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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 :)

There IS a new Mac Pro

Jarred Land said:
I have hope as well Ketch.. but that hope is dwindling after every big release day comes and goes. It seems like the people that matter I think really most in the world seem to be pushed further and further away.

Maybe next year :)
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TRUE.. But hey hey, no, please not next year, at list later this year... ;)
 
Or maybe they are not pushing professionals away, they just want them to work on new kinds of devices.

As Jarred mentioned, Apple PCs have always lagged well behind on power and flexibility as their non-Apple counterparts. That hasn't stopped them from growing a loyal fan base in the past. Granted, in the RED world we really need that extra performance, but the RED world is pretty niche and perhaps we are simply talking of an exception. Every industry requiring high performance computing is dominated by Linux and Windows - Apple was never about the bleeding edge.

For instance, I doubt Apple fans in the journalism industry would be disappointed by these announcements. They new Macbook Pro offers "good enough" performance to get their work done, so much so that they simply don't need a Mac Pro. I think they made it very clear that the new MBP is their vision for "all a computer needs to be".

Once again, this is typical of Apple. They will give you a product they think you want, but not necessarily what you really need. So far we haven't needed the performance and brand loyalty was fine. Maybe now we are SOL simply to be working with demanding RED files.

I am sure there are no further updates coming this year except iMac and Mac Mini. Look to 2013.
 
Jarred Land said:
This I do agree with. I just really hope this was actually targeted to the professionals and not just clever marketing aimed to consumers and consumers thinking about becoming prosumers.


Not that there is anything wrong with prosumers or consumers. Apple has to think and they ultimately rely on the consumer to survive now.

And as much as I bitch about wanting Apple to step up in terms of processing. We need to remember that macs, for the first half of apple's life, ran on hardware that was vastly inferior to it's intel / pc counterparts in terms of raw power, and they did just fine with the professionals... Mostly I think because Apple treated them like family.

And Jeff's insight is always a pleasure to read. But the processor is just one part of the problem. I think Thunderbolt would of been in a much better position today if Apple made a thunderbolt PCI-E card for the towers ( getting around the technical issues ) .. and certified at least one of the USB 3 cards and made the drivers to go along with it... I would probably be sitting here using a mac tower if those 2 things existed.
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Agreed. I started as a PC man myself. i just couldn't " afford" a Mac back then when i started- In Adobe Premiere 4 days, to be exact. People on the Mac camp where raving about Final Cut Pro 1, but I had a PC with a Pinnacle card and Premiere that absolutely smoked Final Cut Pro on a Mac. However, there was a catch on my PC system. It crashed. When I had a heavy timeline with multiple video streams, ghost frames appeared that I had no chance to avoid but to start a new project and re-edit. Every project exceeding 10 minutes of length meant i had to "pray" for it to work. It was really a lot faster than Final Cut Pro, but really unstable on my PC. I purchased my first mac in 2004, a Powerbook G4 17", and it was the single best laptop I've ever owned. I can't recall any crash on it. I "switched" then from Premiere to Final Cut Pro 4.0 (or was it 4.5, i don't remember). Just perfect. Worked perfect with my HVX200 P2 camera, I could edit HD on it. Simply a wonderful experience. I became " fluent in FCP" and never bought another PC since. Have to say I have been happy, worry free for more than 7 years. Since then, bought a new 17" in 2008 to substitute the 2004 workhorse, a Mac g5 (which had the liquid leak problem but which apple replaced free of charge) and a 2008 Macpro. Very, very happy with the Apple ecosystem... Until FCPX. One needs to stay informed, and I've followed the " death" o Shake and those small bits and pieces of information of the dismemberment of the internal Apple pro teams with concern, but it was with the introduction of FCPX that it really made me question the platform and its usability in the "pro" field. This new Macbook Pro, however, made me breathe better, because it looks to me like Apple truly at their best. I switched from FCPX back to Adobe because of your statement, Jarred, on the way they are dealing with r3d and communicating with you guys. Adobe commitment to this community made it a no brainer for this reduser to go to "the" company that is making the best efforts to push Red editing to the future. And its working great on my Macpro with quadro 4000 and my soon to be retired 2008 17". Adobe and Mac work very well right now, and I hope Adobe commits to their support to the platform, because it has just become the perfect match, just like in the Pre Final Cut days on the Mac. In terms of Hardware, getting back to a PC frightens me due to my previous experience. Windows still lacks the elegance and intuitiveness of OSX, which still works so well (and is stable) to me so far. I don't see myself switching. This is of course subject to change, because nothing is definitive specially on our field of work and everything is changing so rapidly.

i have to admit that I was surprised by the slow implementation of thunderbolt by the pro video industry, even the usually quick 3rd party peripheral and capture card makers. If I remember correctly, both you and Jeff pointed out how expensive current thunderbolt is and its limitations, like the power necessity and how expensive it is to implement, as well as a lack of current desktop motherboards with this included, or Intel cpu motherboards (sorry but my computer knowledge is limited). Still, things like the Belkin adapter and the now announced Matrox adapter where things I expected to come with the introduction of the previous generation Macbook Pro. Seems like its only now that Thunderbolt is taking off. Its a fascinating technology, and not being a computer knowledgeable guy I am hyped about the possibilities. It frightens me to hear you guys talking already of a thunderbolt 2.0, not unlike the hdmi protocols constant evolution, etc with better features for next year. makes me think if I purchase one thunderbolt computer now I might miss on the trully great thunderbolt stuff coming real soon. Obsolescence Obsolete it surely is not in this camp!
 
o boy. pinnacle.. there is a name i havn't heard from in awhile.. i almost completely forgot about them.. I think a book was written on them, "how to piss off your customers " :)

hopefully they are doing much better under AVID.
 
Jarred Land said:
o boy. pinnacle.. there is a name i havn't heard from in awhile.. i almost completely forgot about them.. I think a book was written on them, "how to piss off your customers " :)

hopefully they are doing much better under AVID.
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I think I've contributed a good share of experiences to that book! :)
 
Looks like Apple's been listening... The Mac Pro icon no longer has "new". Would love to be a fly on the wall at Apple today!
 
"Its a fine line between stupid and clever" Spinal Tap.
My guess, they are going to drive the last nail in the PC coffin, and assume computer world domination. They will let everyone migrate over to the PC world of frustation and dissapointment (especially trying to make a pro res), and then come out with a Knights Corner 4K IMac Pro that will be the machine for the next 10 years.
 
Last night it had the "new" tag next to the Mac Pro. This morning it was removed as though the product hasn't been updated.
 
Doug Beatty said:
Hmm, I thought a Thunderbolt/USB 3 combo would have been a fantastic idea for a new Mac Pro. I guess Apple thinks otherwise? FW800 is the future?
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It has USB3 which is a lot faster than FW800 and there's a USB3 RedStation, so actually you're better off not using FW800 now. You can also get the Lacie Thunderbolt eSATA hub and transfer with eSATA which is also faster than FW800. FireWire is essentially dead now that we have USB3 and Thunderbolt.
 
joe hedge said:
Tim Cook confirms updated Mac Pro coming in 2013

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/12/tim_cook_confirms_updated_mac_pro_coming_in_2013.html
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This is great news. It means that, like Jeff predicted, they might skip these generations chips and go for the upcoming ones entirely. It will also mean a redesign of the Macpro, and I'm sure all the bells and whistles like thunderbolt, usb3, maybe something new entirely in connectivity, like new expansion slots, and possibly even, like some have speculated, new Retina displays, (4k?). Seems like they did listen to the criticism. Well done, Apple! I can wait for another year, personally, the company I work on, not so much, so they ordered the "new, old" model. I'll definitely be getting this 2013 model though. Until then, ordered the retina Macbook Pro and am looking forward to see the internal nvidia working with red footage in CS6. Am thinking of an external box to put my red rocket and see if how editable it makes Red footage in both in CS6 as well as Da Vinci Resolve. I hope someone tries this first, though. Will this outperform my 2008 Macpro with Quadro 4000 ? If it does, I go mobile, 100% until next year!
 
I would say it would.

Id like to see Apple take on a more modular approach.

A core machine, breakout desktop box similar to the sonnet and Belkin units and a seperate hard drive unit (4,8,16 drives) all connected via thunderbolt.

It would be cheaper to upgrade as you would only have to upgrade the core brain every couple of years and everything else as new peripherals came to market
 
Ben McCarthy said:
I would say it would.

Id like to see Apple take on a more modular approach.

A core machine, breakout desktop box similar to the sonnet and Belkin units and a seperate hard drive unit (4,8,16 drives) all connected via thunderbolt.

It would be cheaper to upgrade as you would only have to upgrade the core brain every couple of years and everything else as new peripherals came to market
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Sounds like a laptop to me :-)
 
I know your having a bit of a tease but a laptop wouldn't have the PCIe lanes, full length GFX cards, SAS ports etc etc

They could make it so gamers might want the core machine by itself, single SSD for OS, PCIe GFX card, it could sit next to a tv for example
 
Rob Ruffo said:
Something you don't seem to understand at all, is that successful companies like Apple - and Red even much more so - actually listen to their consumers.

If you want things to change, you have to make the effort to "whine and complain" - and then you and everyone else gets something better suited to their needs if enough people voice their opinions. This feedback is WELCOMED by most companies. Many even pay for it.

If everyone just "keeps their heads down like good working men" "let the boss man decide what he wants to do" or whatever it is you seem to feel rugged manly men should be doing instead, progress in all areas would be much slower.

That said ror a 12 core PC with this speed, you would pay at least $3500 maybe more - and it wouldn't have self-correcting heat sinked Ram - so I don't get what the problem is. It's totally competitive.
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Hmm, I'm not so sure about that
www.mediaworkstations.net

until thunderbolt gets to the Hackingtosh, here what you got. Way faster than your mac.
 
Sergio Perez said:
This is great news. It means that, like Jeff predicted, they might skip these generations chips and go for the upcoming ones entirely. It will also mean a redesign of the Macpro, and I'm sure all the bells and whistles like thunderbolt, usb3, maybe something new entirely in connectivity, like new expansion slots, and possibly even, like some have speculated, new Retina displays, (4k?). Seems like they did listen to the criticism. Well done, Apple! I can wait for another year, personally, the company I work on, not so much, so they ordered the "new, old" model. I'll definitely be getting this 2013 model though. Until then, ordered the retina Macbook Pro and am looking forward to see the internal nvidia working with red footage in CS6. Am thinking of an external box to put my red rocket and see if how editable it makes Red footage in both in CS6 as well as Da Vinci Resolve. I hope someone tries this first, though. Will this outperform my 2008 Macpro with Quadro 4000 ? If it does, I go mobile, 100% until next year!
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Sérgio, you can upgrade that Quadro 4000 to a GTX 580, which will give you a nice bump in processing power. In fact, it will give you double the number of CUDA cores. The guys over at http://macvidcards.com/ (I'm not affiliated with them in any way) write custom firmware for them, so it will actually show the the 'official' Apple boot screen when you start up your Mac.

My biggest gripe about this last 'non-update' was the old GPU and the fact that they really should drop the price more for two year old technology. However, with the ability to load up a current Mac Pro with a GTX 580, I can still get enough performance to tide me over until the next REAL update from Apple.
 
shashbugu said:
Hmm, I'm not so sure about that
www.mediaworkstations.net

until thunderbolt gets to the Hackingtosh, here what you got. Way faster than your mac.
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Great link! Got any other hackingtosh companies making these? I'd rather pay someone to make me one then fiddle with it myself. Any company giving support for updates to hackingtosh's? I want to make sure it stays functional
 
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