Re: Pretty amazing Thunderbolt demo.

[Jeremy Garchow] "I guess it depends. When looking around at PPro and certainly FCPX, renders are becoming less and less necessary during the edit. Even FCPx and PPro have GPU accelerated exports."

Sorry, I wasn't clear -- I was thinking of AE or C4D renders, which can be measured in seconds or minutes per frame, not frames per second. We agree that i7 plus GPU co-processing probably renders editorial fast enough for most.


[Jeremy Garchow] "I know we have had this discussion before, but if pure speed is what you are looking for for renders, the MacPro isn't the fastest, beefiest machine out there."

Sure, and that's why I'm evaluating cross-platform workflows now.

As you've pointed out, though, both the Mac and Windows platforms each have some unique advantages. There are reasons I might want to choose Mac, but Apple would take platform choice out of my hands entirely if they dropped performance workstations and introduced a nice i7-based SuperMini in the Mac Pro's place.


[Jeremy Garchow] "Apple's have never been the fastest kids on the block."

I don't think that's entirely true. Every Mac Pro has been a decent buy at the time of its release. In 2009, Apple even announced their Nehalem-based Mac Pros in advance of Intel's formal launch of the new architecture.

Mac Pros are competitive at launch, but because Apple doesn't refresh the line at all in between Intel's major architecture releases, they fall behind relative to their competitors in between big updates.


[Walter Soyka] "I'm sure Apple could drop Xeon workstations and barely feel the blip in their bottom line, but it would certainly change the landscape in our business quite a bit."

[Jeremy Garchow] "The changing of landscape train has already left the station. :)"

That wasn't quite what I meant. If I move all my non-editorial production work to PCs for better performance, will FCPX be compelling and open enough to keep my editorial on Macs?

What if the high-end post market gets on that train and rides it all the way to Windows?

Bill Davis might argue I'm in the one percent here, give some rousing populist speech about Apple democratizing media production, and tell me that the lost sales to Walter and the Sizzle Cores don't make a whit of difference to Apple.

He's not wrong about that, but I'm not looking at it from Apple's perspective; I'm looking at it from mine, and I'm still wondering if I fit in.

Sorry for the long-winded diversion on Mac Pros, but hey -- you brought it up in your initial post!

My reliance on sizzle cores certainly doesn't change the fact that seeing 4K play in real time on a little MacBook Air is cool.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
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