[Winston A. cely]

I’ve always liked the idea of using furniture that is the “opposite” of the hardware that rests on it. Meaning, outfitting a computer office with furniture that makes you think you’re in a rugged log cabin or ski lodge. Very dark wood furniture, heavy, and elegant which is always the opposite of any furniture that’s designed for “high-tech” offices. I hate all those metal desks with their laminate tops (which I’m using right now!). Obviously, I like the contrast of having these beautiful Mac’s integrated with very naturalistic materials. Too bad nobody specializes in that.

We had an Anthro desk in Seattle. I hated the specific model we had, because the features it had were never what I needed, but this was more the model we had (I didn’t pick it out) than the desk itself.

These guys seem to have a nice variety of desks as well:
https://www.tbcconsoles.com/xk3.htm

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

I think you may need to make sure your layers are set to Normal and not Pass Through.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

For me, I’ve found that the only way to use Motion effectively is to learn the keyboard shortcuts, have NOTHING else running, and only one monitor. I have a similar setup to yours except mine is a Quad 3 and Motion is still extremely buggy. I have one 30″ ACD, and now that I’ve learned the shortcuts for my most often used tasks (thank you Apple Pro Training Series book!) I can actually have iTunes, QuickTime, and FCP open as I work. However, I don’t suggest having those apps open, knowing the keyboard short cuts have made it easier for me to doing things before the system boggs down and gets buggy.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

Ah! Good to know. I must’ve missed that section when I did the Motion 3 Apple training book. I’ll use the scale and not the size. Thanks!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

Nope, sans-serif. I didn’t explain this earlier, but it’s mostly a jump from side to side. I ended up removing the ramp on the size and just have the ramp on the tracking, and now it doesn’t jump.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

Paul, I hate to disagree, but I do think Apple cares about us. They just have their own plans, and typically (not all the time) they’ve not let us down – even when our plans don’t exactly match up. 🙂

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

Well, you guys have convinced me. Apple no longer cares about us! The world is ending!!!!

😉

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

I have a tendency to like refurbs better myself. They may be an older model, but they’re also proven in reliability which is always a plus when you’ve got clients with deadlines. 🙂 And most of the time, you can still get Apple Care with ’em!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

I see what you’re saying about there still not being enough consumer camcorders that use USB as a digital interface with computers. Maybe that’s going to change, maybe not. Of course, most of the people putting up videos nowadays can just use their digital camera or digital SLR to capture video and use that via USB. (Take a look at Canon’s 5D MarkII as an example of where I think the future of video and still imaging is going).

I think Apple sees that the interface between video devices and computers is changing. Sure, in the short term this could be a drawback to many who want to use their existing FW capable camcorder, but it also opens the door for others to come to the rescue as far as solutions between old and new are concerned. If Apple sees changes in the market on the horizon, why not be a leader in the field?

Apple’s spent a lot of time and money creating iApps that don’t need the bandwidth that their (and others) pro apps need. Using an external drive for your video with iApps is really not necessary so there’s really no need for FW in that respect.

There are plenty of significant differences between the Macbook and the Macbook Pro to justify one being geared to consumers and one geared to pros. Maybe they aren’t as big as they should be, but these are first versions of these computers anyway and things are bound to evolve as they always do.

Cheers!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

I gotcha. My misunderstanding!!!! Sorry. 🙁

Thing is, the Macbook is a consumer book and not geared for professional applications. I don’t think there’s any real need for FW on consumer level products. USB2.x will do everything at that level that you would need done; backups, music storage, recreational photography, consumer-level video capture, etc. If you need FW400/800 chances are the Macbook’s not going to hack it for you anyway, certainly not in the long run anyway.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe