[David Lawrence]

[Robert Brown] “The real time capabilities are great but usually you start to lock various parts of the cut and it’s not that big of a hassle to render those in lunch breaks, bathroom breaks etc. The key is to not have to redo work/rendering that’s already been done.”

Exactly. The efficiencies of real-time native editing are fantastic, but the inefficiencies of re-rendering the same stuff over and over for every output quickly cancels out any speed advantage.

[Robert Brown] “I think Adobe needs to look at this as an opportunity and not a burden because if they can crack this it will cause many more people to go with PPro.”

Yes!

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[David Lawrence]

Great article Andy, many thanks for posting.

[Andrew Richards] “This is the bit I was most dissuaded by. Bear in mind that you can get the same Ivy Bridge + Kepler guts in a old-school MBP, albeit with the old-school screen to go with it. But without all those built-in pixels to drive, GPU-hungry apps might likely fare better on the non-Retina MBPs. You can always get a fast SSD in the MBP to match (or exceed) the rMBP’s storage performance, pack it with 16 GB RAM after-market (maybe even 32 GB?), and swap out the ODD for a second HDD, which can be had up to 1 TB these days. Granted, the screen won’t be able to deliver as much real estate, but the Retina MBP apparently really has to strain its GPU just to do all the scaling necessary to drive 1920×1200 mode.”

I had a similar take-away. Clearly the MPRr is a technological marvel, bleeding edge in every respect. But despite the amazing job Apple’s done pushing the state-of-the-art, Intel and Nvidia still need to catch up.

I priced a new system for myself and and for everything I’d need (including new TB display) even with a discount, I’m still looking at more than a $4700 investment. For that kind of money, overall system performance needs to be awesome above and beyond the other offerings on the table. Little things like laggy browser scrolling isn’t OK, actually. I take that as a sign that this laptop is a transitional device. I’m sure for many it will be fantastic, but I have a feeling for me it’s not a great value yet. Better to wait until Intel and Nvidia produce chips that are designed for high density screens.

I’m not happy about waiting. CS6 really needs more than I can give it and I’m ready to buy something. But I really want state-of-the-art. I’m willing to pay for it, but it feels like this is about a year too early. Maybe something used and cheap as a interim machine?

I’m pretty confident Apple will build a laptop I’ll want. More confident than I’d be if I needed a tower. But it’s definitely a weird, transitional time for hardware. Lots of promise in the future but hard to drop big bucks now.

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[David Lawrence]

[Sohrab Sandhu] “I know you are on a MBP but are you running windows or OS X? If OS X, how has your experience been with CS6? Better than CS 5.5?”

Running Mac OS 10.6.8. To be honest, I briefly played with PrP CS 5.5 last year, but didn’t care for it. The changes in CS6 were what won me over.

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[David Lawrence]

[Scott Sheriff] “Tracks are a step backwards?
LOL! That sounds very much like these new 5D shooters that think lights and tripods are outdated, or a step backwards.”

LOL! Yep!

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[David Lawrence]

I’m slowly transitioning from FCP Studio to Adobe CS6.

Just finished my first commercial project in PrP6 and was very happy with the overall experience as was the client. The initial project came over perfectly from FCP7 as an XML and cutting in PP6 was familiar, fast and easy. The differences in media management – namely having to import projects rather than having multiples open in tabs – actually worked to my advantage in this piece.

My only beef is the well know issue of render on output. This was a two-minute piece so re-rendering output for the entire thing for every client change was not a huge deal. But it’s obvious this will get unmanageable very fast as program length increases. The Adobe notion that you pay the render tax at output is IMO very misleading, as it doesn’t account for client changes throughout the editorial process.

I know Adobe has heard this gripe many times before, but I’m saying it again because until they deal with it, output will be a big issue in many workflows. Once they nail this, media management and tape I/O, I think they’ll be golden.

I’m also now using dynamic link with AE for another piece I’ve just started and am giddy with the results. Coming from FCP/Motion, dynamic link between PrP6 and AE is a whole new world of awesome. I’m loving it.

In the meantime, FCP7 Legend is still an important part of the kit, mainly because there are so many legacy projects I still need to touch, but also for iChat Theater preview, which is an essential collaboration tool I have yet to find a replacement for.

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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “At least the performance reports are coming back good, even with CS6/openCL.”

Good news, that’s what I’m looking for!

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I do not. If using it in clamshell, then yeah, the retina might be overkill as long as you don’t need the twin thunderbolts.”

I wish it were that simple. I have the 24′ LED display so twin thunderbolt would give me the option of keeping it.

Of course to really do this right I should probably sell that with the unibody and upgrade to the new 27″ thunderbolt with all the ports. Ugh, this is getting expensive!

[Jeremy Garchow] “I have been a 17″ since they started making them, so the form factor/loss of res is going to be a bit of a change.”

I feel for you. Pixel density vs physical screen space is a tough call. I know my eyes aren’t getting any better…

[Jeremy Garchow] “I feel the same way. Buying a 15″ won’t be the most state of the art, but the new RMBP is pretty bleeding edge. I usually get a long life/lots of use out of my laptops so buying the newest thing makes a lot of sense.”

I got my late-2008 about a month after it was released. I was waiting for a major revision in the MBP line and this was it. I bought it CTO with the maxed-out CPU. I did the RAM and HD upgrades myself. Its had it’s motherboard swapped twice, HD upgraded three times, its needed a new battery after the old one started swelling. I recently installed a new left fan using the iFixIt guide. I realize I’m a tiny minority, but I like knowing I can take care of some things myself.

It’s served me well for close to four years now. Every major repair was covered free with AppleCare – the best warranty in the industry as far as I’m concerned. Apple always treated me well. I’m very happy with the service I’ve gotten from this laptop, but it’s getting time to change. I wish I was as certain as I felt four years ago.

[Jeremy Garchow] “I have yet to make the time to go look at one in person, that will probably help make the decision.”

Same here. My brother reported that the display seemed dimmer than the regular displays, but I want to see for myself.

[Jeremy Garchow] “She loves me, she loves me not.”

Word.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I’m rather paralyzed.

It’s not a cheap decision either.”

Me too. I was really hoping to replace my aging unibody after WWDC but now I have no idea what to do.

One thought is to maybe just go with the new non-retina MBP as they seem to have the same CPU/GPU options. I mostly work in clamshell mode, attached to a cinema display so maybe the premium for the retina display would be a waste.

Still, when I’m dropping this amount of cash, I usually want the most state-of-the-art offering on the table.

Really unsure about this…

Jeremy, I presume you’re thinking retina for field work? Do you work in clamshell mode very often?

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[David Lawrence]

[Michael Gissing] “Thanks David. That’s much earlier than I expected and therefore much more prescient than I had given credit on first glance.”

You’re welcome! Even more prescient when you consider the date in the video is September 2011 and in the real October 2011, Apple unveiled Siri:

https://waxy.org/2011/10/apples_1987_knowledge_navigator_only_one_month_late/

[Michael Gissing] ” Lots of posts about nothing happening too but it can all be summarised as – MacPro not dead just smells like it. Fancy small laptop with nice screen the only sort of pro new offering.”

Yep, lol. I have a bunch of ginormous threads to catch up on, but It’s clear Apple is confounding expectations as much as ever.

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[David Lawrence]

[Michael Gissing] “I would be interested to know the rough date this Apple promo was made.”

It was made in 1987. At that time I was working at Lucasfilm in collaboration with Apple on multimedia research, design and production projects (including the proto NLE) and this video was one of the pieces we looked at for inspiration. Mike Liebhold, one of my colleagues from Apple was deeply involved. More info here:

https://www.dubberly.com/articles/the-making-of-knowledge-navigator.html

Hey, anything interesting happen last week while I was off-the-grid on vacation? 😉

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