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Staff BlogsHardware Category
Replacing the CRT * Plasma * DLP * SED (which looks very promising - not out yet though) * OLED * FED This article is well worth checking out. Categories: Video Editing, Industry, Hardware Is this the death of FireWire? Someone posted an email purportedly from Steve Jobs onto Flickr in which Steve states that most modern consumer camcorders nowadays operate over USB 2. That may well be the case but as we all know, FireWire is the superior standard and it seems silly in my eyes to phase it out in favor of an inferior format. It seems like a case of Betamax vs VHS in which the most convenient format and not the best format actually won, with the best format relegated solely to the professional market. It's a great shame in my eyes. Advertising may also play a part too - USB 2 is advertised as operating at 480 Mbps vs FireWire's 400 Mbps which looks good on paper but as we all know, FireWire is capable of sustaining 400 Mbps whereas 480 Mbps is just a theoretical limit for USB 2. FireWire still hasn't achieved mass adoption among PC users. Apple is its primary proponent so if Apple lets it go, it will most likely die (as a consumer format at least). It's good to see it remain on the professional side - where I think it will stay for some time - but it's a little more inconvenient to now need an adapter to use FireWire 400 equipment. This is inconvenient because there seems to be considerably more 400 equipment out there than 800. The most troubling thing for me isn't the demise of FireWire, it's the lack of a suitable replacement from Apple. eSATA would be great for hard drives but Apple seems to be shunning it for reasons unknown. Categories: Apple, Hardware, Analysis Blu-ray is a "bag of hurt" says Steve Jobs According to Engadget, Steve Jobs is blaming licensing issues for the current lack of Blu-ray on the Mac. "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace." It's good to finally hear something from Apple on this subject. I guess, much like when Apple introduced DVD burners, they are waiting for larger consumer adoption and significant falls in the price of media before committing. Unfortunately that's not so helpful for Pro App users. Categories: Apple, Hardware, DVD New laptops and Cinema Displays Cinema Displays * 24" screen * Price: $899 * ONLY the new design is available in black and silver. The old designs (20", 23" and 30") are still available on the store but we don't know for how long. * LED backlight (easier on both the eye and the environment at the same time) * Built-in iSight camera, mic and speakers * Internal MagSafe power adapter that allows you to charge a MacBook * Built-in USB ports, NO Firewire * Connects via MiniDVI * Max resolution 1920x1080 * Glossy glass screen * Contrast ratio 1000:1 (massive increase from 400:1) * 14 ms response time (same as previous gen) My thoughts - Seems to be aimed at consumers due to the lack of FireWire, relatively low resolution (the old 23" offered 1920x1200), glossy screen, Mini DVI connector and the fact that every single photograph shows a MacBook tethered to it. Looks nice for watching HD iTunes movies on though. And it gets bonus points for a huge increase in contrast ratio. I wouldn't advise it for color-critical work though. Read more... MacBook * One-piece aluminum cases (this is the "brick" everyone was referring to) * The original white plastic MacBook remains but lowered to $999 * GeForce 9400M graphics chipset (256 MB shared memory) delivers a significant boost in graphics performance over the previous Intel on-board graphics * Ultra-thin LED display * All-glass multi-touch trackpad * 5 hours of "wireless productivity" * USB-only, NO Firewire Low-end model ($1299): * 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo * 3MB L2 cache * 2GB of RAM (expandable to 4 GB) * 160GB HD (or upgrade to 320 GB HD or 128 GB SSD) * 8x Superdrive * 2x USB High-end model ($1599): * 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo * 3MB L2 cache, 2GB of RAM (expandable to 4 GB) * 250GB HD (or 320 GB HD or 128 GB SSD) * 8x Superdrive * 2x USB My thoughts - The graphical upgrades are much-appreciated but there is no FireWire which makes it of limited professional use. Also, there is no indication as to whether or not these machines can boot into Target Disk Mode (which makes the machine behave like an external hard disk which is great for backing up data if the machine fails). Read more... MacBook Air * Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics chipset * Identical form factor to previous model * SSD doubled in size from 64 to 128 GB * Faster CPU Low-end model ($1799): * 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo * 6 MB L2 Cache * 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 Memory * 120 GB SATA hard drive High-end model ($2499): * 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo * 6 MB L2 Cache * 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 Memory * 128 GB solid state drive My thoughts - Could be good if a lightweight machine is important. Speed is now less of an issue than with the previous model but still a significant factor. No FireWire so storage options are limited. Read more... MacBook Pro All the features of the MacBook above, as well as: * 256 MB GeForce 9600M GT graphics in addition to the GeForce 9400 * Only 15" models available Low-end model ($1999): * 15.4" LED-backlit display * 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo (3MB L2 cache) * 2GB DDR3 RAM * 250 GB 5400 RPM hard drive (or 250 GB 7200 RPM or 320GB 7200 RPM or 128GB solid-state drive) * Slot-loading Super Drive * FireWire 800 replaces FireWire 400 High-end model ($2400): * 15.4" LED-backlit display * 2.53 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo (6MB of L2 cache) (with 2.8 GHz upgrade option) * 4GB DDR3 RAM * 320 GB 5400 RPM hard drive (or 250 GB 7200 RPM or 320GB 7200 RPM or 128GB solid-state drive) * Slot-loading Super Drive My thoughts - Out of all of the new products unveiled today, this is the only one geared at professional users. It's faster (2.8 up from 2.6) and has faster memory and front side bus. It also has a 128 GB solid-state disk as an option, which will give a further speed boost. It's not a must-buy for previous MacBook Pro owners as the main selling point is the visual redesign, but it's good if you're in the market for a new machine. It's worth noting that this machine does not have FireWire 400 ports so you will need a FireWire 800 to 400 adapter in order to use FireWire 400 equipment with it. Read more... Conclusion It is interesting to note how Apple seems to be separating its professional lines from its consumer lines. The new graphics chips in the MacBooks make them much better for Final Cut Studio but the lack of FireWire now cripples them in that regard. I think this is deliberate. There's nothing here to make pro users sit up and take notice but if you're in the market for a new MacBook Pro, you'll benefit from the speed bump and the (hopefully) more rugged design due to the new one-piece construction of the base. Blu-ray unfortunately wasn't a feature in these new machines but then again, OS X 10.5.6 wasn't released either and there's no way they could introduce Blu-ray drives without OS support. But it does complicate the issue because if Apple were to, for example, release OS X 10.5.6 in two weeks with Blu-ray support in the OS, their laptop line would probably not be updated for another 3-4 months, whereas they could have just waited if Blu-ray support was just around the corner. I'm sure Apple must be working on this somewhere in their facility but when it will materialize remains to be seen. The next big event is Macworld in January so fingers crossed it will appear then. Edit: One thing I didn't realize at first is that Apple is ONLY offering the MacBook Pro in a glossy screen configuration - the matte option previously offered is no longer present. The thing about glossy screens is that when calibrated properly, they are fully capable of reproducing accurate colors in a perfect environment. The gloss on the screen tends to reflect the environment which makes it virtually useless for professional work in most environments. I'm sure a third-party will create a matte screen cover for the MacBook Pro but for a machine supposedly targeted at professionals, they really shouldn't have to. This is disappointing. Categories: Apple, Hardware Blu-ray coming soon to the Mac?1. Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, made correct iPod predictions (including leaked photos) in August of this year. He also made accurate predictions about iTunes 8, such as the Genius bar and several other features. This is clearly a man with inside information. Well, around the same time he predicted that OS X 10.5.6 (we're on 10.5.5 now so that's the very next version) will have Blu-ray support built into the OS. Given his track record, there could well be substance in that. 2. Apple announced this week that it is holding a press event this Tuesday October 14th. As you can see from the invitation below (via Ars Technica) it is clearly related to notebooks. Apple wouldn't make a big deal about a minor speed bump so this must be a significant redesign.  3. Kevin Rose dropped another rumor on Friday. He claimed that Apple's press event this Tuesday will reveal laptops with Blu-ray drives. 4. AppleInsider claims it can confirm that Apple will be doing away with integrated Intel graphics for the MacBook line and using NVIDIA's MCP79 instead. This has a lot of nice features but the most significant is the integrated GeForce 9300 / 9400 chips on the motherboard. As well as supporting Open CL (the ability to use the graphics processor for regular computing tasks) in advance for OS X Snow Leopard, these chips offer full Blu-ray acceleration. Ok, that last one could well be coincidence but I think there's lots to suggest that Apple is moving towards Blu-ray. People have been claiming that Apple will skip Blu-ray altogether and concentrate on their iTunes rental business but Apple is on the Blu-ray board. Why would they be on the board if they were determined not to use Blu-ray at all? Other people seem to be shocked by the rumor, claiming that Apple would never introduce something so soon. Well, firstly, it's not shocking at all because a lot of new laptops have Blu-ray drives nowadays and secondly, this is the company that bucked the trend by killing off the floppy drive that is STILL present in PCs to this day. I guess we'll find out on Tuesday. Categories: Apple, Industry, Hardware After Effects CS4 to drop PowerPC support By focusing on Intel Macs, we save a huge amount of engineering and testing time. This means that we will be able to complete more features for a larger group of customers and deliver the best release possible. Plus, some CS4 technology is so new that it never existed on PowerPC Macs. So After Effects CS3 is the last Universal Binary version so if you still have a PPC Mac, you'll have to buy it before the new one goes on sale (which is a bit tricky because a release date hasn't been announced). It should be noted that this only applies to After Effects and not Photoshop or the other apps but it's obvious that they will all go that way eventually. I don't see this as a major issue as the number of Intel users is currently very large and will get even larger by the time CS4 is released. It's a shame for people with old PPC machines still kicking around (me) though, and it's reducing the resale value of the older machines. Universal Binaries were such a great idea but to companies who also develop for Windows and have very large codebases, it unfortunately makes more sense to make Intel-only versions. Categories: Hardware, Software, Visual Effects Third party Mac Pro Blu-ray drives The drive alone is $499 but there is also a version bundled with Roxio Toast 9 for $599. An external version is available for $749. It requires OS X 10.5.2 or higher but no device drivers are needed. Currently the only Mac applications capable of burning Blu-ray movies are Roxio Toast 9 and Adobe Encore CS3, however there are quite a few more available for Windows if you have a Boot Camp partition available. [via TUAW] Categories: Apple, Hardware, DVD Mac Pro and Xserve overclocking tool Overclocking is the process of artificially increasing the clock speed of your processor and memory in order to make it operate at a faster rate. For example, you could make a 2.8 GHz processor operate at 3.0 GHz without the expense of purchasing a faster CPU. This is very popular in the Windows world, particularly with hardcore video gamers, who have managed to push CPUs beyond 4 GHz. However, increasing the clock rate also increases the power consumption and heat output of the CPU. Upgrading the power supply and increasing the CPU cooling may be necessary - areas that may be tricky with tightly-designed Apple products. I wouldn't advise doing this on a machine that you depend upon every day but it might be useful for a render farm machine where speed is important and the task will be taken up by another machine if there are any crashes or failures. Another final thing to note is that your system performance will only be as fast as the slowest link in the chain. If you overclock your CPU but have a really slow hard disk or not very much RAM, the performance increase will be limited. All in all though, this is a very useful tool for Mac users as long as they are aware of the dangers and potential issues. It could also encourage more video gamers to switch to the Mac. Categories: Apple, Hardware, Software ATI announces Radeon HD 3870 Mac and PC Edition  This must be welcome news for Mac Pro owners, as the current alternative, the NVIDIA 8800 GT suffers from underwhelming ProApp performance, despite the recent improvements in the 10.5.3 update. Here is a specification comparison:
ATI also claims a performance boost in Motion of 30-180%. Barefeats found a 21-41% performance increase over the 8800 GT - for $60 less. It is also compatible with ALL Mac Pros and available from most ATI resellers (the 8800 GT Mac Edition is only available from the Apple Store). This looks to be well worth buying. Categories: Hardware, Final Cut Pro More WWDC 2008 Day 1 news3G iPhone * Not 3G but is actually 3.5G * Thinner at the edges but actually thicker in the middle than its predecessor by 0.7mm and slightly taller (people are making way too big a deal about this) AT&T * Apple no longer gets a cut of the subscription fee from AT&T * No more prescribed service plans - mix and match data and voice * Starting price: $30 a month for unlimited 3G data plus $39.99 a month for voice. Text messages are no longer included so add $5. This means the price increases from $59.99 a month to $74.99 a month. And that is the base plan. As someone who was put off more by the monthly price than the initial cost of the phone, this doesn't make me happy. And this is entirely an AT&T thing because Apple no longer receive money from them. However, if you want to use your phone as an iPod Touch with internet access even when you're not near a WiFi point, this is a good thing. Or if you only use voice, for example. * In-store activation only, no more activating via iTunes * GoPhone service no longer available [via TUAW] So Apple adds features, AT&T takes features away. Great. Categories: Apple, Hardware, Analysis
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