New MacBook Pro

[HueyNRolf]

The new one gets a retina display, speed bump and USB 3. The firewire post has gone, but there's going to be a Thunderbolt/ Firewire adaptor.

http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

[cgbier]

...and no more optical drive, 1/4" thinner than the old one, one pound lighter, cheaper, glossy screen with reduced glare,...

For roughly 4500 bucks (incl. TB RAID) you'll get a mobile editing suite that drives circles around a Mac Pro for the same price.

That Retina display is cool! You have full 1080p in FCP X within the same canvas area as the old one that only showed some thirty some %.

I like it.

[cgbier]

The updates to the MacPro are rather pathetic though. New CPU, but no TB.
No new iMac (that's what I'm waiting for).

[Dr. Benway]

...you'll get a mobile editing suite that drives circles around a Mac Pro for the same pr

Is that so? Are the mobile CPU's and GPU's anywhere near as powerful? I know the key here is mobile - something the Mac Pro is not. Mobile tech is under a lot of stress, especially from heat. Sometimes from shock.

[cgbier]

With FCP X last year's i7 iMac was already faster than the 8-core MP. The MP only makes sense for heavy duty number crunching, like in science, heavy 3-D work or 4k color grading in real time. With TB and external SATA cages to add GPUs, the MP gets more and more obsolete.

FCP X and Aperture 3 were developed with the mobile user in mind - one screen to do it all. The retina display has even more resolution than the 27" screen, and Apple's updates for their "pro" apps take full advantage of it.

If my retina iPad is any measure, then I'm not even sure anymore if I want to get a 27" iMac, but rather save a bit longer for the new MBP.

[BarteS]

The updates to the MacPro are rather pathetic though. New CPU, but no TB.
No new iMac (that's what I'm waiting for).

The 'new' Mac Pro is just a necessary update as the CPU of the current model is end of life. It was mentioned the Mac Pro get an upgrade next year.

[cgbier]

Yeah, it'll come next year, but I don't understand the reasoning behind it. They'd have the tools to build the killer pro....

Not that I'd need one, but still....

[Dr. Benway]

if I want to get a 27" iMac,

I thought about it, but will build my own computer in a year or so. I really want to save and invest in a great EIZO or NEC monitor.

and external SATA cages to add GPUs,

Interesting. Do you have a link for information about that?

Cheers.

[cgbier]

There's a buch of TB -> PCIe enclosures from Sonnet, MSI, etc.. The only problem you have so far is that the drivers for GPU have to be crowd sourced. I saw working examples, but didn't bookmark the link
The GPU is supposed to be headless and only meant for acceleration in Davinci or with CS Mercury Engine.

Sonnet: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/ec...sschassis.html

[cgbier]

First reports and benchmarks are already mentioned. It is said that the new, fancy retina MBP is slower than the hard drive non-retina machine.
I haven't looked at the links yet, though.

[pro-hobbyist]

I'm considering the new Macbook Air 13". The retina MBP is cool but a little out of my budget. However, for $1200 the Air is starting to look pretty good now that it has Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. The integrated graphics is still a drawback but I don't see how it could be much worsefor editing than the PC I have now. When I bought this thing it was top of the line but three years later and it really seems dated.

[cgbier]

Depends on what you want to edit with. I had FCP X installed on a 13" MBP for my interns. It was a pain to work with, due to the screen size. FCP Classic works better (i even used it on a 12" titanium book). Speed wise, Classic will fare better too.
An MBA with an external monitor and TB drives will be fine for simple editing. I'm not sure it really wanted to use USB3 for HD video. It is fast, but stills works with packet bursts instead of a steady stream like Firewire or TB.

[HD-tography]

I am so perplexed. I am trying to switch over to mac but apple sure isn't making it easy. I have no problems dishing out the $3200 for a:

15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display
2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
Upgrade to 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
512GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive (external optical drive)
Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter
= $3,142.00

but I need to shell out more big bucks for a dated copy of the Final Cut Pro 7.0.3 Suite, unless I can find the 7 suite used somewhere? I really don't know about what to do about that, Final Cut X is pretty much (functionally) made for soccer mom's but is configured to use the full feature capacity of the retina display and still more powerful, however despite hearsay they are slowly restoring some of the functions stripped from the 7 suite, (IMO) the interface and reduced function reduces it to a nearly worthless "toy" editing suite... shame on apple!

Also I hear the retina screen looks awful if not running a "configured" application, as would be the case with FCP 7... any thoughts?

Another huge thing for me is the production room I work with uses 7.0.3 (because of the same shared opinion that FCP X is a toy, following purchasing several licences for it and rolling back to 7 in disgust) so the primary reason to drop my editing PCs (Adobe Premier Pro) and switch my personal equipment over to mac (other than mac's awesome power) is to be able to continue to work remotely with their platform off location... really remotely.

Could someone who owns and uses FCP X shed some light on FCP's future? Should I wait for Final Cut Pro XI (11)? Could it get even worse functionally?!?

Another thing, I still want a 17 inch (or larger) MBP but would likely have to wait several months to a year to be released in retina display... IF EVER?

[cgbier]

Who comes up with that bullshit all the time FCP X is a toy? There are a lot of examples of high end shops integrating FCP X into their workflow without issues.
What exactly do you need that FCP X supposedly lacks?

With 7toX and Xto7 you can move projects back and forth between the two apps.

Reduce the screen rez and your non retina apps will look fine.

[cgbier]

Could someone who owns and uses FCP X shed some light on FCP's future?

Apple has a solid 10 year plan for FCP X. The f'ed up release has forced Apple to open up a bit. They are meanwhile announcing what improvements they are working on. 10.6 will have improvements in audio mixing.

Another novum: Apple will speak at the LAFCPUG meet on June 27. LAFCPUG is not allowed to tape the presentation, but it will be all over the net latest on the 28th. Follow #lafcpug on twitter that night.... they might tweet what's going on.

[dearcatastrophe]

only problem with the new macbook pro is the flash storage.
i wouldn't want to edit video or audio to a flash drive as the primary drive.
with a sector life of about 10k writes, any heavy use is going to limit the reliability of the flash drive.
plus, the performance degredation of continually writing to the flash drive means more maintenence for the drive.

at this point, i think the pinnacle of the macbook pro will be the late 2011. not usre if the retina display and the skinny new one really makes it worthwhile.

it's not much faster then my 2.2 quad i7 macbook pro (late 2011) and i get an optical drive (which i can replace with another hdd if i really want more space and more options for hods.

[pro-hobbyist]

You can always edit from an external hard drive. I'm editing on my MBA from a USB 3 drive that is as fast as the internal drive on my last computer, and a thunderbold raid array would be much faster. I'm not worried about the flash storage though because I think it is much safer in the long run than HDDs (which also have a service life).

[HueyNRolf]

Aren't you supposed to have the scratch disc separate from the boot drive?

[dearcatastrophe]

kind of takes away the point of being able to edit in the field if you have to carry extra drives, more cables, etc...

i wouldn't rely on USB for anything intensive or critical, regardless if it is usb3.

being able to run two drives internally makes a better field solution.


the problem with flash drives is how it writes to flash in comparison to a standard platter system. yes, it's faster, but it's not effecient for the space of the drive.

while the retina display looked nice, i didn't see any advantage to it at this point, since it really is more for pixel density then having a much larger display space.

[pro-hobbyist]

Well you're right, the old Pro is probably more practical for "pros" than the new Pro. I would still rather have flash storage; I'm not sure what you mean about it being less efficient.

[cgbier]

Flash is meant for quick read/write cycles of smaller files, not necessarily for editing with a constant data stream.

External drive? I have one of them Rugged LaCies (rubber boat). It's small and pretty lightweight, while built to military specs.

[cgbier]

Well you're right, the old Pro is probably more practical for "pros" than the new Pro. I would still rather have flash storage;

Not really. The Retina Screen is built for FCP X Pro and Photoshop. However, in hardware performance it is slightly slower than the non-retina (which by itself can already beat an entry level MacPro).
There are the first Thunderbolt flash drives (finally a good match)... it I'd use them for editing in the long run? Rather a spinning drive RAID setup.