Quote:
Originally Posted by jeremyroberts
PT9 HD +TDM will always be a more powerful rig than native alone.
A TDM rig will always have an advantage.
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Actually, I don't think that's the case. The Digi folks have hinted that off-line processing may be coming at some point. That will be a huge feature, power boost work flow enhancer (it sure has been for me already on Logic). TDM will always need to be real time, so you won't be able to take advantage of any off line features with plug-ins loaded in TDM. That'll be a big drawback.
In the native world, PT will be at a bit of a disadvantage in that it does not use kernel level processing like other DAWs, so it won't be as efficient at running huge plug-in counts. Still, it's pretty amazing the kind of counts you can run in native, and that will only get better. The one place where it will continue to be nice to have DSP is on input, to keep monitoring latency at a minimum. Maybe Avid will introduce a card for doing that (like the 2D cards in Metric Halo interfaces). It would be interesting to look inside the new Avid interfaces and see if there's a slot for such an expansion.
Regardless, there's not likely any new development to come for the current TDM, because the Motorola 56xxx chips are a dead end. If Avid release a new outboard DSP product, it's going to need plug-ins that will be recoded, so a lot of old TDM plugs will probably fall off the map.
I've heard that the Eleven rack uses Texas Instruments DSP. Maybe we'll see more of that. I do wonder where the DSP would go, though. In the interfaces? PCIe card? External box with FW connection? I have a feeling that Avid would like to avoid PCIe, because there just aren't enough slots on current Macs. Sure, you can add an expansion chassis, the chassis route has always been a PITA (I've owned about a half a dozen of them over the years, and they always had problems). PCIe would limit the number of cards sold, unless they can just sell one really massive card. And again, at the rate that computer power is increasing, few people are going to need it (especially if Avid implements freeze).