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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

new macbook pro 15"

There's no arguing that this wasn't a brutal update for the MBP. I'm a die hard apple fan, an iphone owner etc. I've been seriously disappointed in the past year with Apple's switch to becoming a full time phone company.

Color showed so much promise but is currently not production ready. (ask anyone who's finished something longer than 10 minutes on it)

No Blu-ray, are you kidding!? What happened to Apple driving new tech forward?! At least have it as a customizable option!

The last Mac Pro update was like 300 days ago, are you kidding!

I know RED is a young and agile company, but look how much they've done since the last Mac Pro update, for heavens sakes Apple, pull up your socks!

PS, RED was working with Apple from the beginning, how is it that Adobe CS3 beat FCS to punch on this stuff?

Cal
 
Think FW-3200:
- No need for new HW - the FW-800 connector is the same...
- Fully compatible with FW-800 and FW-400...
- All You need is a cheap cable...

I bet You the new FW-800 is FW-3200-ready... :devil:

If Apple actually gave me that I'd be fine with that too... I am just saying they need a better storage option than FW800.

I suggested eSATA as a practical solution since:
1. it has been successfully implemented in PC laptops for the last few frikkin *years*
2. eSATA external drives are cheap and readily available.
3. FW-3200 is unlikely to be faster or cheaper than eSATA since it'd require a bridge chip (storage is natively SATA)

But by all means give me FW-3200 too! It should solve the drawback of eSATA which is lack of bus power (although hopefully they solve it in a more elegant way than FW800 does where it seems to be frying ports on Red Drives...).

Bruce,

What you are talking about?

Did you get some cheap SAKI to drink in your Japan trip?

Hehe, touche on the the cheap Sake ;)

I did have a MacBook Pro with me though... you see - I was trying to like it! I was even trying to do dailies in FCP. The only problem was that every time I rendered, I got half a green screen and the footage glitched over to the other side.

This made it a little difficult for me to check that my sound was in perfect sync (I was double-system a Sound Devices recorder) - because the QT proxies weren't playing smoothly enough and I couldn't render.

At that point I gave up on FCP and tried to install Avid on it. Then I discovered I couldn't do that because I needed the latest version of Mac OS. By then I was pretty glad I had spent my hard-earned money on my film and not on a Mac.

Now I am home, using my $500 PC running good old XP and everything is running perfectly. Avid is smooth, no crashes in any program whatsoever. I just want a few more features in RedCine, that's all.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
I'm pretty annoyed that the updated cinema display will have that new "mini display" interface cable.

I sure as hell hope they plan to make it backwards compatible (i.e have an adapter to interface with the 'old' MacBook Pro) it annoyed me no end when they made my G5 obsolete overnight.
 
Hehe, touche on the the cheap Sake ;)

I did have a MacBook Pro with me though... you see - I was trying to like it! I was even trying to do dailies in FCP. The only problem was that every time I rendered, I got half a green screen and the footage glitched over to the other side.

This made it a little difficult for me to check that my sound was in perfect sync (I was double-system a Sound Devices recorder) - because the QT proxies weren't playing smoothly enough and I couldn't render.

At that point I gave up on FCP and tried to install Avid on it. Then I discovered I couldn't do that because I needed the latest version of Mac OS. By then I was pretty glad I had spent my hard-earned money on my film and not on a Mac.

Now I am home, using my $500 PC running good old XP and everything is running perfectly. Avid is smooth, no crashes in any program whatsoever. I just want a few more features in RedCine, that's all.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Bruce,

you are very nice gut,

but sorry your story about using FCP and all Mac hardware sounds pretty confused and spoiled.

Actually you feel comfortable with AVID only and that it is your main frustration not to have enough budget

to have the latest AVID MC on the best Mac laptop to perform something like editing.

Have a look below and please do not sh** so often on Apple or even that can make Avid contra-productive.

AVID_MC2.jpg


LINK>>>
 
when is fw3200 going to be a reality?

Yesterday... :devil:

http://www.1394ta.org/press/TAPress/2008_0709.html

Especially note that:
Members of the revision team who worked with Baxter include Eric Anderson and Colin Whitby-Strevens of Apple; Peter Johansson of Congruent Technologies; Dave Thompson of LSI; David Instone from Oxford Semiconductor; Richard Mourn, Quantum Parametrics; Chris Thomas from Symwave; and Will Harris and Win Maung from Texas Instruments.

Wanna bet the the current FW-800 in the new MBP is 3200-ready? :)
 
Bruce,

you are very nice gut,

Likewise!

but sorry your story about using FCP and all Mac hardware sounds pretty confused and spoiled.

What's confused? FCP had some kind of Quicktime / Red / FCP rendering glitch / incompatibility. I think it was a Red problem actually since they have since updated their QT codec - specifically listing the problem I had as a bug fix?

Anyway, you are the guy telling me (on other threads too) that if I go with Apple I will enter a world of harmony. I'm just saying that from my personal experience, Red projects done on FCP have their share of serious issues. That's why I bought the new Media Composer. You know I don't have much money so would only do so if I felt it would really improve things.

Actually you feel comfortable with AVID only

True. I feel more comfortable with AVID, even though I have been using FCP since v1.2 and taught it for years. I started using Avid only recently (2003) but have in my experience found it more reliable.

and that it is your main frustration not to have enough budget

Yep, budget is always a problem. Avid helps there - because Avid + PC costs less and does more for me than FCP + Mac.

to have the latest AVID MC on the best Mac laptop to perform something like editing.

Have a look below and please do not sh** so often on Apple or even that can make Avid contra-productive.

Thanks for that link Sanjin. That is the exact piece of software I own already and which is working beautifully on my $500 PC. I'm sure it's stable on a $2500 Mac laptop too.

If Avid sh** out green frames I would sh** on it too. But the fact is that once I get footage into their system (even with my cheap PC), it is solid.

Maybe it's just my personal luck to have good Avid experiences and bad FCP experiences.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Next time you have an encounter with FCP and Red files Bruce, don't use the proxies, but transcode to ProRes with RedRushes. Takes the same amount of time that it does to import Red footage into the Avid. And because you're transcoding to ProRes, you get repeatability and consistent performance (and no half green screen mess).
 
Next time you have an encounter with FCP and Red files Bruce, don't use the proxies, but transcode to ProRes with RedRushes. Takes the same amount of time that it does to import Red footage into the Avid. And because you're transcoding to ProRes, you get repeatability and consistent performance (and no half green screen mess).

Gotcha - and I'll definitely do that next time. But then that takes away FCP / Apple's main advantage, doesn't it? Eg it takes the same time to transcode as to import into Avid, except I am locked into using an expensive Mac to do it, instead of a sub-$500 quad-core PC.

Also, I did the Red -> ProRes thing a year ago for the Ringo Starr music video and got very little repeatability and consistency because of gamma issues going back and forth between After Effects and FCP.

I have never had gamma issues with Avid DNxHD - and I've been using it heavily since early 2005.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
I was hoping apple would at least update DVD player to make it playback BluRay movies. Guess I'll have to keep on using bootcamp to watch movies... Apple sucks.
 
Nothing of interest to me today from Apple. I'll wait until the upgrade the 17" with new case and graphics etc. And the new Cinema display seems kind of limited in features for a pro user. No HDMI or Component inputs. Too bad...
 

Yeah... I fully expected FW3200 in the new systems. Apple really pulled up lame on this update. The only real cool thing about it all is the new nVidia 9400M + 9600M GT video combo. But every new performance PC notebook will have this same combo in about two weeks.... :meh:

Wanna bet the the current FW-800 in the new MBP is 3200-ready? :)

Doubtful. IIRC, FW3200 has a slightly larger, 14-pin connector.
 
FW3200 uses the same 9-pin connector. Apple occasionally includes newer chipsets in their machines than the software currently supports [the "n" enabler on some wireless cards springs to mind], but they would've made a splash about 3200 if it was in there. Somebody will rip the machine down in the next day or two and we'll know for sure.

Apple tends to do this on their first revision of a significantly new notebook design. The TiBook was the most recent "holy crap" first redesign I can remember in a while. They generally just add some cool stuff but skip a few steps to make it fit/cheap enough/ship on time.

I suspect that the next update in 6 months will be quite impressive [presumably 4-core processors, etc]. Until then... it's pretty nice. The new GPU handles RED footage much more nicely than my 2.6 MBP does. Not quite as nicely as my tower [surprise!] but it's still a nice step up.

I have a maxed out 2.8 on order, I'll keep you guys posted.
 
Thanks Brook, I look forward to your review as I'm hesitating to upgrade to this new MBP. I hate glossy screens but if the performance regarding RED workflow is good I'll live with it and connect it to the 24" as much as possible when working on footage or stills.
 
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