Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: jonathan.lipkin on October 31, 2011, 09:58:30 pm
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MacRumors just posted an article suggesting that Apple may consider ending the Mac Pro line:
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/31/apple-questioning-the-future-of-its-mac-pro-line/
To summarize: it appears that interest in the workstation is lagging and Apple is making much more revenue from other products. There was some speculation in the comments on the article that people would be able to exend the functionality of other Macs - MacBooks and Minis - through Thunderbolt, though I'm not quite sure how this would happen.
My mac pro is a couple years old. Pity if there's nothing to replace it.
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I really hope that is not the case.
My 2009 Mac Pro has been a real workhorse. Its still blazing fast with 32 gigs of ram and internal RAID and in no need of upgrade whatsoever. But, I would like to know I can move to a new model eventually.
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Apple dropped the floppy disc drive, moved us on from horrible beige boxes, created the one piece iMac computer, now the optical drive is becoming history, Blue Ray has been skipped all together, they've allowed us virtual PCs on our Macs and ....
I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
Apple has been creating innovative form factors with great success. I wouldn't worry about loosing the big tower. They're likely to replace it with something far more efficient and adaptable to individual needs. And it'll look better too.
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I think the death of the Pro tower is inevitable, a shame since they are far more easily configured. But then Apple doesn't encourage user configuration & customization. We either fit or do not: most do, a few do not.
The manufacturers of outboard video devices seem to agree with a switch away from PCIe to thunderbolt.
Personally, with the debacle of FCP X and the looming death of the MacPro line forcing my hand, at this moment, a switch to a Windows box within two years also seems inevitable.
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Chris? Are you alright? Switch to Windows? Heresy, do you hear? Heresy!
Kidding aside, it does seem that Apple is headed towards being a consumer products company and will abandon pro markets. I hope we're wrong, but the FC-X debacle is pointing the way.
In your case, video editing, the switch is bound to happen. I can live with Final Cut X, given my more limited needs, but I know that you're likely to switch away from FC7 sooner rather than later. If Pro boxes are near end of life then it's likely to be sooner.
I think for photographers the issue isn't anywhere near as bad. We don't make as high demands when it comes to processor speeds and need for ancillary devices as does video. My newish MacBook Pro with a 2.3 Ghz Core i7 processor and 8GB of ram is enough to handle even my Phase IQ180 files comfortably, especially with its 500GB SSD drive. The only thing I need to add is a decent monitor for non-mobile editing.
The new iMacs are similarly fine for most photographer's needs. Pro video editing? Not so much.
Michael
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The new socket 2011 form factor is turning out to be intersting! As Intel squeezes ever more CPU's/power on die, other constraints are beginning to show - the main being memory access. Take a look this from EVGA:
(http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/EVGA-Dual-Socket-LGA-2011-Motherboard-Pictured-2.jpg)
Note the two sets of memory sockets surrounding each CPU.....
A big factor delaying release has been a nasty bug involving hardware based Virtual Machine support - it looks like Intel got this fixed starting with stepping 3.....
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/10/04/rumour-intel-discovers-sandy-bridge-e-bug/1
The question beginning to arise in my mind, is whether a single O/S instance will be really capable of fully utilizing a dual CPU platform moving forward? EVGA's prototype seems to indicate otherwise......
In the server world, VM's are wonderfull! They allow us to immediately fire up another instance of the machine on a different server, quite nice for core services such as DNS, DHCP, web hosting, etc. Honestly, MS is light years ahead of Apple leveraging this technology, allowing mapping of VM's to individual PCIe lanes, etc....
All that said, I really like FCP-X, and am impressed with the way it works. With design choices being made in consultation with the BBC, one has to assume there is a significant future for it.
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This is really annoying.
Once you have set up a home network on Macs including a Mac Pro as a center piece of the system, switching that machine to Win nearly forces you to switch all the machines to Win. Without my Mac mini running iTunes, the need for an iPad/iPhone running remote vanishes and moving to a more ergonomic Nokia Win phone becomes very tempting.
I hope that Apple realizes that killing the Mac Pro is likely to result in losing 3 or 4 times the business of the Mac pro alone looking just at direct sales, considering also that other Macs tend to be upgraded/replaced twice faster than Mac Pros.
This still probably is peanuts, except that many of these guys - including myself - are influencers in their communities and typically might have convinced 3 or 4 people to also move to Mac, each of them typically buying 2 or 3 devices... now you have a different picture where killing the Mac pro might impact 20 or 30 times as big a market share.
My belief is that a significant part of the renewed Mac momentum came from long terms enthusiasts who managed to spread the word out that Mac really just work(ed)s. Many of those guys are laptop owners, but many are also serious users, often Mac Pro users...
Cheers,
Bernard
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This is really annoying. Once you have set up a home network on Macs including a Mac Pro as a center piece of the system, ...
Yeah, but this is probably where Apple wants you to move on to iCloud. Furthermore, throw in server side virtualization, thin clients access to application servers in the cloud, etc., and perhaps in their thinking you don't always need powerful desktops in your home.
Joofa
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Yeah, but this is probably where Apple wants you to move on to iCloud. Furthermore, throw in server side virtualization, thin clients access to application servers in the cloud, etc., and perhaps in their thinking you don't always need powerful desktops in your home.
Sure, they may feel that may, but it usually is a better long term strategy to share feelings with your customers. :)
We are nowhere near a stage where application serving is a reality, the user experience is way too poor. So even if it pretty reasonable to consider that data hosting is basically here today, we will still need powerful local processing capability to ensure that our favorite applications run smoothly and quickly.
Would a 27 inch next gen iMAc cut it? For sure not if lacks a Matte screen option.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Sure, they may feel that may, but it usually is a better long term strategy to share feelings with your customers. :)
We are nowhere near a stage where application serving is a reality, the user experience is way too poor. So even if it pretty reasonable to consider that data hosting is basically here today, we will still need powerful local processing capability to ensure that our favorite applications run smoothly and quickly.
Would a 27 inch next gen iMAc cut it? For sure not if lacks a Matte screen option.
Cheers,
Bernard
+ an Imac fixes you more or less to the 'average' SRGB screen that is comes with - NO THANKS. + very limited upgrade flexibility in the iMac.
Yes, my macbook pro quad core 8 gig of ram 500 gig solid state drive machine is fast. And coupled with my external NEC2690 Adobe RGB monitor is quite good. But, its not a patch on my Mac Pro running raid with 32 gig of ram with the 2690 Adobe RGB monitor. I know which I prefer to work with.
I wouldn't abandon Apple if they killed the Mac Pro -because I can always resort to my macbook pro. But, I would be very disappointed to loose the 'headroom' that the mac pro gives me for image editing.
Hopefully Apple realises that there is a strong user base for the Mac Pro amongst imaging professionals. I don't care if they change its form factor, upgrade it or whatever.. but it needs to 'morph' into some kind of equivalent product. Thats my two bobs worth anyway.
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Hopefully Apple realises that here is a strong user base ......
"Customers don't know what they want until we have shown them" - Steve Jobs when asked if he wanted to do market research, as quoted in his biography.
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Hopefully Apple realises that there is a strong user base for the Mac Pro amongst imaging professionals.
Yeah but look what they did to FCPX, they knew it would lose the pro's and they just didn't care as they were moving emphasis to a more lucrative market.
This is worrying me. I'm building a studio to photography ancient books and documents. We were going to go for a MacPro (buying before January) to churn through the 800 or so 40 megapixel files we will be producing per day, process while shooting tethered at the same time and running PS actions to combine and output the files to zoomify for upload to a website. That's a lot of computer power needed and a MacPro seemed to be the answer. But not if it's going to become an orphan system.
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People have been speculating this for ages. I really don't think it will happen. I do think the Mac Pro will change guise and perhaps simplify at some stage with technology though. While the consumer market is their biggest piece of the pie, they did sustain them self for a long while based purely on the professional market.
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I’ve been predicting the demise of the *Tower* since Thunderbolt appeared. With SSDs in laptops and iMacs (and the mini!) coupled with TB devices, very fast operations are already possible.
Saw a recent speed test (BareFeats?) where a MBP smoked the most recent Mac Pro. I’ve always found the towers brutal and big—power rather than elegance. And they rely on Xeons for updates; how is Intel going with that? Long time since the last update.
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This is worrying me. I'm building a studio to photography ancient books and documents. We were going to go for a MacPro (buying before January) to churn through the 800 or so 40 megapixel files we will be producing per day, process while shooting tethered at the same time and running PS actions to combine and output the files to zoomify for upload to a website. That's a lot of computer power needed and a MacPro seemed to be the answer. But not if it's going to become an orphan system.
Off topic but have you looked at https://digitaltransitions.com/page/divison-of-cultural-heritage-products ?
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Saw a recent speed test (BareFeats?) where a MBP smoked the most recent Mac Pro. I’ve always found the towers brutal and big—power rather than elegance. And they rely on Xeons for updates; how is Intel going with that? Long time since the last update.
The mac pro is not only about cpu speed, it is also about expandability:
- supporting more memory,
- supporting more cores,
- being able to host some specific cards, including music cards,...
- being able to host an internal blueray drive + internal raid configurations,
- supporting natively 2 screens,
- supporting hardware raid,
- ...
Some people need those.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I hope that Apple realizes that killing the Mac Pro is likely to result in losing 3 or 4 times the business of the Mac pro alone looking just at direct sales, considering also that other Macs tend to be upgraded/replaced twice faster than Mac Pros.
Think this multiplier is exaggerated, but time will tell.
This still probably is peanuts, except that many of these guys - including myself - are influencers in their communities and typically might have convinced 3 or 4 people to also move to Mac, each of them typically buying 2 or 3 devices... now you have a different picture where killing the Mac pro might impact 20 or 30 times as big a market share.
Ditto, more so.
My belief is that a significant part of the renewed Mac momentum came from long terms enthusiasts who managed to spread the word out that Mac really just work(ed)s.
Agreed, though I think the halo effect from the iPhone and iPad has at least as much an influence. After all, people have been singing the praises of Mac advantages for many years (20 in my case). I have made very few conversions.
Many of those guys are laptop owners, but many are also serious users, often Mac Pro users...
I resemble that remark, Bernard! ;D I use a laptop much more than I used to, in part because of having to do work at clients’s offices at times. When I get a TB MBP, it will replace an iMac as my main machine. But for the next twelve months I will be getting a mini solely to run Capture One (and perhaps FCP-X); can’t decide between the upgraded middle model (2.7 Dual i7) or the server model (2.0 Quad i7)with 7200 drives/built-in RAID.
Having Thunderbolt as an option reduces the power of so many arguments about needing lots of expandability, or will, when a variety of peripherals and adapters are readily available.
0.02!
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Hi.
Let's put it this way: I love my MacPro, but I could live with a MacMini, perhaps with extended memory capacity and external "Thunderbolt devices". But to me it seems that Thunderbolt support is rare.
Perhaps we will see truly professional devices, the old style, 19" rack mounted but with new technology?
Best regards
Erik
The mac pro is not only about cpu speed, it is also about expandability:
- supporting more memory,
- supporting more cores,
- being able to host some specific cards, including music cards,...
- being able to host an internal blueray drive + internal raid configurations,
- supporting natively 2 screens,
- supporting hardware raid,
- ...
Some people need those.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Just a thought: what if Apple took a leaf out of their own (network) book, and developed XGrid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgrid) over Thunderbolt?
Apple discontinued the XServe and offered the mini Server as one alternative, which with the current Sandy Ridge chipset is quite fast (and the even faster Ivy Ridge on its way); linked to a number of dedicated minis, and perhaps other machines in the office used for more *normal* tasks rather than RAW processing, rendering/running filters, colour conversions etc., an efficient sharing protocol over Thunderbolt could be great, thought limited in number of connections. Gigabit EtherNet would scale better.
There are already a number of mini rack systems out there.
Just found this story (http://www.technightowl.com/2011/08/apple-continues-to-marginalize-the-mac-pro-2/) that makes a few useful points.
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Timely post at Barefeats (http://barefeats.com/macs11_01.html)! Some interesting results.
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Timely post at Barefeats (http://barefeats.com/macs11_01.html)! Some interesting results.
Nice find. The gap is closing - but the MacPro still smoking' fast. ;D
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Nice find. The gap is closing - but the MacPro still smoking' fast. ;D
Given the time since the last refresh, it’s refreshing. ;)
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We're getting to the point where the OS X Mac in general isn't a major profit center for Apple; the Mac Pro passed that point a long time ago. I think that what's keeping the Pro going as much as anything is pride. Can you imagine anything more mortifying to Apple than someone who, say, does video production in house for them being forced to use a Windows box? It would be unthinkable for them.
Now, if even the serious video guys are using laptops in 5-10 years, then we'll see. But I don't see Apple ending the Mac Pros before a truly suitable replacement can be developed.
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Can you imagine anything more mortifying to Apple than someone who, say, does video production in house for them being forced to use a Windows box? It would be unthinkable for them.
Unfortunately the dead-ending of Final Cut Pro 7 shows that this is likely untrue. Apple wants the really big markets not the niche pro market and they believe (probably correctly) that a lot of new young 'pro editors' will adopt Final Cut X on a laptop and ignore the shortcomings.
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Unfortunately the dead-ending of Final Cut Pro 7 shows that this is likely untrue. Apple wants the really big markets not the niche pro market and they believe (probably correctly) that a lot of new young 'pro editors' will adopt Final Cut X on a laptop and ignore the shortcomings.
Still don't see it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't FCX very well optimized to run on multi-core systems? Why go through all the trouble to make it maximize the potential of a 12-core machine if you're not going to continue making 12-core machines? I suspect Apple just likes FCX more than you do. Again, that pride thing.
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Mac Pro is not just about Processor. It's the expandability and capability. A work station with less that 48GB of RAM is hinderance to me and with software demanding more these days and pixel count now at 80MP A Mac Mini or iMac will not do and when it does catch up my demands I'm sure will be even greater.
The Mac Pro will stay in some form or another.
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Mac Pro is not just about Processor. It's the expandability and capability. A work station with less that 48GB of RAM is hinderance to me and with software demanding more these days and pixel count now at 80MP A Mac Mini or iMac will not do and when it does catch up my demands I'm sure will be even greater.
Lack of slots is indeed a hindrance to adding lots of RAM at an affordable cost; two slots are not enough for someone who needs plenty of memory.
But given that Thunderbolt is here, I can foresee a box smaller than the Pro (perhaps like a Next Cube—wouldn’t that be homage!) with an abundance of RAM slots, 2x PCI slots plus decent video options, and Thunderbolt. And FW and USB of course.
Modular minitower or cubic systems that could click together would be fascinating and unique in the industry, at least until they were copied! ;D
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Can you imagine anything more mortifying to Apple than someone who, say, does video production in house for them being forced to use a Windows box? It would be unthinkable for them.
One can use Adobe Premiere Pro, which is available on the Mac.
Joofa
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One can use Adobe Premiere Pro, which is available on the Mac.
Joofa
Agreed; there are always options. And Apple is progressively adding features to FCP-X.
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I for one am holding out hope for a new mac-pro. Given it's predecessors the X58 (i7) and 5520 (Xeon), I would expect a very long life for the X79. It represents a convergence in that it supports both Xeon and i7 CPU's giving the choice to adopt ECC memory if desired. This chipset will also introduce hardware SSD caching (ala Z68).
I enjoy the best of both O/S's - I will be very dissappointed to see Apple abandon this market; one point the articles miss is that thunderbolt eliminates real need for any form of internal expandability - making a smaller form factor almost a certainty.
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One can use Adobe Premiere Pro, which is available on the Mac.
Joofa
I don't use or understand the difference between these different video editing programs. I'm working off the assumption that if you're editing large volume of high resolution video, you're going to want the most cores, the most ram, the fastest drives, etc, regardless of what software you're doing. That is, while FCX may not be "pro" quality in the eyes of some, it's still something that benefits from running on a Mac Pro.
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And Apple is progressively adding features to FCP-X.
Look at the MacBook Air. When it first came out, it was something that Apple was clearly very proud of; something that represented their vision for the future of computers. But they'd gotten a little bit ahead of the available technology and the first MBA was too expensive and too slow and they sold about three of the things. And yet, that didn't stop them from pursuing that vision. They were committed to the concept and stuck to it until they got the execution right. And now, I believe it's their best selling line.
You can see a similar progression from the failed G4 Cube (still the best aquarium case Apple's ever made, and they've made a few) to the Mac Mini. It used to be the reason that Apple was surely abandoning pro users was the disappearance of Firewire ports on laptops. Then along comes Thunderbolt. Well, that interface doesn't exist just so grannie can get the photos off her iPhone faster. So when a bunch of pros see FCX and think Apple is throwing them overboard... well, maybe it's true. I think it's more likely that Apple has it's own vision of the future of pro video, and if a tiny portion of their user base has to stick with FC7 while they're figuring out how to make that vision actually work, then, you know... tough noogies, guys.
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Another thought: I have been doing graphic work for so long that I remember the days of add-on NuBus cards dedicated to the acceleration of JPEG compression.
Never did buy one. But I can readily visualise purpose-built boxes designed around Thunderbolt to enable, or augment, particular capabilities. This has been happening for a very long time with video in particular.
Does it matter if something that streamlines workflow is inside or outside the box? Modularisation can feasibly add flexibility and save space.
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I enjoy the best of both O/S's - I will be very dissappointed to see Apple abandon this market; one point the articles miss is that thunderbolt eliminates real need for any form of internal expandability - making a smaller form factor almost a certainty.
It is indeed true that it becomes possbile to have a box outside the mac in which some adapters are located. Now... one of the main design philosophies of Apple is to decrease the clutter of the workspace by reducing wires, cables, boxes,...
Externalizing the expansion cards of the Mac pro goes in the very opposite direction.
Cheers,
Bernard
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It is indeed true that it becomes possbile to have a box outside the mac in which some adapters are located. Now... one of the main design philosophies of Apple is to decrease the clutter of the workspace by reducing wires, cables, boxes,...
Externalizing the expansion cards of the Mac pro goes in the very opposite direction.
Cheers,
Bernard
Agreed! But thats been the direction for some time; older Mac Pro's had far more internal expansion capability than the current iteration. If the decision is maintaining an arguably oversized, expensive chassis or bringing out a smaller, more profitable one - I'm willing to accept that. Another + for thunderbolt is that the market for peripherals now will cross product lines - good for the mfg's and potentially good for our pocketbooks.
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The rumor might be based on little more than an upgrade delay, in turn due to Intel being slow in getting out the next generation Xeon processors.
But selfishly, I would be happy with a far smaller box, almost Mac Mini sized if possible, with just the workstation level processor and RAM capabilities and a replaceable graphics card. For the rest, like extra disk space, optical drives and such, Apple could satisfy me by having a line of matching Thunderbolt peripherals, perhaps stackable under the main unit.
I would guess that many (not all!) MacPro users are like me, in wanting the processing power, but having little or no interest in four disk drives, two optical drives, two ethernet ports, or multiple expansion card slots. And we pay a huge premium in cost and space and weight and pain hauling the gear around just for that processing power. The latest quad-core i7 Mac options have probably lured away a substantial fraction of these former Mac tower unit customers.
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… one of the main design philosophies of Apple is to decrease the clutter of the workspace by reducing wires, cables, boxes …
True.
The rumor might be based on little more than an upgrade delay, in turn due to Intel being slow in getting out the next generation Xeon processors.
+1
… I would be happy with a far smaller box, almost Mac Mini sized if possible, with just the workstation level processor and RAM capabilities and a replaceable graphics card. For the rest, like extra disk space, optical drives and such, Apple could satisfy me by having a line of matching Thunderbolt peripherals, perhaps stackable under the main unit.
Me too, but powerful video cards are BIG and have BIG fans, so would not fit into a mini-sized case. I still like the shape and size of the 7500/7600 series of Power Macintoshes from the ’90s, large enough to have 8 RAM slots and 3 PCI slots, but not oppressive-looking, and with the flip-top outrigger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrigger_Macintosh) internal design. Wonder what a re-imaging could look like with newer materials and processes (laser-cut alloy case with lifting top?), maybe continuing with the little holes meme so as not to outdate all the copycat external drive enclosures. ;D
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The rumor might be based on little more than an upgrade delay, in turn due to Intel being slow in getting out the next generation Xeon processors.
But selfishly, I would be happy with a far smaller box, almost Mac Mini sized if possible, with just the workstation level processor and RAM capabilities and a replaceable graphics card. For the rest, like extra disk space, optical drives and such, Apple could satisfy me by having a line of matching Thunderbolt peripherals, perhaps stackable under the main unit.
I would guess that many (not all!) MacPro users are like me, in wanting the processing power, but having little or no interest in four disk drives, two optical drives, two ethernet ports, or multiple expansion card slots. And we pay a huge premium in cost and space and weight and pain hauling the gear around just for that processing power. The latest quad-core i7 Mac options have probably lured away a substantial fraction of these former Mac tower unit customers.
Myself, I have all 4 drive slots populated - two for system and backup, and two for library and backup. If a drive dies, yank it, replace it, dupe it. Down time is about 5 minutes. Only need the one optical, but plenty of doodads like card readers, or even another drive, can go in there. As it's still a USB world, I added four more fully powered ports to the back for those pesky devices that don't play well with hubs. Theres also more slots to add ESATA, Firewire, or maybe even Thunderbolt in the future. Want a beefier vid card, no problem. Heck you can run two. Only have 10GB RAM at the moment, but can stick a bunch more if wanted. Yeah, it's a beast, but it doesn't get moved much. That's what a laptop is for, which you still need to hook to a decent monitor for critical work.
These sort of rumors have been around almost as long as the company. Not too worried myself, as they make good stuff. One of the benefits of the size of the Pro is there's lots of room inside to dissipate heat, coupled with an excellent fan system. If you picked up a new one today, there's no reason it won't be chugging away twenty years from now. I've got a Cube that's still used for reading repair manuals and watching the ocasional video. Sure, it's pretty much as slow as when new(has been hotrodded a bit and stuck in a Newertech cabinet), but still serviceable.
What with the new low power CPUs being developed, like the i7, as well as Thunderbolt and SSDs, hopefully it'll just morph into a smaller package with the same expansion capabilities.
If the expansion is not a concerne, there's always the i7 Mini or iMac. Been eyeing a 27" one myself, as it's not much more than the cost of a comparable monitor.
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If the expansion is not a concerne, there's always the i7 Mini or iMac. Been eyeing a 27" one myself, as it's not much more than the cost of a comparable monitor.
An iMac might be an option if they had an anti-glare screen option, but they do not, do they?
Cheers,
Bernard
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An iMac might be an option if they had an anti-glare screen option, but they do not, do they?
Cheers, Bernard
They do if you plug one in—then there are two screens. Voilà!
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They do if you plug one in—then there are two screens. Voilà!
Yeah but who really wants to look at a gloss screen next to matt ???
There is little to zero chance of Apple offering the iMac in a matt option. Here in Australia you wait a week when you order a macbook pro with a matt screen as its classed as a custom build (I know, I just received my new macbook pro with matt screen). I just can't see Apple offering a matt option for the iMac. It seems the are trying to phase it out on MacBooks by making it a custom order.
Also, a lot macpro users (myself included) already run dual large wide gamut matt screens, plugging in one screen to an iMac for a gloss matt combination would just be weird...
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Yeah but who really wants to look at a gloss screen next to matt ???
I prefer matte screens too, and use a matte Dell 2410U with my 13" MBP, running menus or Finder windows on the smaller screen. I have no problem with the 13" gloss screen sitting under the Dull (er, Dell).
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An iMac might be an option if they had an anti-glare screen option, but they do not, do they?
Cheers, Bernard
The lighting conditions you work in make a huge physiological difference when judging tone and color. if you manage those conditions well, whether a display has a matte on gloss cover on it just isn't an issue.
I think I am a very careful worker.
- I work on a 27' iMac (white LED backlit). I also have and use an Eizo CG Display.
- I do a good job of profiling my displays with a good tool (i1 Display Pro and i1 Profiler for the iMac; Color Navigator 6 and i1 Display Pro for the CG).
- I have a neutral colored wall behind my computer desk.
- When doing color critical work -- and I have some clients who are extremely sensitive about how their products are photographically rendered -- I simply make sure I don't have a light turned on that causes glare or reflections on the screen. I'd describe it as a "dim cave" rather than a "dark" or "pitch black" cave.
Thus the lack of an anti-glare screen on the iMac just isn't an issue.
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The lighting conditions you work in make a huge physiological difference when judging tone and color. if you manage those conditions well, whether a display has a matte on gloss cover on it just isn't an issue.
I think I am a very careful worker.
- I work on a 27' iMac (white LED backlit). I also have and use an Eizo CG Display.
- I do a good job of profiling my displays with a good tool (i1 Display Pro and i1 Profiler for the iMac; Color Navigator 6 and i1 Display Pro for the CG).
- I have a neutral colored wall behind my computer desk.
- When doing color critical work -- and I have some clients who are extremely sensitive about how their products are photographically rendered -- I simply make sure I don't have a light turned on that causes glare or reflections on the screen. I'd describe it as a "dim cave" rather than a "dark" or "pitch black" cave.
Thus the lack of an anti-glare screen on the iMac just isn't an issue.
Good it if works for you. Personally I'd rather wear whatever clothes I like and avoid having to work in a dark environment just to by-pass the limitations of my screen. :)
I like my equipment to work for me and not the opposite. ;D
Cheers,
Bernard
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Personally I'd rather wear whatever clothes I like …
Radius used to provide a black cape to go with their PressView monitors in the olden CRT days, along with a black monitor hood!
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Good it if works for you. Personally I'd rather wear whatever clothes I like and avoid having to work in a dark environment just to by-pass the limitations of my screen. :)
I like my equipment to work for me and not the opposite. ;D
Cheers,
Bernard
a) Even if you have an "anti-glare" screen if you wear brightly colored clothes and work in a bright environment there is going to be some color tint (but not much) reflected back from your screen.
b) If you are working in a brightly lit environment you are creating a lot of physiological stress on your visual sense that limits your brain's ability to see down into the dark values.
These are well known phenomena and have nothign to do with the limitations of a device and would hold true even if you were working on the best displays money can buy.
Don't just take my word for it. See what the late Bruce Fraser and others have to say on the subject.
My equipment does work for me. I just don't assume that it is always smart enough to correct the problems I cause. ;D
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How about a TB based display with integrated graphics adapter + display? Granted TB does support display only connections; but this could potentially offer a very nice 10 (or even higher) bit color solution with *no* compatibility worries . . . .
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How about a TB based display with integrated graphics adapter + display? Granted TB does support display only connections; but this could potentially offer a very nice 10 (or even higher) bit color solution with *no* compatibility worries . . . .
+1; nifty idea. And optionally matte.
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Great idea. The Eizo CG's have their own graphics card built in.
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How about a TB based display with integrated graphics adapter + display? Granted TB does support display only connections; but this could potentially offer a very nice 10 (or even higher) bit color solution with *no* compatibility worries . . . .
How do you manage bulk and noise generated by the fan required by fast GPUs?
Cheers,
Bernard
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How do you manage bulk and noise generated by the fan required by fast GPUs?
Honestly, if you were running Adobe Premiere utilizing nVidia's CUDA cores, I would suspect that a display I'm proposing would be sub-optimal, as the application is leveraging GPU cores for rendering. High end nVidia adapters run HOT! My experience with ATI is quite different, much cooler running; I would hope such a display would offer passive cooling
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I've been using a MB Air with a gloss screen under a variety of conditions for a couple years now, and reflection haven't been pretty much unnoticeable. In my post work environment I keep a disbursed low-key lighting scheme, and a diffused lamp that baths the wall just behind the monitor. If I move the lamp to in front of the monitor I get reflections in my matte IPS screen. Think I'd be OK with the 27" imac, but still on the fence. If the gloss does present a problem, I can alway just yank the glass window off. (hmmmm, wonder if anyone's tried coating it with matte spray)
Every honker vid card I've seen has a built in fan. And the machines with 1G vid RAM surface mounted all have internal fans. Some even run a separate heat sink and fan just for the vid chip.