Macbook Pro and Mac Pro renders compared....
by Peter Wollsey
on
Aug 28, 2009 at 12:40:33 am
So if you have seen my posts below in the "Home Grading Setup" thread you will know that I am considering setting up a home grading suite with a Macbook Pro.
One option I have if I do this is to do the creative work at home and then render from a remote Mac Pro which is connected to a copy of the same media.
One issue with this is that different video cards are said to produce different results in the renders.
2. Mac Pro, 2 x 2.8Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon, NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600
I rendered out the same short DVCPro HD 1090i color project on both machines. I rendered out color bars ungraded and a series of graded shots with faces, landscapes and abstract images in different lighting conditions, using a variety of primaries and secondaries on different shots.
I rendered both in Floating Point internal pixel.
Comparing the media from both renders in Final Cut Pro I could not see any difference in the broadcast monitor ( PANASONIC BT-LH2600W - HDSDI SIGNAL FROM KONA 3).
Looking at my scopes I could see very slight shifts - some of the pixels seem to shift perhaps one point.
My conclusion is that with my setup, in this format, the shift is not significant as I simply cannot detect it visually at all on my broadcast monitor, and even the shifts in the scopes are often difficult to see.
I wonder if the difference in renders is greater if you are using the ATI card - as both of my cards are NVIDIA, perhaps this explains the almost perfect match in the renders.
I will try some pro res media as well when I get the chance, although I am expecting similar results.
Re: Macbook Pro and Mac Pro renders compared.... by Uli Plank on Aug 28, 2009 at 5:31:36 am
You are just lucky with that combination. I've seen obvious shifts between NVidia and ATI (my MBP has NVidia, while all Mac Pros in our lab have ATIs).
Director of the Institute of Media Research (IMF) at Braunschweig University of Arts
Re: Macbook Pro and Mac Pro renders compared.... by Peter Wollsey on Aug 28, 2009 at 3:38:15 pm
I guess this is the one argument in favor of using an NVIDIA card for use with Color...if you want to use a macbook pro and mac pro on the same project...as I know that generally the ATI card is recommended for best performance....
Re: Macbook Pro and Mac Pro renders compared.... by walter biscardi on Aug 28, 2009 at 3:44:07 pm
[Peter Wollsey]"as I know that generally the ATI card is recommended for best performance...."
I can tell you that the base ATI 2600 card in the Mac Pro Octo 3.2 machine greatly outperformed that nVidia 8800 card or whatever that "top of the line" graphics card was for that machine. My machine came with the nVidia installed and I traded it out for the ATI and Color performance jumped and render times dropped.
No clue on how the current crop of nVidia cards compare, but I purchased the ATI 4870 for this new machine and it smokes Color.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
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