[John Davidson]

Oops. I was going for the full body shave.

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

[John Davidson]

I swear to you that I’m not being a smart mouth as this was my exact solution.

Move the monitor closer to your face.

No, seriously.

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

[John Davidson]

Check this out:
https://www.larryjordan.biz/fcpx-working-with-proxy-media/

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

[John Davidson]

Beautiful! My dog Mia was inspired. She’s not into the cold though.

https://magicfeatherinc.com/2013/01/happy2013/

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

[John Davidson]

Aloha Mick!

I like the blackmagic box. I’m sure the AJA box has a few extra bells and whistles, but I’m pretty darn happy with our BMG Ultrastudio Express. I just ordered the little Blackamagic HDMI/SDI monitoring box (I forget the name) and will be using that on a new iMac and moving the Ultrastudio to a mac mini that is connected to our machine rooms. Both AJA and BMG have great tech support, so either decision you make will be the right one.

The thunderbolt stuff really is useful.

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

[John Davidson]

Update: We had an old R380 that broke when moving our server. To access the media on the old R380 RAID, I got another R680 – it works flawlessly.

I really did have a crap card.

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

[John Davidson]

Adobe doesn’t care what OS / Platform you’re using, so I guess the bigger questions would be:
1. What OS are the majority of your students most comfortable with?
2. How dedicated are you to getting all your macs up to speed with the latest OS’s?
3. Have you tried Windows 8?
4. The aesthetics of a lab of macs vs a lab of pc’s, screen resolutions of the big imacs, etc, should be factored in. Recreating that same experience with PC’s is not as cost effective as you’d think.

We’re very happy with our macs. We don’t have 20 (more like 10) but regardless of which platform you choose, your systems will continuously need to be monitored, updated, and maintained. It doesn’t sound like the bells and whistles of OSX are really being utilized (that’s not a criticism) so I’d say all the pros and cons of your decision should be discussed with everyone involved.

If you’re in Seattle, maybe Microsoft can use you guys as a big case study and get you some discounts!

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

[John Davidson]

I believe if you set one system up as a server, it could maintain and install updates on all the other macs at the same time. Were it me, I’d go with Mountain Lion and work your app store situation out. There’s no sense in staying with FCP legacy. FCPX isn’t as bad as people say it is, it just requires you learn a new method of workflow.

[John Davidson]

FCPX is much better than when it first launched. You could try the free trial for a month and google for lots of little tutorials. Sad to say but your mac is a bit long in the tooth now. It might be worth considering selling it and getting an iMac, regardless of what new NLE you choose. I think you can also get a pretty sweet deal on Creative Cloud $29/mo if you choose premiere.

I don’t think that an upgrade to Mountain Lion will get you the performance that you’re looking for.

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

[John Davidson]

[Jeremy Garchow] “…And drive me insane.”

That’s not a far drive…more like a putt!

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