This guy is hilarious

[Trek of Joy]

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Interesting to hear that.

The display compatibility issues are very worrying for me. Might have to go iMac 2017 route after all.

The i5 is quieter than i7 by the way, under load barely a whisper. The 2017 iMac i7 4.2 gets very hot.

On the GPU side, 2017 vs 2015.... New Radeon 580 Pro worth it as upgrade from 2015 model as it is newer chip and 8GB video RAM... Double the top spec 2015.

My late 2013 iMac still edits 4K smoothly though!! The old stuff is still good.

Will probably sell that and the Hackintosh and get the iMac 2017.

Mac Pro, the more you research into it, the more it could be a headache despite being really underrated as a trashcan

Definitely do a little research on your particular monitor before pulling the trigger on a trashcan - I had issues with three panels - couldn't tell you which as its been a couple years, but thankfully Amazon's return policy saved me. I used the official list and various forum posts, just was never happy with the performance. The 2013 video cards struggled at 60hz, and if you had to revert to 30hz there was a lot of cursor lag - nothing was real time. My solution was to wake my machine and turn off sleep mode until the end of the day - which still meant fixing the icon/text size every day it decided not to see the monitor when waking from sleep. It didn't always happen, but it happened enough for me to throw in the towel.

Didn't know the i5 is quieter. If I could get the 8gb card, I'd be all over that. For what I paid I'm happy with its performance, the 2017's will cost significantly more at the moment, the minimum spec with the 1tb SSD and 580 is $2900, that's $1000 over what I paid. My machine is fast rendering 4k video, and fast editing photos - I'm amazed at how fast it stitches panos in LR. I edited my first 4k video on a 2009 MacBook Pro with a dual core processor, 8gb ram and a 512mb video card - I feel spoiled by the power my current machine has. 42mp photos from the a7r2 come alive when you sharpen them, I love the 5k display. I do wish there was a matte option, loved that on my old MacBook Pro.

I've never tried a hackintosh, I just can't put in the time to solve driver issues when a factory Mac has none and everything always works with every new update. Its one of the reasons I'll never go back to windows or Premiere.

Chris

[Andrew Reid]

What version of Mac OS were you using when you had the problems?

[Trek of Joy]

Was running El Capitan. If they got it better sorted with Sierra/High Sierra, cool. But it seemed like a hardware limitation, since some monitors would only run at 30hz. The newer machines with TB3 don't seem to have the same issues. The number of monitors compared to the official Apple support is annoying as well, some like BenQ and Philips are never mentioned. AFAIK my iMac will also run another 4k display without issue - I'm considering something like the LG you mentioned as a playback monitor while using the iMac for my timeline, just to get a less glossy screen.

Chris

[Andrew Reid]

I seem to remember El Capitan or earlier had patchy support for 4K 60hz

I don't think it's a hardware issue because the Mac Pro graphics card and Thunderbolt 2 definitely support 4K 60hz, even 5K. A lot of grunt on that side.

So yeah I think it was the OS. I grazed this issue myself briefly and I think an update fixed it. Hazy memory though.

In the end I squashed the romantic notion of the Mac Pro 2013. I love the unique form factor, how small it is, how quiet it is, how reliable, how the power still holds up today, how so many idiots write it off even at half the price it was, I think it's a cool little beast. However the iMac 2017 is just boringly... better value for money. Due to the more up-to-date graphics and Intel Quick Sync it will too often outperform the Mac Pro 2013 and I picked up a Apple refurb from their UK site for £1900... It is the 2017 27" iMac 5K, P3 display, i5 3.8ghz which runs cooler and quieter than the i7 4.2ghz but with very similar performance, 580 Pro graphics which has 8GB memory (huge!) and runs on par with the desktop GPU, so you are basically getting a top of the range professional 5K display for £900 and the computer for £1000 whereas the Mac Pro 2013 deal I was considering was £1900 just for the machine. I plan now to maybe sell the LG 4096 x 2160 display and just use the iMac. The Hackintosh will go into PC gaming mode and sit next to my racing sim rig in another room. If I want to as well, can run Forza 7 in bootcamp on the iMac and save myself the hassle of spending another £400 on an XBOX One X. Plug the iMac into the LG OLED and bang you have a 4K games console. The D500 wasn't powerful enough to achieve 60fps in most modern games in 4K, unless I am mistaken - they only recognise one and not the SLI config?

[Damphousse]

On 2/3/2018 at 11:12 AM, OliKMIA said:

Different experience here with PC, everything is smooth on my custom built computer.

There are literally millions of software/hardware configurations for PCs so it is objectively impossible for a videographer to have tested every combination and declare PCs "crash all the time" or are "buggy."  For most people's uses ie MS Office, web surfing, and a little media playback if your PC is "crashing all the time" something is wrong.  I find a lot of issues people have with PCs are self inflicted.  They install a bunch of random stuff and frequent dodgy websites.  It's not like the PC or the OS is inherently broken.

Another issue is sometimes people buy bargain basement PCs made out of cheap components.  I've had components on a cheap PC go bad and cause system instability.  I just ripped out the offending part and for a few dollars replaced it.  One part went bad after six years.  The nice thing was the parts were serviceable.  I'm just not into this nonserviceable thing.  It is best if things don't break but anything built by man is capable of breaking.  I've seen Macs break.  After seeing a Macbook's screen have a weird deterioration that cured me of ever wanting a monitor fused to my computer.  It is just dumb for one bad component to take the entire multithousand dollar system down.

PC and Mac are two different philosophies.  They both have merit.  I'm glad they both exist.  They force each other to improve.  The more people we have out there creating hardware and software the more interesting things happen.

But this idea that the Trashcan or the iMac doesn't present some serious limitations and issues is nuts.  I get it that it works for some people but it is not a universal solution.  I don't buy iphones but I can see an argument for an iphone being a universal solution... if you ignore the price.  Iphones have the most apps and besides the lack of headphone jack they have all the core functionality people need.  They are missing bells and whistles like extra memory expansion and until recently wireless charging but they get the rest of the basics right.  The Trashcan and iMac?  No.  They are too radical a set of departures to be pushed as some no brainer choice.

Also Apple is a phone company.  It is odd to tell someone not to buy a computer from a computer company and instead to buy one from a phone company.  Should I buy a washing machine from a tractor company too?  The very reason that video was shot was because Apple has ignored computers for so long.  It is amusing to watch Apple fanboys twist themselves into knots justifying half decade old technology.  When I start looking at buying... or more accurately building a PC I read about where tech is going to be 3 years from now to figure out which features I should be looking for or ignoring on a motherboard.  I don't go and look at 5 year old tech!

The reason I love PCs is you can buy a solid case, power supply, M.2 drive, monitor, keyboard and mouse and then you are just left upgrading your motherboard, CPU, and memory every few years as needed and you have a bleeding edge PC.  Graphics card can be upgraded as needed.  For most people current motherboard graphics is enough.  I bleed money on so many things nowadays I just can't imagine buying a computer where I have to toss everything including the monitor when I want to make the next leap in power.

Mac Pro minimum price $2,999!  No USB C.  No Bluetooth 4.2.  No M.2.  Only one HDMI port.  Just taking a cursory look at basic must have every day specs I wouldn't buy a $1,000 computer missing all those features let alone computer costing 3 times more.  I also don't understand the idea of going with a minimalist design and then cluttering your desk with wires, graphics cards, and external storage.  I like a monolithic block that I stick under my desk and all my storage and graphic cards sit in there out of sight and out of mind.  What is aesthetically pleasing about having six things strewn about instead of one thing tucked away neatly?  Again this is such a forced thing with Apple fanboys.

The ridiculous kludges people are doing to get M.2 shoe horned into the Trashcan are ridiculous.  I get pissed off if I see a mother board that doesn't have two M.2 slots ready to go right out of the box.  Just stop forcing this stuff.

[Andrew Reid]

My Windows 10 PC just updated... I say it just updated, I have been sat here for 4 hours. It went through about 9 differently designed update windows and dialogue boxes, numerous messages, and there are TWO control panels... One called SETTINGS and one called Control Panel. How is that good design?

Then there are my taste issues with the way the damn thing looks. There are inconstancies in colour schemes constantly whacking you in the eyeballs. The default screen savers are literally from the 90's. The wallpapers are cliched bollocks. The toolbars, status bars, window outlines, fonts, themes and start bar are dated, ugly, glarish, shitty. There are too many people who say this doesn't matter, who laugh at Macs for their 'simple' UI... It does matter, we have to live in it, day to day.

When you spend so much time looking at something, why not make it nice to look at?

It's not superficial.

"Apple is a phone company"... LOL

The iPhone is more of a computer than it is a phone The app development community is stronger and more creative on the Mac OS and iOS side vs rival Windows and Android. Better tools, better development culture, better dev platforms, better SDKs, less complexity, less need to support numerous hardware combinations A high proportion of Mac OS and iPhone users are on the latest version of the OS. In Windows and Android land the number is probably below 20%. For those who keep updated and the system well managed and well tinkered with that's not a problem but it sure as hell is a problem for software developers. So much legacy OS stuff they have to support. And it is a problem for the users as well, because their performance and reliability goes down and the security situation frankly stinks - not just on Windows, but on Android as well.

1 hour ago, Damphousse said:

The reason I love PCs is you can buy a solid case, power supply, M.2 drive, monitor, keyboard and mouse and then you are just left upgrading your motherboard, CPU, and memory every few years as needed and you have a bleeding edge PC.  Graphics card can be upgraded as needed.  For most people current motherboard graphics is enough.  I bleed money on so many things nowadays I just can't imagine buying a computer where I have to toss everything including the monitor when I want to make the next leap in power.

What if you don't care about that and just want it to WORK and be FAST and be RELIABLE for 5 years straight whilst you edit videos?

I can't count the number of times my Windows 10 PC has interrupted my flow with an update request, a driver issue or another problem.

Yes, when a PC works it can fly. But the Mac flies ALL. THE. TIME.

And it does it with 200% more style.

FCPX thrashes Premiere for performance by the way... and is a Mac exclusive. ProRes. EditReady. List of exclusives go on.

[no_connection]

Thunderbolt stopped working for no reason and bricked out recording mac mini.

Ironically win10 creators fall update KB4054517 decided to install even tho it should not and bricked our new recording machine, glad we had team viewer cause windows update literally bricked every display output, still unsure if uninstall will fix it as I have not looked at it any more. Sure as heck hope it can be fixed. There is plenty of ppl having things to say about that update bricking there system too from last year, so how it was forcefully installed now baffles  (but not surprise) me. I hope the group policy changes I made gonna prevent this in the future, good thing it's pro version. Scary to say the least.

*edit*

I should add that my personal computer have win7 that I have never ever run windows update on since 2014 or whenever I installed it, never had a problem, well one problem after I panicly manually installed the patch for wannacry, that was a mistake as it bricked some stuff but fine, that's on me.

[Andrew Reid]

In general a lot of reliability is going backwards because the big companies seem to hiring the wrong people or something else has happened...

But I have noticed it a lot especially Adobe and Microsoft.

[Roberto Tolin Sommer]

I was a hard Apple fan for many years. Worked with mac from 1997 to 2014. The spanish financial crisis make that it was impossible to me to assume the costs of constant updates of software and to buy a new MacPro. I use a MacPro 3.1, from 2008, with 10 Gb of ram and a SSD. It was very difficult to work with HD video under Mac OS. FCPX don't worked with my mac because the graphic card was not supported. So i tried Linux. I installed more than 10 distributions and finally use Manjaro Budgie. My old Mac now flies. I can work with a good speed in 1080 and can also work with 4K (this with proxies). For video i use Lightworks (with Pro license) and Kdenlive. All my hardware works well and i experienced very few glitches. For my work i don't need Adobe, so i can use free software and a few propietary (Lightworks for video and Silkypix for raw photo files). My next computer can be a pc, but running Linux.

[Andrew Reid]

Silkypix?!

[Roberto Tolin Sommer]

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Silkypix?!

https://silkypix.isl.co.jp/en/

I run a windows version in Wine. It's not a very popular software because the interface, but it's by far the best raw developer for Panasonic cameras (i have a GH3, a GX7 and a GX85). 

[webrunner5]

Wow I didn't even realize they were even in business anymore. Who would have thought?

[Andrew Reid]

Who didn't you realise was in business anymore?!

[webrunner5]

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Who didn't you realise was in business anymore?!

Silkypix.

[Inazuma]

On 04/02/2018 at 11:19 PM, Andrew Reid said:

My Windows 10 PC just updated... I say it just updated, I have been sat here for 4 hours. It went through about 9 differently designed update windows and dialogue boxes, numerous messages, and there are TWO control panels... One called SETTINGS and one called Control Panel. How is that good design?

Then there are my taste issues with the way the damn thing looks. There are inconstancies in colour schemes constantly whacking you in the eyeballs. The default screen savers are literally from the 90's. The wallpapers are cliched bollocks. The toolbars, status bars, window outlines, fonts, themes and start bar are dated, ugly, glarish, shitty. There are too many people who say this doesn't matter, who laugh at Macs for their 'simple' UI... It does matter, we have to live in it, day to day.

I agree there are elements that are really stupid, such as the two different control panels. But as for the design, that's personal, and I like it. I really dislike how the window system works in Mac.

[Andrew Reid]

19 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Silkypix.

Panasonic make Silkypix. I think they discontinued it?

[Roberto Tolin Sommer]

8 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Panasonic make Silkypix. I think they discontinued it?

Ichikawa soft laboratory makes Silkypix and has a collaboration between various camera makers like Panasonic, Pentax and others. Because this collaboration they have access to original raw data information, so the quality of the raw conversions is very good, the best color wise. Silkypix has not the best workflow, but has the best quality.

[Trek of Joy]

5 hours ago, Roberto Tolin Sommer said:

Ichikawa soft laboratory makes Silkypix and has a collaboration between various camera makers like Panasonic, Pentax and others. Because this collaboration they have access to original raw data information, so the quality of the raw conversions is very good, the best color wise. Silkypix has not the best workflow, but has the best quality.

This is true. Its the best raw convertor for Fuji RAF's since they its the only one that doesn't have to reverse engineer the debayer of the goofy X-Tran array. It would be nice if Fuji/Panasonic and others would chip in some real cash to update the UI, make it faster and more user friendly. It really does a great job of pulling detail out of Fuji files that Lightroom loses, but man its a PITA to use.

Chris