Apple Acquires Silicon Grail

[arn]

MacNN reports that Silicon Grail's website has been updated to reflect Apple's purchase of that company.

As previously reported, Silicon Grail publishes Rayz:

RAYZ is a completely new compositing product, written from scratch by Silicon Grail’s Academy Award winning development team.

RAYZ facilitates the smooth and easy set up of shots. The customizable interface conforms quickly to individual working styles, and permits a very quick test-and-edit shot development cycle.



Apple had acquired Nothing Real in Feb, 2002 - a company with similar products.

[MacAztec]

Didnt we already hear about this?

[arn]

Originally posted by MacAztec
Didnt we already hear about this?

before it was a rumor... now it's news. It's subtle... but it's there.



arn

[kimhill]

I would say that something like this going from rumor status to actual news is not subtle- it's important. The Silicon Grail acquisition is a fascinating development...

[mmanfrey]

but if Apple is trying to remove their competition, they had better start offering Autodesk some money for Discreet Combustion and hope Discreet doesn't port Flint, Flame, and Inferno to Linux.

Oh, and THEY'D BETTER RELEASE THE G5 SOON!!!! Who cares if they've got all the software, the hardware isn't up to spec.

But, I have to admit, this is the year of Apple. They're definately on a mission. iMac, bluetooth, more Apple stores, Xserve, OSX 10.2?, Quicktime 6, Nothing Real, Silicon Grail, eMac, a new ad campaign...did I forget anything? They are clearly one of the busiest companies out there.

[kishba]

Originally posted by mmanfrey
But, I have to admit, this is the year of Apple. They're definately on a mission. iMac, bluetooth, more Apple stores, Xserve, OSX 10.2?, Quicktime 6, Nothing Real, Silicon Grail, eMac, a new ad campaign...did I forget anything? They are clearly one of the busiest companies out there.

it amazes me how apple may only have 5% of the computer market share but they have their hands in EVERYTHING... they're just very diverse and are expanding/improving in many areas...

i wonder how long this pace of activity will continue? can it continue?

[mmanfrey]

they're not out of the woods yet by a long shot. you said it yourself, they at 5% (and we may be being generous).

They have a ways to go in so many of the areas they're involved with. Education, graphics, genearl population, and now servers and cinema.

But they are on the right path. They may not take down the beast, but they are certainly making us all believe.

[arn]

Originally posted by kimhill
I would say that something like this going from rumor status to actual news is not subtle- it's important. The Silicon Grail acquisition is a fascinating development...

I was being a bit sarcastic... yes, it is significant.

arn

[748s]

software they have purchased recently is able to run on 64 bit processors. dare i mention the G*. it's been a year since apple got spruce and there is no news on what's happening with it. could they have just retired it?

[Ouroboros]

Oy!!! This is too much! Damn for once I wish someone somehow would find some proof of a new processor coming out soon! Like: "here's a hidden pdf!" or something like this. Because really, all we are doing is hoping and speculating. And reading these boards and postulating what Apple is going to do with acquisitions, etc. is what makes one upset when they don't "deliver" on a new processor or somesuch.

Speaking of which, has anyone seen the famous 10page posting on Lucinda and Glove technology over at Appleinsider? See, that's what I'm talking about, no proof! Anyway, glad to see that Silicon Grail is a rumor proven true!

[iGav]

Originally posted by mmanfrey
but if Apple is trying to remove their competition, they had better start offering Autodesk some money for Discreet Combustion and hope Discreet doesn't port Flint, Flame, and Inferno to Linux.

Oh, and THEY'D BETTER RELEASE THE G5 SOON!!!! Who cares if they've got all the software, the hardware isn't up to spec.

But, I have to admit, this is the year of Apple. They're definately on a mission. iMac, bluetooth, more Apple stores, Xserve, OSX 10.2?, Quicktime 6, Nothing Real, Silicon Grail, eMac, a new ad campaign...did I forget anything? They are clearly one of the busiest companies out there.

I'd love for Discreet to port Flame, Inferno, Smoke, Flint, fire to the Mac.......

But in a way Apple are doing the same with Shake, Rayz, Cinema Tools...... so they're obviously taking it very seriously......... this level of software needs some serious hardware........ a quad configuration would do nicely... as would a hefty super-graphics card...... Apple must have something up their sleeves..... maybe they're looking at producing a dedicated hardware solution with a price tag similar to that of Discreets offerings...... that'd be cool......

I conpletely agree with you about Apple being on a mission........ with their activities and releases this year the certainly deserve some recognition and kudos for products such as the iMac G4, eMac and the Xserve... as well as the software offerings in the pipelines.......

I wonder when we'll start seeing the OSX versions of shake and rayz??? time to get saving I think.......

[Marvenp]

[quote]Originally posted by mmanfrey
[b]but if Apple is trying to remove their competition, they had better start offering Autodesk some money for Discreet Combustion and hope Discreet doesn't port Flint, Flame, and Inferno to Linux.

I think Hollywood FX would be a better choice. Anyone know when or if it will be available for OS X?

[tjwett]

so did Apple buy it or not? i'm too lazy to read the article.

[MacSawdust]

Steve knows where his towel is.

[drastik]

I don't think aple is trying to drive everyone else out. I like the idea of a dedicated hardware solution, vis a vis Digidesign Pro Tools 24|HD.

This would make some since. As ridiculous as it sounds, FCP3 and G4 1ghz could be considered low end from that perspective. A consumer and independent producer solution. Really, the camera would make all of the difference in that set up.

Since apple is obviously making a bigger play for the enterprise market, maybe all of these aquesitions are leaning towards the ultimate editing booth.

A NEW PROCESSOR would be wonderfull, but I think that a quad Xserve would work as well in this capacity. Most editors don't need direct to DVD burners, projects go out to film first and then a whole mess of stuff.

[iGav]

Originally posted by tjwett
so did Apple buy it or not? i'm too lazy to read the article.

You posted that in a thread titled Apple Acquires Silicon Grail..........

What do you think????

[GPTurismo]

the G4 has a lot of life in it. Mac OS X's POSIX elements are easily shifted to a true 64 bit enviroment. Some of the older legacy components (classic, carbon) aren't.

Also, the G4 is 64 bit and altivec allows 128 bit processing. But the problem is that it's designed to run on a 32 bit system architecture (ie the system bus)

Also that is sort of the reason for some of Mac OS X's sluggishness.

When they come out with Dual 1.2 gig G4s with DDR ram and a 200/233 system bus, you'll see it's got some time left.

[dhdave]

Originally posted by MacSawdust
Steve knows where his towel is.

LOL

Yeah he's one hoopy frood all right!

dh

[testnull]

Originally posted by MacSawdust
Steve knows where his towel is.

He's so hip he can't see over his own pelvis.

[drastik]

I'm surprised his bum doesn't fall off

[dantec]

The question is, will Apple continue to make a verison of Rayz for Windows or Unix (which one does it use?)? With Shake Apple choose to support the current version, and I think build one last version, which will be the FINAL version for Windows.

The G5... Am I dreaming? Everytime we specualte about it, and expect it right aroudn the corner, it seems to be pushed far far into the future... I can only hope that when the G5 does come out, the 3GHZ G5's go straight to the Powermac's while the 2 GHz G5's go to the iMacs.

[dantec]

Oh and one last thing, I don't understand the 'bum' towel expressions, explain them throughly because I'm to lazy to re-read them again!

[GPTurismo]

I think the G5s is worth anything are down the road. Look at how much the itanium costs being intels first true/full 64 bit architecture chip. If the G5 is worth a damn it would probably be in the same price range. So it's probably a year off. Also they are releasing new products with g4s, why release new products and then release a new chip that changes everything?

[Longey Nowze]

Originally posted by arn
[b]MacNN reports that Silicon Grail's website has been updated to reflect Apple's purchase of that company.

according to the site

Apple has acquired technologies from Silicon Grail, including the RAYZ and Chalice product lines.

It doesn't seem that Apple bought the whole company just some technologies not the whole company

this is what it says in nothing real's website

Apple purchased Nothing Real in February 2002

I don't know but it seems that Apple didn't purchase all of silicon grail they just got what they want..

THANK YOU
MaT

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by GPTurismo
the G4 has a lot of life in it. Mac OS X's POSIX elements are easily shifted to a true 64 bit enviroment. Some of the older legacy components (classic, carbon) aren't.

Also, the G4 is 64 bit and altivec allows 128 bit processing. But the problem is that it's designed to run on a 32 bit system architecture (ie the system bus)

Also that is sort of the reason for some of Mac OS X's sluggishness.

When they come out with Dual 1.2 gig G4s with DDR ram and a 200/233 system bus, you'll see it's got some time left.

...is NOT 64 bit. It is a 32 bit chip with 128 bit SIMD pipelines. The AthlonXP and Pentium 4 are ALSO 32 bit chips with 128 bit SIMD. It's just that their 128 bit SIMD sucks, and the G4's doesn't. The ONLY 64 bit desktop chip that is actually known to exist is the AMD Hammer. If, by 64 bit, you mean that it can do double precision floating point, then you're correct. However, it doesn't do 64 bit integer, or 64 bit addressing (which is the main thing 64 bit chips do).

However, all your other points are quite valid. By use of some simple math you can quite easily show a situation where the G4 is running at 1/16 of it's full speed because of memory limitations (it can get much worse than that with the vector permute pipeline, or multiple Altivec instructions per clock). I think it's more likely to use PC2100 (DDR266, 133MHz) like the XServe though.