “Here’s someone who has a 27″ iMac, and knows how to hack the system to allow the built in GFX card to enable CUDA…”
Sorry, I can’t help myself.
CUDA is not what he is enabling. Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration is what he’s enabling. CUDA is NVIDIA’s proprietary GPU tech, and was the only way to get Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration prior to CS6. Now that Mercury Playback Engine in CS6 also supports OpenCL, NVIDIA isn’t the only GPU game in town for making Premiere Pro fly.
I’m curious to see if the OpenCL-enabled GPUs baked into Intel’s new Ivy Bridge chips will show up when running GPUSniffer. I’m also curious to see a shootout between the different GPUs- Fermi vs Kepler on the CUDA side, and AMD OpenCL vs CUDA on OS X. Does anyone know if OpenCL Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration is possible on Windows?
Best,
Andy -
[Kevin Patrick] “I followed your link and got lost.”
It’s all the way at the bottom, “Instructions for Mac Users”, and it is written with CS5 in mind. The only difference with CS6 is that you edit a file called “opencl_supported_cards.txt” instead of “cuda_supported_cards.txt”. The rest of the instructions for identifying your card with GPUSniffer and modifying “opencl_supported_cards.txt” on the command line still apply. I have shamelessly adapted their instructions for OpenCL and CS6:
1) Premiere Pro CS6 must be installed.
2) Open a Terminal window.
3) In the Terminal, enter:
cd /Applications/Adobe\ Premiere\ Pro\ CS6/Adobe\ Premiere\ Pro\ CS6.app/Contents/GPUSniffer.app/Contents/MacOS/
then./GPUSniffer
4) You’ll get an output that reports on what GPUs Premiere can see. If it reports that OpenCL devices have been found, you can enable GPU accelerated Mercury Playback Engine.5) Select and copy to the clipboard the name of your OpenCL GPU.
6) Change directories:
cd /Applications/Adobe\ Premiere\ Pro\ CS6/Adobe\ Premiere\ Pro\ CS6.app/Contents/
7) Edit the OpenCL text file:sudo nano opencl_supported_cards.txt
8) In the nano editor view, paste your GPU’s name as a new line under the existing list (use arrow keys to move the cursor).9) Save it with CTRL + X. Answer “Y” (stands for YES, I want to save the file). Press Return until you get out of the editor.
Best,
Andy -
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “Dennis from Adobe completely hypothetically suggested that it was reasonably-ish doable to point the adobe Open CL implementation to a card not specifically listed by adobe as compatible, does anyone have a view to that? “
I have a 2010 iMac 2.93GHz i7 Quad + HT, 16GB RAM, with a Radeon 5750 1GB.
I just downloaded the PPro CS6 Trial, edited the /Applications/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.app/Contents/opencl_supported_cards.txt file, and fired her up. Mercury GPU acceleration was enabled, so I pulled up some 720p60 footage from my T2i, laid it into the timeline, set it to loop, and then starting messing with the motion controls during playback.
No stutters, so hiccups. I added 3-way CC. No stutters, no hiccups. Let’s break it. Added Warp Stabilizer. It kept playing, though at much lower fidelity as it analyzed in the background. Mind you it is still looping playback in the timeline.
I quit, removed the edit from the txt file, and relaunched. Warning: no MPE GPU! Now it can’t do any of the above gymnastics.
Then I modded the txt file again, fired up, and tried a few streams of T2i 1080p29.97 layered. Looped playback, started playing with motion parameters. Added 3-way CC to each clip, made some random changes. Still looping playback, and just a slight stutter for a beat following a couple of my inputs, but that could be that these are playing back from a single SATA drive.
So I got solid MPE GPU action with my older OpenCL card, and the newer ones will probably do more than mine does. But you will have to edit your opencl_supported_cards.txt file.
Best,
Andy -
[Bobby Cullipher] “I’ve churned a project or two in Adobe PP… but unfortunately, it’s not going to work. The performance of this setup is far too slow and the basic functionality of PP seems years behind FCP.”
By all accounts, CS6 is a big leap forward. It officially launched today, and there is a free preview you can try to see for yourself.
[Bobby Cullipher] “So, is the 2012 Macbook Pro worth the wait, or should I just buy one now?”
Intel officially shipped Ivy Bridge a week ago, so new MBPs could drop at any time. Wait.
[Bobby Cullipher] “The system requirements on Adobe PP should be deleted/updated… very misleading. I have 8gb mem, 3gb video card, 7200rpm RAID… and it’s terribly slow.”
Which video card does your Dell have? And what kind of internal HDD does your Dell have (specifically, what RPM)?
[Bobby Cullipher] “I know much of the speculation of the new Macbook Pro is that it will be lighter, faster, brighter… but how will this impact the performance of FCPX?”
The Ivy Bridge upgrade is incremental from a CPU standpoint, but possibly very significant from a total system standpoint (at least as Macs go). Intel is integrating USB3 in the PCH for Ivy Bridge, and there is also support for PCIe 3.0, though that will have little impact in a laptop aside from the GPU bus and maybe later on a faster Thunderbolt. Apple could choose not to implement USB3 for their Ivy Bridge rev Macs, but that would be crazy (and Apple has been known to be crazy from time to time). The embedded GPU for Ivy Bridge is also much better, though presumably a MacBook Pro would continue to also have a more powerful discrete GPU.
Short version, as FPCX goes, the Ivy Bridge update is going to be an incremental improvement, but it is so close to happening you should wait if at all possible. The update should come in days or weeks, not months.
Best,
Andy -
[Jeremy Garchow] “We have an af100, and it is starting to replace DSLRs on shoots that benefit from short DOF. It is more flexible, has real camera controls, and is fairly easy to operate. It’s not our favorite camera of all time, but it does a decent job. Avchd, is very compressed. This is also not my favorite, but if the guys holding the camera prefer that to DSLR, I’m all for it.”
Have you tried/considered using a KiPro Mini or Samurai with your AF100? When the AF100 was announced, I was immediately interested in bypassing its codec and cards and using the SDI out to record pristine ProRes off that nice big chip.
Best,
AndyEDIT: oops, already asked and answered.
