Rumor: Final Cut Pro X on sale, third-party Thunderbolt products unveiled next week
Apple may appeal to its high-end video production customers next week with the release of Final Cut Pro X on the Mac App Store, as well as the announcement of new third-party products that will take advantage of the high-speed Thunderbolt port found on new Macs, according to a new rumor.
The details came on Tuesday from Macotakara, which was told by sources that Apple will begin to sell Final Cut Pro X on the Mac App Store next week. That would come as no surprise, as Apple said earlier this year that the $299, 64-bit software will arrive in June.
What would be new, though, are products that take advantage of the high-speed Thunderbolt port. Sources also reportedly said that new Thunderbolt products from third-party partners will be announced when Final Cut Pro X goes on sale.
Last week, AppleInsider was first to report on images that claim to show off Final Cut Pro X, as well as the unannounced Motion 5 software from Apple, and rumors of a new version of Color. The last update to Final Cut Studio was released in July of 2009.
More images claimed to be of Final Cut Pro X appeared online on Sunday. The abundance of new material related to the upcoming software update suggests it is being openly tested before its impending release.
Apple offered a sneak peak of Final Cut Pro X in April to the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas. There, the company touted the new release as being "as revolutionary as the first version of Final Cut Pro."
Final Cut Pro X is set to include support for all processing cores, as well as the high-definition 4K resolution. It will also allow editing during import, scalable rendering, a resolution-independent playback system, fully color-managed Final Cut based on colorsync, people and shot detection, and audio clean-up.
But since the official unveiling of Final Cut Pro X at the FCP User Group Supermeet at the NAB conference, Apple has not offered any new details. It also made no mention of any other Final Cut Studio applications other than Final Cut Pro.
Apple unveiled the high-speed Thunderbolt port, co-developed with Intel, on its new MacBook Pros in February. Since then, Thunderbolt has also been added to updated iMacs, and is expected to arrive on the rest of the company's Mac lineup this year.
Thunderbolt pairs Intel's PCI Express interconnect with DisplayPort on the same connector, offering transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps. That's twice as fast as the 5Gbps offered by USB 3.0, and 20 times faster than the 480Mbps with USB 2.0.
The details came on Tuesday from Macotakara, which was told by sources that Apple will begin to sell Final Cut Pro X on the Mac App Store next week. That would come as no surprise, as Apple said earlier this year that the $299, 64-bit software will arrive in June.
What would be new, though, are products that take advantage of the high-speed Thunderbolt port. Sources also reportedly said that new Thunderbolt products from third-party partners will be announced when Final Cut Pro X goes on sale.
Last week, AppleInsider was first to report on images that claim to show off Final Cut Pro X, as well as the unannounced Motion 5 software from Apple, and rumors of a new version of Color. The last update to Final Cut Studio was released in July of 2009.
More images claimed to be of Final Cut Pro X appeared online on Sunday. The abundance of new material related to the upcoming software update suggests it is being openly tested before its impending release.
Apple offered a sneak peak of Final Cut Pro X in April to the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas. There, the company touted the new release as being "as revolutionary as the first version of Final Cut Pro."
Final Cut Pro X is set to include support for all processing cores, as well as the high-definition 4K resolution. It will also allow editing during import, scalable rendering, a resolution-independent playback system, fully color-managed Final Cut based on colorsync, people and shot detection, and audio clean-up.
But since the official unveiling of Final Cut Pro X at the FCP User Group Supermeet at the NAB conference, Apple has not offered any new details. It also made no mention of any other Final Cut Studio applications other than Final Cut Pro.
Apple unveiled the high-speed Thunderbolt port, co-developed with Intel, on its new MacBook Pros in February. Since then, Thunderbolt has also been added to updated iMacs, and is expected to arrive on the rest of the company's Mac lineup this year.
Thunderbolt pairs Intel's PCI Express interconnect with DisplayPort on the same connector, offering transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps. That's twice as fast as the 5Gbps offered by USB 3.0, and 20 times faster than the 480Mbps with USB 2.0.
Comments
I currently use 24 TB of external disk drives:
-- 2 1TB Drives
-- 11 2 TB Drives
I have had some of these drives since 2003 and all run well.
They are all LaCie drives.
The one problem I have had is with the LaCie external power supplies (bricks)
Currently, I have 2 working power supplies for 13 drives. LaCie has indicated that they will replace 5 power bricks free of charge (units under warranty). I will need to buy replacements for the others @ $35 each.
The LaCie disks shown in the Thunderbolt video appear similar to my current LaCie drives. It is not shown, but it appears that the TB drives will use an external PS brick -- similar to the one that I have had bad experiences.
Normally, I would not bring this up in a public forum -- but I am considering a major upgrade/purchase of HDDs.
I would like to hear any recommendations from others.
Soccer season is about to start and I burn through GB of HDD storage at the wink of an eye.
TIA
Dick
I was on the hunt last night for the Promise Pegasus R4 thunderbolt RAID that was announced a few months back to go along with my new iMac that just arrived yesterday.... Promise's site sucks and they offer no information on where to buy this or what it costs to buy it.. all their vendors' sites suck too. So I emailed their support/sales people and I heard back from him this morning. The email said
Thank you for your email. The R4, with either 1 or 2 TB SATA drives can now be ordered at the Apple web store (store.apple.com)
Nice reply and all... but a search for this item still turns up nothing at all. So maybe this means that they're finally on sale but just haven't propagated through Apple's store system yet or something. But they need to come on out with this stuff... the market for people who want to buy FCPX and thunderbolt stuff isn't really the market that should be treaded with shrouds of secrecy like the iPod/iPhone market. At the very least they should have a price, an availability date, and where we can buy.
Speaking of....
I was on the hunt last night for the Promise Pegasus R4 thunderbolt RAID that was announced a few months back to go along with my new iMac that just arrived yesterday.... Promise's site sucks and they offer no information on where to buy this or what it costs to buy it.. all their vendors' sites suck too. So I emailed their support/sales people and I heard back from him this morning.
Hopefully these guys will have a Thunderbolt product soon.
http://www.activestorage.com/products.php
Active has a superior product and superior support. Plus, the company was founded by the guy who designed the original Xserve. Very Mac centric company and products. There is something about Promise that has always seemed a little off.
HDs are still 7200 RPM or SSD's... So they can Read/Write no faster than before, and same with Processors on Macs... My favorite analogy for that is a car that is speeding so it can start waiting at the red light sooner
I remember reading somewhere that the most obvious difference with Thunderbolt will be when Data is being copied from one Thunderbolt HD to another Thunderbolt HD... Otherwise Read/Write from to Thunderbolt HD from Mac is no faster, or not much faster...
So, where are the bottleneck in all this? Hope someone can clearly explain this, and include examples!
Thanks in advance!
I'll be Upgrading soon, and I'd love to see Thunderbolt HDs! OWC http://www.macsales.com is my favorite HD vendor! It be also nice to see SSD Prices drop quicker everywhere
I will definitely be in the market for large, fast HDD storage.
I currently use 24 TB of external disk drives:
-- 2 1TB Drives
-- 11 2 TB Drives
I have had some of these drives since 2003 and all run well.
They are all LaCie drives.
The one problem I have had is with the LaCie external power supplies (bricks)
Currently, I have 2 working power supplies for 13 drives. LaCie has indicated that they will replace 5 power bricks free of charge (units under warranty). I will need to buy replacements for the others @ $35 each.
The LaCie disks shown in the Thunderbolt video appear similar to my current LaCie drives. It is not shown, but it appears that the TB drives will use an external PS brick -- similar to the one that I have had bad experiences.
Normally, I would not bring this up in a public forum -- but I am considering a major upgrade/purchase of HDDs.
I would like to hear any recommendations from others.
Soccer season is about to start and I burn through GB of HDD storage at the wink of an eye.
TIA
Dick
La Cie also has a portable Thunderbolt disk coming out that they are pitching at reporters.
This is going to be big and the people who really need it and will really benefit from it will not gripe about any slightly higher entry cost.
The last time I added a new backup drive it took nearly 3 hours to transfer stuff over FW 800. Thunderbolt will bring this down to under 20 minutes. Two and a half hours that I could be working, or having a beer across town because I don't need to watch the file transfer. I'm sold and have asked my local shop to order a Pegasus system as soon as they can.
I understand that Thunderbolt is a lot faster than other formats, but where are the bottleneck in all this?
HDs are still 7200 RPM or SSD's... So they can Read/Write no faster than before, and same with Processors on Macs... My favorite analogy for that is a car that is speeding so it can start waiting at the red light sooner
You are assuming people are using single drives, which is really not the case for high performance needs. We have 60TB over six RAIDS. Striped and configured correctly, they can get an aggregate of about 800MB/sec. Over our 4Gb SAN, we are lucky to get 400MB/sec sustained DR. Since the only bridge to Fibre at this point is still only 4Gb, our bottleneck will still be our switch unless and until we move to 8Gb - at which time I hope full 10Gb support will be available on TB. So the real answer to your question is that there are many bottlenecks in practice. Thunderbolt handles only one among them, but at least it's handled. It will also be a lot cheaper than our ATTO fibre cards. I'll be waiting to see how people's XSAN performance will be affected by TB being added in the mix.
I understand that Thunderbolt is a lot faster than other formats, but where are the bottleneck in all this?
HDs are still 7200 RPM or SSD's... So they can Read/Write no faster than before, and same with Processors on Macs... My favorite analogy for that is a car that is speeding so it can start waiting at the red light sooner
I remember reading somewhere that the most obvious difference with Thunderbolt will be when Data is being copied from one Thunderbolt HD to another Thunderbolt HD... Otherwise Read/Write from to Thunderbolt HD from Mac is no faster, or not much faster...
So, where are the bottleneck in all this? Hope someone can clearly explain this, and include examples!
Thanks in advance!!
Max read/write speeds of hard drives are definitely a bottleneck, which is where RAID technology comes in. Not sure if you know how RAID works or not, but just in case you don't, I'll quickly explain:
By combining multiple hard drives into one case and treating them as one drive (let's use a four-drive RAID as an example) the RAID splits the files up into four parts and copies one part to each drive simultaneously, making the overall file transfer speed up to four times faster (theoretically).
So you're correct in that Thunderbolt will make no speed difference if you were to buy a single drive with a Thunderbolt port, other than the drive-to-drive transfer differences you mentioned; but it opens up a huge potential for faster transfer speeds of RAID systems, if you're able to spend the big dollars for one of those. As the previous poster mentioned, for businesses that use that level of storage, these types of transfer speed differences will pay off very quickly in work hours saved.
So, where are the bottleneck in all this? Hope someone can clearly explain this, and include examples!
The fastest external port that comes on a Mac is FW800. Most high performance hard drives, not to mention SSD drives, can transfer data faster than what the FW800 will allow in real world applications.
The other option, estata, only is available through third party add-ons. Which means you have to deal with potential driver problems.
Having Thunderbolt ports built-in should make for a more stable, high performance connection that will be available to laptops, iMacs, and Mac Pros without the need for a 3rd party device (if one is even available.)
On the subject of Final Cut and Thunderbolt add-ons, maybe Apple will take this opportunity to announce updated Mac Pros and Airs with Thunderbolt ports? Fingers crossed.
-kpluck
...I remember reading somewhere that the most obvious difference with Thunderbolt will be when Data is being copied from one Thunderbolt HD to another Thunderbolt HD... Otherwise Read/Write from to Thunderbolt HD from Mac is no faster, or not much faster...
Well, if nothing else, it'll let an external drive perform as well as an internal one. Not something you can claim with USB 2.0 or FW800.
On the subject of Final Cut and Thunderbolt add-ons, maybe Apple will take this opportunity to announce updated Mac Pros and Airs with Thunderbolt ports? Fingers crossed.
-kpluck
I sure hope so.
So you're correct in that Thunderbolt will make no speed difference if you were to buy a single drive with a Thunderbolt port, other than the drive-to-drive transfer differences you mentioned; but it opens up a huge potential for faster transfer speeds of RAID systems, if you're able to spend the big dollars for one of those.
There's another option. Something like an MBA with a small SSD might have enough storage for travel, but not enough to store all your files, etc. It would be possible to have an SSD and an external single disk Thunderbolt drive - and get essentially the same performance as if you had an internal drive for the 'big' stuff, while still running the OS and apps at SSD speeds.
It will be inconvenient because you have an extra drive, but might be a solution for some people.
if you want there is the 2nd part here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAXL7L9fToQ
Currently, I have 2 working power supplies for 13 drives. LaCie has indicated that they will replace 5 power bricks free of charge (units under warranty). I will need to buy replacements for the others @ $35 each.
That's quite a failure rate. You should be able to get the bricks cheaper online e.g:
http://cgi.ebay.com/LaCie-12Volt-2A-...#ht_500wt_1156
If you match the spec, you can get them even cheaper:
http://cgi.ebay.com/12V-5V-AC-Power-...#ht_2738wt_907
If it's the other kind of plug, 3rd parties will have those too.
The LaCie disks shown in the Thunderbolt video appear similar to my current LaCie drives. It is not shown, but it appears that the TB drives will use an external PS brick -- similar to the one that I have had bad experiences.
They will likely be the same, although the portable ones will have smaller bricks and you would be able to run a single drive off the 10W provided by the port.
That HDD. transfer (and read/write) rate is super quick! Way better than my Crucial C300 SATA6 SSD.
They are using multiple external drives in RAID-0 though, which is fine for benchmarking but not for reliability. There will be an SSD model though and it has two internal SSDs in RAID so that should be pretty fast but not cheap.
That's quite a failure rate. You should be able to get the bricks cheaper online e.g:
http://cgi.ebay.com/LaCie-12Volt-2A-...#ht_500wt_1156
If you match the spec, you can get them even cheaper:
http://cgi.ebay.com/12V-5V-AC-Power-...#ht_2738wt_907
If it's the other kind of plug, 3rd parties will have those too.
Yes it is a terrible failure rate. What I didn't mention was that in 2008, LaCie replaced 5 of these power bricks free of charge -- so: 11+5 failures out of 13+5 bricks is an 88.9% failure rate.
I asked the LaCie rep (through email) if a customer shouldn't expect the power brick to last as long as the HDD. No Answer.
I also told him that over the years, since 1978, I have bought hundreds of devices and could count on one hand the number of power supply problems. Oddly, my 1978 Apple ][ had a power supply problem & Rod Holt came to my house to replace it.
Based on this experience, I doubt I will purchase another LaCie HDD -- though I love the drives.
I am looking for a way to remove the drives and include them in a multi-drive enclosure with a robust power supply -- make them into a RAID -- if this is possible.
This is unfortunate, because the 2TB LaCie drive makes an excellent (power-efficient, quiet, fast, reliable) TimeMachine backup device for an individual Mac.
Thanks for the links -- but that is for a less powerful PS brick.
The one LaCie recommends is:
LaCie Power Supply - 57 Watt
I sure hope so.
I suspect that the current MacBook Pro's will be able to handle FCPX. Tons of media people use them and La Cie is marketing its Thunderbolt drive at them. Lots of small outfits also use iMacs for their work, so I would assume they can handle it, too. Of course, the new MacPros will probably fly past those others, but they will do for some users.
Just ordered the new iMac 27" decked out with 8GB RAM, i7 3.4 GHz CPU, SSD+2TB HD to replace a failing MacPro. Should arrive in another couple of weeks (CTO takes 4+ weeks), shortly after Lion and FCP and some other goodies come out. Christmas in July.
The first Thunderbolt RAID 4TB system (Pegasus) is listed in the Apple Store for $999, which is not that much more than other 4TB RAID systems. The difference in speed will more than make up for any extra cost, especially for busy people.
Could you please provide a link? I looked and did not find it.
I will definitely be in the market for large, fast HDD storage.
I currently use 24 TB of external disk drives:
-- 2 1TB Drives
-- 11 2 TB Drives
I have had some of these drives since 2003 and all run well.
They are all LaCie drives.
The one problem I have had is with the LaCie external power supplies (bricks)
Currently, I have 2 working power supplies for 13 drives. LaCie has indicated that they will replace 5 power bricks free of charge (units under warranty). I will need to buy replacements for the others @ $35 each.