with Charlie White
Hi
Readers,
We're just starting to dig out from an avalanche of mail concerning
my recent "Mac Sucks"
editorial. Wow! What a difference of opinion! As expected, the EvangeList
crowd registered their stern disapproval of any and all statements against
their beloved Mac, while lots of other readers, including quite a few
Mac developers expressed their agreement and support. While each OS
has its faults and strengths, it was enlightening to spark a discussion
of the current state of the Mac, especially given the nearly unchallenged
recent rollout of the Beta version of Mac OS X. Here's a representative
sample of your responses:
You're Right!
Charlie,
I enjoyed your articles
on HDTV and the one on "The Mac Sucks."
I've been editing
broadcast work since 1978 and have gone through a lot of changes to
say the least. I started on old top-loading 3/4" VCR's (can't dredge
up the # right now). By 1984 I had a 1" online suite, by 1991 a betaSP
online suite, and in 1995 bought my first Mac-based (oh boy that sucks)
Media 100 NLE.
The good thing is
that my 2 Media 100 systems have turned huge profits (in the first two
years I could have actually paid for that blood-sucking $300,000 1"
edit bay if I still had it.) Incidentally, on my mac-nle's I probably
have gotten my restart frequency down to about 2 times per day average.
However, having
seen the powerful performance of a Mac running Linux or Be-OS, I have
to disagree, the MAC doesn't suck, APPLE sucks, and believe me, as a
long term Mac user, your editorial doesn't begin to do justice to just
how bad APPLE sucks.
I was at MacWorld
and it was obvious in about 90 seconds that the OS-X demo was a waste
of my time and a simple exercise in "marketing madness". I can't tell
you how many times I have encountered people who have been sucked into
purchasing stuff that won't do the job they bought it for.
Marketing has driven
most of the changes we've seen in the video editing world of today,
and like most good marketing, it has targeted and attracted new market
segments, enticing people who don't have a technical or creative clue
as to how to accomplish good results.
I dare you to try
to explain a blanking problem, or y/c delay problem, or the old standby,
drop frame t/c vs. non-drop t/c. That will raise a eyebrow every time.
Consequently, at most video/computer shows you have to wait through
hordes of people asking inane questions that prove beyond a doubt that
they shouldn't be involved in a highly technical field in the first
place. Which brings this drivel to the point, what is APPLE doing in
a highly technical field? Now I will sit and cry for a while about my
sizeable investments in the dead-ended MAC.
Dennis Colvin, Owner,
dcVideo Production, Fresno CA
Charlie, Charlie,
c'mon!!
Try comparing Apples
to apples! You write that, "There's no amount of marketing that will
convince me that for video editing and compositing any Mac can beat
a dual processor 800 MHz NT machine with an ICE accelerator board inside."
There's no stand-alone P3 that could make that claim, either!
Try ICEing up a
G3 or G4, if speed is what you're after. As for digital video editing,
it's a risky process, at best, whether you're using an iMac DV, or,
an Avid Symphony.
Don't even talk
to me about Windows. I've worked in a Windows environment for 10 years,
and a Mac environment for 5 years! That's why I have a G3/266 (at home)
now. When it was my turn to select a non-linear editor (at work), I
chose a Mac based system; and, I'm quite happy with it, as are the folks
who use it. Our IT department doesn't support Macintosh; but, that's
OK. They can't keep up with their own jobs, while I solve any Macintosh
problems without their help.
You mentioned the
age of the Mac OS. Surely you know that Windows still operates on a
DOS shell, don't you? How old must that be?? Are you really looking
forward to d/ling all those patches from M$?
Yes, Windows is
capable of multi-tasking; and, the Mac will be, as well. For me, it's
worth the wait, though, I think that Macs would have had multiprocessing
sooner, were it not for Mr. Jobs untimely departure.
As for stability,
I've had more headaches with Windows than I care to count (Windows 3.1;
95, 98, and now, NT). Sure, the Mac OS isn't perfect; but, it's a far
site more stable than any Windows machine I've ever worked with.
Downgrade the Mac
OS, if you must; regress to Windows, if your soul dictates. I'm sure
that you'll find (as I have found) that the grass is not greener on
the Windows side of the fence.
Respectfully,
Tom Cupp
The Mac Sucks
-- been expecting more articles like this
Hi!
From the dearth
of public criticism by video editor users during the last five years,
I just thought that the industry as a whole quietly migrated to NT-based
systems. I am very happy someone took the time to write something that
mentioned what was going on. The Evangelist denizens have probably reacted
in the standard way; I commend your work.
Apple has been
paying for a gross lack of coordinated management. as a Mac developer,
I've been paying for a gross lack of Apple management. The current
management team is clearly a lot better than the last several teams
(they forced a wholesale change of entire the board of directors, as
an example of knowing where the problems were and how they've been dealing
with them), and is dealing with the problem. Clearly, recovering from
severe competitive shortcomings in your computer's system software is
not easy, especially when the damage was done over several years, say
1988 through 1996. Personally if I were in the video editing business
at the time, I'd have been very mad at Apple for those first PowerPC
boxes they released with the busted bus arbitrator.
Apple currently
is fixing a lot of things, but Mac developers as a whole haven't seen
much in the way of improvement in revenues and business model. We need
to escape the Mac OS legacy hell very much. PMA spoken via the Evangelist
notwithstanding, until Mac OS X comes out with the right stuff, developers
will stay away.
When I was involved
in video editing tools development, we needed slots and isochronous
critical resource control. The new OS, Mac OS X, is a preemptive Unix-oid
OS in which the first commercial release may not initially provide sufficient
isochrony to get your job done. Apple is playing a big game of catch
up, and it is taking some considerable time to make OS X nee Rhapsody
to conform to the expectations of Apple's greater user base.
I concur. If you've
got things to do, and NT does get it all done for you, use NT. Don't
feel bad about it. Don't wait for Apple. Don't bet your whole business
on a solution that clearly doesn't cut it. A fair comparison of two
hardware solutions via simple benchmarks will identify your next edit
station. If someone doesn't provide an Apple based station that can
compete in simple benchmarks, it becomes a business decision. [I don't
mind the choice of provocative editorial titles because how else do
you get people to read articles?]
Steve Jobs has
streamlined the business in hardware and software to stay afloat, and
I think he's going to keep things like the way he has it now for years
to come. Specifically, there is no Apple-based chunk of hardware with
a lot of bus slots in it any more because it is very expensive to do
so, and they think the audience for such hardware is too specific for
where they want Apple hardware to go, and they want the video industry
to use Firewire instead. I am not in the video edit tools biz any more,
haven't been for a while, but I believe that I'd be inclined to switch
to Firewire if and when there was a supporting hardware and software
cast to allow one to do so, and I'm not aware that this yet exists.
I note a couple
of other important details. First, Mac OS X doesn't use ROMs. It will
be much easier, I believe, for specialty firms to create a box that
runs OS X which does handle your hardware requirements. It may in fact
become easier for third parties to do that for OS X than NT.
OS X Mach 3.0
kernel I am told (I don't know this for gut shure) doesn't have the
extraspecialneato isochrony support you need to ditch Mac OS 9. You'd
have to wait for Mach 3.X anyway. OS X will get in the way much more
than Mac OS 9 does.
All of this is
a blueprint for future use; current use is driven by business needs,
and damn the torpedoes. "Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am
master of my fate, and captain of my soul." -- Metamagical Themas, Douglas
Hofstadter
-m
ps - I am curious:
I know that when the whole system crashes, its the fault of the OS not
providing itself with enough protection. When the application crashes,
it typically is the fault of the software authors. I realize that the
machine crashes as a result, but you're nevertheless using some software
that crashes several times a day. What's with the software authors?
Why don't they fix the crashing? Are they all working on NT solutions
and not going back and supporting the Mac customers? That would get
me pretty mad, especially if the bugs stick out like a sore thumb like
it sounds that they do.
I realize that
Avid is currently trying to support two platforms; they were planning
to ditch Apple altogether. However, when they made that smart business
decision, they assumed but didn't ask whether their customers were ok
with that.
Michael Brian Bentley
You Poor Lost
Soul
Maybe you should
try Premiere or Final Cut Pro on one of those new G4's. Of course it
may not be as fast as a dual 800 NT box but what is the cost of a dual
800 NT box with the extra hardware to do video editing? (FireWire comes
on a Mac you know) The ones I have seen are three to seven times the
price of a G-4. I doubt that you could get more editing done on one
dual 800 NT box than you could on three to seven G4 machines.
As for yor statement
that you didn't any real applications running that "fake OS" - you didn't
see MS Internet Explorer running on it? I did.
Then you talk
about legacy OS's what is Windows? It still is based on DOS! NT has
so many security holes in it that the Army switched to Mac servers running
OS X Server. Oh I forgot there are no apps running on that "fake OS"
so the Army has been duped again. They probably are running some secret
OS and just said it was OS X Server.
As for Chip production
remember Apple owns part of the PowerPC - remember AIM that's Apple,
IBM and Motorola. It is my understanding that they can produce there
own chip because of that partnership (or AMD could make them for Apple
- speaking of AMD how come they make faster chips than Intel?). But
I don't see Motorola cutting off Apple is pays to to much R&D that
is useful in there embeded work also.
You poor lost
soul. Will you write a retaction when OS X ship on time? Or will you
just find another reason why you where right after all.
I love my Mac
and if Apple went out of business today I would buy as many Mac's as
O could so that one got worn out from use I would have a new one to
replace it with.
That's my two
cents worth.
Jay Cottrill,
Marietta, Ohio
Dear Readers,
For the record,
if Mac OSX does ship by January of next year and can actually edit
video natively, via OSX and not OS9 emulation, I'll be happy to be
the first to celebrate it. Watch this space.
And also, for
the record, I'm not too crazy about Windows NT, either.
--CW
Here's
more provocative Feedback!
Charlie
White has been writing about digital video editing since it was
the laughingstock of the post-production industry. He's an Emmy award-winning
producer and director for PBS, and producer of this Web site.
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