Bernard Newnham
Forum Replies Created
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Oliver – “Right or wrong, the Mac Pro that Apple plans to ship represents design and engineering innovation that IBM, Lenovo, Sony, Dell, HP and others are clearly incapable of delivering.”
Or don’t want to, perhaps?
Bernie
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The only thing I didn’t like in Edius 6 – before I had to switch to PPro for employment reasons – was the character generator. Has that come out of the dark ages yet?
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Bernie
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A problem oh so easily fixed.
Bernie
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[Herb Sevush] “Your second example is just your first example sitting on it’s side – a little bigger maybe but not exactly a major revision.”
An evolution, not a major revision. Those little boxes could only take a couple of drives, and graphics cards hadn’t been invented. By the same token you could insist that an Ivybridge Core i7 is a little bigger maybe than an 8086. Just like biological evolution, things change in response to outside needs and influences.
Your standard box on the floor isn’t intended to be a major revision, just a nondescript box which does a job. If you decide to do something that doesn’t follow the evolved form, you’d just better be right. Those who buy the new Macpro will find out if they are.
Bernie
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[Chris Harlan] “Somebody needs some coffee.”
But he’s right.
If you’re making tv or anything else, nobody really cares how you did it or what gear you used.
Computers – the generally used black box on the floor full of drives and cards – aren’t like that to be fashion statements, they are there to do a job efficiently, and they evolved that way. They aren’t like this any more…
…because that isn’t a practical shape to do the jobs we need to do these days. They’ve evolved to a general shape like this….
or this ….
..because that does the job. Taking away the ability to add and remove cards and drives is what politicians in the UK would call “a very brave choice”. Apple tends to get away with this sort of thing because it’s Apple and can do no wrong for some of us. But a cylinder isn’t the way other companies think computers should be shaped, and I rather think they may be right.
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Bernie
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I was reading PCPro magazine the other day. An article about networked server farms was so far away from your average computer chat that I had no idea what the man was saying. It’s a whole different world, and a long way down its own – mostly Linux and virtual machines – path. I can’t see them popping back to an odd shaped machine unless there were very very powerful reasons.
Bernie
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Using an SSD as a system drive makes a huge difference which is most notable on startup. This W7 machine, which used to take several minutes – get a coffee stuff – now takes 45 seconds.
It isn’t as obvious, but all other uses of the operating system go much faster too.
2008 is a long time ago in computer years though.
Bernie
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[James Cude] “Doing your own tech support with a Hackintosh sounds like a lot of time wasting for a would-be pro though.”
Can’t say I’ve ever needed tech support for the two Hackintoshes that I’ve run.
I’m not a would-be pro, though I am mostly retired now from 40 odd years of making tv. I still produce shoot and edit some stuff.
And I try never to insult anyone for their different choices to me – you play with your toys and I’ll play with mine. I reserve the right to make my case here for my choice.
Though thinking about it, if I was still employing London based editors, I might choose not to use some of them.
Bernie
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[Bob Woodhead] “I’ve been considering going Hackintosh for a while…. but now I’m pausing to consider; what’s the impact of Apple writing code into FCPX, or the OS, to utilize the GPU’s in the Tube? Unlike traditional MacPros, they no longer need to allow for alternative video cards. So a HackApple at first boot will have a major disadvantage they don’t have today.
Bernard, your thoughts?”
I don’t think anyone on the outside can tell. When reviewers get the machines we’ll know more. It may well be that, like a console in it’s first few months, it’s the fastest thing by miles for some things. But that doesn’t last very long at all in this ever changing world, and a computer used for work, unlike a console, needs to have flexibility built in. Just because someone has come up with a motherboard which appears to have double on-board graphics, doesn’t make it a good investment. If you have two 16x PCIe slots on a standard motherboard you can take out and dump your GeForce whatever and bung in a new faster one. Need a PCIe add-on card – just plug it in. No Thunderbolt required. Need four monitors, just plug in, and if they get out of date, change them. A whole lot better way of running systems.
And I think I can reasonably guarantee that Apple will make you pay through the nose for all those bits and pieces that you have to stick on the outside of the machine to make it work as well as an ordinary workstation. You know – that special Apple-only plug for that special Apple-only interface.
As for operating systems – use whichever one suits. Somewhere below I said that I habitually have to play with four, but actually that’s five including OSX (six with Android in my phone). They’d be all pretty similar to anyone coming new to them. Windows 7 is currently the best in my opinion, but Microsoft don’t want us to use that any more. Well, I shall.
And on the home build issue. – no-one has to build their own. There are thousands of companies out there which would be more that happy to hang together any combination of components you want. I’m just endlessly astonished at the way the Apple fanbois let the richest greediest company in the world use them. Stuff you read on here often sounds like those conversations you have with smokers, who always have a reason why they have to keep smoking. It isn’t of course, any kind of addiction or psychological kink. Someone wrote on here about cognitive dissonance an while back….bears researching.
Bernie
