[John Davidson]

It’s glorious. We absolutely love them. My office machine is an iMac, but our two Mac Pros use these and after I work on them some, it kills me to go back to the iMac. They’re fantastic.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Dear lord, I can’t imagine how terrible the 4k / compression will be on Time Warner or UVerse. I suggest they figure out how to get HD right first!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

We have two Seiki 50 inch ones at the office and I have a 65 inch Seiki at home. The 65 is more glossy than the 50, but all told they’re relatively solid. It’s a nice relatively affordable way to see 4k in action. The real issue is there aren’t many options to feed 4k to these TV’s to see it. iMacs don’t output 4k so you’re really looking at either a rMBP or a nMP.

In terms of near 4k monitors, we also have 2 of the 34in LG UHD monitors with our two nMP’s and those are really really great. $999 at Frys.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

That makes sense – we’re just running a basic NAS.

Steve, I do have one question for your brain. Any ideas why our NAS drive repeatedly switches to invisible several times a week? The drive is still there, but will just grey out. This has followed us with different arrays, different controller macs, and both Areca and ATTO cards. We’re at a loss. My guess is because all of the components have changed and it still occurs, this is coming from OS X. Any ideas?

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Every time I’ve tried rendering to a drive mounted via NFS After Effects freezes.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

And heaven help you if you want to render After Effects directly to the server over NFS. Hope you saved your work first!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I suggest you copy files manually. Export your contacts as an address book archive, set your email up on the brand new system, make sure you have an iCloud account running (the same one on your iPhone if you have one) and don’t forget to set other users up if a wife/child will be using it. Each person should get their own user account w/ separate iCloud account.

Don’t forget to just copy your iPhoto library and iTunes library as well.

I always like to set up a new mac fresh. Once iCloud is set up correctly you can bring it into any new mac and you’re good. The new Photos app in Yosemite will change how your iPhoto works, but that’ll be a good thing if you have a solid internet connection.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

LOL – I’m glad you’re not pissed. Almost didn’t post that :).

Seriously though, I haven’t thought about this supposed problem in years man, years. Of all the speculative issues I could have with X I don’t consider this one at all. It’s hard to explain it, but where you see an issue I see freedom.

We’ve completed so many projects since moving to X. My editors and I routinely sit down and discuss how we’re working with it – this never comes up. Since the 10.1.2 update and our workflow change to local libraries (as well as moving everyone to 10Gbe) problems with the actual editing are few and far between. Most of our issues are related to just figuring things out – like XML as a backup, etc.

Locking together clips for a dissolve really never comes up. They’re just not as relevant to how you edit in X when you get deep into it. Sometimes we use them, but rarely. We prefer to keep elements separate so they can slip and slide as we want. The dissolves still happen – they’re just not cemented in anymore.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I feel like I’m describing how the microwave works to my Grandpa.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

[Aindreas Gallagher] ” i give it 15 frames to blend on the left, and a small dissolve tail of 5 on the exit. That’s my splice. “

My screen grab accomplishes this almost exactly as you describe. And I do all of it in about 4 seconds.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.