The new Mac Pro coming later this year (take a look).

I'm a Mac user and have been for a while. I have all mac devices and would really hate when I have to use a windows system. I think the new Mac Pro seems good but I can see major production houses having a concern with their previous investments being compatible with this new design. I think the lack of PCIe is the biggest concern. Production houses like to work with graphics cards that work with the rest of their investments. Not giving them options is going to lose some customers. I think it will still sell. I myself will probably buy one too. However I would never put FCPX on it. Not to start a battle but the comment above that FCPX is 100% professional is crazy talk to me. I have yet to work in production houses that use FCPX. I gave FCPX a fair shot of over a year on projects when my decision is that it was not prime time. I would rather use Avid any day than that software. Most houses use Avid, Premiere, or FCP7. Avid seems to be the highest used one here in NYC from what I can tell. I see where they wanted to go but it does NOT work in the professional field. If you try to use it and you work with a lot of production houses, it will bite you in the arss. I know because I gave it a go. So sorry but that is not a true statement, at all. As far as the new Mac Pro being used in the "professional" world, which that is a strange title anyway, I can say yes I believe it is capable of doing the tasks and will see battle time. I'm probably going to use one so I'd say it will work out for a lot of productions, just not all.
 
Nitsuj said:
However I would never put FCPX on it. Not to start a battle but the comment above that FCPX is 100% professional is crazy talk to me. I have yet to work in production houses that use FCPX. I gave FCPX a fair shot of over a year on projects when my decision is that it was not prime time. I would rather use Avid any day than that software. Most houses use Avid, Premiere, or FCP7. Avid seems to be the highest used one here in NYC from what I can tell. I see where they wanted to go but it does NOT work in the professional field. If you try to use it and you work with a lot of production houses, it will bite you in the arss. I know because I gave it a go. So sorry but that is not a true statement, at all.
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Can you elaborate on this? I just don't understand how this can be the case, maybe in the past, but at least not anymore. With the importing and exporting of XML files, roles, multichannel exporting. Even if that isn't enough, there are great tools like X2Pro and others (7 to X, X to 7) that can fill those needs. Am I missing something or what?

I found this article very insightful, and you might as well.
 
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Justin Kuhn said:
The copy seems to imply that the shape helps with cooling, or something.
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adkimery said:
All the components share a single heat sink which is a hollow aluminum shaft that makes up the center of the tube. Heat, of course, naturally rises and a single fan sits atop the machine to help with air circulation. The industrial design of the machine is very interesting. It's very clean looking... until you have to hang 87 external devices off of it to get in everything you need. :)


-Andrew
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Dyson (vacuum) filing a patent infringement lawsuit over Apple's design would be funny.
 
It's interesting that nobody anywhere is commenting on whether or not Apple will be coming out with new displays. Thought they were looking at OLED a while back. Just doing a bit of future thinking here.... The new MacPro boxen can run 3 4K displays - would Apple have another innovation upcoming in a few months (TB2 multiport hub / display @ 4K, 32" or so, priced near it's Cinema LED Display, and/or a a new iTV that does 4K streaming from iTunes to stream to those 4K TV sets that are starting to come out)? Exciting times.
 
maarek said:
Funny how Apple-fans are suddenly against "proprietary" things. Well stop using Macs then.

Like it or not but CUDA is still quite useful and Nvidia cards do run OpenCL pretty well.

About this new macpro...I don't get it. It looks beautiful, great design and great marketing. But you can get better specced pc's at the moment with probably a lot cheaper prices (with 16 cores, 4 gpus and so much memory that this mac pales) so... what's the deal here? Everybody so in love with OS X? Luckily I hate OS X so I have no dilemmas. :)
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About CUDA, I don't get it. It works with what? Adobe products? I can get software that
I can actually OWN for much cheaper prices.....about 6 months worth of 'renting' Adobe
products. So that argument works both ways. :)


In all reality I switched from FCP7 to Adobe CS 6. Even bought a CUDA card from
Ebay that had been flashed to work with my MacPro. Now with the Adobe rental
only policy, I am moving away from Adobe in the future. So in all seriousness,
CUDA will mean less to me than it did a few months ago. I've got FCP X and am trying
to learn it. Also debating picking up Avid MC 7. Seems its best to know a bunch
of NLE's these days so when one company goes a direction you don't like, you
have a fallback option. Probably true for computers too, nice to know both PC
and MAC.
 
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John Morrison said:
It's interesting that nobody anywhere is commenting on whether or not Apple will be coming out with new displays. Thought they were looking at OLED a while back. Just doing a bit of future thinking here.... The new MacPro boxen can run 3 4K displays - would Apple have another innovation upcoming in a few months (TB2 multiport hub / display @ 4K, 32" or so, priced near it's Cinema LED Display, and/or a a new iTV that does 4K streaming from iTunes to stream to those 4K TV sets that are starting to come out)? Exciting times.
Click to expand...

Possible hint towards this... After the announcement yesterday, Apple posted the new OS X wave wallpaper on their PR site. The full resolution is sized for a 27" Retina display (5120x2880). See here from MacRumors.
 
dustylense said:
A road case??? WTF? You can put this thing in a car cup holder! Extra cards???? This will drive 3 or 4 4k monitors. TB2 dude! 4k editing while simultaneously rendering in the background! It's like Tony Stark flew in and designed this thing.
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Wow, thanks for your narrow minded comment. I guess you don't really realize that Mac Pros have been used in the live production industry for many years. In many concerts, the video backdrop is being driven by Catalyst, a media server based on Mac OS. Two Mac Pro towers fit very nicely side by side in a 22.5" x 30" truck pack road case where both the front and rear lids are removed.

But alas, that is only my opinion, I know it doesn't matter to devoted apple fanboys.
 
bclighting said:
Wow, thanks for your narrow minded comment. I guess you don't really realize that Mac Pros have been used in the live production industry for many years. In many concerts, the video backdrop is being driven by Catalyst, a media server based on Mac OS. Two Mac Pro towers fit very nicely side by side in a 22.5" x 30" truck pack road case where both the front and rear lids are removed.

But alas, that is only my opinion, I know it doesn't matter to devoted apple fanboys.
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I'm sure a much smaller, lighter-weight, heavy-duty custom road case will be available shortly. It's not like foam can't be shaped to a round size. And if anything, this is good for mobile production because smaller size and lighter weight leaves more room for other gear.
 
dustylense said:
then move on. You made your mind up. Enjoy windows 8 or whatever. Let the rest of us drive 3 4k monitors out of the silly tube while editing 4k and rending the edit simultaneously in the background with what is built in that silly looking tube. If we want more power, we can attach all sorts of lovely devices (36 of them in fact) while you run out of slots. PC's can't even hot swap lightning bolt (thunderbolt) yet, can they? Let Apple fans waste their money all they want, because we really don't give twoo sheets once the product is working for us. Walk into any coffee shop with Wi-fi. What do you see? MacBooks! Everywhere. Were the creatives live and love. MOVE ON if you think this computer is not for you. It's for the rest of us who support innovation and progress. Think iPod, Ipad, iPhone, iTunes.... Bet ya have them all.......
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I have none of them, and I don't miss any of it. It's cool you love your Apples...but saying that people who don't use Apple aren't creative, innovative or progressive is just ridiculous. Creativity is about the mind and using what ever tools that work and appeal to the artist...Apple or PC, Canon or Nikon, Gibson or Fender....geniuses have worked with them all.
 
TheReverend said:
... And if anything, this is good for mobile production because smaller size and lighter weight leaves more room for other gear.
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This isn't just for mobile production, but I really could have used this a few times this past year to do post production while away from home. The laptop is fine for smaller jobs, but you just can't render out the volume of material on a laptop that you can with a dedicated desktop machine. If I could have put my MacPro in a carry on, I would have. Now I will be able to bring my actual main workstation with me on the road...I figure I'll bring the MacPro and a TB RAID and just tap into a borrowed monitor while there. ...wow. Long visits to hang out with family without the worry of missing work. I for one, won't miss the massive size and weight of the current MacPro.
 
There is a flow on from this announcement . 4K has gone mainstream. Don't know the prices of the new 4K screens but suspect it will be less than a I Mac, the current cinema display is about $1,100. This machine directly points to were Apple think their future lies.

Prior to this launch everyone was saying Apple are out of the Pro market.....well they're back.

The other interesting thing FCPX will be updated to take advantage of the new system, announced at the end of Mac Pro Launch . Time to learn FCPX (groan)
 
pulpfiction007 said:
It's not like I've ever disliked Apple...the products are awesome, just too damn expensive. I'll wait for the PCs that copy their ideas for less...lol.
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Like half as less. And no self respecting PC will look like that gizmo. Nope, just a rectangle with ports and fans vents - crazy!
 
TheReverend said:
Can you elaborate on this? I just don't understand how this can be the case, maybe in the past, but at least not anymore. With the importing and exporting of XML files, roles, multichannel exporting. Even if that isn't enough, there are great tools like X2Pro and others (7 to X, X to 7) that can fill those needs. Am I missing something or what?

I found this article very insightful, and you might as well.
Click to expand...


In that article he states... "Would I use it again? yes, definitely. It's a very slick editing tool. Who knows whether it will catch on in the professional television sector and at the moment the signs aren't promising."
That is the truth. And where FCPX bit me the worst was when I was working for broadcasting studios. But I could go on and on about why it still falls way short of something like Avid. Even the writer in the article says after that quote something about Avid being so good. Well why would you settle for something less? So to answer your question if you are missing something I would say, yes you are if you are not on Avid MC6.5 or even the new Premiere Pro. I have both and like them a lot. Premiere if I am going to do some extensive AE work and MC6 for everything else.
So yeah, if and when I get the new Mac Pro, on goes MC6 and Premiere. FCPX has too many unstable problems and don't even get me started on trying to share projects or the amount of drive space they take up. Kiss cloud backups goodbye with that idea. Blah I will have to drink another shot of Jack just to calm down after even thinking about it.
The biggest reason I would not go to a PC is windows. I just can't handle it after all the years of using it.
Also keep in mind when people say macs are over priced, which I don't believe they are that much so, you will NEVER retain the value of a PC anywhere near the value holds on a mac. Try selling a PC for a fraction of the cost you payed for it just months after. I doubt it. You can sell the mac and regain a much larger chunk of your investment to use for a newer version. Oh and Apple care ftw.




 
Think outside the square.

Anyone coming into this thread raving about windows is either a bit daft or a troll. I've been using Apple computers since the Apple IIc, I worked in tech support at Apple and I've done PC support. Mac OS has always been far easier and cheaper to support. When people look at the cost of computers they just don't factor in the support costs. Sure PCs are faster in certain areas but it's like the tortoise and the hare. The new mac pro is a hairy tortoise. It should be out just in time to cut my feature and I expect it will handle 2k Raw editing in FCPX with a thunderbolt raid array.

@ Surf it Mike. I't s#it easy, I was up and running on FCPX in a day and I didn't read any documentation. It's way better and faster than FCP7. A mate of mine just cut a feature in Premiere and said it was a pain in the arse, buggy. FCP 10.0.8 is rock solid.
 
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alaskacameradude said:
About CUDA, I don't get it. It works with what? Adobe products? I can get software that
I can actually OWN for much cheaper prices.....about 6 months worth of 'renting' Adobe
products. So that argument works both ways. :)
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CUDA works with a lot of high end professional products. Two of the big ones on the top of my head that I use myself are NukeX 7.0 and Maya. So yeah those are pretty big products that support CUDA gpu rendering. You can use the products but you lack performance without CUDA. Will The Foundry, and Autodesk re-code their products for the new Mac Pro? Hard to say but when production houses have so much invested in these products it seems pretty difficult to say "I'm going to invest in new systems and just let the software companies work it out." I think they will just because it is the new mac pro after all, but it also depends on how many customers buy them and request the software companies to change it. To me this still shows Apple wasn't able to work out a deal with nvidia and they should be listening to the industry instead of telling it what it needs. But at the same time Apple is taking a chance and it might work out this time, unlike, *cough*fcpx*cough*.
 
squig said:
Think outside the square.

Anyone coming into this thread raving about windows is either a bit daft or a troll. I've been using Apple computers since the Apple IIc, I worked in tech support at Apple and I've done PC support. Mac OS has always been far easier and cheaper to support. When people look at the cost of computers they just don't factor in the support costs. Sure PCs are faster in certain areas but it's like the tortoise and the hare. The new mac pro is a hairy tortoise. It should be out just in time to cut my feature and I expect it will handle 2k Raw editing in FCPX with a thunderbolt raid array.

@ Surf it Mike. I't s#it easy, I was up and running on FCPX in a day and I didn't read any documentation. It's way better and faster than FCP7. A mate of mine just cut a feature in Premiere and said it was a pain in the arse, buggy. FCP 10.0.8 is rock solid.
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I agree squig, though not on FCPX hehe, but the rest 100% for sure. My first computer was an Apple IIgs. What a system that was. HDD was optional too. ;)
 
Key developers are already working on optimising their code for the new Mac Pro. Apple aren't stupid (annoying at times), they've designed another box? that everyone (who's anyone) is gonna want and the developers know it. This thing has loads of power and I think windoze users will be lagging behind or setting their studios on fire.

HDD? All I had was a 512k floppy disk.
 
Oh yeah, we didn't take that HDD option. I said "HDD for that much more? Who would ever need that much storage space? Floppies have enough." Haha.
Yeah I agree. I am sure a lot of the big name software will announce their compatible updates near launch of the mac.
 
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