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Posted by Smarty on 04/14/07 08:54
Spex,
It certainly will be interesting to see how this all turns out. My prior
remarks are mostly predicated on the theory that tight code and speed will
arise from assembly language programming of the most time consuming and
repetitive algorithms versus OSX load balancing and other OS (versus
application code)optimizations. The AltiVec vector processors used in the G4
and G5 take an entirely different approach to programming than the Intel
instruction set, and the real performance gains in the past CPUs have taken
a lot of hand-coding to get G5s to fire on all cylinders.
Maybe it's the skeptic in me, or perhaps the software engineer in me, but I
guess I am doubting Apple / Steve Jobs' incentives to make Apple's prior G4
and G5 prior platforms run swiftly with the new major software releases. To
the contrary, I would imagine that benchmarking which shows a speedup of 3X
or 4X over the past version would be a dream come true for Apple marketing.
I am reminded of the Motorola 680X0 to PowerPPC migration which Apple
accomplished when bringing the Mac environment from CISC to RISC, and the
somewhat analogous way that Apple chose to temporarily provide "Classic" OS9
support temporarily while making the move to OSX. In both cases, the
preceding codebase (and user base) were left with rapidly fading and
unsupported environments and a compelling need and motivation to upgrade.
I entirely agree that pressing a button and doing code optimization is a
sheer fantasy. Automation of code optimizers is a very limited technique
since it most commonly relies on so-called "peep-hole" optimizations which
merely look at loops and nested loops which run frequently and then try to
reduce their instructions locally versus a human (hand-coded) approach which
looks at optimizations both locally and globally and makes very intelligent,
non-automated decisions across the entire executable. Similarly, the load
balancers and parallelization methods used to distribute work across
multiple cores / processors in a typical modern operating system are, at
best, heuristic, and only learn how to best share the workload by measuring
and adjusting over time. They can not approach the decisions made by human
analysis, which is why most true parallel processing environments designed
for hosting really big problems have a lot of hand tuning options to make
the OS quasi-optimal.
The ultimate outcome in this case is certainly TBD. A lot of us Macophiles
will be watching the next steps and benchmarks carefully to see how it all
turns out. I am also glad that Adobe is back in the game with Premiere on
the Mac since I have always believed that nothing creates improvements and
cost reductions as well as competition, and Final Cut is long overdue for
some serious whipass.
Smarty
"Spex" <No.spam@ta.com> wrote in message
news:462080c6$0$8725$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...
> Smarty,
>
> My understanding of the OS X development environment is that it does not
> exclude either the PPC or Intel side from being optimised. All PPC
> software is already heavily optimised and it is unlikely that ability
> would be lost overnight.
>
> Despite what Steve Jobs said during his announcement of the switch to
> Intel the production of intel optimised universal binaries is more than
> just pressing a button and out spits PPC and Intel binaries.
>
> I think you can take for granted that any software will be G5 optimised
> but I am still yet to be convinced Intel versions of the software will
> wring out every last bit of performance.
>
> I think benchmarks between Premiere Pro CS3 and FCP 6 running under OS X
> will prove very interesting. Adobe have the experience coding for Intel
> and it'll be interesting to see whether Apple are at the same level. If
> they aren't CS3 would get my vote as it looks mighty impressive and mighty
> good value for money... But only for Intel peeps.
>
> Smarty wrote:
>> One final thought Luis,
>>
>> If the 12 G5 machines you refer to are your intended platforms for
>> running the eventual successor / update to FCP, you might want to
>> carefully research the performance issue of this new release on the older
>> G5 processor chips. It is extremely likely that Apple will heavily
>> optimize all future releases of FCP or its' successor for the Intel chip,
>> and essentially abandon the older G5 customer base in terms of speed /
>> performance. It is Apple's style and pattern to drive their customers to
>> new hardware, and this new FCP or whatever they call it will NOT be
>> intended for G5 users. You may have superb new software running as slow
>> as molasses unless you move to replace these G5s. Just wanted to convey a
>> word of caution to you in this regard.
>>
>> Smarty
>>
>>
>> "Luis Ortega" <lortega@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>> news:MBSTh.63$mk4.3@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...
>>> Thanks, guys.
>>> I will wait until after NAB to see what they come up with. I am
>>> currently using Premier Pro 2 and want to see what PProCS3 has to offer
>>> along with their production suite.
>>> As a teacher, I can get a good deal on this.
>>> One reason I have for wanting to go to FCP is that at my school I will
>>> inherit a dozen G5s next term for my art studio and I need to be able to
>>> use it well. They are currently running FCP 4 but the school may upgrade
>>> to studio 5. Right now my lab has PPro 1 as the editor the kids use.
>>> At home I use PPro 2 mostly. I haven't upgraded to Avid beyond version
>>> 5.2 of Xpress DV Pro HD because it seems to have outgrown my hardware
>>> specs and has become more finicky. Also, for my interest in doing stop
>>> motion animation, PPro seems to be a lot better to manipulate motion and
>>> layers. What I always liked best about Avid was its great control in
>>> basic cutting and trimming. I was equally impressed by what I saw FCP do
>>> in that area. In my brief experience with it, it looked like it had the
>>> best features of PPro and Avid plus a few other very attractive things.
>>> I never did get a chance to explore the other apps in the FCP studio.
>>>
>>> "Spex" <No.spam@ta.com> wrote in message
>>> news:461f2a62$0$8741$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...
>>>> Since we are top posting....
>>>>
>>>> FCP Studio is really looking its age compared to other offerings such
>>>> as Adobe's suite of applications. But, you'd have to be living up your
>>>> own ass if you weren't aware that Apple are making a big announcement
>>>> at NAB just a few days away now. If you are interested in FCP wait
>>>> until Apple have done one of "their look at us aren't we great"
>>>> presentations at NAB then make a decision.
>>>>
>>>> It has been heavily rumoured that FCP has been given a drastic rewrite
>>>> to make use of GPU and multi-core processors along with QT itself. The
>>>> new 8 core Mac Pro is showing little or no improvement in speed over
>>>> the 4 core Mac Pro in FCP so if Apple want to keep selling its Mac Pros
>>>> for editing they had better have got FCP multi threading like crazy.
>>>>
>>>> You might just get a free grading system thrown in too. Apple bought
>>>> Final Touch so that might end up in the FCS box.
>>>>
>>>> Other applications in FCP Studio, IMO, are excellent. Motion and DVD
>>>> STudio Pro are the two apps I bought FCS for. Motion is not an after
>>>> effects and it is not meant to be. It is much more useful than Smarty
>>>> indicates. I use it for pre-viz, DVD menus, 2d animation and IMO it is
>>>> almost superb. It lacks some features that prevent me using it more
>>>> e.g. a tracker.
>>>>
>>>> FCP - Showing its age.
>>>> Motion - Good start but lacks some really useful features like a
>>>> tracker and 3d! Still work in progress.
>>>> Soundtrack - Looks nice but fails to deliver and feels like a beta
>>>> release. Logic Pro is well worth the money though.
>>>> DVD Studio Pro - IMO still second best to Scenarist.
>>>>
>>>> Luis,
>>>>
>>>> My advice would be to look at PremPro2 and its productions suite,
>>>> certainly have a _serious_ look at Edius and its HD accelerator boards
>>>> which are superb.
>>>>
>>>> Vegas has a very poor GUI. Ideal for educators...
>>>>
>>>> Wait 'til NAB before jumping.
>>>>
>>>> Smarty wrote:
>>>>> Luis,
>>>>>
>>>>> I have the same opinion as nappy. Using the very latest version of FCP
>>>>> Studio HD on the very latest / fastest Apple Desktop workstation (Xeon
>>>>> Quad MacPro 3.0GHz) I have found the rendering and previewing of
>>>>> content to take far longer than the PCs I use here which are much less
>>>>> expensive and have much less expensive software. I am seriously
>>>>> considering dumping the entire system in fact, although there are
>>>>> situations where this Apple solution does make a lot of sense, namely,
>>>>> if you are in an already established Apple environment, or if you do
>>>>> mostly multiple camera NLE. The program called Motion is a lot like
>>>>> After Effects but to me is less appealing. The Compressor software in
>>>>> Final Cut is terribly slow. Most irritating to me is the Apple
>>>>> pre-occupation with their Quicktime formats and the lack of support
>>>>> for mpeg2.
>>>>>
>>>>> I use the Vegas / DVD Architect suite, Premiere, and several other PC
>>>>> tools which get the job done very efficiently, and I almost never turn
>>>>> the MacPro on. I think a laptop running this suite would be even more
>>>>> disappointing in terms of performance to say nothing of the screen
>>>>> space limitations unless you also add a big monitor. Even if you did,
>>>>> Motion and other Apple software uses the graphics processor card(s)
>>>>> for rendering, and even the extra cost very high performance $450 card
>>>>> I added to this MacPro is still marginal.....and I hate to imagine how
>>>>> a laptop's graphics card would waste a lot of waiting time.
>>>>>
>>>>> I hate to get into this Apple versus PC discussion at all, because it
>>>>> sparks a lot of discussion with a lot of heat and smoke, but very
>>>>> little "light". I would only caution you before spending many
>>>>> thousands of dollars as I did for FCP Suite HD and Apple hardware to
>>>>> get a lot of opinions before taking the plunge.
>>>>>
>>>>> If this is Apple bashing, so be it...but I readily admit that I have
>>>>> owned many Macs starting with the 512K machine over 20 years ago, have
>>>>> owned Apple stock, etc......but I just do not think FCP and the
>>>>> hardware to support it make the most sense for many if not most users.
>>>>>
>>>>> Smarty
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "nappy" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:atzTh.23$Yo2.2@newssvr19.news.prodigy.net...
>>>>>> "Luis Ortega" <lortega@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:eTyTh.499$633.495@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...
>>>>>>> I value the advice that I have been given here on many occasions. I
>>>>>>> recently took a course on Final Cut Pro 5 and I was very impressed
>>>>>>> by what I saw.
>>>>>>> The studio version includes a music creation program and a special
>>>>>>> effects program that some say is comparable to After Effects, plus a
>>>>>>> dvd creation program and some sort of file format converter, which I
>>>>>>> think is called Compressor..
>>>>>>> My current software is Avid Xpress DV HD and Premiere Pro 2 on
>>>>>>> Windows.
>>>>>>> FCP seems to have all of the features of Avid and Premiere Pro plus
>>>>>>> a few more very interesting workflow features.
>>>>>>> My question is what people who are really familiar with these
>>>>>>> programs think about the idea of getting a macbook pro and FCP
>>>>>>> studio 5 as opposed to continuing with the Windows series of
>>>>>>> programs that I already own.
>>>>>>> I didn't have enough time to really get into all of the programs of
>>>>>>> FCP, and I am not that familiar with how stable Apples and FCP are.
>>>>>> Don't be swayed by the hype PPro2 is vastly capable. As is the AVID
>>>>>> offering. You would be wasting money. IMHO.
>>>>>> Get After Effects.
>>>>>> I never saw any realy use in the music portion of the Soundtrack Pro
>>>>>> tool. Others have. But as a composer.. it was useless to me.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> YOU would be spending a great deal of money for hardware and software
>>>>>> for minimal benefit.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>
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