Christian Schumacher
Forum Replies Created
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[Darren Roark] “That’s sort of a glass half empty view.”
Thunderbolt is fast. But it comes in a very narrow product list, it’s pricey and has very strict limits. The apparent ease of use and its velocity can be very seducing (Isn’t it just a simple PCIe cable? And isn’t it lightning fast? Well, I’m sold!) But how is it going to pan out all of the daisy chaining that can be required? I mean as you expand your equipment, let’s say add some components to the mix? Or even trying to work with a different workflow previously untested?
Effectively being the only kind of interface that you have to deal with in regards to upgrade your Mac set up, how is it all going to ride in the Thunderbolt channel? I mean nicely? Throughoutput, monitoring, archiving and adapters of all sorts? I’m kinda skeptic on this issue because it seems to be a very constrained workflow dictated by a single interface without any other more viable options that regular PCIe already offers. That’s going to be upgrade hell!!! But It may well represent the smaller footprint that Apple is pursuing right now, and I concede that it is good enough for a lot of people.
IMO, Thunderbolt actually strikes me as a half empty glass:
“Like all Thunderbolt devices, the transfer speed of 10 gigabit per second translates to something less than 1000MB/s — even if you load it up with eight 6Gbps SSDs capable of a combined speed of 4000MB/s. And, as you can see, even with eight 6Gbps HDDs capable of a combined speed exceeding 1200MB/s, they don.’t come close.”
“One reality check: Before you get carried away and connect two or more Thunderbolt storage devices to your Mac, be advised that the bandwidth is shared by all devices on the “daisy” chain. Even if you have a Mac with two Thunderbolt ports, the maximum real world throughput with both in use is 1350MB/s. We know. We tried it.”
https://www.barefeats.com/hard167.html
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[Gary Huff] ” If the next Mac Pro is an iMac design with a single Xeon CPU and a Quadro M GPU, will it be a flop?”
This would be indeed a good transitional product for professionals who still can afford to go Apple, and would give FCPX a magnificent uplift, I believe. (As long as it runs Final Cut Studio without a glitch HA!) A more concrete flop would be a no-show, obviously. IMO as it stands today, even with a theoretical iMacPro, FCPX is good only for small and medium sized productions which are mostly self-contained. In my example that wouldn’t work much for two reasons, it won’t be very serviceable and Thunderbolt ecosystem is scarce, expensive and limited. Note that most of Mac Pros in that company have to run 24/7 and do have to outsource some of their processes like 3D, composing, mixing, coloring, sharing, finishing, etc Yet these machines are optimised and fully speced for heavy use, some with internal RAIDs, some with special GPUs, PCI cards, Monitors, etc. And many play double, triple, your call. That’s the paradigm shift, the magnetic timeline is a mere poster child of this epic play. Out in the field I see Mac Pros running FCStudio (perhaps some 2011 iMacs running 10.0.5 and 2012 iMacs running 10.0.8 and 2013 iMacPros running 10.0.10 oh! It will be fun! You know, plug-in and Resolve compatibility)
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You’re missing a big point here, who’s to say corporate/web video isn’t produced with the same standards as in broadcast? Sure there are many small ones around but I do know of a production company that cranks out awarded feature films, high-end commercials and international cable shows and they started producing corporate/web videos in 2010. Eventually, additional personnel were hired to work on these other kinds of projects and that team is now comprised of writers, music composers, directors, senior editors, assistants, motion graphics artists, colorists, producers, etc. Actually, the department grew over time due to the success of this enterprise, in which quality of the content played a major role, mind you. It’s all run like documentaries or TV shows are, really. No change there, except for the not-so-crazy-deadlines, reduced budget and also the smaller scope of the projects themselves, even though most are international. But post production speaking now, it’s fiber and some dozens of macpros mostly as FCS seats, and just starting the process of heading everything back to AVID. That is a global assessment of the NLE use within this company, not only corporate. Could all the king’s horses and all the king’s men put FCP together again? Specially if the next macpro is indeed a flop, no way IMO.
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[John Davidson] “Thanks. I can’t imagine there’s much of a future with Apple.
“Nah! Thank you for extracting the core of my post, that’s exactly what I was trying to convey before.
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It may be fun and appropriate to some, but those tricked out iMacs and Macminis as of today, January, 2013
ALL computers from Apple until now still CANNOT beat 6, 8 and 12 cores Mac Pros from 2009, 2010 and 2012So, if one needs to add NVIDIA cards for enhancing operation with multiple softwares, and you want that to work
Mac Pro. This is what actually works if you want to do it. You can have any software. Any hardware. Mem chips
Any boot drive. SSD, etc Not only NVIDIA but pretty much every damn thing. That is what gets the job done.The 12-core Mac Pros that are running today aren’t going to be obsolete by Apple’s current line until 2015
That’s a bit sad, unless they update their workstation, of course, or even license some hackintosh vendorMy point is; Are you locked in with Apple software? IMacs, MBPs and enhanced Macminis are great!
You’re not? Do you want to deal with “others” ? Want to expand your hardware capability?
Then probably not a good future there. Just saying…Sure there’s people working in 30 second commercials who can pull it off but that’s the exception
Or people working in selected, cherry-picked parts of a bigger project, but that’s not the rule
If you want to build a solid workflow from multiple software operations that’s a no-brainer
I mean, if this is a Mac OS job, of course, get a Mac Pro
https://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
Click on 64-bit for the chart I posted above
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[Craig Seeman] ” Or maybe another way to put it, How many 4x PCIe slots does your Windows laptop have?”
Thunderbolt specs claims to be PCIe 4x capable , well it might be sometimes. IDK.
But here we have this new PCIe 2.0 4x card, where one or two SSDs work in tandem.
Great product as it doesn’t require drivers on OS X or on WIN 7 – but no booting OS in MP!
But I digress…According to them, both in native PCIe 4x in a Mac Pro and also in a Thunderbolt enabled PCIe 4x,
The Mac Pro performs considerably better than the TB Mac which isn’t disclosured but it must be an iMac 11https://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempossdpro.html?tab=2
Testing was done on their own Thunderbolt expansion chassis for PCIe card, so the problem may lie there
But the card is Thunderbolt aware and I can’t for the life of me grasp why would they cap ThunderBolt
Unless there’s a firmware upgrade that unleashes the lightpeak of thunderbolt, IDK what to make of this… -
[Craig Seeman] “MacRumors link or, in this case, shooting down rumors.
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/12/03/apple-hard-at-work-on-next-version-of-l...”“Update: Russ Hughes of Pro Tools Expert contacted us to make clear that his original report said nothing about Apple’s development work on Logic and addressed only the specialist team that assists professional users with using the software tools. The EMEA [Europe, Middle East, and Africa] team responsible for nurturing and supporting the pro studios, post facilities and TV has gone from 12-2 in a matter of months, so we don’t think the use of the term ‘decimated’ (even though a quote from our source) was off the scale. However as Apple has confirmed in their note to you, the pro coders are still [there], both in the USA and Germany – the team is around 60 strong.
Our question remains (which is not answered by the Apple statement) – are they willing to either deny or confirm that the team has been reduced from 12-2 in EMEA and if (as we know is the case) it is the truth, what does that say about Apple’s commitment to pro users?“
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[Marcus Moore] “And as to your assertion that Apple will only be making mobile computing devices in a few years is even more crazy”
Bloomberg might not represent the finest of journalism but I guess it’s a pretty big channel for APPL to talk to. Just saying. Apple’s stock is big, big news. My clue is that smaller Apple’s devices will share a lot more with its “computer” counterparts – which will be, of course, only notebooks. Yet, powerful enough to run plenty of things Apple will need – and that is it – “control” is the keyword – and so is “small footprint”. X-Serves, Mac Pros, FCP Servers? That’s the kind of things you think they’re planning to make? I’m not sure, but could be wrong though. I see them boosting their touch device business, integrating them tightly with their notebook business and selling tons of accessories while at it. Call me ridiculous then…Sadly, I don’t think this desktop line will last much longer than a few years. Let’s see how this Mac Pro thing pans out. Ridiculousness comes to mind?
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Don’t get me wrong, but if it is on Bloomberg’s it’s no rumor, this is a controlled leak to lay out their proposed roadmap regarding their future strategies. Specially now that there’s a lot of doubt in how Apple will keep growing and re-inventing themselves, it helps to prop up stocks at least…In 3-4 years there will be no desktop made by Apple any longer, just portable devices and accessories to set them in a desktop fashion, that’s it.
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[Michael Aranyshev] “There is still no replace on playhead, no ganging, no real tracks and the timeline is still magnetic”
And there are annoyances like having to create storylines to place a transition, weird undo and playhead behavior, inconsistent keyboard commands when on a event and on a timeline, ghost frames when having secondary layers stacked and connected to a primary, limited speed controls, still no audio mixer, etc…
Better now that we don’t get spinning balls and crashes, gotta hope for the best, right?
