So Apple is busy making announcements, but they have a new 13″ MacBook Pro (Sans NVDIA graphics card), a new thinner iMac with a better NVIDIA 660m graphics cards (Hurray CUDA) and improved Mac Mini, the new iPad 4 (or iPad with Retina Display which is faster, with lightning connector for same price after only 6 months) and the overpriced iPad mini starting at $329 for WIFI 16GB.
FCP.Co has an article on installing a PC GTX570 in a MacPro to get better OpenCL performance in FCP X, but it will also increase your CUDA power for Premiere Pro and After Effects CS6.
Still you can score over 1000 on Luxmark if you go for a GTX670 instead (which has a huge amount more of CUDA cores, and can still draw it’s power from the internal power supply instead of say a 680, which would require an external power source to run), but they are not as well supported on the Mac. Either way you will need to go to Netkas to get some instruction and some help (though some of the help can be rather surly, but it is worth it if can really beef up using your MacPro). Someone at Netkas has also figure out how to Firmware update recent MacPro’s to the latest firmware for the newest itineration, allowing beefier XEON’s into your old MacPro.
The instructions are pretty easy, but I have found that they don’t always work, so think about re-installing your NVIDIA drivers once you are done, as that did it for me.
You will also need to do some hacking to Premiere Pro and After Effects to get them working with the CUDA cores on a new video card.
Managed to fix it though. I carbon copy cloned my main hard drive to make a new, then did a clean install of Mountain Lion. This took a download of Mountain Lion from the app store and Lion Diskmaker 2, which installed a full version onto a USB stick. I then did a clean install. This is of course after de-activating Adobe CS6, Final Draft and AVID Media Composer.
Just to try it, I had it import my User and Applications from my carbon copy cloner version (thinking this would bring over the problems, whatever they were), but after the import I had a system that was working fine, with all of my applications installed. Sure I had re-install a few, but overall everything worked just fine and my computer is back to speed!
I am glad there is still a way to do a clean system install, since Apple removed the Archive and Install option a while back. Still it should be easier than it is (IE the option given from Apple). Glad it is working though.
Now just really need a bigger hard drive so I can get my Time Machine going again (had to do a bunch of moving of files to get an extra drive for the Clone procedure).
StudioDaily has an awesome article on how they are using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 on SNL. They were in Final Cut Pro and decided to move to Premiere Pro, especially because of the workflow with After Effects.
Still I am surprised it is all Mac, but they obviously had Macs for Final Cut. So far I am impressed with CS6, but there have been some stability issues for me, especially with CUDA, though hopefully that last NVIDIA update fixed that. I would think PC’s would be faster and more stable, though I do still love my Mac. They had just better make a really kick ass MacPro really damn soon!
If you have experienced crashes in Premiere Pro CS6 or later when using a qualified NVIDIA GPU, we strongly recommend you update to this new driver version, which should improve stability. The crashes were mostly seen when switching from OpenCL to CUDA or when tabbing from other applications back to Premiere Pro (most notably Safari).
It doesn’t mention all the crashes I was having for other reasons, and general premiere pro instability, but hopefully this will cover it. And hopefully I can move back to my GeForce GTX275 from my Quadro 4800 as the 4800 just isn’t fast.
Wonder if this improves Kepler card support? That would be awesome, though I doubt it.
You can download from NVIDIA here.
CoreMelt has released the free ActiveText plug in for creating text with pre-animated templates, no keyframes.
I am not too much of a fan of templated effects, but you really can’t argue with free.
Arstechnica has a good article talking about how the connector for Apple’s new Lightning Adapter may be able use the metal shielding as a 9th wire, making for a 9th wire and making Lightning USB 3 compatible. If so it could live up to it’s Lightning name.
Still have my iPhone 4, but went to the Apple store to check out the iPhone 5. It sounded great, but not too great, but I was wrong.
The first thing you notice is how light it is. It makes the iPhone 4 seem heavy, but it still feels well built and solid. And the mostly metal back is much better than the glass iPhone 4 and 4S. The phone is thinner, and lighter, and taller.
The taller screen looks better even at the same resolution. And the bigger screen is just better. Wide screen shows look great and having an extra row of apps on every screen is fantastic.
And the lightning connector is impressively small. Still if it is not faster, it sucks to make every previous accessory either incompatible or have to work with an adapter.
if all of the speed tests are true, this is a really impressive phone. I so want one! Ha!
So with the iPhone 5 Apple updated and downgraded it’s connector to the new lightning connector. The good news is it is smaller, and will work in either direction. The bad news is it is the same speed as the old adapter, sends less data, so many old accessories won’t work, and for those that do it requires an adapter at $28 for a direct or $39 for a cable.
Youch! Honestly i would rather have had the old adapter still so all my old devices would work. Especially since Apple said they won’t make docks for the iPhone 5, and i prefer my iPhone and iPods in docks!
Sure I have an iPhone and an iPad, but even with the largest models of their generations and a bunch of apps 64 GB doesn’t leave much room for music. Not only that but I rip all my CD’s at Apple Lossless, which is about half the size of CD quality with no loss of quality. That leaves me with my venerable iPod Classic with 120 GB harddrive (there was once a bigger model, but it is no more). Still not huge, especially with hard drives growing every year, but sans a plethora of apps it can store quite a bit of music. And there is nothing else that matches it’s size. Sure eventually static memory will get larger, but so does app size as screens get better. And don’t even get me started in how much space large photos take up on the new iPad!?!?!
And streaming music doesn’t work for me as long as data plans have caps. And even most unlimited plans are not even close to unlimited! As streaming could be the future, but only if it can be all your songs just as they are in your computer!
I know it will never happen, but i would love a new hard drive based ipod, say 320GB, with an updated interface. It can still be scroll wheel, but playlists needs a fast scroll like artists have! It could store most of my music and mean i can just worry about apps on my iOS devices!
