That and the potential for the next process shrink.
It's defiantly going to be interesting, I mean look at the Mac Mini, Intel NUC or even the ChromeBox, their cute, tiny and very powerful. I can't wait till I have a machine with quad core i7 power and looks like this;
I was so close to having a Cray X-MP, the bank I work for bought one back in the mid 80's, when it went offline they stored it in the basement with the rest of the relics where it sat for 18 years. The IT manager said I could have it if I could get it out of there. The problem was it was so huge and weighed a ton, at the time I lived in a small apartment. Reluctantly I passed and it was finally scrapped
That had to hurt. They are probably collectors items by now.
<img alt="1frown.gif" id="user_yui_3_10_0_1_1373017773567_1788" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies/1frown.gif" style="line-height:1.231;" name="user_yui_3_10_0_1_1373017773567_1788">
<span style="line-height:1.231;">. Now that I have a house I kick myself for not renting out a storage unit, it would fit perfectly in my family room. I would have course gutted it and converted the innards to storage space as using it as a computer would have cost me a fortune in power bills, why bother anyway when my TV is probably more powerful. Like you said that iconic look was just so cool, I mean who wouldn't want to sit on a Cray computer while watching Futurama with the family. </span>
I have a hard time believing that there is somebody out there that thinks so much like me. I'm not sure I would have gutted the machine though, that would have resulted in too much history going down the drain. I find it truly fascinating that much of the power of an old Cray can now sit in a tiny little cylinder on ones desk and actually be affordable.
It's defiantly going to be interesting, I mean look at the Mac Mini, Intel NUC or even the ChromeBox, their cute, tiny and very powerful. I can't wait till I have a machine with quad core i7 power and looks like this;
<a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/27927/" id="user_yui_3_10_0_1_1373017773567_2719" style="line-height:1.231;" name="user_yui_3_10_0_1_1373017773567_2719"><img alt="" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="27927" data-type="61" src="http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/27927/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL" style="; width: 500px; height: 263px">
</a>
Just getting Haswell tech into that tube should do wonders. It makes me wonder if Apple and Intel have Haswell based Xeons up their sleeves for the Mac Pro debut. Yeah I know wishful thinking.
<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:21px;">Ubuntu 13.04 or any Linux distro with ARM support</span>
What really makes these devices such a huge success is being able to get that much RAM into the little boxes. RAM means real operating systems, delivering real features users want. We aren't far from having 3D stack chips with 4GB of RAM which could go into the likes of an iPhone or tablet. This to me is amazing considering my first computer was a Commodore Vic 20. The Vic 20 was a bit of a wanna be computer that was more frustration than any thing.
Honestly I would have preferred a design that offered up a card slot or two. Some I/O will never move to Thunderbolt simply because of bandwidth or the lack of a large market for the I/O card. Given that though I see much potential for this design.
As for the HDDs, I'm of mixed feelings on this one. One of the reasons I've np been promoting the XMac idea for years was to allow for that very option of additional disk drives inside the chassis. I was not even considering disk arrays but rather the option of a drive bay or two for bulk storage. My opinion is still mixed but years of running a laptop with an external drive in tow has changed my mind a bit. With the new high speed I/O options, external disk drives are not the terror that they once where. Still with this Mac Pro design I do hope that they allow for the option of another internal SSD. Frankly not so much for bulk storage but as a scratch "disk".
There is one good point, well maybe two here, with respect to having to go external. One is that the array you buy can be tailored to your usage. The second is that you don't have to buy it again and again each time you upgrade the CPU. Or vis versa you can upgrade or add to your array storage with out having to upgrade your CPU chassis. I really don't see the external storage issues as the big bugaboo that many make it out to be.
Support of PCI Express cards though is an entirely different discussion. This does bother me as the only rational argument for them is that Thunderbolt simply can't support some of the more demanding I/O needs.
I'm certain this is part of it though I'm not sure external chassis will solve anything for the majority of the people needing internal slots. The interesting case here though is that Apple solved the the majority of the reasons for multiple slots by providing two compute capable GPUs. These will have the high speed bus's for communications and can in many cases replace DSP cards and similar products.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that Avid is already fine tuning some OpenCL code to leverage this hardware. For Avid and most other developers, the nice thing about this machine is that it removes ambiguity about what is in the machine computation wise. In other words they will be able to write software knowing that they have a certain level of performance available to them.
There is an assumption here that an external box would be fast enough. I'm not sure that is the case in every situation.
It could be well into next year.
It will be interesting to hear this machine under heavy load.
As to those PC manufactures, I have nothing against building boxes for high performance. The problem is these are not high volume designs. What is neat about this new Mac Pro is the amount of power picked into that small space. That and the potential for the next process shrink.
I'm wondering if Thunderbolt 2 will help with the PCI card slot issue? Avid will work on their video editor, but Open CL for Pro Tools? ProTools doesn't really tax the GPU's at all, ProTools native is CPU intensive since its audio, not video. I'm just wondering what the comparison is going to be running ProTools native vs ProTools HDX on a card slot with the new MacPro. With the ProTools PCI cards, it to help run more tracks and more plug-ins, but the majority of recording studios don't use that much in terms of number of tracks and plug-ins to really warrant buying PCI cards vs. Native. I think ultimately Avid might lose a lot of PCI card business since the CPU performance can do what most recording studios really need. It's just changing the mentality of the average recording studio not to use PCI DAWS and go with ProTools Native instead, thus saving a LOT of money. Trust me, this is going to take a little while for many recording studios to change their setups since they are predominately based on PCI cards used in Mac Pros.
For those still stuck in the DYI PC box building. that started going on in the 80's and I remember some of my customers thought they could save some money and build their own PCs, they learned quickly that it was a mistake. Of all of the people that were building their own PCs, most of them have stopped for usually two reasons. They use laptops instead or they switched to a Mac. yeah, people still do it, but DYI leads to a lot of headaches. I've got years of experience watching people fail miserably doing it. I actually know of a company that was a chip mfg that was trying to save money and they built their own PCs, and since the place with loaded with engineers, they thought they could save money. Well, what happened is they kept having problems hardware/software and instead of an engineer that gets paid $100+K a year to design chips, they were huddled over some piece of shit PC tearing it apart being a PC technician that would normally get paid $15 an hour to swap out a drive, reinstall the OS, etc. The company eventually sold off to another company. Moral of the story, don't try to play Mr. PC and build your own PCs. They end up being a freaking hobby rather than a useful tool. The quality of the components like RAM, HDD on the open market aren't always as consistent as you might think. TIme is money and if you normally get paid $50 to $100 an hour, don't try to do something that would normally require $15 an hour person. Doesn't make sense unless it's just a hobby and you don't mind lowering yourself. Heck, people that assemble PCs in Asia get paid probably around $.50 an hour. If a company is willing to pay $100 an hour to hobble together some DYI, I'll show you a company that makes bad business decisions and will likely go out of business because they are wasting money.
I was so close to having a Cray X-MP, the bank I work for bought one back in the mid 80's, when it went offline they stored it in the basement with the rest of the relics where it sat for 18 years. The IT manager said I could have it if I could get it out of there. The problem was it was so huge and weighed a ton, at the time I lived in a small apartment. Reluctantly I passed and it was finally scrapped . Now that I have a house I kick myself for not renting out a storage unit, it would fit perfectly in my family room. I would have course gutted it and converted the innards to storage space as using it as a computer would have cost me a fortune in power bills, why bother anyway when my TV is probably more powerful. Like you said that iconic look was just so cool, I mean who wouldn't want to sit on a Cray computer while watching Futurama with the family.
You should have taken the computer and sent it out to recover the gold and other precious metals. I've known guys that buy scrap mainframes and minis for several different reasons. There is a used market out there for fully functioning computers and for spare parts and for just scraping it for the precious metals. You might be surprised how much gold and silver you can get out of one these babies. I saw someone take the original IBM calculator that was the size of a large refrigerator on its side and scrap it. He didn't pay hardly anything for it, but got back quite a bit of gold. Heck, they buy router dust from the PCB mfg by the barrels and reclaim as much gold as they can. HP used to use GOLD for all of the motherboards back in the 80's and a buddy I knew would buy router dust from them dirt cheap and he would get 50 big barrels filled and reclaim gold. Gold is used extensively in mainframes and the more expensive equipment from those days. It adds up, especially at the price for gold these days.
I'm wondering if Thunderbolt 2 will help with the PCI card slot issue? Avid will work on their video editor, but Open CL for Pro Tools? ProTools doesn't really tax the GPU's at all, ProTools native is CPU intensive since its audio, not video.
Modern GPU's can do signal processing so it isn't impossible for ProTool to leverage the GPU in some manner.
I'm just wondering what the comparison is going to be running ProTools native vs ProTools HDX on a card slot with the new MacPro. With the ProTools PCI cards, it to help run more tracks and more plug-ins, but the majority of recording studios don't use that much in terms of number of tracks and plug-ins to really warrant buying PCI cards vs. Native.
This is especially the case when you have many cores available in the CPU chip.
I think ultimately Avid might lose a lot of PCI card business since the CPU performance can do what most recording studios really need. It's just changing the mentality of the average recording studio not to use PCI DAWS and go with ProTools Native instead, thus saving a LOT of money. Trust me, this is going to take a little while for many recording studios to change their setups since they are predominately based on PCI cards used in Mac Pros.
This has been pretty much the history of computing, as each generation of hardware gets more powerful the need for special hardware decreases.
For those still stuck in the DYI PC box building.
OK who said anything about DIY PC box building?
that started going on in the 80's and I remember some of my customers thought they could save some money and build their own PCs, they learned quickly that it was a mistake. Of all of the people that were building their own PCs, most of them have stopped for usually two reasons. They use laptops instead or they switched to a Mac. yeah, people still do it, but DYI leads to a lot of headaches.
Headaches? That really depends upon how much intelligence you put into building the machine. In any event if you are running Linux you either do your due diligence or suffer the headaches of unsupported hardware.
I've got years of experience watching people fail miserably doing it. I actually know of a company that was a chip mfg that was trying to save money and they built their own PCs, and since the place with loaded with engineers, they thought they could save money. Well, what happened is they kept having problems hardware/software and instead of an engineer that gets paid $100+K a year to design chips, they were huddled over some piece of shit PC tearing it apart being a PC technician that would normally get paid $15 an hour to swap out a drive, reinstall the OS, etc.
See my comment about intelligence, having a degree and even an engineering job does not indicate intelligence.
The company eventually sold off to another company. Moral of the story, don't try to play Mr. PC and build your own PCs. They end up being a freaking hobby rather than a useful tool.
That depends upon the application. The first course of action should always be to put an off the shelf machine into the project but sometimes that doesn't work.
The quality of the components like RAM, HDD on the open market aren't always as consistent as you might think. TIme is money and if you normally get paid $50 to $100 an hour, don't try to do something that would normally require $15 an hour person.
Now this is garbage! Setting up a computing platform for a specific task is hardly a job for the run of the mill technician. maybe a bunch of generic office support PC's but if you are putting hardware together for a challenging task it is best to have an engineer or two involved. Engineers by the way that know what they are doing.
Doesn't make sense unless it's just a hobby and you don't mind lowering yourself. Heck, people that assemble PCs in Asia get paid probably around $.50 an hour.
Even that is garbage, the wage rate in many parts of china is up to around 7-8 dollars an hour. You really need to look into some of your beliefs here.
If a company is willing to pay $100 an hour to hobble together some DYI, I'll show you a company that makes bad business decisions and will likely go out of business because they are wasting money.
I suspect you don't have a clue why a company would build up PC hardware. Often it is done to support very specific needs and not the office environment.
In any event I'm not sure what got you off on this tangent. The desire for PCI-Express slots suggested in my post has nothing to do with building your own PC. Rather it is about being able to configure a PC for a specific usage. That is a far cry from making a bad business decision. Rather it is about leveraging consumer grade hardware to the advantage for your business. As i've stated many times before in these forums, Apples lack of economical hardware with PCI expansion means that Macs can never be used in this market. This is really a shame as Mac OS has lots of advantages to offer.
Modern GPU's can do signal processing so it isn't impossible for ProTool to leverage the GPU in some manner.
This is especially the case when you have many cores available in the CPU chip.
This has been pretty much the history of computing, as each generation of hardware gets more powerful the need for special hardware decreases.
OK who said anything about DIY PC box building?
Headaches? That really depends upon how much intelligence you put into building the machine. In any event if you are running Linux you either do your due diligence or suffer the headaches of unsupported hardware.
See my comment about intelligence, having a degree and even an engineering job does not indicate intelligence.
That depends upon the application. The first course of action should always be to put an off the shelf machine into the project but sometimes that doesn't work.
Now this is garbage! Setting up a computing platform for a specific task is hardly a job for the run of the mill technician. maybe a bunch of generic office support PC's but if you are putting hardware together for a challenging task it is best to have an engineer or two involved. Engineers by the way that know what they are doing.
Even that is garbage, the wage rate in many parts of china is up to around 7-8 dollars an hour. You really need to look into some of your beliefs here.
I suspect you don't have a clue why a company would build up PC hardware. Often it is done to support very specific needs and not the office environment.
In any event I'm not sure what got you off on this tangent. The desire for PCI-Express slots suggested in my post has nothing to do with building your own PC. Rather it is about being able to configure a PC for a specific usage. That is a far cry from making a bad business decision. Rather it is about leveraging consumer grade hardware to the advantage for your business. As i've stated many times before in these forums, Apples lack of economical hardware with PCI expansion means that Macs can never be used in this market. This is really a shame as Mac OS has lots of advantages to off.
For assembly work for Foxconn? They aren't paying those guys $7 or $8 an hour.
I'm talking about an Office environment PC. The engineers at this chip company would buy Unix boxes by someone like Sun Micro or some other Unix mfg because they won't get decent support from the software company. This was back a while ago before guys were using Linux. WIth chip design, they had special computers doing the design work and the software was expensive and they bought REAL workstations to do that. But the company was making their own DYI OFFICE computers and they had computer engineers dicking around with a run in the mill piece of crap which wasted their time because they would be spending days figuring out how to fix a Windows problem, etc, rather than designing chips, which is what they were PAID to do. But their design work was done on REAL workstations with support contracts, ripping expensive software and those systems were maintained with service contracts, but the Office PCs so the engineers could have email, internet, word, excel, etc. were the DYI crap and they had nothing but problems. Trust me, I went through the calcuations on how much they wasted because i asked them point blank how much time an engineer would spend putting together a PC, fixing it. They could have easily bought a decent high end Compaq or HP with a 3 year service contract and just called an 800 number to send a tech out to fix it. Plus, the DYI PC have much higher failure rate due to lessor quality HDDs and Memory that gets circulated at places like Fry's, and other DYI outlets.
Modern GPU's can do signal processing so it isn't impossible for ProTool to leverage the GPU in some manner.
This is especially the case when you have many cores available in the CPU chip.
This has been pretty much the history of computing, as each generation of hardware gets more powerful the need for special hardware decreases.
OK who said anything about DIY PC box building?
Headaches? That really depends upon how much intelligence you put into building the machine. In any event if you are running Linux you either do your due diligence or suffer the headaches of unsupported hardware.
See my comment about intelligence, having a degree and even an engineering job does not indicate intelligence.
That depends upon the application. The first course of action should always be to put an off the shelf machine into the project but sometimes that doesn't work.
Now this is garbage! Setting up a computing platform for a specific task is hardly a job for the run of the mill technician. maybe a bunch of generic office support PC's but if you are putting hardware together for a challenging task it is best to have an engineer or two involved. Engineers by the way that know what they are doing.
Even that is garbage, the wage rate in many parts of china is up to around 7-8 dollars an hour. You really need to look into some of your beliefs here.
I suspect you don't have a clue why a company would build up PC hardware. Often it is done to support very specific needs and not the office environment.
In any event I'm not sure what got you off on this tangent. The desire for PCI-Express slots suggested in my post has nothing to do with building your own PC. Rather it is about being able to configure a PC for a specific usage. That is a far cry from making a bad business decision. Rather it is about leveraging consumer grade hardware to the advantage for your business. As i've stated many times before in these forums, Apples lack of economical hardware with PCI expansion means that Macs can never be used in this market. This is really a shame as Mac OS has lots of advantages to offer.
Sorry for getting off tangent, but there are people that are doing just that and THINKING they have a better solution when they don't factor in how much time, labor costs in throwing them together and maintaining them.
I still on the fence of the new MacPro. I wish I wasn't, but I really thing they should have had PCI slots. Additional storage? That's a coin toss for me. If I was to put together a high end system for audio production, videio production, I would probably want external RAID for the data and just stick the OS and applications on the SSD built in. A lot of places are going the SANS route since many of these applications are being used by several people on the same project. There are video production studios where they might have 200 or more tracks for a movie and they might have a handful of guys editing different tracks and segments of the movie and utilizing a SANS solution, so external RAID, SANS is definitely what Apple is thinking. I just think these PCI cards slots might be an issue.
For ProTools HD HDX guys they have a special connector that goes to the I/O and AD/DA converters. Guys like Apogee have a Thunderbolt option for their high end converters, but MOST outboard AD/DA converters are using the special ProTools interface which requires those stupid PCI cards. For these production studios to change over to this MacPro, they might have to change out a lot of other hardware because of it. It would have made the transition much easier for existing studios to just plop a new MacPro, transfer the PCI cards from their existing MacPro and not disrupt their environment.
For assembly work for Foxconn? They aren't paying those guys $7 or $8 an hour.
I don't know about Foxconn but the wage rate in China is a lot higher than many think and Foxconn is considered to be one of the better companies to work for in China. Wages have increased significantly in China over the last decade which make production in the USA far more attractive. Thus the new mac Pro being somewhat made in the USA. If you think Tim cook is bringing Mac pro production back to the USA because he cares about workers in this country you are sadly mistaken.
I'm talking about an Office environment PC. The engineers at this chip company would buy Unix boxes by someone like Sun Micro or some other Unix mfg because they won't get decent support from the software company. This was back a while ago before guys were using Linux. WIth chip design, they had special computers doing the design work and the software was expensive and they bought REAL workstations to do that. But the company was making their own DYI OFFICE computers and they had computer engineers dicking around with a run in the mill piece of crap which wasted their time because they would be spending days figuring out how to fix a Windows problem, etc, rather than designing chips, which is what they were PAID to do.
Well that would be stupid. It is almost always better to buy a solution rather than to make it yourself.
But their design work was done on REAL workstations with support contracts, ripping expensive software and those systems were maintained with service contracts, but the Office PCs so the engineers could have email, internet, word, excel, etc. were the DYI crap and they had nothing but problems. Trust me, I went through the calcuations on how much they wasted because i asked them point blank how much time an engineer would spend putting together a PC, fixing it. They could have easily bought a decent high end Compaq or HP with a 3 year service contract and just called an 800 number to send a tech out to fix it. Plus, the DYI PC have much higher failure rate due to lessor quality HDDs and Memory that gets circulated at places like Fry's, and other DYI outlets.
Sorry for getting off tangent, but there are people that are doing just that and THINKING they have a better solution when they don't factor in how much time, labor costs in throwing them together and maintaining them.
There are many ways to look at DIY PC builds. For a business it doesn't make sense at all for normal desktop duties
I still on the fence of the new MacPro. I wish I wasn't, but I really thing they should have had PCI slots.
I was disappointed about this also. It just makes it impossible to use Apple hardware for many use cases.
Additional storage? That's a coin toss for me.
For me personally that is a bigger issue. I do hope that Apple pulls head form ass and puts the other SSD socket on the second video card. Just having the ability to put two SSD inside the box (tube) would lead to far more flexibility. For many another SSD used as a scratch disk would be wonderful.
If I was to put together a high end system for audio production, videio production, I would probably want external RAID for the data and just stick the OS and applications on the SSD built in. A lot of places are going the SANS route since many of these applications are being used by several people on the same project. There are video production studios where they might have 200 or more tracks for a movie and they might have a handful of guys editing different tracks and segments of the movie and utilizing a SANS solution, so external RAID, SANS is definitely what Apple is thinking. I just think these PCI cards slots might be an issue.
This is one reason why don't grasp the cries for a disk array capacity inside the box. There is almost zero need for it in the industry.
For ProTools HD HDX guys they have a special connector that goes to the I/O and AD/DA converters. Guys like Apogee have a Thunderbolt option for their high end converters, but MOST outboard AD/DA converters are using the special ProTools interface which requires those stupid PCI cards. For these production studios to change over to this MacPro, they might have to change out a lot of other hardware because of it. It would have made the transition much easier for existing studios to just plop a new MacPro, transfer the PCI cards from their existing MacPro and not disrupt their environment.
So the studios sit back and wait for things to wash out. No rational person will buy one of these on day one expecting it to drop into place with no effort.
For ProTools HD HDX guys they have a special connector that goes to the I/O and AD/DA converters. Guys like Apogee have a Thunderbolt option for their high end converters, but MOST outboard AD/DA converters are using the special ProTools interface which requires those stupid PCI cards. For these production studios to change over to this MacPro, they might have to change out a lot of other hardware because of it. It would have made the transition much easier for existing studios to just plop a new MacPro, transfer the PCI cards from their existing MacPro and not disrupt their environment.
Audio is perhaps low enough bandwidth that a PCIe chassis would be acceptable over TB. Latency might be an issue perhaps.
Unless there is Mac only software in their toolchain my suspicion is that any shop faced with this dilemma will simply switch to Win7 on a high end Dell or HP.
If FCP still had the mindshare that was tanked after the release of FCPx (whatever you think of the software itself this certainly happened) Apple would be in better position to force a PCIe to TB transition.
I don't know about Foxconn but the wage rate in China is a lot higher than many think and Foxconn is considered to be one of the better companies to work for in China. Wages have increased significantly in China over the last decade which make production in the USA far more attractive. Thus the new mac Pro being somewhat made in the USA. If you think Tim cook is bringing Mac pro production back to the USA because he cares about workers in this country you are sadly mistaken.
Well that would be stupid. It is almost always better to buy a solution rather than to make it yourself.
I'm just throwing out a wage as an example that assembly work in Asia, or India is a LOT less than what US company is going to pay for a Chip deisgn engineer and that it's dumb for a company to pay a chip design engineer to assemble or fix a generic PC than do what they are hired to do. That's the only point I was trying to make. The wages were just to show that there is a HUGE difference between what people might get paid. You are taking the wages just a little too seriously.
Why is Tim Cook bringing back production of the MacPro to the USA if he doesn't care about the workers in this country? It creates US jobs doesn't it? IF it makes sense to make here, then they should make here. Plus the new MacPro seems like it's probably made by robotics in the first place. But there is a certain amount that's done by people. What else do you expect them to do? Apple found out in the 90's that outsourcing the mfg/assembly was far most cost effective than the company doing themselves. They used to put out bids for making products to both Apple mfg plants and various outsourcing companies and Apple's own mfg plants couldn't compete which is why they had to outsource. Every high profile company is getting pressured to bring back jobs to the USA. Apple's very high profile and the media and these activist groups are always hassling Apple to do something with regards to bringing back jobs to the USA or Green initiatives, even though others are doing the exact same thing.
Either event, people make these DYI computers and use them THINKING they are saving money, when in fact, by the time you've done research to find out what pieces you need, procure everything, unbox everything, assemble everything to the point where it is fully assembled and ready to use, all of the time equals money. And then if you have to waste more time in fixing it rather than just taking it in to a Warranty service center, you are now wasting even more time fixing something that someone that is qualified should be doing. A lot of people don't realize and factor in the amount of time spent and the labor rates.
I went through this with some engineers that were making their own PCs thinking they were saving money and when it was all said and done, they weren't saving anything. And when it comes to resale, these DYI don't bring in any decent amount of money since they aren't a brand name product. Then you lose even more if you want to sell it as used and try to recoup some money out of the product.
I can understand the educational factor of the DYI computer since I am used to a company called Heath that used to market and sell various types of electronic products of decent quality where you assembled the entire thing. They were great. I wish they were still around and parents got their kids to get involved in putting together Heath Kits as a learning experience. But I wouldn't take these DYI kits that seriously in a business environment. For home and for fun, sure, but not for business.
Audio is perhaps low enough bandwidth that a PCIe chassis would be acceptable over TB. Latency might be an issue perhaps.
Unless there is Mac only software in their toolchain my suspicion is that any shop faced with this dilemma will simply switch to Win7 on a high end Dell or HP.
If FCP still had the mindshare that was tanked after the release of FCPx (whatever you think of the software itself this certainly happened) Apple would be in better position to force a PCIe to TB transition.
Latency is HUGE with audio recording systems. HUGE.
I've read about these TB chassis on AUDIO recording sites and the biggest complaint seems to be noise. Apparantly, the fans they use in these chassis are a little too loud and they don't fan lots of fan making noise in a studio environment. That's out of Apple's control if they don't make and design these external chassis.
You know I read about that some time ago but it sort of slipped out of the sieve that is my brain. Frankly as an old fart I'm amazed everyday I start up my iPad. IPads biggest short coming is that lack of significant flash for secondary storage, I bet the old Cray came with plenty of options to deal with that.
[...] With the ProTools PCI cards, it to help run more tracks and more plug-ins, but the majority of recording studios don't use that much in terms of number of tracks and plug-ins to really warrant buying PCI cards vs. Native.
If you're talking Pro Tools, Native" *IS* a PCI card. It's between the software-only product and the full-DSP HDX cards. I guess o one at Avid thought THAT ingenious naming convention would cause any confusion...
There are still benefits to HDX, like lower latency monitoring. There are other benefits too, but you gotta wonder if they're worth it. I'm running PT10 with just CPU (no HDX, no Native card) doing post for spots, and I can't find a way the hardware would enhance my work. Maybe it would if I was tracking music or mixing larger projects.
What's got MY panties in a bunch is Avid dropping support for the Complete Production Toolkit. That means as of Pro Tools 11 there is no way to mix surround in Pro Tools without buying one of their cards and I/O boxes. That makes the cost of entry for surround mixing with Pro Tools around $5-6K minimum. It's ridiculous and unacceptable to tie such a fundamental feature to their hardware when even consumer video editing software can handle 5.1 audio.
I'm so mad at Avid over this that I find myself giggling with delight over the prospect of the new Mac Pro not supporting their flagship audio product!
Audio is perhaps low enough bandwidth that a PCIe chassis would be acceptable over TB. Latency might be an issue perhaps.
Unless there is Mac only software in their toolchain my suspicion is that any shop faced with this dilemma will simply switch to Win7 on a high end Dell or HP.
If FCP still had the mindshare that was tanked after the release of FCPx (whatever you think of the software itself this certainly happened) Apple would be in better position to force a PCIe to TB transition.
They certainly lost a few but I suspect lots of that was mass hysteria. There are indications that some users that left in a huff have switched back. The Mac Pro will likely suffer like FCPx did at first with people not grasping the significance of the advancement and dwelling too long in what is missing. Many of the so called professionals displayed just how far they are from being "professional". In some cases guys made complete asses of them selves, if not an ass the displayed all the evolution of a child that has yet to leave preschool. I'd be most interested to find out just how badly sales really have been hurt by the transition to FCPX.
If you're talking Pro Tools, Native" *IS* a PCI card. It's between the software-only product and the full-DSP HDX cards. I guess o one at Avid thought THAT ingenious naming convention would cause any confusion... :no:
There are still benefits to HDX, like lower latency monitoring. There are other benefits too, but you gotta wonder if they're worth it. I'm running PT10 with just CPU (no HDX, no Native card) doing post for spots, and I can't find a way the hardware would enhance my work. Maybe it would if I was tracking music or mixing larger projects.
Honestly I don't know what you are referencing above but the reality is the new chips, both Intel CPUs and GPUs are extremely adept at signal processing these days. If someone tells you that their software requires a DSP card you really should be asking them what is wrong with their programmers. Intels CPUs are nothing to sneeze at these days, especially with AVX and
What's got MY panties in a bunch is Avid dropping support for the Complete Production Toolkit. That means as of Pro Tools 11 there is no way to mix surround in Pro Tools without buying one of their cards and I/O boxes. That makes the cost of entry for surround mixing with Pro Tools around $5-6K minimum. It's ridiculous and unacceptable to tie such a fundamental feature to their hardware when even consumer video editing software can handle 5.1 audio.
Sounds like an example of a company doing all of the wrong things tryIng to protect its turf. They have to realize that with GPU compute plus the new vector/signal processing support in Intels newer chips that support processors will become a thing of the past. This sounds like a classic example of tying hardware to software to shore up the bottom line.
Since I'm not into audio work, I must ask what makes the Avid solution that much better than some of the so called "consumer" solutions? This may sound silly to you but I see so many audio processing solutions out there that I have to wonder why Avid gets so much traction. In any event if Avid does continue down this road they open themselves up to aggressive competition from somebody that can do it all in software.
Honestly I wonder if this is the same mentality that has MicroSoft Office in the position it is in. Office has 1000 of features that no one user ever makes use of but it is the so called business "standard".
I'm so mad at Avid over this that I find myself giggling with delight over the prospect of the new Mac Pro not supporting their flagship audio product!
This sounds like a case where a third party could easily pull a lot of customers away from Avid if such customers are open minded.
Since I'm not into audio work, I must ask what makes the Avid solution that much better than some of the so called "consumer" solutions?
Mostly "maturity." The product has been around a long time, so the interface and the processing have evolved to where they're really good. The results of applying a process in Pro Tools often sounds better than performing the same function in a "consumer" app. Kinda like 3ds Max vs. Cheetah3D.
Pro Tools also includes some more esoteric, "only pros need 'em" features like the ability to open the audio portion of a video edit session directly, link multiple machines for complex sessions, lock to external hardware... stuff that doesn't matter to one person working in isolation, but are essential in collaborative environments. FCPX is an excellent example of what happens when you're forced to go without workflow stuff like that -- pissed off users.
Finally there's "habit." Since almost every pro facility uses it, that's what operators know well. During a recent edit session a producer called me a "Pro Tools ninja." Through years of use I've become familiar with a broad range of features, and become both good at it and fast. Starting from scratch with a new app means throwing away all that experience and expertise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
This sounds like a case where a third party could easily pull a lot of customers away from Avid if such customers are open minded.
Maybe, but probably not because the only really significant feature they've clawed back is the ability to work in surround. Since it's only a small minority of us that do, and most are in facilities that are used to paying for production hardware, it'll only be small-time freelancers like me that get burned. We're not a big enough market to generate a migration.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic
I mean who wouldn't want to sit on a Cray computer while watching Futurama with the family.
A woman after my shiny metal ass...
I thought Solipsism was the only one on here that got my Futurama references, although Cray reminds me of a different show.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
That and the potential for the next process shrink.
It's defiantly going to be interesting, I mean look at the Mac Mini, Intel NUC or even the ChromeBox, their cute, tiny and very powerful. I can't wait till I have a machine with quad core i7 power and looks like this;
Even now though the specs aren't bad;
Dual core ARM Cortex-A9
Quad Core ARM Mali-400MP Graphics Processing Unit
2GB DRAM
64GB memory local storage
Ubuntu 13.04 or any Linux distro with ARM support
That had to hurt. They are probably collectors items by now. I have a hard time believing that there is somebody out there that thinks so much like me. I'm not sure I would have gutted the machine though, that would have resulted in too much history going down the drain. I find it truly fascinating that much of the power of an old Cray can now sit in a tiny little cylinder on ones desk and actually be affordable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Honestly I would have preferred a design that offered up a card slot or two. Some I/O will never move to Thunderbolt simply because of bandwidth or the lack of a large market for the I/O card. Given that though I see much potential for this design.
As for the HDDs, I'm of mixed feelings on this one. One of the reasons I've np been promoting the XMac idea for years was to allow for that very option of additional disk drives inside the chassis. I was not even considering disk arrays but rather the option of a drive bay or two for bulk storage. My opinion is still mixed but years of running a laptop with an external drive in tow has changed my mind a bit. With the new high speed I/O options, external disk drives are not the terror that they once where. Still with this Mac Pro design I do hope that they allow for the option of another internal SSD. Frankly not so much for bulk storage but as a scratch "disk".
There is one good point, well maybe two here, with respect to having to go external. One is that the array you buy can be tailored to your usage. The second is that you don't have to buy it again and again each time you upgrade the CPU. Or vis versa you can upgrade or add to your array storage with out having to upgrade your CPU chassis. I really don't see the external storage issues as the big bugaboo that many make it out to be.
Support of PCI Express cards though is an entirely different discussion. This does bother me as the only rational argument for them is that Thunderbolt simply can't support some of the more demanding I/O needs.
I'm certain this is part of it though I'm not sure external chassis will solve anything for the majority of the people needing internal slots. The interesting case here though is that Apple solved the the majority of the reasons for multiple slots by providing two compute capable GPUs. These will have the high speed bus's for communications and can in many cases replace DSP cards and similar products.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that Avid is already fine tuning some OpenCL code to leverage this hardware. For Avid and most other developers, the nice thing about this machine is that it removes ambiguity about what is in the machine computation wise. In other words they will be able to write software knowing that they have a certain level of performance available to them.
There is an assumption here that an external box would be fast enough. I'm not sure that is the case in every situation.
It could be well into next year.
It will be interesting to hear this machine under heavy load.
As to those PC manufactures, I have nothing against building boxes for high performance. The problem is these are not high volume designs. What is neat about this new Mac Pro is the amount of power picked into that small space. That and the potential for the next process shrink.
I'm wondering if Thunderbolt 2 will help with the PCI card slot issue? Avid will work on their video editor, but Open CL for Pro Tools? ProTools doesn't really tax the GPU's at all, ProTools native is CPU intensive since its audio, not video. I'm just wondering what the comparison is going to be running ProTools native vs ProTools HDX on a card slot with the new MacPro. With the ProTools PCI cards, it to help run more tracks and more plug-ins, but the majority of recording studios don't use that much in terms of number of tracks and plug-ins to really warrant buying PCI cards vs. Native. I think ultimately Avid might lose a lot of PCI card business since the CPU performance can do what most recording studios really need. It's just changing the mentality of the average recording studio not to use PCI DAWS and go with ProTools Native instead, thus saving a LOT of money. Trust me, this is going to take a little while for many recording studios to change their setups since they are predominately based on PCI cards used in Mac Pros.
For those still stuck in the DYI PC box building. that started going on in the 80's and I remember some of my customers thought they could save some money and build their own PCs, they learned quickly that it was a mistake. Of all of the people that were building their own PCs, most of them have stopped for usually two reasons. They use laptops instead or they switched to a Mac. yeah, people still do it, but DYI leads to a lot of headaches. I've got years of experience watching people fail miserably doing it. I actually know of a company that was a chip mfg that was trying to save money and they built their own PCs, and since the place with loaded with engineers, they thought they could save money. Well, what happened is they kept having problems hardware/software and instead of an engineer that gets paid $100+K a year to design chips, they were huddled over some piece of shit PC tearing it apart being a PC technician that would normally get paid $15 an hour to swap out a drive, reinstall the OS, etc. The company eventually sold off to another company. Moral of the story, don't try to play Mr. PC and build your own PCs. They end up being a freaking hobby rather than a useful tool. The quality of the components like RAM, HDD on the open market aren't always as consistent as you might think. TIme is money and if you normally get paid $50 to $100 an hour, don't try to do something that would normally require $15 an hour person. Doesn't make sense unless it's just a hobby and you don't mind lowering yourself. Heck, people that assemble PCs in Asia get paid probably around $.50 an hour. If a company is willing to pay $100 an hour to hobble together some DYI, I'll show you a company that makes bad business decisions and will likely go out of business because they are wasting money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic
I was so close to having a Cray X-MP, the bank I work for bought one back in the mid 80's, when it went offline they stored it in the basement with the rest of the relics where it sat for 18 years. The IT manager said I could have it if I could get it out of there. The problem was it was so huge and weighed a ton, at the time I lived in a small apartment. Reluctantly I passed and it was finally scrapped
You should have taken the computer and sent it out to recover the gold and other precious metals. I've known guys that buy scrap mainframes and minis for several different reasons. There is a used market out there for fully functioning computers and for spare parts and for just scraping it for the precious metals. You might be surprised how much gold and silver you can get out of one these babies. I saw someone take the original IBM calculator that was the size of a large refrigerator on its side and scrap it. He didn't pay hardly anything for it, but got back quite a bit of gold. Heck, they buy router dust from the PCB mfg by the barrels and reclaim as much gold as they can. HP used to use GOLD for all of the motherboards back in the 80's and a buddy I knew would buy router dust from them dirt cheap and he would get 50 big barrels filled and reclaim gold. Gold is used extensively in mainframes and the more expensive equipment from those days. It adds up, especially at the price for gold these days.
In any event I'm not sure what got you off on this tangent. The desire for PCI-Express slots suggested in my post has nothing to do with building your own PC. Rather it is about being able to configure a PC for a specific usage. That is a far cry from making a bad business decision. Rather it is about leveraging consumer grade hardware to the advantage for your business. As i've stated many times before in these forums, Apples lack of economical hardware with PCI expansion means that Macs can never be used in this market. This is really a shame as Mac OS has lots of advantages to offer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Modern GPU's can do signal processing so it isn't impossible for ProTool to leverage the GPU in some manner.
This is especially the case when you have many cores available in the CPU chip.
This has been pretty much the history of computing, as each generation of hardware gets more powerful the need for special hardware decreases.
OK who said anything about DIY PC box building?
Headaches? That really depends upon how much intelligence you put into building the machine. In any event if you are running Linux you either do your due diligence or suffer the headaches of unsupported hardware.
See my comment about intelligence, having a degree and even an engineering job does not indicate intelligence.
That depends upon the application. The first course of action should always be to put an off the shelf machine into the project but sometimes that doesn't work.
Now this is garbage! Setting up a computing platform for a specific task is hardly a job for the run of the mill technician. maybe a bunch of generic office support PC's but if you are putting hardware together for a challenging task it is best to have an engineer or two involved. Engineers by the way that know what they are doing.
Even that is garbage, the wage rate in many parts of china is up to around 7-8 dollars an hour. You really need to look into some of your beliefs here.
I suspect you don't have a clue why a company would build up PC hardware. Often it is done to support very specific needs and not the office environment.
In any event I'm not sure what got you off on this tangent. The desire for PCI-Express slots suggested in my post has nothing to do with building your own PC. Rather it is about being able to configure a PC for a specific usage. That is a far cry from making a bad business decision. Rather it is about leveraging consumer grade hardware to the advantage for your business. As i've stated many times before in these forums, Apples lack of economical hardware with PCI expansion means that Macs can never be used in this market. This is really a shame as Mac OS has lots of advantages to off.
For assembly work for Foxconn? They aren't paying those guys $7 or $8 an hour.
I'm talking about an Office environment PC. The engineers at this chip company would buy Unix boxes by someone like Sun Micro or some other Unix mfg because they won't get decent support from the software company. This was back a while ago before guys were using Linux. WIth chip design, they had special computers doing the design work and the software was expensive and they bought REAL workstations to do that. But the company was making their own DYI OFFICE computers and they had computer engineers dicking around with a run in the mill piece of crap which wasted their time because they would be spending days figuring out how to fix a Windows problem, etc, rather than designing chips, which is what they were PAID to do. But their design work was done on REAL workstations with support contracts, ripping expensive software and those systems were maintained with service contracts, but the Office PCs so the engineers could have email, internet, word, excel, etc. were the DYI crap and they had nothing but problems. Trust me, I went through the calcuations on how much they wasted because i asked them point blank how much time an engineer would spend putting together a PC, fixing it. They could have easily bought a decent high end Compaq or HP with a 3 year service contract and just called an 800 number to send a tech out to fix it. Plus, the DYI PC have much higher failure rate due to lessor quality HDDs and Memory that gets circulated at places like Fry's, and other DYI outlets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Modern GPU's can do signal processing so it isn't impossible for ProTool to leverage the GPU in some manner.
This is especially the case when you have many cores available in the CPU chip.
This has been pretty much the history of computing, as each generation of hardware gets more powerful the need for special hardware decreases.
OK who said anything about DIY PC box building?
Headaches? That really depends upon how much intelligence you put into building the machine. In any event if you are running Linux you either do your due diligence or suffer the headaches of unsupported hardware.
See my comment about intelligence, having a degree and even an engineering job does not indicate intelligence.
That depends upon the application. The first course of action should always be to put an off the shelf machine into the project but sometimes that doesn't work.
Now this is garbage! Setting up a computing platform for a specific task is hardly a job for the run of the mill technician. maybe a bunch of generic office support PC's but if you are putting hardware together for a challenging task it is best to have an engineer or two involved. Engineers by the way that know what they are doing.
Even that is garbage, the wage rate in many parts of china is up to around 7-8 dollars an hour. You really need to look into some of your beliefs here.
I suspect you don't have a clue why a company would build up PC hardware. Often it is done to support very specific needs and not the office environment.
In any event I'm not sure what got you off on this tangent. The desire for PCI-Express slots suggested in my post has nothing to do with building your own PC. Rather it is about being able to configure a PC for a specific usage. That is a far cry from making a bad business decision. Rather it is about leveraging consumer grade hardware to the advantage for your business. As i've stated many times before in these forums, Apples lack of economical hardware with PCI expansion means that Macs can never be used in this market. This is really a shame as Mac OS has lots of advantages to offer.
Sorry for getting off tangent, but there are people that are doing just that and THINKING they have a better solution when they don't factor in how much time, labor costs in throwing them together and maintaining them.
I still on the fence of the new MacPro. I wish I wasn't, but I really thing they should have had PCI slots. Additional storage? That's a coin toss for me. If I was to put together a high end system for audio production, videio production, I would probably want external RAID for the data and just stick the OS and applications on the SSD built in. A lot of places are going the SANS route since many of these applications are being used by several people on the same project. There are video production studios where they might have 200 or more tracks for a movie and they might have a handful of guys editing different tracks and segments of the movie and utilizing a SANS solution, so external RAID, SANS is definitely what Apple is thinking. I just think these PCI cards slots might be an issue.
For ProTools HD HDX guys they have a special connector that goes to the I/O and AD/DA converters. Guys like Apogee have a Thunderbolt option for their high end converters, but MOST outboard AD/DA converters are using the special ProTools interface which requires those stupid PCI cards. For these production studios to change over to this MacPro, they might have to change out a lot of other hardware because of it. It would have made the transition much easier for existing studios to just plop a new MacPro, transfer the PCI cards from their existing MacPro and not disrupt their environment.
So the studios sit back and wait for things to wash out. No rational person will buy one of these on day one expecting it to drop into place with no effort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
I find it truly fascinating that much of the power of an old Cray can now sit in a tiny little cylinder on ones desk and actually be affordable.
Desk? Try pocket.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/05/10/ipad.2.benches.as.fast.as.cray.2.from.1985/
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
For ProTools HD HDX guys they have a special connector that goes to the I/O and AD/DA converters. Guys like Apogee have a Thunderbolt option for their high end converters, but MOST outboard AD/DA converters are using the special ProTools interface which requires those stupid PCI cards. For these production studios to change over to this MacPro, they might have to change out a lot of other hardware because of it. It would have made the transition much easier for existing studios to just plop a new MacPro, transfer the PCI cards from their existing MacPro and not disrupt their environment.
Audio is perhaps low enough bandwidth that a PCIe chassis would be acceptable over TB. Latency might be an issue perhaps.
Unless there is Mac only software in their toolchain my suspicion is that any shop faced with this dilemma will simply switch to Win7 on a high end Dell or HP.
If FCP still had the mindshare that was tanked after the release of FCPx (whatever you think of the software itself this certainly happened) Apple would be in better position to force a PCIe to TB transition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
I don't know about Foxconn but the wage rate in China is a lot higher than many think and Foxconn is considered to be one of the better companies to work for in China. Wages have increased significantly in China over the last decade which make production in the USA far more attractive. Thus the new mac Pro being somewhat made in the USA. If you think Tim cook is bringing Mac pro production back to the USA because he cares about workers in this country you are sadly mistaken.
Well that would be stupid. It is almost always better to buy a solution rather than to make it yourself.
I'm just throwing out a wage as an example that assembly work in Asia, or India is a LOT less than what US company is going to pay for a Chip deisgn engineer and that it's dumb for a company to pay a chip design engineer to assemble or fix a generic PC than do what they are hired to do. That's the only point I was trying to make. The wages were just to show that there is a HUGE difference between what people might get paid. You are taking the wages just a little too seriously.
Why is Tim Cook bringing back production of the MacPro to the USA if he doesn't care about the workers in this country? It creates US jobs doesn't it? IF it makes sense to make here, then they should make here. Plus the new MacPro seems like it's probably made by robotics in the first place. But there is a certain amount that's done by people. What else do you expect them to do? Apple found out in the 90's that outsourcing the mfg/assembly was far most cost effective than the company doing themselves. They used to put out bids for making products to both Apple mfg plants and various outsourcing companies and Apple's own mfg plants couldn't compete which is why they had to outsource. Every high profile company is getting pressured to bring back jobs to the USA. Apple's very high profile and the media and these activist groups are always hassling Apple to do something with regards to bringing back jobs to the USA or Green initiatives, even though others are doing the exact same thing.
Either event, people make these DYI computers and use them THINKING they are saving money, when in fact, by the time you've done research to find out what pieces you need, procure everything, unbox everything, assemble everything to the point where it is fully assembled and ready to use, all of the time equals money. And then if you have to waste more time in fixing it rather than just taking it in to a Warranty service center, you are now wasting even more time fixing something that someone that is qualified should be doing. A lot of people don't realize and factor in the amount of time spent and the labor rates.
I went through this with some engineers that were making their own PCs thinking they were saving money and when it was all said and done, they weren't saving anything. And when it comes to resale, these DYI don't bring in any decent amount of money since they aren't a brand name product. Then you lose even more if you want to sell it as used and try to recoup some money out of the product.
I can understand the educational factor of the DYI computer since I am used to a company called Heath that used to market and sell various types of electronic products of decent quality where you assembled the entire thing. They were great. I wish they were still around and parents got their kids to get involved in putting together Heath Kits as a learning experience. But I wouldn't take these DYI kits that seriously in a business environment. For home and for fun, sure, but not for business.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
Audio is perhaps low enough bandwidth that a PCIe chassis would be acceptable over TB. Latency might be an issue perhaps.
Unless there is Mac only software in their toolchain my suspicion is that any shop faced with this dilemma will simply switch to Win7 on a high end Dell or HP.
If FCP still had the mindshare that was tanked after the release of FCPx (whatever you think of the software itself this certainly happened) Apple would be in better position to force a PCIe to TB transition.
Latency is HUGE with audio recording systems. HUGE.
I've read about these TB chassis on AUDIO recording sites and the biggest complaint seems to be noise. Apparantly, the fans they use in these chassis are a little too loud and they don't fan lots of fan making noise in a studio environment. That's out of Apple's control if they don't make and design these external chassis.
You know I read about that some time ago but it sort of slipped out of the sieve that is my brain. Frankly as an old fart I'm amazed everyday I start up my iPad. IPads biggest short coming is that lack of significant flash for secondary storage, I bet the old Cray came with plenty of options to deal with that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
[...] With the ProTools PCI cards, it to help run more tracks and more plug-ins, but the majority of recording studios don't use that much in terms of number of tracks and plug-ins to really warrant buying PCI cards vs. Native.
If you're talking Pro Tools, Native" *IS* a PCI card. It's between the software-only product and the full-DSP HDX cards. I guess o one at Avid thought THAT ingenious naming convention would cause any confusion...
There are still benefits to HDX, like lower latency monitoring. There are other benefits too, but you gotta wonder if they're worth it. I'm running PT10 with just CPU (no HDX, no Native card) doing post for spots, and I can't find a way the hardware would enhance my work. Maybe it would if I was tracking music or mixing larger projects.
What's got MY panties in a bunch is Avid dropping support for the Complete Production Toolkit. That means as of Pro Tools 11 there is no way to mix surround in Pro Tools without buying one of their cards and I/O boxes. That makes the cost of entry for surround mixing with Pro Tools around $5-6K minimum. It's ridiculous and unacceptable to tie such a fundamental feature to their hardware when even consumer video editing software can handle 5.1 audio.
I'm so mad at Avid over this that I find myself giggling with delight over the prospect of the new Mac Pro not supporting their flagship audio product!
They certainly lost a few but I suspect lots of that was mass hysteria. There are indications that some users that left in a huff have switched back. The Mac Pro will likely suffer like FCPx did at first with people not grasping the significance of the advancement and dwelling too long in what is missing. Many of the so called professionals displayed just how far they are from being "professional". In some cases guys made complete asses of them selves, if not an ass the displayed all the evolution of a child that has yet to leave preschool. I'd be most interested to find out just how badly sales really have been hurt by the transition to FCPX.
Since I'm not into audio work, I must ask what makes the Avid solution that much better than some of the so called "consumer" solutions? This may sound silly to you but I see so many audio processing solutions out there that I have to wonder why Avid gets so much traction. In any event if Avid does continue down this road they open themselves up to aggressive competition from somebody that can do it all in software.
Honestly I wonder if this is the same mentality that has MicroSoft Office in the position it is in. Office has 1000 of features that no one user ever makes use of but it is the so called business "standard".
This sounds like a case where a third party could easily pull a lot of customers away from Avid if such customers are open minded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Since I'm not into audio work, I must ask what makes the Avid solution that much better than some of the so called "consumer" solutions?
Mostly "maturity." The product has been around a long time, so the interface and the processing have evolved to where they're really good. The results of applying a process in Pro Tools often sounds better than performing the same function in a "consumer" app. Kinda like 3ds Max vs. Cheetah3D.
Pro Tools also includes some more esoteric, "only pros need 'em" features like the ability to open the audio portion of a video edit session directly, link multiple machines for complex sessions, lock to external hardware... stuff that doesn't matter to one person working in isolation, but are essential in collaborative environments. FCPX is an excellent example of what happens when you're forced to go without workflow stuff like that -- pissed off users.
Finally there's "habit." Since almost every pro facility uses it, that's what operators know well. During a recent edit session a producer called me a "Pro Tools ninja." Through years of use I've become familiar with a broad range of features, and become both good at it and fast. Starting from scratch with a new app means throwing away all that experience and expertise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
This sounds like a case where a third party could easily pull a lot of customers away from Avid if such customers are open minded.
Maybe, but probably not because the only really significant feature they've clawed back is the ability to work in surround. Since it's only a small minority of us that do, and most are in facilities that are used to paying for production hardware, it'll only be small-time freelancers like me that get burned. We're not a big enough market to generate a migration.