Chris Kenny
Forum Replies Created
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[Chris Harlan] “I don’t believe thats the case. I could be wrong, but I believe the nature of Thunderbolt requires a single chain like SCSI.”
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/technology-brief/thunderbolt-technology-brief.pdf
“A symmetric architecture that supports flexible topologies (star, tree, daisy chaining, etc.) and enables peer-to-peer communication (via software) between devices.”
Star/tree topologies should allow for hubs.
FireWire technically allows for hubs as well. A few were available, but they were never very popular.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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It’s free. As such, the download number is probably more representative of the level of casual interest than the level of serious use.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Jason Porthouse] “Whilst we’re on the subject, does anyone do a Thunderbolt ‘hub’?”
The Thunderbolt specs say it supports such things, but nobody seems to be making one yet.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Walter Soyka] “You’re saying there’s no need for growth of serious computational power on the Mac platform, because the users don’t want it or need it — which is fundamentally the same small thinking exemplified by what Bill Gates (never) said about memory layout on the PC platform. “
“Growth of serious computational power” doesn’t require dual-socket towers. Dual-socket is, at best, a way to get twice the performance — which you’d get with a single-socket machine ~24 months later anyway. It puts you a generation ahead at considerable extra cost (not in Apple’s tower lineup, because their single-socket model isn’t very attractively priced, but in general), but it’s not like single-socket machines aren’t also getting faster.
Basically, I’m not arguing that there won’t be future applications that want 10, 100 or 1000 times as much CPU power as today’s apps, which is the implication of the other quotes you mention. I think there will be such apps, sooner or later. But as mainstream hardware gets faster, the benefits of spending lots of extra money for higher-performance marginally mainstream hardware (like the Mac Pro) recede. And eventually that marginally mainstream hardware is no longer mainstream at all. Apple makes mainstream hardware. When the Mac Pro crosses this line, Apple will stop making it.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Tim Wilson] “(With apologies to those for whom X is exciting, whether in its current state or its future potential. I get that. For those who don’t agree, I think in fairness that Apple has a pretty good track record of putting things together in new ways after blowing them up. Like Mac vis a vis everything that Apple had done before that.)”
Or OS X — a lot of dedicated Mac users freaked out about OS X, and spent the better part of a year insisting Apple had ruined the Mac.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Andrew Richards] “That’s true, but I suspect Apple more than anyone has drunk the Thunderbolt Kool-aid and imagines slots are already obsolete today. If we actually get 100Gb Thunderbolt, then maybe for almost all practical purposes they are. But today? Hardly. So if we think about the USP of a Mac Pro, and we drop dual CPUs and slots (assuming an overly-optimistic Thunderbolt bias at Apple), there isn’t much USP left to separate it from an iMac.”
Sure. It’s a Mac Mini with a more powerful CPU at that point. (And actually, the Mac Mini is starting to be a pretty plausible machine for an edit suite… if this year’s Mini lineup includes a machine with both a quad core CPU and dedicated graphics — unlike the current lineup that makes you choose — we’re probably going to try building a couple of offline suites around them.)
Personally, as I said in the other thread, I’d lay 80% odds on at least one more Mac Pro. After that, who knows?
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Magda Fernandez] “Will the Cloud video apps be updated frequently within the subscription year? What if those Cloud upgrades have bugs and are incompatible with my setup? Would I be forced to use the upgraded versions? I’m usually pretty cautious about upgrades and tend to wait until more courageous types sniff out the bugs. Sometimes I don’t upgrade and stay put.
What level of dsl connectivity is required for a stutter-free Cloud access? “
“Creative Cloud” is a horribly misleading name for this; Adobe is just jumping on the buzzword bandwagon. Apps you get through Creative Cloud are still downloaded and installed locally. Once they’re installed you actually don’t need Internet access at all (except to check in with the license servers every 30 days). Because apps are still just running on your computer, I’d imagine you’d have the option to not install updates the same way you do now.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Harlan] “Popped it out of the box. Plugged it in. Plugged a Glyph 4 TB (2 platter, RAID 0). Zoom. Blackmagic saith: 185 MBs Write, 225 MBs Read. I’ll say more if there is more. When I have another break, I’ll try to G-RAIDs.”
It unfortunately does’t seem to support port multipliers, so it doesn’t enable cheap multi-drive eSATA enclosures. (At least that’s what I’ve seen reported; I haven’t been able to find a definitive answer.)
The Sonnet Echo can be used with several models of ExpressCard eSATA adaptor that support port multiplication, so that might be a better option for some.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Walter Soyka] “[Thomas J. Watson]”I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
[Ken Olsen]”There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”
[Bill Gates] “640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
[Chris Kenny] “If Intel has a 12 core processor available in a couple of years, will Apple really still feel the need to make a dual processor (i.e. 24 core) machine?”
Apologies to Messrs. Watson, Olsen, and Gates, who were either misquoted or had their quotes taken out of context.”
It’s an invalid analogy. I’m not arguing demand for CPU performance will hit a wall and nobody will ever want any more. I’m arguing that at some point single CPU systems will serve the Mac Pro’s current demographic well enough that for most of us (nearly all of us) dual CPU machines will no longer pass a cost/benefit analysis. (The same way most of us probably wouldn’t buy a quad CPU Mac Pro today if Apple had one available at, say, $15K.)
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Herb Sevush] “Dedicated professional editors who’s livelihood is based on the tools they use are not going to be put off by having to enter their credit card info at a website.”
True. But winning new users now is probably the key to dominating the market in five years.
[Herb Sevush] “And I don’t see typical Ap purchasers, used to buying games at $4.99 for their Iphone, purchasing $299 software for their as yet non professional video use. “
I agree that FCP X probably isn’t going to be purchased by many casual hobbyists. But you’re trying to divide the world into “dedicated professional editors” and casual hobbyists. That’s not accurate. There are non-casual hobbyists, people interested in becoming professional editors, people who aren’t technically professional editors but have some ‘serious’ reason to want to be able to edit video, etc.
Take, say, a high school student who wants to try to break into shooting and editing by trying to book wedding jobs. This kid isn’t a ‘dedicated professional editor’, but it’s not too hard to see him buying FCP X. (And if he’s really interested in editing, who knows what kind of projects he’ll be booking five years later?)
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.