Andy Patterson
Forum Replies Created
-
[Andrew Kimery] “I used to build PCs as a hobby but I don’t anymore. I’ve thought about doing a Hackintosh, but I just have the to find the time to do it (and find the right guide to get the features that I want).”
I admit building a hackintosh is a bit trickier than a PC. I admit it is not a job for the average video editor. You have to make sure the mobo has a compatible bios/efi and the hardware is Mac compatible.
-
[Shawn Miller] “What if a low cost, DIY machine rendered your animations out 20% faster? That seems like a pretty good cost savings over the life of that computer. ☺”
I would agree : )
-
[Eric Santiago] “If I had that much time, then I guess Im not writing, shooting, creating and producing anything worthwhile to me.”
If you have time to visit the Cow you have time to build a PC : )
-
[Tom Sefton] “Who is mocking? I don’t like buying cheap hardware – mostly because I’m not technically minded to spend my time either building or fixing it and would sooner spend my time doing my job. I’ve trusted Apple with my business for the last 7 years and so far it’s gone pretty well.”
People have had the Mac Pro fail. I forget what movie it was but the Mac Pros kept over heating. People have had iMacs, Mac Minis and Macbook Pros fail. You can be in a bind just like me. I can just get out of it easier than you using ATX parts.
[Tom Sefton] “I asked repeatedly about performance benchmarks and from what I can gather, to get similar performance to the Mac Pro for raw playback and export with tech support included, it isn’t as simple as using a cheaper model because so far you have only said you can just about play 4K red one which is an obsolete format.”
My video is old. Having sad that I kept things at 1/4 resolution because the video looks fine. I can play Pro Res at full resolution but ti will work the GPU and CPU. Keep in mind for $1,000.00 I could build a Kaby Lake i7 system with a GTX 1070. That would totally out perform my old system. I used a GTX 650 Ti and a 3.4 GHZ Haswell for that video.
[Tom Sefton] “Yes, someone out there can build a hackintosh system that will do it and will far exceed this – like Maxx does, only with thunderbolt 2 and 3 and Mac OS support, but that isn’t me and there isn’t a shop I can buy it from.”
Why not become friends with someone who could build you a Hackintosh?
[Tom Sefton] “Paying more money does not equate to a better product? How so? You’re mixing that up with saving money by having the expertise and patience to DIY. More expensive cameras and lenses are always a better product – otherwise the films you watch in the cinema or on Netflix would be shot with a £300 DIY camera. Plus with added investment comes potential revenue streams in hires which you asked me to disregard.”
You are confusing camera parts with generic ATX computer parts.
[Tom Sefton] “Let’s just agree to disagree – I think that external peripherals have given great opportunities and performance boosts, along with the new Mac Pro being a great machine – it just needs an update to be able to produce the sort of projects that will be coming along in the next few years – like high resolution VR for instance, and if that means some more connectivity then fantastic.”
What I am saying is the PC gives you much more options at a cost effective price. Apple has you by the balls. As I stated AMD will have a 16 core 32 thread CPU out soon. It may or may not be an ass kicking CPU. Having said that what if it can cut 8K at full resolution? It might be wise to learn how to build your own Hackintosh.
[Tom Sefton] “If you want to build your edit suite on your own, have the expertise to shop for parts and service them, great job – I don’t. It doesn’t make us any different – both editors.”
You might find building a Hackintosh to be fun but if you don’t want to be tech savvy that is OK. Having said that I will try and play the short 8K files if you upload them. Premiere Pro 2017 did take a hit in real-time. It may or may not play the 8K file but I will at least try. I kind of want to know myself.
-
[Tom Sefton] “In regards to the $8K Mac vs $800 PC, I am sorry but the day I start working on PCs that cheap I might as well get out of this business.
Couldn’t have put it better. Cheaper isn’t always a good thing.”
So if the 2013 Mac Pro had the option to have a Kabylake 4.2 GHZ Quad Core CPU and a GTX 1070 for $980.00 you would not use it? I think you would use. In fact you would probably buy it faster then you can say FCPX. What if I built a system with those parts for $980.00? I think your are both upset that you cannot get an ass kicking editing system for under $1,000.00 from Apple so you mock those who can. By not using the Xeon CPUs and ECC RAM you can save money. Also using generic ATX parts is inexpensive.
For the record I have an OZC 750 Watt modular power supply that usually sells for $120.00. I bought back it in 2014 on Black Friday for $70.00. The next week it was back up to $120.00. See my point about ATX parts boys? Now you are both wiser.
I feel sorry for foolish people who would rather pay $120.00 for the exact same part that could have been bought for $70.00. Paying more money does not equate to a better product.
If Apple had an Easter Sale blow out and sold the $2,999.00 Mac Pro for $999.99 I bet you would both buy one : )
-
[Stephen Smith] “I installed a 2nd computer monitor today. I went to Preferences, Playback and checked the 2nd monitor. Everything worked great. Now all of the sudden it doesn’t show up anymore. I shut down my computer hoping that would do the trick but it still isn’t working. I checked and the 2nd monitor is still selected.”
Are you trying to output to the second monitor using the Mercury Transmit?
-
[Joe Marler] “Some say that Premiere CC has developed stability and performance issues, but I have also encountered plenty of these on FCPX. 10.3.1 introduced a significant performance regression (so-called “drag lag” problem) on longer timelines and even shorter timelines with many connected clips. It is supposedly fixed in 10.3.2 but it still seems a bit laggy to me. There are also an uncomfortable number of crash reports on 10.3.x, and I spent a week isolating one for Apple which involves an immediate reproducible crash on import.”
Interesting.
[Joe Marler] “Despite my previous post about FCPX being faster than Premiere on 4k H264 multicam, I just tested a 2 hr 2-camera 4k timeline on FCPX and it is unusably slow without proxy — on a top-spec 2015 iMac 27 with all media on a 4 x 2TB Thunderbolt 2 SSD RAID-0 array. Now that Adobe finally added proxy support to Premiere it is pretty fast on H264 4k. If you have to use proxy for 4k H264 on both Premiere and FCPX, you could argue what’s the actual performance difference?”
On my system I wouldn’t use proxy but one a laptop it might be wise. I am willing to state FCPX might get better performance on a laptop than Premiere Pro but others have state on a desktop it is more equal. With the PC we just have more hardware options.
[Joe Marler] “Maintaining software quality in a complex product is like pushing a huge boulder up a hill. A moment’s inattention and it gets out of control.”
Perhaps you are correct.
-
[Tom Sefton] “Yes I can upload some shorter clips for you.
I’ve done plenty of my own testing with Red One media – I’ve also noticed vast performance differences from CC to FCPX with raw media on more recent cameras from Red.”
I will try to play the files.
I will admit Premiere Pro 2017 did take a hit in real-time performance. Will it get fixed soon? Who knows? Premiere Pro 2017 is buggy because Adobe got rid of the beta testers. Adobe used to be a good company but not anymore. They are mediocre at best these days.
-
[Tom Sefton] “There aren’t any 8K monitors available for playback at present, just a couple of models announced.”
That is what I thought.
[Tom Sefton] “Much of our work goes to large projection screens for install in visitor centres/museums where high resolution displays are achieved via edge blended projection or video walls.”
Matrox makes good graphics cards for video walls.
https://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/
[Tom Sefton] “We’ve worked extensively in 4K and 6K where the CPU and GPU of the new Mac Pro is worked extremely hard, but performs incredibly well – offering realtime encoding from 4K Dragon to ProRes footage, and butter smooth playback. The new 8K Helium camera is stunning but obviously taxes your desktop machine even more for editing and post – hence my interest in what a PC can do with similar budget to a maxed out new Mac Pro with an external RAID.”
On the PC side you can opt for Dual 8 core Xeons and Dual Titan graphics cards. Keep in mind AMD is going to be releasing a 16 core 32 thread CPU soon. AMD will also release the Vega graphics cards soon. I doubt I will get a new PC myself because I am not editing feature films. I wish I had an excuse to get a new PC but I don’t. My little Haswell CPU works OK for my needs just like a lot of FCPX user can edit just fine using an iMac. For those that must edit 8K at full resolution will AMD be a better option than Intel? Only time will tell.
-
Do you actually have an 8K monitor? Just curious. I can play 4K Pro Res at full resolution but it works the CPU and GPU kind of hard. I don’t have a 4K monitor so I just leave it at 1/2 resolution. That way I can apply cc and other effects. I myself just work with HD for clients creating web content.