“That doesn’t look like a Mac” (hint, it isn’t)
Two boxes showed up today and one of my employees says, “That doesn’t look like a Mac.”
Nope, that’s a long way from a Mac. That’s a brand new Dell Precision workstation featuring an nVidia Quadro card. I’ll post the full details on the workstation once I get it out of the box and set up which will happen later this weekend.
If you’ve been following along in my blogs you know we’re transitioning over to an Adobe / Avid workflow from 11 years of running Final Cut Pro and cross platform compatibility is one of the reasons for the change. If we go with Final Cut Pro X we have no choice but to run Apple hardware and all indications from Apple are showing the end of the “big iron” desktop is coming to a close. Whereas with Windows and Linux, there are still plenty of workstations to choose from with lots and lots of horsepower for the work we’re doing. So it makes sense to go with software that allows us to work on both Mac and Windows so we’re never limited by what just one company will provide us for hardware.
Dell? Seriously?
So of course, I’m a Mac guy and when I made the decision to go for cross platform workstations, my first step was to contact colleagues that have been running Windows for some time. I have literally NEVER used a Windows machine for work. Since 1993 I have been editing with NLE’s solely on the Apple platform. I have had PCs in the past for personal use and my wife still has a PC laptop, but I literally have a MacBook Pro, iMac, iPhone and iPad all within arm’s reach as I write this and my company owns about 20 or 30 Mac computers of one sort or another. It was imperative that I reach out to my colleagues for first hand advice on how to spec out a Windows machine.
I also reached out to all my third party vendors to ensure that our hardware would be compatible with the Windows box. All of my colleagues overwhelmingly recommended HP and in particular the Z800 model. Super fast workstation and from all accounts, can put the Mac Pro to shame when running Adobe software in particular. So how did I end up with a Dell workstation? Especially when not a single colleague even mentioned the brand?
Rather simple really. They asked.
Someone at Dell has been following along with my transition from Final Cut Pro to the Adobe / Avid workflow and saw that I was talking with my VAR to get a demo PC workstation to test in our facility. Dell reached out and that led to some conversations back and forth which led to them offering to let me test out one of their Precision workstations along with a copy of Adobe Production Premium CS 5.5 for Windows. Well that was a no-brainer for me and it makes things a little easier for my VAR. He didn’t have to assemble a workstation just for me to test and Dell gets feedback from us in a real-world Post situation during a 12 week test.
Then things changed a little further and requires me to make a full disclosure so everything is out in the open. The Precision workstation is no longer a demo machine, the workstation is now ours to keep, whether we like it or not. This was wholly unexpected and something I never would have asked for because it would be unreasonable to ask a computer company to simply give away one of their top of the line products just to have it tested out. But as the folks at Dell told me, they are serious about the creative industry and want to get their products into the hands of Post professionals in real world situations and get honest feedback. They want it here for much longer than 12 weeks.
The Rules.
Rule Number One: There are NO RULES. Yep, that’s the agreement. I am free to blog and write about this machine exactly as I see it.
I would not have it any other way. If there were strings attached to this offer, the machine would not be here. If there’s one thing I’m most proud of, is the fact that my product reviews are my honest opinion. If I don’t like something, you’re sure as heck going to know about it. I made that very clear with Dell when we spoke.
So what you’re going to read and hear from me in the coming weeks will be my own words, my own opinions. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. So pull down on the lap bar and keep your hands inside the car at all times. This is bound to be an interesting ride…….
Hi Walter,
I’m really looking forward to this series of posts. Like you, I’ve never worked professionally on anything other than Macs. I’m also at the stage where I need to figure out my hardware going forward and have absolutely no idea as to what the Windows/Linux options are.
Hope you’ll post in some detail regarding specs etc, as I’m sure this would be helpful to a lot of people.
Warm Regards,
Sandeep.
Full specs coming tomorrow after I get the thing out of the box and set up.
Walter
Hmmm, Avid…. You would most likely find the Avid platform less flexible than FCP. Avid 6 is advetised as a very flexible platform that can overcome all the problems that previous versions had, but serious Avid users reported less than steller performance when working on, say, projects involving AVCHD footage (including Canon 5D).
What is your main business? You might find Premiere CS5.5 (and soon 6) more like what you had before.
As I’ve reported in this very blog, we’ve been running Avid for about 7 months now. We were in the Beta test team for MC6 and it works better with our FCP infrastructure than FCP ever did. You have to convert everything over to DNxHD in order to have the best operation. AMA is ok, but editing and operation are outstanding. Much faster and more efficient than FCP. So I’m well aware of how MC6 works and based on the folks I’m working with and talking to, a lot of very happy folks on MC6. I know my primary Avid editor is loving this release.
As for CS 5.5, operation with our AJA Kona boards has been atrocious with numerous audio and playback issues. We are hearing from other AJA users about the same experiences. And forget about tape capture. Premiere is the worst NLE I have ever seen when it comes to capturing tape And yes we still use a LOT of tape. A current documentary project has over 60 hours of HDV material for example, another has 225 hours of DVCPro HD material Avid can capture that all day long
That’s the main reason Premiere has been used very sparingly in our shop to date. Waiting to see what CS6 actually brings in April. A LOT of hype on that release right now. I’m going to be focused on the basic editing operations and not the big whiz bang new features. If the basic editing features are not improved in CS6, then we will move even more into Avid.
As a follow-up, here’s some links to my previous articles about Avid in our shop.
http://library.creativecow.net/biscardi_walter/Avid-Media-Composer-6/1
http://www.biscardicreative.com/blog/2012/01/bcm-to-go-with-an-adobe-avid-combination-for-post/