Rick Lang
Forum Replies Created
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Of course it is too good to be true because BMD just can’t avoid marketing hype. The crop factor compared to a full frame 35mm camera is 1.7x which as you know is slightly greater than Canon APS-C at 1.62 and Super35 about 1.44. Regardless of the marketing hyperbole, it appears the BMPC4K is great value at $3,995 with 12 stops of dynamic range and a global shutter with a resolution of 3840×2160. If course we need to see what the actual image quality is like since it is a different sensor than on the BMCC and the BMPC.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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Antón, does this meet your needs?
Interesting you mentioned that Sandisk recommends enabling TRIM as I have heard on another forum, that the Sandisk Extreme does not require use of TRIM from the operating system as its internal data controller does a fine job managing the data without it. I understand it provides the same functionality internally without requiring the OS to issue TRIM commands.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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I agree, get it while it is free seems like an easy choice assuming we are not in Troy and an app is not a Trojan Horse! Doesn’t do a lot yet, but wait and see. We’re used to that approach with other software. Certainly nothing is easier and faster the JKL but there are menu selections and shortcuts that are not frequently used where a button on an iPad panel might help productivity. And that wheel might be more useful for some things once you get used to it and it’s functionality grows.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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Frank, good point about the FireWire implementations that stalled after FW800. It did surprise me that FW3200 was never a priority of Apple. But I don’t know when Apple and Intel began discussing Thunderbolt and perhaps that was a factor in their abandonment of FireWire as the future looked better using Thunderbolt (at least in Apple’s perspective). I guess in half a year from now, we shall see if TB is moving ahead or coasting. I do agree the USB3 is everywhere today and is cheaper to implement. But I thought TB would be a superior technology.
And if TB does go optical, it will not be an easy transition for all those devices that used the ability of the copper TB to provide electrical power from the port for their external devices.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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I looked at several comparative reviews and the Samsung 840 Pro looks quite strong on paper. There are no comparisons with the Sandisk Extreme 480GB because the Sandisk was released in early 2012 and the Samsung in late 2012. Still on the Blackmagic Design forum the Sandisk is possibly the preferred drive due to its reliable and consistent performance with video. And i think the Sandisk has the lower cost. Perhaps you can’t go wrong with either drive?
Personally I’m nervous about buying the family of drives that do not include that 6% of over-provisioning space as discussed earlier. I remember when the Samsung 830 was new, and used by Apple as their internal drive for their OS, and it seemed to be the best option at the time. Funny how now that drive is so-so. And I don’t know if Sandisk is planning on an updated SSD but that would be interesting. I like the consistent IOPS for read and write on the Sandisk Extreme 480GB drive even though on paper it doesn’t seem as impressive as the newer Samsung.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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Pardon the odd typo or word that doesn’t seem right in my post from the iPad. Auto-correction isn’t my favourite feature on iOS! And Bessie won’t let me edit a post on the iPad to correct the typos. But I still love working from the iPad for this sort of thing. Peace and love on this beautiful day!
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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Chris, I can remember reading that when the optical Thunderbolt cables are introduced the difference is only in the cables. In other words the copper and the optical cables can both be plugged into the same Thunderbolt ports. Now reading it and believing it aren’t quite the same but if Apple does manage to introduce Xeon with Thunderbolt “later in 2013” via the updated Mac Pro, then I’m hopeful it will accept both copper and optical cables. It may be that the new machines use optical but not at 100Gbps. When will it reach 100Gbps is a great question If only I was qualified as an engineer like some of those incredibly knowledgeable “heavyweights” who post here!
But speaking from the sidelines, if Apple has decided to make a splash with the updated Mac Pro (rather than the merely incremental step up from the existing Mac Pros and high-end iMacs), then there is bound to be an attention-grabbing feature in there that sets the direction for their future development. I think, alone it appears in this discussion, that a Thunderbolt revision will be one of those features that is a jump up, not a step up. So who says Apple wants to make a splash? I am sure they are equally aware of the attention that the HP Z8xx and ProMax computers are getting among the creative community. It seems to most people that Apple did abandon the advancement of the Mac Pro and perhaps this was due in part to the focus on the iPhone and the iPad which has certainly proven justified from a business perspective. But Apple is a big company and there are no doubt those who were pulled from their normal workstation and desktop roles to focus on the mobile devices who have now been allowed to resume their normal programming. They’ll want to make splash and finally Tim Cook made that historic pronouncement in that e-mail (to a Creative Cow member I think) to wait until “later in 2013.”
So the hungry workstation crew has been hard at work to make good on Tim’s word. More than the iPhones and iPads that are now being developed without input from Steve Jobs, the next workstation will belong to Tim’s legacy. I don’t care if Tim’s background is only in the production chain, he is a tough cookie to negotiate with and you aren’t likely to win any concessions from him if you say you can’t fulfill his promise to the creatives. It will be a matter of personal satisfaction to him to see this product shaken up on his watch. When the full vision materialize in 2013? Perhaps not for another year or two, but the new foundation will be there this year, the direction set for the next five to ten years of Apple workstations. I just think Thunderbolt will be important, but there will be more to it than that.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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Chris, what you say certainly could be true about the initial copper implementation of 10Gbps Thunderbolt but the vision from day one has been to move to optical 100Gbps Thunderbolt. That has to be for a different audience.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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I am not sure how helpful this will be but Blackmagic Design posts recommended SSDs for both its Hyperdeck and Blackmagic Cinema Camera. Now the salient point is that these SSDs withstand the demands of continuous writing and reading of the video media on the devices. As a scratch disk for FCPX, the SSD would have more demands on the random access I/O activity. Here is a link but if you start at the main Support webpage, you will be able to select other operating systems and the Hyperdeck if you wish.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/detail/faqs?sid=27541&pid=27542&os=macOf all the listed products, the apparently most reliable for the Blackmagic Cinema Camera has been the Sandisk Extreme 480GB SSD. Many people have also had no problem with the 240GB verison of the same drive even though it is not on the list (the list is of course updated from time to time). One of the nice features of the Sandisk is that it’s data controller includes automatic cleanup and doesn’t need your operating system to issue a TRIM command.
If you do use SSDs as your scratch disks, it is important to remember they don’t work like a conventional hard disk so a lot of what you know about data storage does not apply to SSDs. For example, you may not want to fill an SSD to capacity the. Way you can a hard disk. If you purchase a 480GB SSD for example, you can likely get away with using more of its capacity because the drive actually includes 512GB of storage but about 6% is reserved for its housekeeping function. DO NOT FILL A 512GB SSD TO THE BRIM. It needs room to breathe.
Most hard disks such as SATA are managed by the operating system of your computer system. Generally though the SSD includes its own internal data management functionality which can be rearranging data in cell arrays to give you the best experience without interference or direction from the OS.
As you desire, you may want to reformat and erase a hard disk or even securely erase the drive. That is standard recommended procedure for a hard disk. It is not recommended to erase an SSD or certainly not apply a secure erase as it will shorten the life of the SSD. You can frequently reformat a SCRATCH SSD, but don’t perform the erase function. So let the SSD take care of it, not your OS.
When you want to write to a formatted hard disk, it’s a simple write function of course regardless of the state of the media sector you are writing to. When you write to a SSD, internal to the SSD, the data manager firsts erases the cell and then writes your need information to the cell.
Speaking of cells and performance, some SSD specs that look very impressive are calculated using compressible data whereas your video data is incompressible data. So the performance you might see is half what you thought. Another performance factor relates to the architecture of the data cells. The original and expensive SSDs used a single cell technology (SLC) but most SSDs for prosumers are less expensive multi-level cells. The catch is when you are writing to the first level of cells in the multi-level cells, the writes proceed at their fastest rate. So the first 240GB of data you write to a 480GB SSD will lay down quickly. When you write beyond the half way point and are writing to the second layer of cells, the writes are half-the speed of the first layer writes. So it is possible that you have a SSD rated at a given speed, but the true rate is cut in half when you use video data and cut in half when you use the second layer. And this assumes your SSD is in perfect shape to perform those writes. It may not be and as it fills it will slow down again as it tries to make room for your data.
That said, you can get very good performance and life from your SSDs. Just be careful and tend to go with the user experience for the way you want to use the SSD and not rely on vague vendor tests. Some vendors or bloggers are excellent in describing the details of their tests but they rarely include tests using video data! I like user experience better and would tend to go with the Sandisk Extremes at this time. If you want a drive that performs well in random operations, you likely want something that does over 40,000 operations per second (IOPS). Good luck.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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This thread has brought out the best of the heavyweight boxers and we have seen a hundred solid punches delivered that resonant. As a bantamweight I might only get in one quick blow and since there are no glass jaws in this thread, I know my brains will be scrambled a moment after my effort lands…
Apple went with IBM when they believed and were likely promised that the PowerPC chips would be the fastest because they were the smartest instruction set and architecture in town. IBM still makes PowerPC trucks but Apple abandoned PPC (shortly after I bought into all the sizzle of the G5) because IBM let them down, couldn’t keep up with the Intel team that seemed to put new rubber on their wheels after every lap in the race. So Apple partners with Intel and benefits for just a few years on the fast track raceways, with an eventual lynchpin becoming the head start that Thunderbolt gave them for once again going with the fastest and smartest technology they co-developed. But that’s also proven to be where their honeymoon began to unravel with USB3 nipping at their heels and becoming as prevalent as snowflakes in the spring in the US; and then 10Gbps Ethernet appears to steal some of their Thunder again without being as smart or as good but sounding like it is important.
And where is the promise of 100Gbps Thunderbolt to scorch all competition? Delayed because there is no need for it now? Delayed until 2014 can have a way of never happening as something else is in the works. Like IBM, Intel will offer it but will it be in time to outsmart Apple’s competition? It seems doubtful since Intel wants to serve two masters: PC and Mac. When Apple felt left out of the party by IBM in 2005, they found another party and had some fun. Will that happen again, “later in 2013?” Or will they be satisfied with a head start having the first Xeon Thundefbolt CPUs? But maybe they understand the party is getting old and they are seeking something different, perhaps this year but maybe not found for another year. Just as they went with Intel and their first generation alliance was a very short dance with the earliest Core Duo, it may be that what Apple dances this year may only be a hint of what they plan to do as they look about the dance floor for another partner.
Of course CPUs and GPUs are so important to get the work done, but integrated and faster Thunderbolt is an extremely important set of moves to bring on. I don’t know if Apple has the rights to do Thunderbolt and/or Thunderbolt 2 without Intel, but if they do have the rights, they may make their move once again. Their rational is not about feature overkill and specs per se, but integration of what works best together again.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB