[Frank Gothmann]

Hi Craig,

unfortunately, the Matrox product produces h264 files that cannot be used for Blu-ray replication because the resulting files don’t pass verification.
And Compressor doesn’t do segment-based encoding on Blu-ray files, only on .movs with h264 so that also won’t work so clustering is also not an option. The only thing that does it is one fast powerhouse or an 60.000 dollar encoder from Cinemacraft.

[Frank Gothmann]

That was a Macpro with one cpu. Throw a dual-cpu machine into the ring and use apps that can access all cores and things look different. I wouldn’t be happy with an iMac at all performance wise. MVC encoding of 90 minutes of HD takes already approx 22 hours on a dual-core Macpro via Bootcamp.
You can add another 10 hours minimum if you are using an iMac.

[Frank Gothmann]

All cards share the bandwith ie. with TB they won’t give you full performance. It’s the same thing Magma’s been doing with their PCI Express and regular PCIe expansion boxes for years. They are all external, mobil and, in the case of the regular PCIe expansion, faster. And they all have some quirks and compatibility issues every now and then depending on what cards you want to use and what you use simultaneously.

[Frank Gothmann]

Completely agree with you on all points here and in your other posts with the exception of calling TB solutions “cheap”.
Last time I looked the Pegasus Raid was almost 2000 Dollars. An Areca 8040 hold two more drives, costs less and is almost twice as fast when looking at real world tests (but, of course, it requires PCIe slots).

[Frank Gothmann]

Fast Raid cards (eg Areca’s latest controllers) are PCIe 8, so are 10Gig Ethernet Cards and some Fibre HBAs. And, of course, all graphics cards are 16x. This all should work in a 4x slot but it’s not max performance.

[Frank Gothmann]

What I find most amazing in this discussion is the way people claim to know how Apple thinks, what they will do, how they budget etc. Complete identification with a company; quite scary.
The facts are that Apple has turned into a massive consumer electronics company generating 95 per cent of their turnover in that area. The pro applications team has seen massive layoffs, FCPX caters for a different market, Macpros seem abandoned.
What makes you think this will play out any different than the Xserve. They dropped it with no proper replacement (and don’t tell me the Minis or current Macpros are a viable alternative, they are not). Lion Server running on a mini will suit some people with certain needs, the rest will shop elsewhere (including Apple themselves as none of their cloud services runs on Apple hard- or software). It’s a small loss compared to the money the make with iphones and ipads and they simply couldn’t care less about your visons of a Super-Mini or other mystical boxes.
And the same, that’s my prediction, will happen with the Macpros. Simply dropped, no replacement. It may see one more upgrade with TB, but if it doesn’t it wouldn’t surprise me. You can get an iMac if it suits your needs, if not Apple will not shed a tear to see the few people go that need something else.

[Frank Gothmann]

Of course it is fiction because, contrary to your example, you are throwing technology into the mix that simply doesn’t exist yet and nobody knows if it ever will. I cannot get any external cpu or gpu boxes, there are hardly any raid enclosures let alone networking, fibre etc.
So, we are talking about Apple possibly discontinuing the only machine that currently can handle highend workflows both with regards to performance and ability to integrate into an existing infrastructure.

[Frank Gothmann]

Imagine that this was something you could do all along, using an Aja IO HD or a Matrox MXO2 along with external FW or Esata Storage (with an express card slot, before Apple axed that, too, from the 15inch lineup).

[Frank Gothmann]

What’s wrong with this is that it is completely fiction. It’s like saying it is ok eol all cars tomorrow because one day there will be a holo-deck that can beam you to Australia in a second.
The report was not that Apple considers abandoning the Macpro for a super-duper new type of powerhouse that can do everything but will be just smaller.
It was that Apple considers dropping it and nothing else. To go from this to speculating about how wonderful a new world with stacked external cpu boxes will be is… a reality distortion field.

[Frank Gothmann]

Because they had hardware and software in the past that suited my needs. With the demise of FCP, Color etc and the possible dropping of the Macpro that isn’t the case anymore so I simply move on to find what I need without bending backwards.