MBP, MP & Final Cut Pro

[idunn]

An interesting article * reference from a thread closed down, so I'll shift it over here. This has to do with Apple's professional video software Final Cut Pro. So perhaps more relevant in the Mac Pro forum, only it was raised here, and moreover the Mac Pro is on life support.

This is an excerpt from that article:
"I can honestly tell you that at the very first event here an audience member asked the very first panel of speakers, "How do you handle the FCP bashing you get from others?" We all laughed, some cringed, some were dismissive, but an Apple representative from the Pro Video Apps team stood up in the back of the room and spoke; 'I will tell you, and you are allowed to tell others you got this 'officially from Apple', from the horses mouth, that we at Apple are absolutely dedicated to the professional users very much, that we work tirelessly to bring them professional tools, [italics mine] and that we actually do read and take very seriously ever from of feedback we get. Be that forum posts, emails, phone calls, or the feedback pages. No one cares about you more than we do.' " *

While I've heard good things about Final Cut Pro, what this Apple representative seems to be overlooking is that Apple no longer sells professional grade hardware to match such software. Only a masochist would attempt feature-length work on a 2016 MBP, even a top-of-the-line iMac would not be suitable, and that best suited in a Mac Pro is three years out of date.

Although to be fair, all things are relative, with the author of this article seemingly satisfied with a 2013 Mac Pro, speaking of its "blinding performance."

Wonder what he or Apple will have to say when—with demise of the Mac Pro, the MBP emojied—Apple's most powerful offering is an iOSized iMac?



* http://finalcutprox.guru/blogs-main/editorial-blog/files/putting_demons_to_rest.html

 

[eulslix]

While I've heard good things about Final Cut Pro, what this Apple representative seems to be overlooking is that Apple no longer sells professional grade hardware to match such software. Only a masochist would attempt feature-length work on a 2016 MBP, even a top-of-the-line iMac would not be suitable, and that best suited in a Mac Pro is three years out of date.

Yeah, I've referenced that article. I wanted to get in touch with the author, as I was interested into grading related stuff in the FCPX roadmap. However, somehow I forgot to follow that topic.

I've still not produced any feature length work as of yet. Is there really that much difference between a feature-length movie and a short movie? I mean, in theory that shouldn't make much of a difference, that's what caching strategies are for. As said, I haven't experienced FCPX in such circumstances yet, but the hardware shouldn't be of concern, as long as caching is working correctly.

I'm working part time for a company developing rendering software. We're dealing with really huge datasets scaling beyond 10GB, achieving real time rendering results streamed directly from external devices by deploying sophisticated caching strategies. Believe it or not, both use cases have more in common than one might think.

 

[idunn]

I've still not produced any feature length work as of yet. Is there really that much difference between a feature-length movie and a short movie?

Someone else would better speak to the inherent demands of high-end video work than myself. Yet in graphic design my experience was that it was hard to have too much power. One wants any process to happen instantly; time is money.

 

[eulslix]

Someone else would better speak to the inherent demands of high-end video work than myself. Yet in graphic design my experience was that it was hard to have too much power. One wants any process to happen instantly; time is money.

Yeah, I guess if you're doing some heavy effects stuff, you're eventually going to run out of responsiveness. However, I've always seen FCPX as a pure editing program with some basic grading capabilities, that's where it shines and that's where it delivers without compromises. I've never tried Logic X for sound production, but people seem to be satisfied with it's performance? Resolve has been a little bit sluggish on my 13" 2013rMB, but I'm pretty sure it'll run responsive on a 2016 15" MBP. I also don't know how stuff like Blackmagic Fusion performs on a MBP, haven't actually found any user reports.
From my experience, I've learnt that good software can actually mitigate a lot of hardware constraints. We've got a division in our company that does high-precision light simulation in real time, really impressive stuff. We're running it on current gen desktop GPUs however (non-SLI). Still, a few years ago, people would've dreamt of such possibilities.

I guess my point is, as Moore's law is slowly dying off, we have to rely on software rather than hardware scalability. We've met a soft-cap. If you look at it from that perspective, I can clearly see why Apple is transitioning into a new mindset, where they scaling in portability rather than performance. It may not pay off today, but in 10 years - as long as they don't **** this up - we'll look back and clearly see the how and why.
People might prefer a 100% performance benefit over portability today, but they won't prefer a 5% performance benefit over let's say half of the weight in a few years.

 

[jackoatmon]

FCPX is the best film editing software on the market by a hhhuuuuuuuuge margin (as mentioned, not for grading), and runs, no exaggeration, up to 14 times faster than Premiere in render and LUTs benchmarking. and currently the MBP 2016 is the computer that runs FCPX the best

so yah, no

not even close