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OT: New blackmagic product
Posted by xavpil
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Re: OT: New blackmagic product April 15, 2010 10:56AM |
But not Mac 
Andreas
Andreas
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Re: OT: New blackmagic product April 16, 2010 03:54AM |
heaps of interesting new Blackmagic products are PC only as they are using USB3.0, which isn't on macs yet. 
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Re: OT: New blackmagic product April 16, 2010 12:57PM |
Like Michael said, it's just a matter of time before we see USB for Mac. Hopefully at NAb 2011 or 2012 we'll start seeing Light Peak.
The UltraStudio Pro is really slick design. And frankly I could use some bigger audio meters.
- Justin Barham -
The UltraStudio Pro is really slick design. And frankly I could use some bigger audio meters.
- Justin Barham -
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Re: OT: New blackmagic product April 17, 2010 07:17AM |
It's actually not a matter of time before USB 3 is on the Mac Pro. It's a matter of Intel's engineering, or Apple's business decisions.
See, Apple's gotten themselves into the position of actually designing virtually none of the internal components of a Mac Pro. They're responsible for the actual board design, the case and cooling and the power, and that's nearly it. Right now Intel is making the "chip sets" (basically the interconnecting glue that holds the major system components together) for the Mac Pro. The one they're currently using is the X58, which provides practically everything. It has the PCI Express bus for the graphics board, the other PCI Express buses, the in-board SATA buses, the gigabit Ethernet ports and yes, even the USB ports.
Until Intel adds USB 3 to a chip set that's appropriate for use in a Mac Pro, Apple's hands are tied. Or, the more hopeful option, until Apple starts engineering their own chip sets and can decide what they want to include, their hands are tied. But that may or may not be practical; Intel's chips aren't really designed to be dropped into just any old architecture. They're dependent, to an extent, on Intel's supporting chip sets. So it kinda sucks all around.
Now, the thing about Light Peak is that it's an attempt to get around physical limitations in electrical conductors. When you start ramping up the clock rate of an electrical interconnect ? to the tens-of-gigabits-per-second range ? electromagnetic interference becomes a serious issue. That's not true of optical interconnects, obviously. So Light Peak is designed to be a sort of generic EO converter that will mux multiple existing protocols onto a single optical cable.
Which is great ? except it's going to be very, very expensive to start out. Because you still need all the same stuff you need for an electrical connection ? all the same chips and everything ? but you also need this sophisticated miniaturized EO hardware. And even once you have that, Light Peak right now is not designed to carry power. There's no copper strand alongside the glass to pump electrons. Which means that, as it's designed today, Light Peak can't replace USB or Firewire.
But that's okay, because Light Peak is on the ten-year plan. It's not meant to be a product yet; it's a technology demonstrator. I'm pretty confident that you won't see any commercial applications of Light Peak until at least 2012 or 2013, and definitely no widespread adoption until 2015 or so at the very best.
See, Apple's gotten themselves into the position of actually designing virtually none of the internal components of a Mac Pro. They're responsible for the actual board design, the case and cooling and the power, and that's nearly it. Right now Intel is making the "chip sets" (basically the interconnecting glue that holds the major system components together) for the Mac Pro. The one they're currently using is the X58, which provides practically everything. It has the PCI Express bus for the graphics board, the other PCI Express buses, the in-board SATA buses, the gigabit Ethernet ports and yes, even the USB ports.
Until Intel adds USB 3 to a chip set that's appropriate for use in a Mac Pro, Apple's hands are tied. Or, the more hopeful option, until Apple starts engineering their own chip sets and can decide what they want to include, their hands are tied. But that may or may not be practical; Intel's chips aren't really designed to be dropped into just any old architecture. They're dependent, to an extent, on Intel's supporting chip sets. So it kinda sucks all around.
Now, the thing about Light Peak is that it's an attempt to get around physical limitations in electrical conductors. When you start ramping up the clock rate of an electrical interconnect ? to the tens-of-gigabits-per-second range ? electromagnetic interference becomes a serious issue. That's not true of optical interconnects, obviously. So Light Peak is designed to be a sort of generic EO converter that will mux multiple existing protocols onto a single optical cable.
Which is great ? except it's going to be very, very expensive to start out. Because you still need all the same stuff you need for an electrical connection ? all the same chips and everything ? but you also need this sophisticated miniaturized EO hardware. And even once you have that, Light Peak right now is not designed to carry power. There's no copper strand alongside the glass to pump electrons. Which means that, as it's designed today, Light Peak can't replace USB or Firewire.
But that's okay, because Light Peak is on the ten-year plan. It's not meant to be a product yet; it's a technology demonstrator. I'm pretty confident that you won't see any commercial applications of Light Peak until at least 2012 or 2013, and definitely no widespread adoption until 2015 or so at the very best.
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Re: OT: New blackmagic product April 17, 2010 05:02PM |
I'm on the east coast. That one was written during prime coffee-drinkin' time.
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