I would still give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that in the first quarter 2013 they launch a completely redesigned Mac Pro. I am sure they understand that there will be more of 4k filming next year and hence the need to edit.

It amazes me how gullible some people are.

I use a $2000 off-shelf HP workstation, just bumped my nVidia card up to a whole new level, stuffed it with 24 MB of RAM, and am connected to 20 TB of RAID storage – all affordable, flexible, dependable, crash-free, and am about to install CS6. When I have questions there’s an Internet full of others who share how they trick out their MS machines for low money so I can spend the leftover on video gear and plane tickets. Now that the playing field is more level, I look forward to focusing on what people are making than what they’re making it with. Just sayin’

Switching over to Mac is easy once you make the investment; the investment isn’t money but time. Time spent not worrying about the computer, time spent not reinstalling Windows, time spent not dealing with driver issues. I stopped being a gearhead and focused on the work. I also stopped using FCP (an Apple product designed by a Windows programmer, with all its strange buggy quirks) and went with Avid and Adobe, which all run perfectly fast and in 64bit on my 8-core Mac, from 2008. I have a Caldigit USB 3/eSata for expansion but never installed a single driver.

I don’t own an iPhone or iPod (does a Shuffle really count?) so I’m not a fanboy. I just want my tools to work. When I sell my Af100 for a Scarlet, I’ll know the computer can crunch the media and not worry that it’ll croak.

In the end it comes off as super negative but it’s just because I’ve read so many comments that seem to totally ignore people who say “the camera doesn’t make the movie” and “the computer/software doesn’t make that much of a difference” and figured maybe the same basic message will be noticed if it’s a little more aggro. So I apologize for that aggro perhaps souring your experience of the lower 1/10 of the comments for which I’m responsible. :)

Interesting, the whole “professional” debate is one I get into regularly with good friends who will argue until they’re blue that the creative fields are rife with sell-outs and subpar efforts. I tend to fall on the opposite side of things; feeling generally that creative services are a business model, and that quality often plays a greatly decreased part in determining success because things like marketing, promotion, and entrepreneurial hustle can and do play a bigger role, and as a result, since those things are a necessity of making money, it’s unfair to say one professional is better/worse than a nonprofessional, because it’s not apples to apples. But I digress, per the usual…. Anyhow, sorry for the inconvenience. I’ve had a shit day.

I’m not saying anyone is or isn’t a hack, but statistically, based on the low ratio of success in this creative field and others similar to it, there WILL be a majority of people whose best efforts are a lower quality than a much smaller portion whose work really stands out. To put it bluntly, statistically speaking, your work, my work, and most of our work here, probably DOES suck, probably IS crap, and needs a lot more help than a simple hardware or software update can proffer. Part of being a “professional” is recognizing that fact, critiquing your own work, and then wisely choosing where to invest your money based on what yields the largest gain. Being a “professional” requires there to be a self-sustaining profitable enterprise. We aren’t all equals, and you can bloviate ad nauseam about this and that anecdotal scenario but a betting man (or woman) would be a fool to put money on your work, or my work, as being anything other than mediocre and that it won’t be fixed by whatever business model Apple may decide to go with this week, month, or year.

and no radish-head, just because you stop to offer a comment on the forum, it doesn’t mean you’re a wanna-be hack. it means, possibly, that you’re analyzing options, and not facebooking apple and begging them to take your money.

they flim-flammed you on the editing software, and now they’re trying it again with the hardware.

What surprised me, and granted I’m a loyal Windows user and have no real emotions towards Apple, is their piss poor attempt at the upgrade. They could have at least added a mother board with USB3, Thunderbolt, eSATA some more PCIe slots, more internal SATA connectors and redesigned the interior of the case to have more hard drive bays and more exterior room for the accompanying PCIe expansion. At least build in some incentive for current owners to upgrade. As it is, why spend close to $4,000 for, as Apple’s site suggests, 1.3x times more performance.

The real pros aren’t here posting on forums, they’re off on projects being quiet professionals. Everyone else is just A and AA level making rent this month.

I honestly think a lot of this is navel gazing and prosperity thinking. By which I mean that a lot of us would love to think that we NEED a Mac Pro for what we do, but I can assure you that much like cameras, the computer isn’t going to be the deciding factor most of the time. I can understand if you’re one of a handful (relatively speaking) of businesses who run a studio, let’s say a VFX shop, and can honestly put a load on a Mac Pro that would buckle an iMac, but I bet out of the 40+ people here commenting there might be ONE person who is doing that, if that many. For everyone else it’s just wasted money, like driving your Ferrari to work….. on speed limited roads…. in traffic…. while coincidentally NOT being Michael Schumacher.

I’m quite tired of all the kvetching and Chicken Little ranting like you saw Apple dating another girl. Digital cinema workflows existed before the iBlah IntelMD NvidiWhatever these schmucks think they need. A lack of USB3 and Thunderbolt isn’t going to make your 1, 2, or even 3 camera shot edit a total disaster you bunch of whiners who wish that you could even saturate an existing Mac Pro’s data pipes with your work!

*and breath*

I need to drink less coffee…… makes me ragey.

Probably nothing. And then they’ll buy one.