New Mac Pro

[Terry VerHaar]

yeah, its pretty clear Apple no longer want professionals...

Hackintosh is the only way forward as you can have a dual boot and run Mac OS and Linux so slowly make the move over to Linux as it caters for the high-end

Seems like a big leap to say "they didn't give me what I wanted and didn't give it to me now... so they don't care about professionals." You are clearly entitled to that opinion but I don't think it is all that easy to support on an objective basis. I hardly think they are going to walk away from a market leadership position in the video and overall creative professional market. They are more likely to buy Adobe than to give everything over to them. Just my subjective opinion.

 

[Joshua Raven]

Already bailed to Adobe CS5 after waiting for Final Cut to get it together. After waiting this long for this little on the hardware side, I think its time to give BOXX a call.

 

[roryhinds]

Just basing my opinion on years of waiting for Apple to deliver a machine for the High-end, which they haven't with all the "i" in Apple points to their focus being solely on a different market that makes them a lot more money than making computers... heck they even dropped computer from their name.

Now if Adobe apps ran on Linux... well that would make some noise, it would put them so far head with a lot of people switching for sure.

 

[Antonio Forjaz]

say what you may but the Mac still has the better OS...And for me that is the most important part...It might not have all the latest and greatest in hardware, but what it has is not shabby, what I have now with my REDRocket in it, does the job, and it is nearly 2 years old...I really can't complain...If I had the chance I would up grade...but living where I do...it is not as easy as in the USA...Stop complaining...

 

[tillHavis]

I agree. Apple lost focus on Final Cut somewhat, but this changed with the introduction of new personnel about two years ago. People seem to think Apple can't see or don't care about the advancement Adobe have made in this area, this is far from the truth.
Apple want to be the King, its in their DNA, as long as they own Final Cut they are going to want to be the best and in my opinion Apple is not giving up on Final Cut, they just needed to refocus their efforts and Adobe and others are providing this.
I am pretty sure the next release of Final Cut Studio will be a major one with a complete engine overhaul, new interface, 4K support and full Color integration with other progs.
Put it this way, if Apple don't do this then the game really is over, and Adobe and others will be so advanced by the next release they will have dropped the ball.
This is make or break time for FInal Cut Studio and will tell a lot about where Apples thinking is. I think we are going to see something new and pretty impressive with this release. If not; then it's a permanent move to CS5 for me

P.S I think Apple and Red have something big up their sleeve, don't know why but somethings going down.... maybe full 4K realtime support using Reds codec... maybe render-less layers and looks with transitions that can be directly imported into color... cant put me finger on it but it'll be good.

 

[Jody Neckles]

say what you may but the Mac still has the better OS...And for me that is the most important part...It might not have all the latest and greatest in hardware, but what it has is not shabby, what I have now with my REDRocket in it, does the job, and it is nearly 2 years old...I really can't complain...If I had the chance I would up grade...but living where I do...it is not as easy as in the USA...Stop complaining...

... I think we as customers have every right complain... partically as Apple don't seem to be listening.

I remember how many of us were burned when our only upgrade option from a 6 PCI Power Mac 9600 machine was a pokey G3 with 3 PCI slots... WTF... many had to limp along with PCI extender chassis or those with more sense jumped to a PC.

I own serveral Macs including a Mac Pro... like all updates I was hopeful Apple would finally listen to its professional market.... this time round not getting USB3, support for the latest Nvidea Gfx cards, at least 6 PCI slots on Apples so called professional class system is frustrating.....

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

say what you may but the Mac still has the better OS...And for me that is the most important part...It might not have all the latest and greatest in hardware, but what it has is not shabby, what I have now with my REDRocket in it, does the job, and it is nearly 2 years old...I really can't complain...If I had the chance I would up grade...but living where I do...it is not as easy as in the USA...Stop complaining...

Point taken, in fact its the strength of FCP, ProRes and OSX that makes me care. That said, perhaps the key issue is how much material you are dealing with and what kind of turnaround times one needs to achieve ROI.

There's nothing wrong with a Prius, I just don't want to tow a trailer cross country with one. Just sayin'

Cheers - #19

 

[Tom Lowe]

I'm just wondering why you guys think the Mac OS is superior to Windows 7 64-bit? Any specific reasons?

 

[Andrew T Foster]

I'm just wondering why you guys think the Mac OS is superior to Windows 7 64-bit? Any specific reasons?

Oh no.. not that discussion! We'll have to pull out the "beating a dead horse" icon.

Anyhow I'm also of the belief that these recent towers are nothing more than a point update. Mind you a point update that could have happened 3-4 months ago but as I mentioned it seems that they are very focused on iOS and the phone/pad right now.

Hopefully they'll get back around to us before another 500+ days pass.

ATF

 

[mikeburton]

I'm just wondering why you guys think the Mac OS is superior to Windows 7 64-bit? Any specific reasons?

Its not. In fact, if you were able to write ProRes files on the PC I would probably not use my Mac for much these days excluding FCP use. But, again, at this point, Avid 5 and or Premiere CS5 offer more features at a reasonable price. I love Windows 7 64 bit, I also love OSX. Bottom line is, I can be more productive in my workflow with the tools a Windows box can offer as opposed to a Mac box, minus writing ProRes, which is a widely accepted and used format today as is FCP. Apple did get that right but ultimately refuses to support CUDA probably because of the Adobe/Apple rift. One thing Apple could learn from Adobe, is they are obviously listening to their customers where Apple is off in iPhonepadville.
Overall, we lose.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

ProRes is another questionable standard. It is a lossy codec with substantial information loss. Reviews have in the past proved DNxHD being a superior alternative. That said, 4444 is rather good for a lossy codec. But at 4444’s file sizes, we Windows users would prefer a lossless codec, like Lagarith, for example. It is free and incredibly efficient (3:1 compression ratio) and best of all, you have an identical image to uncompressed.

Even with the hype for intermediate lossy intraframe codecs, my question is, why isn't something like DNxHD a standard? It is cross-platform and most NLEs can use it.

 

[Tom.Wong]

Cause Apple is very good at winning franchise wars. Lot of prosumer to small production companies went for FCP over Avid, and premiere at the time just really sucked. Thus pro res crept its way to be a standard, and as the standard for Apple workflow in general. DNxHD was always more versatile, in different flavors of bandwidth, different color space settings, and even generational loss.

However Pro res has its advantages in resolution, you can have your pro res quicktime as 4k now if you wish, integration in third party and first part (AJA, FCP, even RED supported pro res much more aptly than it did DNX)

Honestly, out of both ends, I wish cineform was actually the universal standard for all NLE's, but can't have everything.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'd place ProRes 4444 at the top of the lossy codecs out there. DNxHD is great too and superior to ProRes HQ 422. That said, they all have noticeable flaws. The biggest problem with ProRes is that it's bound into QuickTime hell. Moving forward, we really need truly lossless working codecs that can remove us from full uncompressed workflows. I'm anxious to see what RED begins to offer for their RGB codecs.

Apple had an easy time winning over their fan base in the beginning. AVID solutions were priced to the moon and had a very antiquated sales model at the time. Trying to buy an AVID system in the mid '90s felt more like buying a giant office Photocopier with a mandatory service contract. Premiere was garbage consumer junk. Premiere Pro was unusable until Adobe CS2 and really didn't come into its own until CS3.

These days, AVID solutions are cheap. I really can't find a reason why any video professional could justify not owning Adobe's Video or Master collections. Everyone uses Photoshop... And CS5 is turning out to be very nice. CS4 was nice too, just buggy and Adobe abandoned support for it -- obviously to concentrate on CS5..

I've never had much use for Cineform's tools. But I was impressed with them at the times I did use them. I'd love to see the Cineform guys take the best of their tool sets and offer their own NLE software. IMO, the market is wide open right now. The editing sector and people looking at NLE solutions are in a state of flux, more so than usual. There are a lot of Apple FCS users considering options right now or will be very soon if Apple doesn't pull a big fat rabbit from somewhere.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

I suppose the lack of a viable lossless workflow for Apple is a major check for Windows for me. There have been very good lossless codecs for several years now. I have been using a 100% lossless workflow since 2007, when I had a Core 2 Duo machine. It used to run a bit slow back then, but still manageable. With modern PCs, it's a non issue. Today, there are at least a dozen stellar VfW lossless codecs. Between Lagarith, UT and MSU, we have three very efficient codecs for different compression/speed trade-offs. Lagarith is dangerously close to ProRes 4444 in terms of compression, despite being 100% identical to uncompressed. MSU should in fact compress to file sizes lower than ProRes, though it is much slower. Would require an 8 core machine. The ability to edit natively and then render out to a lossless codec is a big plus. Instead of transcoding to ProRes and then again rendering to ProRes. Perhaps more intermediates in the middle. The result is major losses.

To be fair, with diving HDD prices and 500GB platters, Uncompressed or Animation in RAID could be a viable option, even though we are talking 3 times the space used, on average, compared to Lagarith. I would never compromise on image quality, though.

 

[Bruce Allen]

USB 3 will not be supported on Macs, Apple and Intel have invested four years or more including millions in funding and developing Light Peak and we will see it in the next Pro Mac in 2011.

Yes. It's nuts - seeing as you can get a frikkin' Asus Eee NETBOOK with USB3 - but probably true. At some point they will probably add USB3 though - since they're still going to have a few USB ports lying around, they might as well make them USB3. Either that or it'll be ALL light peak - and you get adapters that go to USB3.

The next Pro Mac will be a complete redesign to facilitate this new technology and have a combination of drive configurations 3.5 and 2.5" and different pcie ports and graphic cards.
I think we will see a complete case redesign and form factor.

Totally 100% agree - this is what I'll be waiting for, I think! We have 4-core Sandy Bridge (plus lame gfx) at the end of this year and in 2H of next year, they will have 2011-pin Sandy Bridge-E 6-core and 8-core (with no lame gfx on board because they need the space for more cores) to compete with AMD Bulldozer. Plus they'll be on some kind of server version of Waimea Bay, which will have more PCIe lanes and PCIe 3.0. Also totally agree on the SSD push and slots for 2.5" drives being built in.

The next Final Cut Studio will be a major upgrade and have full 4K support with a new interface, Color Re-Design, and features that will compete with CS5 and probably go even further.

Agree, although CS5 is pretty low-end in terms of workflow! Features, yes. Workflow, no. But, yes, Apple will probably focus on 4K 4K 4K features features features - and leave large bugs, gaping workflow holes etc as usual. Hopefully enough people will see the light and go DaVinci - it'll also run like hell on a redesigned machine

I have a feeling Apple and Red are working together on something big. I don't know why, but reading between the line of various threads certain topics such as displays have
been greeted with complete silence. Maybe its something to do with this new 4K codec we hear Apple is working on ... something's cooking in the Kitchen, just not sure what?

We may see Apples first 27" Retina display in late 2011 or 2012 this will be fed by Light Peak which will be needed to handle the resolution.

Yeah, agree. Only thing is: will it be 120hz as well so you can do 4K 3D on it

Sad part is that it always seems that Red is doing more than their share to help Apple - and Apple will basically just lift a finger or two.

Wish Red pushed more on the PC side - to me the philosophy of "maximum performance for minimum price" is a very Red thing.

Macs are medium-level machines for moneyed non-technical people who think they're doing intense stuff... like editing, whoa! Whereas most people actually doing the intense stuff (highest-end 3D stuff, highest-end finishing) are on PC boxes running Windows or Linux. But that's from my impression growing up in South Africa where there were 3 distinct tiers:

- enthusiasts like myself learning 3DS Max, Softimage, Maya, After Effects, Premiere, etc on a cheap PCs
- people doing DTP on their expensive imported Macs who thought their computer was faster just because it was twice the price - and who would take every moment they could to sneer at us and occasionally helpfully suggest we buy an overpriced PowerMac... to do rendering on Strata or ElectricImage.
- professionals using SGIs and NT boxes to do the real work

I think Light Peak will change a lot more than people are giving it credit for. It will drive new storage capacity and speeds, home entertainment, tv's, ipad, iphone, all Apples computers, Higher Resolution Displays.
This is just my take on things, it will be interesting to see what happens.

Yes, could well happen. Although maybe just the TV industry who are looking at Gb ethernet will just start looking at 10GbE?

I'm just wondering why you guys think the Mac OS is superior to Windows 7 64-bit? Any specific reasons?

1. no drive letters. drives mount as //NAME - whether it is a local or network connection. Handy if you have a //SFX network share and then go on the road - just mount a drive called SFX and you can keep all of your paths intact.
2. feels a little less "flaky" and "dishonest" - new versions of Windows are always trying to pull a fast one on you - showing you the login screen before you can type your password, showing the start bar before you can load programs, etc. WTF
3. networking is simpler to set up
4. less security issues
5. less ridiculous "are you sure you want to do that?" prompts
6. does not get slow and cruft-filled as quickly as Windows
7. /Library makes more sense than Windows Registry
8. Quicktime is not sabotaged by its maker as it is on Windows
9. No ridiculous "you're not authorized" stuff (which I'm getting right now on my LEGAL unlimited Windows 7 x64 copy because Microsoft didn't like that I used Parallels to access my dual boot partition)
10. expose and spaces are well-implemented

On the downside...
1. way less cool 3D software apps, Maya plugins, etc
2. openGL not as good
3. lack of 30-bit display through DisplayPort
4. don't have the nice Windows Explorer view where you have folder tree on left pane and icons on right
5. gamma issues!
6. worse stereo 3D support
7. only ancient, super-expensive graphics cards are supported

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Tom.Wong]

@ number 8

quicktime already is sabotaged... cause it never got fixed

 

[Kris Anderson]

All you cry babies whinging because Santa didn't bring you what you wanted for Christmas. Boo Hoo! If you don't like Apple, don't use it. If you can't use it to be productive as it is right now then YOU are the problem, not the machine. Mac/PC - Potayto/Potahto. Just get on with it.

Someone on another forum said that the RED forums have the 'highest signal to noise' ratio of any forum he's ever seen. I'm starting to think he was right.

 

[Andrew T Foster]

Gee that's constructive, Kris!

Reminds me of "If you don't like your country, just leave!"

Arf!

ATF

 

[Jay Gannon]

All you cry babies whinging because Santa didn't bring you what you wanted for Christmas. Boo Hoo! If you don't like Apple, don't use it. If you can't use it to be productive as it is right now then YOU are the problem, not the machine. Mac/PC - Potayto/Potahto. Just get on with it.

Someone on another forum said that the RED forums have the 'highest signal to noise' ratio of any forum he's ever seen. I'm starting to think he was right.

Said with the gusto of someone who does not work as a post production professional on a daily basis.

 

[Dennis Guskov]

did you guys see the new Apple Display page? Notice what's on the screen of the new 27" LED Display ;-)
http://www.apple.com/displays/