Apple To Unveil Light Peak, New MacBook Pros This Week? 311
An anonymous reader writes "Apple will reportedly soon make an announcement regarding a new high-speed connection technology. And as luck would have it, this comes hot on the heels of a report that Apple will release a slew of new MacBook Pros later this week. For some time now, reports have abounded detailing Apple and Intel's cooperation on a new transfer technology dubbed Light Peak capable of transferring data at 10GB/s both up and down. Could this find its way into Apple's new lineup of MacBook Pros as has been previously rumored?"
Where does Light Peak fit? (Score:3, Interesting)
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No they won't get royalties. It's Intel's baby, not theirs.
Re:Where does Light Peak fit? (Score:5, Insightful)
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When was that?
'cos the rest of us got interested back when the ps3 was released and used it for media streaming.
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No royalties to Apple - it's Intel's.
As far as royalties on the firewire connector, it's $0.25 per device (regardless of ports) and the money is split between several companies, including Apple. I suppose Intel and Apple could do something similar here, but given the way Apple took mini-Displayport (it's royalty free), I think they learned their lesson on port royalties. No idea what Intel will do though.
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Just keep in mind that the first generation of Light Peak isn't optical, it's copper [computerworld.com].
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It can replace HDMI to an extent (Score:2)
So Intel's idea (Light Peak is Intel's technology, not Apple's) is for Light Peak to become a universal connector replacement. USB, DVI/HDMI, even SATA. One connector that you can use for everything. Make things simpler and hopefully cheaper in the long run.
Now at the present time it isn't fast enough for all of that. It runs at 10gbps right now. Not suitable for a SATA replacement. However Intel believes they'll be able to scale it to 100gbps in time, which would work.
In terms of display it is enough in mo
Editors: please fix the title (Score:4, Funny)
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Not a very high quality article. (Score:5, Insightful)
The article makes claims that Intel "Is delaying" USB 3.0 "until 2010" to help Light Peak get off the ground.
Problem 1: It's 2011. You can't be "delaying something until 2010" in 2011...
Problem 2: USB 3.0 is deployed already. So they clearly can't be delaying it.
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Problem 2: USB 3.0 is deployed already. So they clearly can't be delaying it.
Intel has yet to release a USB 3.0 chipset themselves - other companies have released them, which is why there are products on the market, but Intel hasn't. That's why you see it on such few computers at this point - it isn't incredibly high end, but Intel is withholding because they want to give LightPeak a fighting chance. (At least that's the theory) Once Intel comes out with a USB 3.0 chipset, it will be much more prevalent.
On their own motherboards no less (Score:3)
Before the Sandy Bridge bug forced a recall, Intel SB boards shipped with USB 3 ports on them.
Now what they may be talking about is that USB 3 isn't part of the current Intel chipsets, you have to add a chip on the board to get it. Ok well that is a different issue, and has nothing to do with trying to hold it back and everything to do with design and implementation time.
Please remember USB is Intel's spec. If they wanted to "hold USB 3 back" or something they could just not release it. They just aren't int
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Please remember USB is Intel's spec. If they wanted to "hold USB 3 back" or something they could just not release it.
They tried doing that too. In fact, I'm not sure if the spec for USB host controllers has officially been released even now, though the other OEMs did try and strong-arm Intel into releasing it.
just what we need $30+ adapters and powered hubs (Score:2)
just what we need $30+ adapters and maybe powered hubs. One cable for E-net, Video, sound, and mouse / keyboard? so you need a hub or
daisy chaining.
also HOW will light-peak tie in to ATI and NVIDIA video? On a desktop will we see a voodoo 2 like loop back cable?
apple better keep the E-NET ports as lightpeak to E-NET cables are point less and just have much higher costs.
keyboard and mouse will stay USB as they don't need high speed cables.
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From what I understand (i.e. what i read the last time this technology was discussed on Slashdot), what makes Lightpeak so interesting is that you can run basically anything else over it. I'm running mad looking for an HDMI-to-RCA downscaler - my laptop has HDMI and DVI outputs, but my church's $12,000 switching/scaling system only does composite. Since replacing literally every piece of gear in the chain would be required to plug in an HDMI natively and the church isn't looking to spend around $100,000 for
Nope... (Score:3)
The idea is to encapsulate a number of digital protocols (nothing unique to Light Peak, Displayport in theory supports ethernet and usb packets in addition to audio and video data, for example.
You will need something to convert it to analog, and that will remain a niche market with high prices as a result. You won't get a magical RCA out from this.
I also doubt you can't replace the display portion of your churches setup with something that would accept both displayport *and* RCA in (not requiring replacing
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I'm running mad looking for an HDMI-to-RCA downscaler
http://www.svideo.com/hdmi2svideo.html [svideo.com]
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Honestly, Why do churches try to get into multimedia and then fail to budget for it?
I think they're more used to the depreciation schedule of an altar rather than high end AV.
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If it's a choice between:
- A £20 adaptor on your desk and the cheapest laptop we could find OR
- A £150 docking station and an expensive laptop that supports docking stations
Guess what you'll be getting.
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Theres a third choice-- USB 2.0 docking stations.
Have fun getting them to not flip out every 2 weeks and break your scanner, video, etc, though.
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Apple won't be dropping ethernet just because light peak can also carry ethernet data. They didn't drop it when they introduced firewire (which also does IP networking if you want it to), did they?
This (and this is a rumour article, and in no way constitutes a press release from Apple, but assuming that light peak on MPBs is what will happen) is just the new high speed external I/O. USB keyboards will still be USB, Bluetooth keyboards will still be Bluetooth, ethernet cables will still be RJ-45.
It could mak
Mind your B's (Score:2, Informative)
10G[B]/s or 10G[b]/s? Wikipedia says 10Gb/s.
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To one-up Apple... (Score:3)
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They've gone to plaid!
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Yes, Microsoft took Light Speed and increased the speed of it!
Unfortunately, data went to the past, instead of going to the other connector.
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Sure why not (Score:2)
Another parasitic blog that scrambles the facts (Score:5, Insightful)
CNet (Score:3)
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but in this case it's not clear that you've traced the story back to it's origination.
It's is clear though that the blog cited by the submitter and endorsed by Slashdot isn't it.
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Re:Yet another Apple "standard" (Score:5, Insightful)
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...and the whole "everything must be USB" shenanigan that Apple fanboys like to brag about so much was a big "screw you" to every existing Mac user that dared to be legacy Apple customers.
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As opposed to the legacy technology that's still in use by every other company?
Tell me, how is that Microsoft PlaysForSure?
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802.11n - the AirPort was one of the first to support that spec, even before it was finalized. Therefore, by the OP's logic, it must have been an Apple standard.
Re:Yet another Apple "standard" (Score:5, Funny)
You misspelled Firewire
Re:Yet another Apple "standard" (Score:4, Interesting)
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"To this day, some PC MBs still come with connectors that are rarely used."
by HOME USERS.
Professionally I use a rs232 port daily... some days I use it hourly. In most professional uses of a PC those "legacy" ports are highly used.
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Let's be fair though, you can get USB bridges for most of those legacy ports. It's not like the tech is abandoned entirely.
Other than RS232, who's using IEEE1284? Who's using PS/2 Mouse/keyboard connectors?
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Who's using PS/2 Mouse/keyboard connectors?
Model M for life, yo.
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Who's using PS/2 Mouse/keyboard connectors?
/me raises hand sheepishly. I'm still using the IBM Model M keyboard that I got with a cast-off 286 (the first computer I ever had that was mine, and not shared with someone else) in the mid-1990s. It's the only keyboard I've ever owned; I found it to be a little surreal when they became collectors' items in the past decade or so. I'm also still using a no-name $8 PS/2 mouse (one of the early optical mice) that I got about ten years ago. Maybe I should turn in my geek card for not bothering to upgrade m
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Apple wasn't the first to put USB on computers.
Apple was the first to give users NO OTHER OPTION.
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but to FORCE me to buy expensive adapters and/or all new peripherals everytime Steve Job's gets a hard on for a new port. Fuck him.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
If you don't like it, don't upgrade. When USB dropped, new port technology wasn't new. We went from what, Bus mice, to serial, to PS2 and not even in that order.
Necessity is the mother of pushing new products. No one cared about USB hubs back when USB devices first started shipping in what, 1994? 1995? Now every machine has a crapload of ports. it was a necessary sacrifice. It's not like ADB, PS2 and serial stopped working th
Re:Yet another Apple "standard" (Score:4, Informative)
USB wasn't a standard option at the time of windows 98. Indeed it wasn't until winXP that you could use a USB keyboard easily, as the built in BIOS wouldn't use USB keyboards for setup.
Apple doesn't pioneer a lot of things. apple is usually the first to bring them to the mass market intelligently.
Also USB support in windows 98 sucked. you needed to install drivers for everything but mice and keyboards.
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MacBook Air comes with Flash storage. Apple has said it themselves they are moving in that direction where SSDs would become the norm.
Re:What's the use (Score:4, Interesting)
Presumably you can plug it into something much faster. When I was video editing on my old G4 PowerBook, I plugged in a couple of 7200RPM drives on a FireWire 800 chain. This was much faster than the local disk - I used one for scratch renders and one for the project. The external disks could each handle about 30MB/s, back when my internal drive couldn't hit 10MB/s, and FW800 was fast enough for both disks to be running that the same time.
These days, you could easily plug in some external SSDs, and hit an order of magnitude or so higher transfer rate. I'd also be quite surprised if Apple introduced new MacBook Pros without making internal SSDs standard across the entire line (as they did with the MacBook Air already), in which case the internal disk is much less likely to be a bottleneck for anything.
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I have family AV library on a Mac Mini server (with a couple 1GB drives hanging off it by Firewire). It can stream 3 different movies (to Mac laptops/iMac) simultaneously via wireless without stuttering so that works for around the house. What I'd like to see is iTunes (on my server) able to stream over 3G to iPhone/iPads the way EyeTV can. That would be sweet!
Re:What's the use (Score:5, Informative)
Light Peak isn't really a port standard like USB or Firewire, it's a consolidator. You can run USB over Light Peak, same with Firewire, HDMI, Audio, Networking, etc. The goal with Light Peak is to connect two cords to your laptop (power and Light Peak) and have everything connected to the other end of Light Peak (Monitor, USB keyboard/mouse, Firewire drive, Ethernet, etc), making it much less cluttered around your laptop and enabling you to pick it up and go fairly quickly. This really shows off in smaller devices, take a Netbook or a Tablet, instead of needing all that space and hardware for USB, and the like you can simply route it over Light Peak and have one connector take care of it all.
Since this is an Intel standard (albeit sponsored and pushed by Apple) it doesn't come with the restrictions that Apple would have placed on it if it were their own standard. This should be fairly open and available. I bet within a year, two at most, nearly all laptops will have this port, and there will be expansion cards available for PC's to add the port. That is, unless it's a total flop, which is possible.
Re:What's the use (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe not even that - they'll possibly have power & light peak in one cable: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/20/apple_to_announce_new_high_speed_connector_for_macs_report_claims.html [appleinsider.com]
yeah but... (Score:2)
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But you can run audio, video, ethernet, and USB over displayport and displayport has 20 Gb/s.
I don't understand why do a new tech when a standard already exists with twice the bandwidth and an eye for encapsulating other common needs.
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Cable length
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DisplayPort [wikipedia.org]
Bandwidth - 1.62, 2.7, or 5.4 Gbit/s data rate per lane; 1, 2, or 4 lanes; (effective total 5.184, 8.64, or 17.28 Gbit/s for 4-lane link); 1 Mbit/s or 720 Mbit/s for the auxiliary channel.
Light Peak [wikipedia.org]
Bandwidth - 10 Gbit/s (demonstrated), 100 Gbit/s (claimed by 2020)
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Are you saying that, instead of my laptop currently having several USB ports, there would just be one LightPeak port on the laptop, which would connect to all of the USB devices? How would that work?
Re:What's the use (Score:4, Informative)
No, no, no. You connect your lightPeak to a hub, or to your monitor, and then run your USB/FW/DP cables from that hub to everything else. For a desktop, it's almost useless, as the octopus now originates from your monitor, or perhaps a hub near your monitor. You still need the regular ports on your PC so that you can have a small octopus from your external HD, camera, network, etc coming from the computer for things that run right off the main box.
The real (only?) advantage I see is that this could become a docking port connector to replace the (limited) port replicators and unique-by-laptop-series docking station connections.
Re:What's the use (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What's the use (Score:5, Insightful)
This is complete and total bullshit. Apple has promoted open standards FOR YEARS. Webkit? Apple's (yes I know it was built off of khtml). CUPS? Apple owns and maintains it. HTML5 vs. flash? Apple supports the open standard. Firewire? Apple was one of the few major players to support it. USB? Apple helped drive the wide-spread adoption of USB by forcing its use with the imacs.
The bottom line is that if you think Apple doesn't support open standards, you're either a troll or badly misinformed. It could be you're thinking of another major industry player [microsoft.com] who likes to buy off standards committees [arstechnica.com].
Re:What's the use (Score:4, Interesting)
Firewire? Apple was one of the few major players to support it.
They didn't just support it. From what I remember, Firewire (the original Firewire 400) was actually invented by Apple. And it was open for everyone to use. The only thing restrictive about Firewire which Apple might be guilty of is their ownership of the logo for it.
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The only thing restrictive about Firewire which Apple might be guilty of is their ownership of the logo for it.
Not true. [teener.com]
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Nope they where not standard... they where usua, but connectors etc could be different from device to device even though they implemented the same protocols etc.
USB is closer to a standard, and Firewire is an standard, governed by IEEE. OpenCL is a Standard that Apple initiated but is governed now by Khronos Group.
In that sense Googles WebM is not a standard but MPEG 4 is which has h.264 and is governed by ISO/IEC. h.264 even has an ISO number.
So while some tote Apples webkit as an Standard it's not a stand
Re:What's the use (Score:4, Interesting)
Some recent Shuffle with lockout of unauthorized headset controls?
To what are you refering? If you're referring to the iLounge article, you should do your homework. Despite the hysteria of the iLounge article, Ars Technica [arstechnica.com] found that there is no authentication in the headsets. iPod Shuffle 3rd generation headset have to have the controls built-in to the headsets but there is no DRM chip. At least two 3rd parties in the article confirmed that they had headsets available and that they didn't require authentication but merely a change in design from other headsets.
Lack of access to those players via file system or MTP?
I think you're confusing a method and a requirement. See the requirement is that you needed to sync up your music on your computer with the player. It used to be necessary that you needed file access to move your files onto your PMP player as few had syncing software that worked well. The method was required. If you still want to be able to do that, then that's your choice. It's not a requirement these days.
One-off DRM? (no, it isn't gone - look at, say, e-books; or generally "one appstore to rule them all")
I don't think you quite understand how content systems work. See the content provider whether it is music company or a book publisher gets to decide whether they want DRM. If Apple or MS or whoever wants to be able to sell their content, they have to negotiate with the content provider. Amazon was able to get DRM-free music because the music companies realized too late that their insistence on DRM only made Apple more powerful; however, if you remember correctly Apple offered DRM free music before Amazon as EMI had allowed them to sell it although at a slightly higher price. The other music companies did not agree until about a year later. If you have a problem with DRM, I suggest you have a talk with the content providers.
They don't appear to have much of a very clear position when it comes to promoting open standards... just when it seems practical to them, I guess.
And how is that different from any other company?
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Sometimes data isn't intended to be written to a disk.
Do you save-to-disk every YouTube video you watch?
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Do you save-to-disk every YouTube video you watch?
I believe the browser usually does, or used to anyway.
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Depends on the headers sent with the video.
One of my clients requires that streamed videos not be stored on the client machines.
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What's a Beiber? [youtube.com]
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Buffering can happen to RAM.
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>>>What's the use of this high speed
Uncompressed video which requires ~3 Gbit/s to stream 60fps 1080p.
Re:What's the use (Score:5, Interesting)
As some others are pointing out, this is not about moving data to/from the internal hard drive. It's about accessing data quickly, and consolidating connectors.
I just got a new display for my laptop so I have a bigger screen when I'm at home. When I get home, I plug in:
- power
- left usb
- ext speakers
- dvi
- right usb
- ethernet
- firewire
That's a LOT of stuff to mess with every time I dock/undock. I'd LOVE it if they'd change the magsafe so the center (data) pin was a full duplex optical connector that could make one thin cable break out ALL of that stuff I have to plug in one at a time now. It may not cover all of those angles, but I'm hoping it does. It's possible.
Also there's a connector wear issue. full size DVI cables aren't the best thing to have to be constantly plugging/unplugging. Ethernet cables break their clips. USB starts to go in upside-down. Ext speakers fit nicely in the mic port. And none of them is really built for a very high number of operations like the magport is.
As for speed, imagine much faster access to external storage - a nice RAID5 hooked to your laptop via lightpeak, for editing video, where the speed limitation is your cpu, your ram amount/speed, and your storage. Laptops as you point out have speed issues with internal storage, between 5400-7200 usually, so external storage is a better choice. Natively best you can do is firewire800, 79mb/sec. (the other faster option is getting an esata expresscard, I have one, they can be 150mb/sec+) But imagine 250mb/sec+ lightpeak access speeds for video editing, no card required. *drool*
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Might as well throw in USB 3.0 as well.
The one thing I like about my Dell laptop at work compared with my MacBook at home is that PC manufacturers make docks. I don't have to unplug/insert a bunch of cables every time I want to move.
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Well if Apple would make real docks (Score:2)
Those of us who have/had Apple laptops would not have to do the cord dance all the time. The one thing I love about my work laptop (its a Dell) is that I have a dock for it. So when I need an external keyboard/mouse, large monitor, speakers, and whatnot, I just put the laptop on the dock. No messy cabling required because I did it once.
I really think Apple's lack of dock features is purely aesthetic, as in they don't want to sully their cases with a dock connector. For no other reason can I understand t
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It would be a rare case, but I would say using the laptop on a production shoot, where the laptop would be feeding into a Xstore or other RAID cluster.
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How is intel delaying 3.0 when it's already out on pretty much every new motherboard out there? Get your facts straight you friggin drama queen
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The quote about Intel delaying is in TFA but it didn't make sense as it also said the delay was in 2010.
I also accidentally submitted this both before I was done writing it and to the wrong thread so I deserve the troll rating.
Sorry!
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How is intel delaying 3.0 when it's already out on pretty much every new motherboard out there?
Firstly, they're refusing to integrate it into their chipsets, so every motherboard with USB 3.0 has to have several expensive additional chips to support it (and since Intel's chipsets are so severely lacking in PCIe bandwidth, these often can't reach anywhere near full USB 3.0 speeds). Secondly, they've refused to finalize the xHCI interface standard for USB 3.0 controllers, so every single third-party manufacturer has had to come up with their own mutually-incompatible controller design that requires its
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Intel is doing something I don't like... Let's all boycott Apple!!!!!
Are you going to boycott Intel chips too? That's a lot harder than you think...
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Who said anything about a boycott?
I also stated above that I meant this to go on a different thread (a response in an older one) but i screwed it it up.
Sorry again. I'm embarrassed.
Cause and effect... (Score:2)
Case in point- I also know quite a few video editors loyal to Final Cut that are now looking to move to Adobe Premiere
Its pretty clear that Apple are gradually shifting from the Pro Video/Graphics market and positioning Mac as a "pro-sumer" brand. What's not so clear is whether that is causing graphics pros to abandon the platform, or if the change was motivated by the fact that pros were already abandoning the platform.
Apple got established in the pro graphics/DTP/video market partly because, back in the day, their hardware/software platform ran rings around MS-DOS/Intel systems. Today they don't have such a clear-cut a
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The main factor I'm aware of in the migration away from Final Cut systems is lack of support (they've pretty much stopped updating it) and cost of maintenance/storage.
With Final Cut Pro it takes 4 Apple servers to create a decent HD asset storage array because they've pretty much completely stopped caring that their professional workflow suggestions are laughable on their face. 4 Servers not including the storage medium! WTF?
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what does intel delaying their release of USB have anything to do with video production?
because it[Premiere] costs a third to operate over FC at this point - this includes the video department company where I work).
That's another alienated group of classic Apple users who are moving away from the platform.
really?
i believe the cost of video production that a post-house would be worried about is the actual production time, i.e. rendering of the final video and time that an artist/production personnel aren't billing, not the cost of the software that functions as the A-B decks. let's also not forget the cost of the SANs necessary to store the digital (HD) assets in both pre and post rendered form, which cost a butt-load. so
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really?
i believe the cost of video production that a post-house would be worried about is the actual production time, i.e. rendering of the final video and time that an artist/production personnel aren't billing, not the cost of the software that functions as the A-B decks. let's also not forget the cost of the SANs necessary to store the digital (HD) assets in both pre and post rendered form, which cost a butt-load. so saving a few dollars on software and hardware, while important, is trivial compared to other costs related to video production.
You're statement makes a lot of assumptions about the scale and process of a post-house. Video houses are not a borg and different kinds of productions have different needs. If you're a broadcast studio ingesting and rendering hours of HD footage every day the software and hardware costs could pail in comparison to your staffing and workflow management costs.
If you're a smaller business it makes a BIG FREAKING DEAL how much you're spending on software/hardware overhead. Saving 80K annually on hardware/sof
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You're not even a good troll.
Intel is delaying their new updates because they just lost a couple hundred million dollars in bad Sandy Bridge chipsets that they now have to retool and remanufacture. That was SATA Rev2 that caused that problem, but if I were Intel I'd avoid trying to rush anything out the doors following that fiasco.
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For those of us building our own computers, the i7 9__ Extreme was 6-cores...and the Xeons are up to 8-core versions.
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Fast forward to 2010, after waiting and waiting for over half a year after Dell and other manufacturers were coming out with QUAD-CORE i7 laptops, Apple finally rolls out DUAL-CORE i7s in their Macbook pros while they give their iMac line quad-cores, essentially making their PROFESSIONAL LAPTOP line lower powered compared to their commodity consumer line.
Don't you think that has more to do with how Intel changed their mobile chipsets than Apple's call? A key difference between Intel's Core 2 Duo and their i3, i5, and i7 series on mobile was the integration of Intel's GPU in the chipset. Intel integrated other features and that's great except that not every laptop maker wants to use Intel's GPU. Companies like Dell merely do not use the onboard GPU and use the ATI/nVidia chip instead for their higher end laptops. But the thing is, the GPU is still runnin
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You're kind of wrong.
From what I understand, the C2D/i$number issue in lower end products and the 13" MBPro has to do with the fact nVidia and Intel got into a huge spat about chipsets.
Now that nVidia's not making i3/i5/i7 chipsets, getting good 3D in a tiny(well, for MBAir, MacBook and 13" MBPro) integrated logic board is kind of a frustrating challenge. Previously, they could've just used an nVidia chipset part that handled north/south bridge AND GPU.
You don't need a quad-core i7 (Score:2)
on a laptop.
Re:I'm thinking... (Score:5, Informative)
You mean like the mini-Displayport - a port they standardised and has been rolled into the displayport standard, that is also royalty free?
All of the ports on the back of a Mac are standard - USB, Firewire, Mini-displayport, ethernet, 3.5mm hybrid toslink/analog audio, SD card reader (some machines)...
Sorry, what "trendy white gold latched cable that I can only use with one computer" are you talking about? None of my cables that are hooked up to my Mac are from Apple, except the power cord and that's a standard IEC "kettle lead" too.
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