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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 :)

Apple to hold “Back to the Mac” media event October 20

Yawn - written on a 2008 MacBook Pro with free matt screen and expresscard slot and two firewire ports.
 
Paul Lee said:
yawn... still enjoying my last generation 15" MBP with Expresscard slot
Click to expand...
Still enjoying my 15" Titanium PowerBook G4 w/ PC Card slot I bought in 2003... well not really "enjoying" it, more like cursing it on a daily basis, but it's what I got.
 
hmm. the new airs look perfect for just writing. instant on is perfect for "i got an idea, add it to the script". flash ftw.
 
noahvolek said:
hmm. the new airs look perfect for just writing. instant on is perfect for "i got an idea, add it to the script". flash ftw.
Click to expand...

That is what I thought, really nice little typing machine with a real keyboard and just some lightweight software for all of the writing, e-mail and those kinds of tasks.

david
 
Carmel Bruno said:
you had a bad day Gavin?
Click to expand...

No, I just have a low patience for ridiculous corporate masturbation. :tongue_smilie:

And this presentation was a doosie even by Apple standards.
 
I think the MacBook Airs are great machines!

Sure they are useless as a serous on set ingest or offline editing machine... especially for RED users.

However, they'd great "everything else machines" and they are small enough to supplant an iPad in that application, if your everything else involves any heavy lifting. Say big Excel or Word documents or heavy email/web loads or ingesting your set stills and processing RAW (still camera!) images.

An iPad is pretty incredible... but you can quite readily surpass its ability to handle a workload.

So... when your MBP 17" & Rocket is tied up with Storm processing the heck out of footage, will you pick a MacBook Air or an iPad to do all the light duty work?

I am still leaning towards an iPad, but that $999 MBA is mighty attractive and way more powerful while still being incredibly portable and instant on.

That said... this presentation was a yawner, especially by Apple standards.

I think they had something else they wanted to announce, but it had some last minute delay or problem.

I still really want a mid-range Mac. Its fairly simple... a MacPro built around the vastly cheaper Core 1 series processors. Just swapping the MB, RAM and processor for consumer desktop parts can create a whole host of price points.

Give users close to the same Mac Pro case... but in plastic.

Want to make it more consumer? swap a PCIe slot (or two) for Expresscard slots. Include an integrated Nvidia GPU, like the MacBook Pro's.

So, whatever the case is, is the case- just like the Mac Pro. BTO options are processor choice (4-5 options) and offer at least three video cards- the same ones used in the Mac Pro.

If they built that machine it would sell as many units as all the imacs, Mac Mini, and AppleTV combined- at least. I personally think it would double their Mac revenues.

I really don't understand the business sense of not building ANY computers to compete in this space.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
No, I just have a low patience for ridiculous corporate masturbation. :tongue_smilie:

And this presentation was a doosie even by Apple standards.
Click to expand...

Yes it was bad. Apple used to be so good at this. Maybe they should take a closer look at RED way of hyping things. But then again, good or bad, the new Macbook air is on sale today and I am still waiting for a Scarlet to appear
 
Carmel Bruno said:
Yes it was bad. Apple used to be so good at this. Maybe they should take a closer look at RED way of hyping things. But then again, good or bad, the new Macbook air is on sale today and I am still waiting for a Scarlet to appear
Click to expand...

Good at what, there have always been a dedicated group of apple skeptics to talk up the forums about how unimpressed they are with apples latest steve note announcements.

Gavin Greenwalt said:
"They actually invented this stuff!"

Wow they invented... templates. Congratulations. Better patent that ASAP.
Click to expand...

Having imovie create movie trailers isn't exactly the second coming of jesus but when Steve Jobs said "They actually invented this stuff!" I'm sure he was referencing more than just the "Wow they invented... templates. Congratulations. Better patent that ASAP."
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
@Kevin,

I bet the new MB Air would run FCP just fine. It's more powerful than the 15" MBP I bought in 2006, which I cut a multitude of RED projects on. Small stuff, but a couple short films did get cut on that MBP. Of course an external RAID was connected. But realistically, small stuff TV commercials, etc.. It might just work with the 256GB model 13". If it had USB3 or other fast connection, you could throw a couple 500GB 7200rpm 2.5" drives into a RAID about the size or a bit smaller than a 3.5" HDD and take that with you for workspace. The last couple revisions of the Macbook Pro and now the Air are rather impressive when all aspects are considered. Great hardware choices overall. It's the connectivity that's killing them as "pro" tools.
Click to expand...

Hey Jeff,

I was thinking about this ... doesn't Final Cut Studio require more than
what even the high-end Macbook Air offers? Look at these listed for
FCS ...

Available Disk Space

4GB of disk space required for applications
46GB of disk space required for optional content:
- 9GB for DVD Studio Pro content
- 7GB for Motion templates
- 22GB for audio content
- 8GB for LiveFonts

Does this mean you can't have ANY more applications on your MB Air
since the max you can already have is 4gb -- and must have that
amount available for installation.

I guess the other content like Color, Motion, etc would not be that
important to have on this device ... but I remember not even being able
to initially install those in my 17 inch MBP because I didn't have enough
available space.

Overall, this is an interesting topic. I might have my Dad make some
basic cuts for some of my marketing work ... and if that could be done
on this device -- this would be the most "affordable" and most mobile
Mac capable of editing stuff.

Also, Jeff -- curious about which storage drive you recommend for
editing? The guys at MaxxDigital recommended the EvoVR for use
with the RedRocket/Mobile rocket ... but for basic editing ProRes
files, using something like the MB AIR and a drive, I wonder if the
Basic 1 or 2TB G Raids will be sufficient.

Thanks Jeff,

Anthony
 
AnthonyFlores said:
Available Disk Space

4GB of disk space required for applications
46GB of disk space required for optional content:
- 9GB for DVD Studio Pro content
- 7GB for Motion templates
- 22GB for audio content
- 8GB for LiveFonts

Does this mean you can't have ANY more applications on your MB Air
since the max you can already have is 4gb -- and must have that
amount available for installation.
Click to expand...

4 GB is the maximum ram for the Macbook air, its maximum storage option is 256 GB plenty for FCS, 128 GB is pushing it but stiff possible and for the 64 GB you probably won't want to install the extra content.
 
AnthonyFlores said:
Also, Jeff -- curious about which storage drive you recommend for
editing? The guys at MaxxDigital recommended the EvoVR for use
with the RedRocket/Mobile rocket ... but for basic editing ProRes
files, using something like the MB AIR and a drive, I wonder if the
Basic 1 or 2TB G Raids will be sufficient.
Click to expand...


The storage question has already been answered. You can have up to 256GB of storage in addition to 4GB of RAM. Personally I wouldn't even attempt using one of these for any serious editing or production. If Apple were to sell one with eSATA, USB3 or even LightPeak, I would definitely get one for field use as it would make a super-compact offload and metadata system using STORM.

As for current recommendations and workflow considerations... It's all relative to your pain threshold. When I said above that I had cut several RED projects on a 2006 Macbook Pro, I'm not kidding. I sold that system a year ago this month and replaced it with a unibody 17". Anyway, my software of choice on that old MBP was Adobe CS4 for the entire last year I owned that system. I could edit R3D files natively and as long as I stayed out of AE and saved that for a more powerful system, the MBP handled admirably. I used a CalDigit S2VR eSATA unit to work from. In mine I had it configured as two 750GB 7200rpm HDDs in RAID-0. It had just become a workspace drive to help speed along work on the MBP when I was mobile. Originally, it was my first R3D offload storage as I used it in RAID-1 for redundancy and the drives could be slipped right out the back on their trays and handed off or swapped out if needed.

Unfortunately, these new Macbook Air systems don't have the luxury of any high-speed connectivity. They have USB2. That's it. So, they're worthless for attaching external storage with any performance benefits. For a performance RAID, I have two 480GB SSD's in a RAID-0 via a Patriot Convoy XL housing. I can sustain reads of about 430MB/s and writes close to 260MB/s with this thing and it weighs less than a pound and is the same size as a short 3.5" HDD. Peak speeds are more like 500MB/s read 380MB/s write. I've also built a couple others of these using regular 2.5" HDDs and they work great as portable storage. I always keep one in my MBP bag. ...If the Air had a fast external connection, this would be the ideal solution. But it doesn't. So until the next revision, I personally won't be thinking about buying one. Too bad, because such a compact notebook really has its advantages. I have some slim PC notebooks and they're just not in the same league when it comes to design and build quality. Currently there are two that I use -- I have a a 17" HP (8740w) with dreamcolor screen, USB3.0, eSATA, etc.. I love the screen and the eSATA and pretty much hate everything else about this behemoth. It's a complete tragedy of cheap design. My "compact" PC notebook is an ASUS Eee 15". Meh... It's thin on size and performance. My wife's 15" MBP dances circles around this thing even though they both have the same Core i5 CPU and 4GB RAM, I think they have the same GPU as well. She runs both Win7 64bit and OSX on hers.

Where I see the 11.6" Air competing is in the 11~12" micro notebook or netbook sector where most offerings are still made of chunky plastic and have inferior specs, even if you buy the expensive ones that cost as much or more than the new MB Air.
 
There's a tremendous amount of innovation directed towards iMovie that's really exciting. This is a great example of developing a software user-experience from a "producer" point of view, not a technician's pov. In iMovie's case, its results driven, even though its mostly "creatively" pre-determined.

I'd like to see some innovation driven improvements on the Final Cut Pro platform. In a pro app, like FCP, the User Base is unwilling to accommodate sweeping change, even if its more efficient. I've heard many comments from people that they like FCP but Avid does this or that better. What exactly are people wanting from FCP that they don't have already, besides a 64bit native architecture?

In short, what do we expect to come out when its released? An AVID killer?
 
In short, what do we expect to come out when its released? An AVID killer?[/QUOTE]

That would be nice. Come to think of it, I do not really care for AVID or an AVID killer. I love my FCP and I would love to keep using it, hopefully in an improved version very soon.
 
Jeff Coatney said:
There's a tremendous amount of innovation directed towards iMovie that's really exciting. This is a great example of developing a software user-experience from a "producer" point of view, not a technician's pov. In iMovie's case, its results driven, even though its mostly "creatively" pre-determined.

I'd like to see some innovation driven improvements on the Final Cut Pro platform. In a pro app, like FCP, the User Base is unwilling to accommodate sweeping change, even if its more efficient. I've heard many comments from people that they like FCP but Avid does this or that better. What exactly are people wanting from FCP that they don't have already, besides a 64bit native architecture?

In short, what do we expect to come out when its released? An AVID killer?
Click to expand...


I think that there is a new emerging workflow...

People like us will develop iMovie templates using the high end tools.

Our clients will use our templates in iMovie to edit their own footage.

There are a LOT of shows out there, podcasts, public access, local news, and others that can benefit from this approach. These shows can't afford a big recurring post budget... but they can afford a custom template and a yearly update or two to that template.

I hope to see some of these iMovie features, like face recognition, brought up to FCP.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
As for current recommendations and workflow considerations... It's all relative to your pain threshold. When I said above that I had cut several RED projects on a 2006 Macbook Pro, I'm not kidding. I sold that system a year ago this month and replaced it with a unibody 17". Anyway, my software of choice on that old MBP was Adobe CS4 for the entire last year I owned that system. I could edit R3D files natively and as long as I stayed out of AE and saved that for a more powerful system, the MBP handled admirably. I used a CalDigit S2VR eSATA unit to work from. In mine I had it configured as two 750GB 7200rpm HDDs in RAID-0. It had just become a workspace drive to help speed along work on the MBP when I was mobile. Originally, it was my first R3D offload storage as I used it in RAID-1 for redundancy and the drives could be slipped right out the back on their trays and handed off or swapped out if needed.

Unfortunately, these new Macbook Air systems don't have the luxury of any high-speed connectivity. They have USB2. That's it. So, they're worthless for attaching external storage with any performance benefits. For a performance RAID, I have two 480GB SSD's in a RAID-0 via a Patriot Convoy XL housing. I can sustain reads of about 430MB/s and writes close to 260MB/s with this thing and it weighs less than a pound and is the same size as a short 3.5" HDD. Peak speeds are more like 500MB/s read 380MB/s write. I've also built a couple others of these using regular 2.5" HDDs and they work great as portable storage. I always keep one in my MBP bag.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I hadn't heard of using the two SSD's separately like that.
But I searched for Patriot Convoy XL and it looks cool. What kind of SSD's
are you using? The OWC Mercury seem great -- they have a 480gb Pro and
a 400gb Raid version, but the large versions are never in stock. Supposedly
they will be in stock again in about a week OCZ Vertex 2's seem great,
but not easy to find the larger capacity versions in stock either.

I have a 17inch MBP from last year, 3.06ghz/8gb ram/128ssd ... but the SSD
seems to be getting slower and it's small already. My plan is to replace
it with a Mercury or OCZ and also to remove the SuperDrive and add
another 400 or 480 SSD. That should make it pretty quick. Then,
combined with a Rocket/mobile I'm hoping it will be awesome mobile
system. It's cool to also know that I could further speed up the system by
doing what you do with the SSD's in separate housing.

Thanks for the feedback -- not sure how you got to be such an expert about
Apple tech stuff, but it's very impressive and much appreciated.

Thanks,

Anthony
 
Disapointing Keynote... No "Mac Pro Mini" (or whatever they would have named a light version of the Mac Pro or just a modulable version of a desktop comuter like they did with de G4 Cube)...
Anyway... The new Macbook Air, even if I'll probably never buy one, is quite an amazing and interesting product.
 
Bastien Tribalat said:
Disapointing Keynote... No "Mac Pro Mini" (or whatever they would have named a light version of the Mac Pro or just a modulable version of a desktop comuter like they did with de G4 Cube)...
Anyway... The new Macbook Air, even if I'll probably never buy one, is quite an amazing and interesting product.
Click to expand...

The cube flopped, what makes you think they would go there again?
 
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