Tim Wilson
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COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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An official reminder to please address the topic, and avoid comments about other people posting. There’s plenty to get worked up about without getting personal.
As my parents used to say, “I don’t care who started it. Cut it out.”
(For the record, my sister always started it.)
Tim
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[Craig Seeman] “[David Cherniack] “I’m extremely doubtful that running Vegas under Parallels will be the same as running it on a native Win7 box. ”
Again Bootcamp, not Parallels, would be a way to go if you want to avoid the expense of buying another computer.”
Regardless of the NLE you choose, running Windows on a Mac removes several of the advantages of Windows, including much heavier-duty graphics cards that enable dramatically greater speed.
I’m generally a fan of Windows on Mac, having written about it in the very earliest days when it possible — check the COW library — and opening a forum to support it. It’s a very quiet forum for the past year or two since Windows on a Mac now works quite well, extra support not really required.
But in this case, I’d call Mac on Windows a solution of last resort, strictly to be used for budgetary reasons. It’s great for running an application or two, reading files, etc., but not intended by anyone to do any heavy lifting. No point in switching platforms if you’re not going to take advantage of the hardware that can provide the payoff for the switch.
I’m just sayin’.
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[Mitch Ives] “On the positive side, Apple’s been forced to change the way they communicate. Their website lists features coming in 2012… wow… that’s new. They’ve also committed to the professional… wow… that’s new. IMO, none of this would be happening without this forum. That “pollyanna” delivery at NAB probably won’t happen again either… all because of the dialogue on this forum. Ron and Tim deserve a lot of credit for not caving to advertisers, etc. and keeping this forum up…”
[Steve Connor] “The COW saves the day!!!”
As our man Elvis would say, Thankyouverymuch!
We’ve talked about the value of this forum to the COW as a whole, and to the people who are able to participate in a way that doesn’t drive them crazy, but yes, we’re well aware of its importance to the web at large.
For all that this has been a full-contact forum, threads like this show that it can be done without losing a well-considered, professional focus. These issues matter, and they’re going to matter more in the future, not less.
re: advertisers, a note that, per our Terms of Service, we’ll step in to prevent unwarranted or personal attacks on sponsors. But the Terms are equally clear, if vendors step in it with a poor release, substandard service that’s not being addressed, etc., they’re going to have to clean it up themselves. We invite you to read that policy yourselves — we really do feel strongly enough about it to make a public declaration about it. We’re not aware of any other website that has made this promise to its members and readers.
Having said that, we give all the credit in the world to the many sponsors who have taken the heat and kept communicating. They’re showing that this is how it should be done in every industry.
You’re right to point out that Apple has taken an unprecedented step forward in this regard, Mitch. For all that there are other things to criticize Apple for, it’s fair to give them credit for good citizenship when it occurs.
Thanks again, guys.
Tim
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[Jason Jenkins] “Why don’t you just use the COW’s video streaming? It’s free and it streams better than Vimeo any day of the week.”
We agree. 🙂
The COW’s video streams are well-optimized for iDevices, and of course have embed codes and all that good stuff. Your videos are also tied to your Creative COW Services listing — you ARE using the COW’s free services directory, right?
Everyone we’ve spoken to who has tried other hosting services has preferred the COW’s speed and quality, although, if you have a different opinion, please drop us a line in the Letters to the COW Forum. We’re also building out some of the supporting features, which you’ll see rolling out in the very near future. If you’d like to be part of the fun, by all means drop by the Letters to the COW Forum and let us know what you’d like to see.
Did you see the part where I said the the Letters to the COW Forum? Please let us know in the the Letters to the COW Forum.
See you in the Letters to the COW Forum!
Tim
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Saying this to a LOT of people all at once — yes, this is a full-contact forum, but please abide by the cardinal rule of addressing the issue, not the character or intent of the poster.
The feature is working. Good. Now please help us return the forum to its working order.
Blessings,
Tim
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[Chris Jacek] “I think the point is to provide a place for industry professionals to compare notes on a controversial piece of software. There are many of us who needs to make some important decisions regarding budgets, workflow, or in my case, curriculum.
That doesn’t seem silly to me at all.”
Exactly.
And not to put too fine a point on it, I think that the forum title is pretty clear. The Debate.
[Tom Wolsky] “As a sitcom it’d get about a 1.5 rating.”
Which translates roughly to 1.5 million viewing, which, for the COW is just a little low. It’s more like 1.7 million every month, and trending up.
In TV, that’s kind of low. On the web, in this business, it’s many times more than every other site combined. The FCPX forum is one of our most active forums measured by postings, and one of the most popular measured by visits and views.
While posting has obviously slowed since the peak when posts were going up every 15-20 seconds, views continue to climb as more people are getting closer to making buying decisions that they’ve been putting off for a couple of years.
Especially in meeting our first goal, which was to keep the FCP forum clear for people with FCP support issues, and now, to keep the FCPX Techniques forum similarly clear — success. In terms of traffic, more successful than we expected. I don’t think ANYBODY saw this kind of discussion coming until it came.
In terms of creating a venue for broader industry discussion, well on the way to fulfilling a dream we’ve had for years, if not quite there yet.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m putting down a perfectly reasonable question, but we really do have 250+ other forums for people who are ready to think about other things.
But really, what fun is that? 🙂
For the record, the forum I’m posting most in these days is the Film History & Appreciation Forum. That one was originally created to talk about that very thing, but has also morphed a little to include chat about what’s on the air and in the theater now, as well as some thinking about THAT aspect of industry trends. We’re having some fun piling on Netflix’s misery this morning, but other recent threads have included the 100 best comedies of all time, and a nifty thread on ‘Notions of the Cinematic.’
So anyway, there you go.
Tim
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[Chris Harlan] “SJ: The feedback we are getting from the Pro customers is very positive.”
Wow, that’s amazing. Thanks for sharing that, Chris.
It supports my theory from the beginning, that Apple’s intent is to change markets more than serve them, and that they see this as something approaching a complete success.
Which is to say that they haven’t abandoned the pro market in 2011, any more than they tried to kill it in 99. This is what they do. I’m sure that they ARE getting positive feedback from the pros they’re talking to.
Which of course brings us back to Day One of this forum — what Apple means by “pro” vs. what WE mean by pro, etc. — but there you go.
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[Marvin Holdman] “I think it’s probably safe to say there have been at least a few “WTF” meetings about this in Cupertino…”
You have read this a while back, a reference to an article in Forbes (subscription only, but here via Business Insider.
In response to the MobileMe flop, Steve Jobs…gathered the troops at the auditorium Apple uses on its campus to do demos of small products for the press.
He asked the team what MobileMe was supposed to do. Someone answered, and Jobs said to that person (and everyone else), “So why the f^ck doesn’t it do that?”
He continued, “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation … You should hate each other for having let each other down …”
Then, Steve’s email on the subject, via Ars Technica:
Team,
The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour. There are several things we could have done better:
– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple’s standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.
etc. etc.
For all anybody here knows, Steve might think that they knocked this out of the park and that we’re all a bunch of whiners. I can imagine a similar response to the exponential amount of rage over iPhone 4’s antenna…which still bites, and iPhone 4 is still the bestselling phone in history…but whenever anybody mentions a WTF moment inside the Infinite Loop, I recall MobileMe….
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Besides, there’s a difference between Stock Yard and Stockyard. One has 50% more words, or fewer words, depending on which way you’re counting.
With that much of a difference, nobody could possibly be confused.
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Herb and David, note that there are already companies selling VPN access to insanely fat pipes with acres of storage at the other end. One of those is Prime Focus, reselling a broadcast news-oriented service that they created for their VFX and spots clients. They posted a press release about it in the COW yesterday.
Not at all intended to replace local storage, but services like this are a way to get around the throttling too common in the US that shows no signs of going away. Even if Moore’s Law applied to bandwidth, Moore probably wasn’t using DSL or a cable modem from his local telco.
Prime Focus’s pricing is more for corporate customers (BIG corporate customers), but I would expect to see solutions that scale down in the very near future.
In the meantime, many solutions are already available that are working fine.
My thanks also for the x264 tip, David!