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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 :)

Am I a fool for Apple?

Adam Rook

Adam Rook

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I want down and dirty opinions here. Am I a fool for holding out hope for Apple?

I know this has been discussed before but honestly is it time to jump ship or am I just foolish to hope that Apple will return to the professional market and stop insulting us with inferior tech at premium prices? It's the OS that I like and I'm a FCPX guy so I've invested heavily in that workflow. Plus I just like that workflow but man when 5K r3d files won't play in real-time and FCPX crashes any time I zoom in on my timeline it's beginning to get ridiculous. Especially when you consider you can buy a blazing fast PC that out-specs MacBook Pros and trashcan Macs at every turn for less cost.

Is the writing on the wall and I just need to accept it? Apple has abandoned the very group that brought it back from extinction many years ago.
 
I can play 6K on my trashcan --However, I have read that FCPX won't let you play 8K yet....

I am naively hoping for "good" Apple news at NAB (or at least some "crumbs of hope")
 
Wow. You guys edit 6k files?!

I'm fully invested in proxy workflow. 2k ProRes or DNxHD files for editorials and the RAW or r3d files get linked only in the DI or coloring process.

This takes a lot of pressure off of the need for faster and faster computers. I have a mac trashcan that works perfectly under this scenario. Also, it is largely based on your read/write speeds. I now use SSD RAIDS as my working media storage, with HDD RAID as storage. I play 4k RAW files with ease on my 6 core trashcan...but never off of cheap drives.
 
FrankMcPartland said:
I can play 6K on my trashcan --However, I have read that FCPX won't let you play 8K yet....

I am naively hoping for "good" Apple news at NAB (or at least some "crumbs of hope")
Click to expand...

Helium 8K has been able to play on the latest FCPX for months now.
 
Bob Gundu said:
Something is up if you can't play 5K files on FCPX. My trashcan works just fine.
Click to expand...

Not at anything beyond 1/2 debayer. And not reliably smooth at anything beyond 1/4 debayer.

It always amuses me when people here and elsewhere refer to editing or playing 4K and above files, because nobody is really doing that on any commodity computer. What they are doing is using 1/2 resolution or 1/4 resolution or less wavelet extractions from R3D files. Saying you're playing or editing 4K (or 6K, or 8K) footage is just not true, and at best misleading to those who don't really understand it.
 
I've been holding out for Apple long enough and now chased away working on self-control with Win10.


Let's see...can eject USB stick on right click but not USB disk, you have to do on that other menu then sub menu. In 2017 still. This is beyond brilliant.
 
M Most said:
Not at anything beyond 1/2 debayer. And not reliably smooth at anything beyond 1/4 debayer.

It always amuses me when people here and elsewhere refer to editing or playing 4K and above files, because nobody is really doing that on any commodity computer. What they are doing is using 1/2 resolution or 1/4 resolution or less wavelet extractions from R3D files. Saying you're playing or editing 4K (or 6K, or 8K) footage is just not true, and at best misleading to those who don't really understand it.
Click to expand...

Hey Mike. I haven't transcoded in many years. I admit, my work is still in 6K but if I can work without transcoding, why not? Yes true, I'm not playing at full debayer but I don't need to be at full to work.
 
Once again, I think it's important to remember that there are many approaches to post production which have to do with the type of content you are producing, who you are producing it for, how fast you need to turn it around, etc. There are many markets, many genres, etc. Are you a one-man-band, a large post facility, something in between? These all factor into what tools are necessary. There are still a lot of facilities using classic Mac Pros. How? Their workflows are such that they don't need to attempt to work with 6K+ files at every stage. They use proxies, they use custom in-house asset management, etc. Whereas you may have a one-man-band who wants to work at 6K or as close to it as they can and want state of the art tech to make that possible. So, for all of us Mac lovers, we have to ask ourselves, where do we fall in all of this? Because editing is editing. I can still get things done on my 2007 Macbook Pro running an old version of Avid or FCP 7. Obviously, that would involve a proxy workflow but the point is, I could still get things done it would just require more work on the front end to have those files prepared for that workflow. On my iMac, 6K footage does choke it if I'm looking to work at hi res, but I can dumb it down by choosing to run FCPX or Premiere at lower resolution playback or in Avid transcoding to something easy to edit with such as DNxHD36.

I know many have become accustomed to the instantaneous access of footage in some of the NLEs. If you can start cutting right away, at full res why would you want to do anything else? Well, there are plenty of reasons why, but for some those reasons may outweigh the negatives.

So, while I'll also complain about Apple's lack of offering a timeline for their plans, I'd also say that there's a tool out there for everyone now. People have cut films on far less than a nMP and won many awards doing so. I say get the best machine you can comfortably afford and make the most money you can until you absolutely need to upgrade. If Macs no longer make sense for your business model, move on to PC or Linux.

As for FCPX, I have enjoyed using it on several projects this year. My current thinking, as I just finished color correction on a PBS show and dealing with Premiere Pro is that we will have to become multilingual when it comes to computer platforms, NLEs, etc. I've been forcing myself to work in all of them (ok, most of them) to deal with the fact that I may need to work on Macs or PCs and projects may come in from a variety of NLEs or I may be asked to edit in a certain NLE for a particular reason. Therefore, I believe there is no clear cut winner here. That goes for Mac vs PC, Avid vs FCPX vs Premiere vs Resolve. They all have strengths and weaknesses and the key is to identify those and use to your advantage. That is why it is great to have really smart people on this forum like Mike Most, Jeff Kilgroe, and many others who can share their experiences and help us make more informed decisions.
 
Steve hits the nail on the head.

That said, we're also using classic Mac Pros because the trashcans suck, like ABSOLUTELY SUCK price-performance-wise.

I know a lot of guys who owned Mac Pros as their personal systems... nobody I know owns a trashcan. Some own iMacs, some have moved to PC.

Even if the next trashcan is good, I'd think twice before buying it. Because I'd be buying into an ecosystem that Apple may just not bother to update for another 3 years.

GPUs are moving VERY QUICKLY. If I can't swap out the GPU every year and a half or so for a faster one, why would I pay more for that?

Those suckers who bought cylinders should have been able to swap out for new Radeons a year and a half ago but nooo, closed system. Thunderbolt 3 might be "the answer" but then wasn't Thunderbolt 1 and 2 also supposed to be "the answer"? It just adds to the cost and bulk and cable spaghetti.

Bruce Allen
www.bruceallen.tv
 
Adam Rook said:
I want down and dirty opinions here. Am I a fool for holding out hope for Apple?
Click to expand...

Even though no one really knows if apple will, or will not, put together anything for the pros again, I believe most people can agree its not likely due to their last 5+ years track record. Look at it this way, you have manufacturers that have continued to press forward with bigger, badder, and much better, GPUs, CPUs, and SSDs M.2, etc. With Apple you have a wall and an up-charge between you and those wonderful, relatively cheap, products, you hope and wait that Apple will eventually allow you to use them... With a PC you just buy them and plug them in, and replace them with better versions down the line when you want. Sooooo are you a fool for not switching?

Now your FCPX dilemma I get, but for me personally, moving to Resolve from FCPX was actually a smooth and advantageous experience, after spending a bit of money of course (money I saved not buying Apple). Switching to Windows also has a learning/tolerance curve, honestly at first I hated it, until I learned it and realized how customizable it was, my Windows 10 now has almost all the same features I grew to love from my OSX, and even some that you can't have within OSX.
 
Lot of trashcans on set. Very nice DIT computer. Small, light, efficient, powerful, robust, quicktime, lots of quick fixes (ie. lots of other mac computers on set and also nearby) if something gets damaged.

Much much nicer than the cheese grader experience.

The set to post (ie. editorial and grading) transition with these is super easy too. These are not VFX computers.

Yes, wish we could swap graphics and other things.

But glad you don't have to be a computer guy to do your job.
 
I've been in this same boat for some time. Still on a hot-rodded 2009 (swapped to 2011 cpu) 12-core cheese grater, but it's maxed out. I'm running a 980 TI internally and there's no room for expansion that I'd like (2 x 980 ti or 1080) without an expansion chassis. That's just a road I don't want to invest in at this point. Hoping Apple makes the right move this year. Never owned a PC up to this point but if Apple doesn't come through, it'll be time.
 
Adam, something may be happening Pro wise with Apple, just see what happens before you jump. I think Apple is an example of a good platform, that has been led down undesirable paths since the modern IMac, even. Before. No bluray and other desirable features fit carousel pro segments left off, were a really big warning bell, the editing software X comic book fiasco, the purchase from online store and no drive fiasco, the paid updates, etc are all somebody else's dream of what a machine should be like, not a Pro's or Home Theater buffs dream (most have lost heaps of sales there , if only they handbag tall mini for $500 could have crushed a lot of PC HT sakes, and a lot of those overpriced consumer electronics bluesy recorders force units, but that was not the dream). This is a company spiralling around gadgets and itunes gravy, for getting the extra 10-25% profit, which the shareholders should be worried about missing lossing focus on those other sales, with refinements that are largely technical gimmicks, with a lot more leadership to be had over that competition. 4k and 8k has been needed for photographic, desktop publishing, CAD etc work for many years before their introduction, and Apple Haas been in a perfect PRO position to introduce many years in advance, rather than wait for the industry to dictate the terms, through their massive supplier contracts to ask and get these things. Now, these are some reasons to buy Apple Pro at inflated priced, but not really there anymore.
 
Bob Gundu said:
Hey Mike. I haven't transcoded in many years. I admit, my work is still in 6K but if I can work without transcoding, why not? Yes true, I'm not playing at full debayer but I don't need to be at full to work.
Click to expand...

It sounds like you either misunderstood what I said or I didn't say it clearly. I didn't say anything about transcoding vs. not transcoding. What I said is that playing a 6K R3D file doesn't mean you're "editing at 6K" or looking at "6K footage" if you're using a 1/4 or 1/2 debayer (or less) to do it. It means you're extracting 3K or 1.5K from the file and editing/playing that. I'm just trying to clarify the reality of what's being done. The fact that you can do that is a great tribute to Red and the attention they've paid to having scalable workflows.
 
" when 5K r3d files won't play in real-time and FCPX crashes any time I zoom in on my timeline" -

Something's up. I have 5 macs that cut r3ds and FCPX is a dream of an NLE.
 
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