Pro Tools 2019 !

[Meads]

Originally Posted by justinhill

The 7.1 or whatever it's called will be bigger and will no doubt be field-upgradable but I'd be surprised to see PCI slots in it. Apple were the first to dump diskette drives and at the time all us Pro Tools dealers thought they'd lost their minds. They were the first to dump optical drives, too. They shocked us at the time when all the serial ports disappeared to be replaced with nothing but this strange USB thing. In a funny kind of way I'd be disappointed if the next Mac Pro had PCI.

My bet is it's going to be stackable units. You buy the core unit which has CPU, RAM, some storage and some kind of video output.
And they're going to offer video units, storage units, and maybe some kind of "performance boost" units that interface with the core CPU somehow. Maybe the latter is too far fetched.
But I would think they're going to offer a unit with PCIe slots as well. PCIe cards are widely established in the pro market. And ridding consumer computers of an optical drive while providing a forward thinking replacement is different from ignoring infrastructure of professional environments with a machine that is addressing those environments.
But then it's Apple, so all bets are off.

[Philthy]

Originally Posted by Meads

My bet is it's going to be stackable units. You buy the core unit which has CPU, RAM, some storage and some kind of video output.
And they're going to offer video units, storage units, and maybe some kind of "performance boost" units that interface with the core CPU somehow. Maybe the latter is too far fetched.
But I would think they're going to offer a unit with PCIe slots as well. PCIe cards are widely established in the pro market. And ridding consumer computers of an optical drive while providing a forward thinking replacement is different from ignoring infrastructure of professional environments with a machine that is addressing those environments.
But then it's Apple, so all bets are off.

For their sake I hope you're wrong... they're trying to reinvent the wheel. We have a universally accepted design for workstations and it's great. It's compact, it's supported by hundreds of parts companies, and it's already modular. Need a video card? Choose from hundreds. Need RAM? Dozens of companies and hundreds of products. A power supply? Ditto. Hard drives? Ditto. There is no problem asking to be solved by some wacky new design- except the problem of, how can Apple possibly squeeze more money out of us?

[RobertDorn]

Update

[jasonkalman]

Originally Posted by RobertDorn

Update

Thanks for posting the link. That is reassuring. I'm actually reservedly optimistic.

[Neale]

I don’t understand the optimism. They have said it would be released the second week of May, and now the big chief says he “expects” it... not that it WILL be released, that he EXPECTS it. Just like the rest of us expect it, I guess.

This isn’t manufacturing. There isn’t lead time or inventory to ship. I don’t understand how there is a projected release date for software. It’s ready or it isn’t. If it was going to be ready this week, it wasn’t any less ripe or ready when you made that announcement, unless you’re just optimistic that your already delayed development will somehow just manage to get it done when your marketing department decides to announce a release date... which is not how I’d personally run a software release.

I hope it’ll be released this week. I’m looking forward to the EUCON improvements if nothing else.

[jasonkalman]

Originally Posted by Neale

I don’t understand the optimism. They have said it would be released the second week of May, and now the big chief says he “expects” it... not that it WILL be released, that he EXPECTS it. Just like the rest of us expect it, I guess.

This isn’t manufacturing. There isn’t lead time or inventory to ship. I don’t understand how there is a projected release date for software. It’s ready or it isn’t. If it was going to be ready this week, it wasn’t any less ripe or ready when you made that announcement, unless you’re just optimistic that your already delayed development will somehow just manage to get it done when your marketing department decides to announce a release date... which is not how I’d personally run a software release.

I hope it’ll be released this week. I’m looking forward to the EUCON improvements if nothing else.

Good points and that is why I am cautiously optimistic. Like you said, the software is either ready or it is not, simple as that. If it is not ready 3 days before the release then how can anyone be certain it will be ready in 3 days. It is either ready now or it is not. Frustrating, but at least we are finally hearing something from Avid. It is reassuring that they worked closely with Apple to get the OS compatibility tight. I'm hoping for significant improvements across the board in how PTs runs on the latest Macs. We should and I say should because I don't think this will happen, but we should be able to run VIs to our hearts content. If that is the case, then victory for us all and I'll embrace the continuous plugin add/drop playback thing or whatever they call it. I can't use 1024 midi tracks, but if I could get 10 to run efficiently without having to freeze everything, then again, win. Not sure what else Avid has up their sleeves, but the tweet implies that there is much more to come in 2019. Perhaps the delay was worth it if they get it right the first time out the gate, rather then rushing it out 1.5 months early only to have to release updates to address the bugs they didn't have time to fix. This doesn't in any way exonerate Avid from not being able to meet their own deadlines, but I'll take it if it works. If nothing else, one benefit from the delayed release has been that I've re-bonded with Logic and the UA Apollo. Man that is a seriously professional combination. 2019.5 will have to really impress me to move back to PTs full time.

I think that is the crux of the dilemma Avid finds themselves in these days. The competition is fierce. Apogee, Lynx, Antelope, UA all make compelling hardware that rivals if not beats Avid's hardware. Logic, Ableton, Cubase, etc all make compelling software that seriously competes with PTs. As Avid falls further and further behind the competition, it will be harder for them to keep customers. Come on Avid, keep PTs and your hardware better than the competition, like it used to be! Like someone else posted earlier "Make Avid Great Again!"

[gonsdeejay]

Originally Posted by Neale

I don’t understand the optimism. They have said it would be released the second week of May, and now the big chief says he “expects” it... not that it WILL be released, that he EXPECTS it. Just like the rest of us expect it, I guess.

This isn’t manufacturing. There isn’t lead time or inventory to ship. I don’t understand how there is a projected release date for software. It’s ready or it isn’t. If it was going to be ready this week, it wasn’t any less ripe or ready when you made that announcement, unless you’re just optimistic that your already delayed development will somehow just manage to get it done when your marketing department decides to announce a release date... which is not how I’d personally run a software release.

I hope it’ll be released this week. I’m looking forward to the EUCON improvements if nothing else.

The thing is, Some people change the release week date on May, but I don't know, I have a feeling on the release date, maybe will go until June

[DigiTechSupt]

Please observe the Terms of Use when this thread re-opens. Specifically:

1. You will not insult others.
2. Stay on-topic within threads, or start a new thread for a different/new topic.

[justinhill]

Originally Posted by Neale

This isn’t manufacturing. There isn’t lead time or inventory to ship.

In fairness, it kind of is... getting the software finished is one thing, but they have to make sure the documentation and release notes (in multiple languages I assume) is written and proofed, they have to test the installer program, upload everything to the servers and test the download process, be prepared for a high demand on the servers as soon as they push the release button, and so forth.

[Neale]

Originally Posted by justinhill

In fairness, it kind of is... getting the software finished is one thing, but they have to make sure the documentation and release notes (in multiple languages I assume) is written and proofed, they have to test the installer program, upload everything to the servers and test the download process, be prepared for a high demand on the servers as soon as they push the release button, and so forth.

In fairness... they’re not new to this. And the release was already pushed back. And this isn’t a brand new from scratch release, it’s just an update.

So... docs and release notes? Easy, just addendums.

Servers and load capacity? They’ve done this before.

I see no reason why anything would cause WEEKS for an advance notice of release.

In any case... here’s hoping it’s today, as noted elsewhere in the DUC.