New "Mac Studio" from Apple

[Benoni]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

To an extent, yes. Video running in ProTools, and a limited amount of video editing.

Which app(s) would you be using for video? It might be worth checking out the Apple-provided demos which illustrate how well (i.e. quickly) it handles video. Quite a lot of hardware is being thrown at that specific task.

I use a few DAWs and a few NLEs. I need something that can handle screen recording at high quality with OBS while using CPU heavy audio plugins in a DAW for plugin reviews and demos. This can be a huge hit to CPU power. My HP Z with 20 cores does very well, only seldom overruns with certain plugins.

I use Davinci Resolve to edit video and sometimes After Effects for intros, logos, trailers, motion graphics etc... Sometimes the projects are simple with only a couple tracks of video and overlays, other times I'm mixing 4K footage with screen recording (like for a audio interface review) with tons of overlays and text which really slows down my system until the FX are rendered.

If I go full Mac I may start using Final Cut, but I just prefer DR for most things.

I often have several apps running at the same time. I'll be editing in my NLE and open my DAW to record some needed audio, and I may have OBS open at the same time to screen record a something else I need for the video and quickly drag it in to the NLE.

I don't have time to shut down each app and open them again each time I need a new piece of audio or screen recording, and I may have Affinity Photo open at the same time if I need to create some graphics for overlays, so the system has to be able to handle heavy multi-tasking.

[glasswing]

Another topic - The new Avid Link does not agree with my Mac Studio Ultra at all. More beach balls than Atlantic City. It looks great when first loaded but when I try to move something or see anything... here come the beach balls. I've uninstalled / reinstalled / rebooted / shut down / rebooted.
Is this peculiar to me?
Thanks

[Darryl Ramm]

Avid Link bloatware has had many problems. It's also of such low value why even bother wasting time trying to troubleshoot anything wrong with it. As has been advised on DUC by many of us for quite a while... just uninstall this bloatware off your computer.

[glasswing]

Yeah I knew that but it's so convenient when it works. But it doesn't work at all now. I went back to the version before this one and same ****. Beach balls. Sometimes the whole finder would freeze! Could be the new Monterey or PT 2022.7 - but P Tools has been working quite well for me.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by Benoni

I use Davinci Resolve to edit video and sometimes After Effects for intros, logos, trailers, motion graphics etc...

If I go full Mac I may start using Final Cut, but I just prefer DR for most things.

I did a very quick search through reviews of Resolve on a Mac Studio and responses were overwhelmingly positive. I heard "best investment I've ever made" after 10 seconds of randomly scrolling the YouTube timeline. And I've seen first-hand reports of FCP from editors who use it and again it's positive. Apple has certainly optimized FCP to work swimmingly with its machines, and render times have shrunk. Many accommodations have been made specifically for video as Apple knew this would be used by a slew of video people.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by glasswing

Yeah I knew that but it's so convenient when it works. But it doesn't work at all now. I went back to the version before this one and same ****. Beach balls. Sometimes the whole finder would freeze! Could be the new Monterey or PT 2022.7 - but P Tools has been working quite well for me.

If that's the only thing it's not worth the time thinking about it.

Monterey (even on Intel) is not the greatest MacOS release in my books, a few odd things (a bug where it keeps uploading voice audio data even if you re not using Siri/have this disabled, some mDNS resolver network thrashing going on as well, and various "WiFi slow" diag errors to syslog - unclear if that one is a serious problem or not, etc), these may explain why apps occasionally beach ball on my Intel Mac on Monterey but not Big Sur.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by glasswing

Another topic - The new Avid Link does not agree with my Mac Studio Ultra at all. More beach balls than Atlantic City. It looks great when first loaded but when I try to move something or see anything... here come the beach balls. I've uninstalled / reinstalled / rebooted / shut down / rebooted.
Is this peculiar to me?
Thanks

I haven't had any issues with it, but I would only run it when necessary so maybe that's why. I always prevent it from loading automatically on startup (it reinstates this "feature" after each update tho).

[Benoni]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

I did a very quick search through reviews of Resolve on a Mac Studio and responses were overwhelmingly positive. I heard "best investment I've ever made" after 10 seconds of randomly scrolling the YouTube timeline. And I've seen first-hand reports of FCP from editors who use it and again it's positive. Apple has certainly optimized FCP to work swimmingly with its machines, and render times have shrunk. Many accommodations have been made specifically for video as Apple knew this would be used by a slew of video people.

Yeah, I've seen a couple videos showing DR was rendering the same footage faster than FC with the new Mac Studio.

A lot of these people reviewing things don't do 'everything' though.

Most people are only using PT or they are a graphic designer, or a web developer, or a video editor, so when they do their tests you don't always get a full view of how things work for a person who does all these things at the same time.

I'm pretty confident from the reviews I've seen that the Mac Studio would handle video better than my current HP Z, but with video editing, real-time performance is not as important since things can be rendered offline or resolution can be reduced.

But when it comes to audio and screen capturing/streaming, real-time performance is king. I can't be having overruns in OBS because it ruins the video.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by Benoni

Yeah, I've seen a couple videos showing DR was rendering the same footage faster than FC with the new Mac Studio.

A lot of these people reviewing things don't do 'everything' though.

Most people are only using PT or they are a graphic designer, or a web developer, or a video editor, so when they do their tests you don't always get a full view of how things work for a person who does all these things at the same time.

I'm pretty confident from the reviews I've seen that the Mac Studio would handle video better than my current HP Z, but with video editing, real-time performance is not as important since things can be rendered offline or resolution can be reduced.

But when it comes to audio and screen capturing/streaming, real-time performance is king. I can't be having overruns in OBS because it ruins the video.

Coincidentally, I just read something last night about OBS now being Native Apple Silicon. I know the beta has been out for a bit so maybe this was the final release. In any case, that's good news.

[glasswing]

For those who are on the fence about whether current users are happy with their Mac Studio and Apple Silicon. Check this out -- https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/pro...%20-%208902459