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New iMac with ThunderBolt ... Plausible to Use?

AnthonyFlores

AnthonyFlores

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Hey guys,

I know iMac's are not typically beefy enough to work effectively with Red footage, but curious
about anyone's thoughts regarding the new one ...

http://www.apple.com/imac/

Given that I already have a Mobile Rocket and 2009 MBP, I would transcode with the Rocket to
ProRes and then edit on the iMac. Not perfect and of course not ideal for serious grading, etc --
but I typically have someone outside independently do my grading and cc anyway.

Of course, I'm eager for the updated MacPro tower with Thunderbolt but until then, this seems
like it might be a decent interim solution until the the towers are updated. Especially given how
much faster the new laptops with the new processors/Thunderbolt.

Anthony
 
I have an iMac that I'm currently using with RED footage and it works great. Awesome in fact. I will go to that machine before I go to some of my older Mac Pros, and it doesn't have Thunderbolt.
 
Between this and the 'mobile rocket' thread I'm thinking... it would be REALLY sweet to have a mobile rocket type of setup with a Thunderbolt interface... IF it's fast enough for the real-time 4k debayer & rendering jobs whilst pushing the data over Thunderbolt. One smallish external box, can throw it in the case with a Thunderbolt MBP, can plug it into a Thunderbolt iMac at our holiday cottage etc. etc... Red Rocket is an expensive piece of kit, I don't want to have to buy more than one of them, and I don't want to be chained to a tower case for EVERY job...

Mike
 
We have had discussions on this a number of time. Search for my name and imac, there were some people with real world imac experience, but also read following.
 
re-edit. Jeff has cleared up some issues. Imac 27 inch might be dated, had moderate performance increase, only 4 cores, lacks latest festures like fast response or 3d screen. lay flat touch screen expected next year, useful standards like industry standard compatible 4k or shd display format (also useful in stills and design), 30+ inches, usb 3 until thunderbolt takes over, bluray 3d hdmi leaving us with less options ( thereis a reason it is cslled a all in one top of the line pc, you shouldnt have to add things that are standard and 100 bucks and settle for inferior ones, and have all the top features of competitors. But it will process your footage if you use the right software that fully utilise the processor and utilise the gpu. Old finalecut was an example given in comoarison to better adobe, but new final cut x is coming.

Special thanks to Jeff for clearing up the confusion brought on by other mac users who were asked for clear and straight forward answers elsewhere but seldom did anf were mistaken because of the software they were using. As a side note, when reading opinions on it here, be sure to check out if the sofware wasn't rendering to screen at the resolution of the fhd or less display, speeding up over rendering to a 4k display, if it was truely working the native redcode or using an intermediatory format like prores, even internally in the program, or other unintended speed enhacement like frame skipping or unoticed siow down if not skipping.

I forgot to mention, as for Jeff and others desire for an intermefiate system. I think the macpro substantially meets that need allready, but would welcome a substantially beefed up Imac and macmini with 6+ i7 core ivy bridge and all the bells and whistles and screen mentioned here they can add, as an intermediatory level. A dual mac mini expansion box (pcie or tb driven) could be put alongside or under the macmini, and under, alongside or attached to the back of the imac for those that want a couple of drives or cards.

Wish you the best.
 
Er... Not sure I agree with all of that, Wayne. But whatever. You're not going to see USB3 or Blu-Ray on a Mac. You can create Blu-Rays on Mac just fine, if you want to. USB3 can suck it for all I care, it sucks balls.

Higher resolution screen? Yeah, I'd like one too... So who is actually making one right now? Seriously? There's two ThunderBolt ports on the thing for when someone does make one I guess I could connect it. Then again, current GPUs still have a ways to go until they can really drive the current 2.5K screens perfectly, so going to the rumored double-density displays with 4X as many pixels, 4X as much bandwidth needed, doesn't seem like it's going to happen just yet. Maybe next year... 3D display? No thanks, I have a shitty Dell system with a 3D display, it's not suitable for "professional" anything.

Multitouch? Have you tried to use multitouch on any such large screen? For any serious length of time? No thanks. Apple has already addressed that issue on more than one occasion. And I completely agree... I've been using touch screen systems for years and most makers that currently offer them to mainstream markets, like HP, just don't get it. Sorry. I still have yet to see a good touch interface on top of Windows, it's improved greatly in the last year, but still nothing that moves me to buy a system for that functionality.

For me, the new iMac systems look nice for what they are, but they do have a couple really big shortcomings. Yes, no 6-core CPU... That sucks. The GPU is rather lackluster too. A quick survey of the current (and outdated) Mac Pro along with the iMac only serves to remind us that Apple has a gigantic, gaping hole in their product offerings. They need a mid-range, desktop class system with decent expandability and good CPU options.

That said, the iMac, especially now that the 27" has two TB ports, is going to be quite a powerful system for *MOST* people.
 
might be a good intermediate for on set work though, running everything thunderbolt based. something in between a mcp, and mac pro. it certainly has some decent horsepower for offloading, 1 lights, and possibly dailies. of we can get mobile rocket TB in the works, a dual TB IMAC could be a great on set solution. plus doing a OWC mod might be plausible too dumping the optical drive and gaining a esata port.

I can see a lot of possiblites. especially in conjunction with towers, and mcp's
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Er... Not sure I agree with all of that, Wayne. But whatever. You're not going to see USB3 or Blu-Ray on a Mac. You can create Blu-Rays on Mac just fine, if you want to. USB3 can suck it for all I care, it sucks balls.

Higher resolution screen? Yeah, I'd like one too... So who is actually making one right now? Seriously? There's two ThunderBolt ports on the thing for when someone does make one I guess I could connect it. Then again, current GPUs still have a ways to go until they can really drive the current 2.5K screens perfectly, so going to the rumored double-density displays with 4X as many pixels, 4X as much bandwidth needed, doesn't seem like it's going to happen just yet. Maybe next year... 3D display? No thanks, I have a shitty Dell system with a 3D display, it's not suitable for "professional" anything.

Multitouch? Have you tried to use multitouch on any such large screen? For any serious length of time? No thanks. Apple has already addressed that issue on more than one occasion. And I completely agree... I've been using touch screen systems for years and most makers that currently offer them to mainstream markets, like HP, just don't get it. Sorry. I still have yet to see a good touch interface on top of Windows, it's improved greatly in the last year, but still nothing that moves me to buy a system for that functionality.

For me, the new iMac systems look nice for what they are, but they do have a couple really big shortcomings. Yes, no 6-core CPU... That sucks. The GPU is rather lackluster too. A quick survey of the current (and outdated) Mac Pro along with the iMac only serves to remind us that Apple has a gigantic, gaping hole in their product offerings. They need a mid-range, desktop class system with decent expandability and good CPU options.

That said, the iMac, especially now that the 27" has two TB ports, is going to be quite a powerful system for *MOST* people.
Click to expand...

Have to agree with Jeff. These are the new sandybridge chips, faster and use less power. I wish they offered an Nvidia option for graphics, that would make this a great low cost DaVinci box, but
with Thunderbolt, that could still be the case in the near future. For the other 99% of the world still doing 1080p work, these systems show promise. Should be OK for 3K work too.
Makes me wonder what Apple has up their sleeve for the Mac Pro updates. PCIe3 and thunderbolt and 8 core Xeons? hehehe.
 
it doesn't look like apple will have much up their sleeve. the new high end intel xeons are 10 core , but each chip is 5k , the next one down is back to a 4 core chip. so unless intel magically pulls out another 6 or 8 core , we're going back to octo mac pros for the next ones. right now it doesn't look like there is a 6 or 8 core on intels roadmap
 
There's people here editing RED footage on MacBook Pro laptops. I would assume that this new iMac would run circles around any MacBook Pro with RED footage.
 
If you do get the new iMacs, save your money and get the 2 gig version, then by 16gigs from NewEgg for around 200.00 USD. Save 400.00 that way.
 
Joe is right, buy your RAM elsewhere.... Check HDD prices too.

As for using these to edit RED footage, no problem. Once fast ThunderBolt storage hits the market, these systems will be an excellent choice for running Adobe CS5 and FCPX.
 
Jaime Vallés said:
There's people here editing RED footage on MacBook Pro laptops. I would assume that this new iMac would run circles around any MacBook Pro with RED footage.
Click to expand...

We had a major discussion about this in a thread on computer for red. Even the top end mac pro, apprently. has limitations to doing eveything realtime at full resolution without transcoding to another format first or adding the red rocket. If we had a six core or gpu processing assistance (The gpu is a lot more advanced then the ones when red rocket was released with full general purpose processing ability and open cl) then that would be acceptable along with 4k display. At this rate the pc has got to be cheaper. How much does a twin 4 core socket motherboard cost ;) .
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Er... Not sure I agree with all of that, Wayne. But whatever. You're not going to see USB3 or Blu-Ray on a Mac. You can create Blu-Rays on Mac just fine, if you want to. USB3 can suck it for all I care, it sucks balls.
Click to expand...

Just having a go at apple about the br stuff. Would be good if they could at leasr have one to backip, the ati cards support hdmi. As far as usb3 stuff goes they can upgrade it to 10gbs and change protocole mode. But the issue is that we don't know if thunderbolt will be successfull anytime soon, if at all, or if usb 3 will fail if not become the dominant interface. So it is hedging your bets, allowing you to buy usb3 devices until thunderbolt versions are available or vice versa, and not being left out in the cold if thunderbolt happens to fail. If the support is there why not use it. I was around for the firewire usb battle, it was bad, firewire was first and clearly vastly superior interface, but was not pushed tamed or used sufficently against usb that was pretty useless for years with little support and ubreliability, manufactures eligitimately forcing us to usb because it cost a little extra to implement (in terms of system price). Very very bad days, and often repeated in format wars.

Higher resolution screen? Yeah, I'd like one too... So who is actually making one right now? Seriously?
Click to expand...
Not really the right question, it is not so much about what is but what canbe done, and apple can afford wonders. Back in 2006 56 30 inch panels were out from one of the cheapest msnufsctures. Today a number of panels are being manufactured from different manufactures, even smsller sizes. Earlier last decade their was a 4k like around 22 inch monitor out from variouse manufactures. But these things were expensive (nvidia had pushed for a shd like monitor standard but had failed so cheap monitors didnt arrive, dell and gateway were some planning). All these things csnbe done cheaply in sufficent numbers. What the msrket tells you is not nessacarilly what csnbe done. If apple buys then rheyvwould be available, and i imagine true Cinema displays will maybe out from Apple this year.

Then again, current GPUs still have a ways to go until they can really drive the current 2.5K screens perfectly
Click to expand...

In which way do you mean, nvidia cards hsd been supporting shd like resolution since around 2006.

3D display? No thanks, I have a shitty Dell system with a 3D display, it's not suitable for "professional" anything.
Click to expand...

Youll be happy to know they are working on superior solutions. They have some deal with toshiba, but do not know if it involves their autstereoscoptic.display. They also have some sort of display deal with sharp that has the nintendo 3d DS screen tecnology which is fairly common for 3d monitors. They are working on hesd tracking 3D, so old. For circular polarised or shutter glasses 3D systems it does not matter for desktop professional solo work, as long as you can see how your work looks like.

Multitouch? Have you tried to use multitouch on any such large screen? For any serious length of time? No thanks. Apple has already addressed that issue on more than one occasion.
Click to expand...

Actually they have taken out a patent on system to lay the imac down flat snd use it as a touch surface, Steve had objected to using the touch monitors vertically. It takes apple a while to cstch.up but eventuslly they do, they could have come to me ten years ago and i could have sild them designs for many things they are patenting these days, i wonder if they can keep it up. I have considered a lay diwn touch design before, so simple it is not worth patenting, but then again maybe they were patenting the mechanism which is still simplistic. Now i
I have finished waiting for the imac i am considering reverting ro laying diwn a touch screen pc, as i cant afford a surface displsy, aldo another old concept of mine and others. Im touch typing this on andriod wonderfull. Not a complete solution, but apple and google arevdoing sufficent jobs. It is just a matter many people dont see or cant figure out how it can work. Some of these companies should get rid of these people and hire somebody that does know.


For me, the new iMac systems look nice for what they are, but they do have a couple really big shortcomings. Yes, no 6-core CPU... That sucks. The GPU is rather lackluster too. A quick survey of the current (and outdated) Mac Pro along with the iMac only serves to remind us that Apple has a gigantic, gaping hole in their product offerings. They need a mid-range, desktop class system with decent expandability and good CPU options.
Click to expand...

Yep, that is what a 27 inch Imac is supposed to be, and what I am going on about, if you spend $3k just on the computer box then you want the extra features, and this in an all in one unit, which the imac 27 inch almost suits. Here's hoping for a lay down shd/4k 30+ or 40+ inch laydown version to be released alongside the mac pro or mini ;) I imagine even if a highervres version was planned for a few days ago the earthquake putvpaid to that as Japan is one of the few places that apple would source a screen like that.

That said, the iMac, especially now that the 27" has two TB ports, is going to be quite a powerful system for *MOST* people.
Click to expand...

I am sure it will be very good for **MOST* people not doing high end work, such as resl time 3d redcode everything ;) . For those that cant afford a more ecpensive configured mac pro system a pc will have to do.
 
Joe Carney said:
Have to agree with Jeff. These are the new sandybridge chips, faster and use less power. I wish they offered an Nvidia option for graphics
Click to expand...

Lower power would be good for cooling, but if you click on the i7 link on their performance data chart on the performance page, you see it drops down to something like 1.3 times speed increse. But the new graphic card looks pretty good.
 
I think you're trying to over-analyze the speed difference. It's not simple cut and dry MHz difference between the previous CPUs, there's actually a bit more going on there.

I don't see why you would need to edit at full resolution...? There are currently no solutions out there that allow this anyway. Not for less than $3K.. Not for less than $30K...

This iMac would be a very good platform for working with RED footage, and should plow right through 3K Scarlet footage without breaking a sweat. I was cutting R3D files natively, without transcoding or jumping through other hoops, in Adobe CS4 on a 2006 model Macbook Pro with 2.33GHz C2D CPU and 2GB RAM just 2 years ago. My current Macbook Pro systems are significantly more powerful and handle most short to medium form projects with ease. You do need a moderately fast external disk system to work from though. No mobile Rocket required -- they're worthless for anything but high quality on-set playback, IMO. A RED Rocket in a Mac or PC tower is a different story, it can be very beneficial, but that's another discussion.

As for the other Computer For Scarlet thread mentioned. The bulk of the info in there is outdated and most of it is just plain wrong. I see too many people in that thread making claims about what will or won't work for Scarlet or RED workflow and it's plainly obvious that they don't have an F-ing clue. ...Just sayin' A lot of the misconceptions about what is needed for RED workflow does come from the Mac crowd, particularly the Final Cut fan base. Current Final Cut workflow is actually one of the *WORST* workflows you can push RED files through at this time. It is outdated and convoluted. Other editing software such as Adobe CS5 or 5.5 now, Sony Vegas (Windows only), etc.. take R3D files natively on their timelines and handle it just fine. In fact, my current MBP systems handle 4K R3D files *better* than most of my Mac or PC systems handled most HD formats only 2 or 3 years ago. 1080p H264 is more of a burden to my systems than 4K REDCODE.

I'm not trying to come across as an Apple fanboy. I still build and run more Windows systems than Macs around here. I just don't understand many of the complaints about the iMac (or other Apple systems), especially when they come from people who obviously don't own or use them. There are a lot of advantages to them, which are not readily apparent until you do start using them. Simply comparing specs on paper does not tell the whole story. And many of the complaints that continuously come up -- no Blu-Ray, no USB3, etc.. are almost laughable to read at this point. Same with full screen multitouch... Jobs has already addressed that issue on more than one occasion. ...I'm still waiting for someone in the Windows world to show me a Windows-based touch interface that doesn't completely suck. I'd even settle for one that just works half as efficiently as a keyboard.

Lay-down mode for systems like the iMac??? Really? What are we going to stand all day at a countertop with a 27" screen lying on its back? You going to put a 22" iMac or all-in-one PC in your lap and work on it? Microsoft already tried this with Surface. Total flop.
 
Wayne Morellini said:
Just having a go at apple about the br stuff. Would be good if they could at leasr have one to backip, the ati cards support hdmi. As far as usb3 stuff goes they can upgrade it to 10gbs and change protocole mode. But the issue is that we don't know if thunderbolt will be successfull anytime soon, if at all, or if usb 3 will fail if not become the dominant interface. So it is hedging your bets, allowing you to buy usb3 devices until thunderbolt versions are available or vice versa, and not being left out in the cold if thunderbolt happens to fail. If the support is there why not use it. I was around for the firewire usb battle, it was bad, firewire was first and clearly vastly superior interface, but was not pushed tamed or used sufficently against usb that was pretty useless for years with little support and ubreliability, manufactures eligitimately forcing us to usb because it cost a little extra to implement (in terms of system price). Very very bad days, and often repeated in format wars.
Click to expand...

I was around for the USB vs. Firewire ordeal myself. In this case, Thunderbolt is the winner. There's not a whole lot of bets going on. Thunderbolt is stupid simple and cheap to implement. Directly integrated in new Intel chipsets. Starting with the E-series Sandy Bridge chipset components, just about every decent workstation or gaming PC is going to have Thunderbolt. Or at least the Intel-based ones are. AMD is stuck with USB3 for now. Yes, they can scale it to 10Gbps... So that's half of a Thunderbolt port and it has far more overhead. You have to keep in mind that Intel, the ones who created USB, the ones who championed USB2.0, have effectively shot USB3.0 in the head by not endorsing it as a continued standard and by refusing to support it. USB3.0 is a layered topology that still has legacy USB 1.1 as its foundation. It is to date, the most inefficient and bloated interface standard to ever grace a PC motherboard.

Not really the right question, it is not so much about what is but what canbe done, and apple can afford wonders. Back in 2006 56 30 inch panels were out from one of the cheapest msnufsctures. Today a number of panels are being manufactured from different manufactures, even smsller sizes. Earlier last decade their was a 4k like around 22 inch monitor out from variouse manufactures. But these things were expensive (nvidia had pushed for a shd like monitor standard but had failed so cheap monitors didnt arrive, dell and gateway were some planning). All these things csnbe done cheaply in sufficent numbers. What the msrket tells you is not nessacarilly what csnbe done. If apple buys then rheyvwould be available, and i imagine true Cinema displays will maybe out from Apple this year.
Click to expand...

Apple can afford wonders, but that's also beside the point. There have been high density LCD displays for many years. Most have significant limitations, only the ones hitting the market now are viable for use as fully functional displays. Many of the high-resolution displays of the past have found their niche in medical and satellite imaging, most had terribly slow refresh times or were even monochrome or had limited color reproduction.

In which way do you mean, nvidia cards hsd been supporting shd like resolution since around 2006.
Click to expand...

There is a big difference between throwing the pixels up on a screen and actually using them effectively. As I said, 4X the number of pixels, 4X the bandwidth, 4X the texel processing.... Even with the best written CUDA and OpenCL software, optimized video drivers, etc.. We still must run multiple GPU cards to approach the detail levels we want in many gaming environments or professional graphics applications when running on current HD or 2.5K displays. If pixel densities were doubled, our compute requirements to take advantage of this would quadruple.

Youll be happy to know they are working on superior solutions. They have some deal with toshiba, but do not know if it involves their autstereoscoptic.display. They also have some sort of display deal with sharp that has the nintendo 3d DS screen tecnology which is fairly common for 3d monitors. They are working on hesd tracking 3D, so old. For circular polarised or shutter glasses 3D systems it does not matter for desktop professional solo work, as long as you can see how your work looks like.
Click to expand...

I can't comment directly, but I'm actually very aware of many new 3D products coming up from a couple manufacturers. Forget about the autostereoscopic pipe dream -- it's what people want, but consumers are not going to like it once they see the limited seating positions, head positioning, etc.. It will work for single-user desktop displays and portable devices alright. Nintendo did an admirable job for being first to market with such a product in their 3DS portable.


Actually they have taken out a patent on system to lay the imac down flat snd use it as a touch surface, Steve had objected to using the touch monitors vertically. It takes apple a while to cstch.up but eventuslly they do, they could have come to me ten years ago and i could have sild them designs for many things they are patenting these days, i wonder if they can keep it up.
Click to expand...

I see you browse AppleInsider and/or Macrumors. That's one of many such patents spanning many years. That patent was originally applied for nearly 3 years ago. And Apple had patented a table-top touch interface several years before that. Apple doesn't file all of their patents under the Apple name, either. They have IP holding companies with arbitrary names, so in order to not draw direct attention. It's usually pretty laughable watching the Apple patent reports that show up online. Half of what gets filed directly under the Apple namesake is a smoke and mirrors show.


Yep, that is what a 27 inch Imac is supposed to be, and what I am going on about, if you spend $3k just on the computer box then you want the extra features, and this in an all in one unit, which the imac 27 inch almost suits. Here's hoping for a lay down shd/4k 30+ or 40+ inch laydown version to be released alongside the mac pro or mini ;) I imagine even if a highervres version was planned for a few days ago the earthquake putvpaid to that as Japan is one of the few places that apple would source a screen like that.
Click to expand...

I don't think we're going to do better in an all-in-one... Some of the Windows PC makers' all-in-ones have some advantages, some disadvantages, when compared. Just the nature of the beast. I'm anxious to see what Apple does with the Mac Pro refresh. I have a hunch that we will see a more versatile system than the previous tower.

I am sure it will be very good for **MOST* people not doing high end work, such as resl time 3d redcode everything ;) . For those that cant afford a more ecpensive configured mac pro system a pc will have to do.
Click to expand...

Of course... Then we get into the discussion again about Apple vs. Windows PC pricing... When Apple releases their SBE upgraded Mac Pro systems, you can bet that they will be priced in line with similarly configured Dell Precision systems or HP Z series systems. They always are. The problem is that Apple doesn't keep up with PC pricing trends. That said, they're not that out of line, even today, for a high-end Xeon workstation. This reflects back on that gaping hole we're talking about. Anyway, the problem with the Mac Pro base offerings is that if someone needs more expandability than an iMac, they must buy the Mac Pro... But even in its lowest configuration, uses an $800 Xeon CPU, bulky and expensive aluminum tower chassis, overkill PSU for a single CPU design, overkill mainboard with secondary CPU socket, etc.. All the overkill while simultaneously crippling the system. Without the secondary CPU and memory interface, your RAM capacity and speed are cut in half. The person who needed a single 4 or 6 core CPU, 8GB RAM and two PCIe slots just got taken to the cleaners... They could have purchased a PC that fit their hardware needs for only 40% of the money they spent on that Mac. Ouch.

Like Dell and HP, Apple likes to mark-up their upgrades and other components such as RAM and HDDs. I always buy them elsewhere. Have since, uh, forever. Same thing if I end up buying a workstation from Dell or other. Which the only PCs I buy from big name vendors are notebooks anyway. Otherwise I prefer to build. Not just for savings, but because it's the only way to get 95% of what I want.

As for real-time 3D REDCODE... I don't see that being a real problem as long as you don't need stereoscopically synced editing at full resolution. I've got Mac and Windows notebooks that can handle real-time dissolves and transitions between 4K R3Ds in real-time under the newer NLE systems like Adobe CS. The horsepower to deliver stereoscopic abilities is all there, it's just down to the software. Sony Vegas actually does just this and can supposedly do it with REDCODE on a common desktop PC. I personally have not worked with the new 3D/stereo abilities in Vegas....
 
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