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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 Mac Pro

Robert Bluemke said:
Does anyone know if thunderbolt networking has gotten to a good enough place that I can use my MbPR as the front end for a new Mac Pro? I'd love to have this be my travel DIT if it's stable enough and reliable enough in the field. I'm not looking to create a render farm, just do a screen share from the Mac Pro to the MbPR. Thanks.
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I have actually been doing this. When the systems get rebooted it can be a little finicky but it works decent enough. Both rMBP (TB2) and nMP. I use software called teleport to use one mouse/keyboard for both systems. It sucks on wifi but hardwire or TB connection is great.
 
The new 10.9.4 seed is actually from yesterday. I have it on a MBPr test partition after wiping off the 10.10 preview. 10.9.4 seems pretty good -- better than 10.9.3 release build, but I wouldn't say it's as good as some of the previous 10.9.3 seeds that actually fixed the Dell 24" sleep issues. :-/

It seems that between this 10.9.4 seed and the first, there's only a handful of differing bytes and we're looking at mostly just patching up issues caused by 10.9.3. It will probably release soon and will probably accompany new iMac and possibly Mac Mini systems. Those references are in there, but nobody places stock into those little tidbits anymore. Apple is always including references and support to unreleased products in OS X these days. I think it's as much for internal support of test systems and unreleased prototypes as it is for new models, as well as some smoke and mirrors. We just don't know… FWIW, there's also a reference or two for some unknown Mac Pro hardware. And as stated before, it means nothing at this point.
 
Part of me wouldn't mind trying the .4 seed, but I'm such a wuss when it comes to running beta software. However hopefully this helps stabilize my mac pro. Between 10.9.4, resolve 11 coming out soon, and adobe doing a big CC update hopefully things start getting back to running smoothly.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The new 10.9.4 seed is actually from yesterday. I have it on a MBPr test partition after wiping off the 10.10 preview. 10.9.4 seems pretty good -- better than 10.9.3 release build, but I wouldn't say it's as good as some of the previous 10.9.3 seeds that actually fixed the Dell 24" sleep issues. :-/

It seems that between this 10.9.4 seed and the first, there's only a handful of differing bytes and we're looking at mostly just patching up issues caused by 10.9.3. It will probably release soon and will probably accompany new iMac and possibly Mac Mini systems. Those references are in there, but nobody places stock into those little tidbits anymore. Apple is always including references and support to unreleased products in OS X these days. I think it's as much for internal support of test systems and unreleased prototypes as it is for new models, as well as some smoke and mirrors. We just don't know… FWIW, there's also a reference or two for some unknown Mac Pro hardware. And as stated before, it means nothing at this point.
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since i put the dell on the first TB bus, the sleep issues seem to be gone.....i will try the beta today...
 
Michael Romano said:
I have actually been doing this. When the systems get rebooted it can be a little finicky but it works decent enough. Both rMBP (TB2) and nMP. I use software called teleport to use one mouse/keyboard for both systems. It sucks on wifi but hardwire or TB connection is great.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear, is this allowing you to use the rMBP as a screen for the trash can? Meaning that I could take them both into the field with storage and that's it?
 
paul schefz said:
since i put the dell on the first TB bus, the sleep issues seem to be gone.....i will try the beta today...
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That's where I've had mine and it only works 10% of the time. :( The sleep wake issues have to do with the DisplayPort MST support and which channel gets the wake-up first. There seems to be an issue with the Dell monitor as well in this regard. It should wake regardless, but it seems to ignore wake commands that come in first on the secondary channel.

Anyway, I bit the bullet and went to 10.9.4 on my 8-core nMP this afternoon. I was running a prior 10.9.3 seed that was a week or two back from the release that was more stable than the release version. So far so good. It actually seems a bit snappier. I have not dove into Premiere or Resolve just yet, I'll have to bring a Resolve dongle over from a different system. I played around with Premiere CC on the MBPr this morning and it seems every bit as reliable as it was under 10.9.2... So whatever that means to you. Still waiting for the "big update" from Adobe.
 
went to the latest 10.9.4 beta on my 8core as well today, everything seems fine.....no sleep issues, but really haven't had any since i moved the dell to the first TB port....
got the LaCie rack mount TB2 box and so far so good, seems nice and snappy....but big and loud...you do not want this in the same room with your workstation...waiting for the optical TB cable to move it....other then that it's great...
 
+1 for the no sleep issues so far on 10.9.4. The 24" Dell 4K has woke up every time. Premiere CC is performing as good as any other time on this nMP. Have not tried Resolve yet, but everything else seems just fine, including RC-X 30.1. So far, this 10.9.4 beta seed is better than the 10.9.3 release build. Too bad the LaCie RAID is so loud. I'm not much of a LaCie fan, but loud device fans is a huge peeve of mine and IMO, that always comes back to poor design choices and overly-cheap components. BMD's UltraStudio 4K and other newer rack mount products all have loud fans too. WTF?
 
well....every fan is user replaceable.....just pops out....it also comes with 2 power supplies (each with a fan of course) and has 2 power cables.....if anything in or on this thing fails, i get an email and can replace it myself with pretty much no downtime.....that is pretty cool....i guess it has to be that way, because i won't be seeing much of it once it is in it's place....
to put things into perspective....the rocket in the sonnet box is pretty much just as loud......and that has to be right there....the rocket, pegasus and one other raid combined were pretty obnoxious.....turning on the projector made that whole thing just weird.....
in a way the new mac pro ruined all that .....it is quieter then the mbp!

anyway, i guess there are new imacs coming, slight speed bump across the board.....i wonder if they will go to TB2 (which they should)....i can't imagine retina/4k imacs just popping out like that, so i don't think we are quite there yet.....

the LaCie is very impressive, nothing cheap about that thing....and the price is pretty nice....i think i got the first one out the door from LaCie, street price should be a little lower, so this could come in under 2500 for 24TB...not bad at all....
 
Paul - thanks for the Lacie review. I'm seriously considering one or two to replace an old 24 drive chassis. How's the raid hardware? Is it all done through a Lacie GUI and how robust does it seems? Curious how their monitoring and config compares to promise/Areca.
 
FYI just got out of a demo of the new Adobe CC Premiere and AE here in Portland. New version of CC comes out on the 18th (though they kept saying tuesday):

-RED Footage: Full GPU Debayering. This also affects non-RED footage such as ARRI-RAW, or CinemaDNG (Phantom, BMD cams, Magic Lantern). It was noticecably smooth even with 6K Dragon footage.


-Dragoncolor: I was told there would be full support for Dragoncolor and Red Gamma 4, although they couldn't swear at that moment if it launched with it. But it should be there at launch or shortly thereafter.

Bad:


-OpenCL support is tightly integrated into Premiere. Along with GPU acceleration. However within AE it's still software/CPU only. This means that AE will NOT touch the GPUs for RED/ARRI footage, nor will they really accelerate most renders. So basically ARRI/DNG/R3D footage within AE really won't be any faster, nor see an improvement, which is a disappointment.


-Ray Traced 3D on the Mac Pros is still a lost cause. The Ray Tracing is tied to the optics toolkit, which is still OpenGL based. Though they said they'd like to make AE GPU agnostic, it's on the roadmap, but not anything they can talk about.

Ugly:

-They're totally aware of 10.9.3 blowing shit up. And even asked us if we'd be experiencing this same issue. From their standpoint it's Apple's fault. As they haven't changed anything before or after. I did mention the Cuda driver fix which they weren't really aware of.
 
Jason Osterday said:
Paul - thanks for the Lacie review. I'm seriously considering one or two to replace an old 24 drive chassis. How's the raid hardware? Is it all done through a Lacie GUI and how robust does it seems? Curious how their monitoring and config compares to promise/Areca.
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can't really say much about it....the raid is actually accessed through a browser, very straightforward.....simple, effective......monitoring seems pretty much the same as well.....you set an email to be alerted if anything goes wrong....
i personally have never had any issues with lacie products and have found their tech support first class, always helpful, even when dealing with someone who is clearly in over their head (me) when setting up NAS for example....
like i said this thing is big and loud, the box it comes in is HUGE, it comes with all mounts and cable guides and such as well.....oh....and a TB cable! how is that!
 
scott devitte said:
Just to be clear, is this allowing you to use the rMBP as a screen for the trash can? Meaning that I could take them both into the field with storage and that's it?
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My solution still uses an additional display for the nMP. I just can't bear squinting at a resolve interface scaled down to 15" :)
You can use screen sharing if you don't want the additional display, over the same networking setup.
 
I am moving my color correction system over from linux to nMP and i am having a brain fart. how do i connect a NEC multiSync PA271w to a nMP. i am only grading 2k, but need to grade the dpx in 10 bit ... do i need to get some weird thunderbolt connector?

EDIT ... hmm ... i guess this is what i need: Blackmagic Design Intensity Extreme HDMI and Analog Capture & Playback Device - Thunderbolt
edit2 ... hmm2 ... the extreme won't do 2k (only 1080p). but thehttp://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1016029-REG/blackmagic_design_bdlkulsr4k2_ultrastudio_4k_thunderbolt_2.html i guess will support 2k ... seems to be a major hassle though(the interface is massive).
 
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So my nMP(6 core/64GB/D700's) arriving next week and I'm assuming it will ship with 10.9.3.
I will be running FCPX,Resolve,AE and PPro so just wondering would you guys recommend downloading 10.9.2 for these apps?
Also Adobe apps are CS6 so just not sure whether it is best to run these on 10.9.2 or would I be better off with CC and would they also run better on 10.9.2?

Thanks.
 
John - I'd suggest CC, especially if you're a CS6 owner. You'll get the discount, open yourself up to faster updates, plus GPU acceleration and better hardware support within Premiere (and others). The only machine I have running CS6 now is an iMac (which is primarily Photoshop only). The main issue I've seen with 10.9.3 is some sleep issues that are now becoming more evident as others have mentioned but Premiere and FCX seem to be ok and the latest BMD drivers have improved audio issues I had before.

Trevor - You can use AJA and BMD 4K I/O devices for 10Bit 4K output but desktop 10Bit options are limited due to OSX. The Ultrastudio 4K is stable now and costs 1/2 of what the AJA does while also supporting full 4K on the SDI and HDMI out's vs when they first launched. The AJA however allows for 4 in or 4 out which can be handy depending on your application and is quieter plus supports 12V 4pin power if you're in the field and want a small, battery powered option. I have everything controlled by the BMD Smarthub so I don't really care about additional In's/Out's.
 
Thanks Jason,

Yes I heard about the sleep issues being one of the major issues with 10.9.3. I guess I will see how it runs when the machine arrives-just didn't want to load everything on and then have to do a fresh install of 10.9.2.
As far as CC goes, has GPU acceleration been enabled yet or are just recommending that version for when it happens?
I also have a number of plug ins that I use in CS6 that I dont think will work in CC so just unsure whether to change suites.
 
John Desay said:
Thanks Jason,

Yes I heard about the sleep issues being one of the major issues with 10.9.3. I guess I will see how it runs when the machine arrives-just didn't want to load everything on and then have to do a fresh install of 10.9.2.
As far as CC goes, has GPU acceleration been enabled yet or are just recommending that version for when it happens?
I also have a number of plug ins that I use in CS6 that I dont think will work in CC so just unsure whether to change suites.
Click to expand...

You don't have to uninstall CS6 in order to install CC.
 
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