At WWDC today in San Jose, we got the first glimpse of the new Mac Pro. We now know what it looks like, how powerful it is, how to connect to it and how it can be upgraded.
There was a big sense of expectation at the Keynote speech this morning at Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference in San Jose.
There were big rumours about iOS and the end of iTunes, but for us, we had come to see the new Mac Pro.
We were not disappointed, let's take a first look at the new machine. We have to attend a briefing about the Mac shortly, but we thought it would be good to get these pictures online ASAP.
Please take a look at FCP.co's Twitter stream from the Keynote presentation.
So the pictures and rumours were incorrect, we didn't see one image of the new Mac Pro before it was announced at WWDC this morning.
Let's also just stop one big argument right here. If you think the machine is too expensive, then it's the wrong machine for you. Simple as that. It will kill the 'Apple has abandoned the Pro market' arguments, dead. This is a very pro machine.
Mac Pro features powerful Xeon processors up to 28 cores, with 64 PCI Express lanes for tremendous performance and massive bandwidth.
Let's also kill that thermal question before somebody gets on their soapbox.
It provides over 300W of power along with a state-of-the-art thermal architecture to allow the processor to run fully unconstrained all the time.
Simply, there is no other machine on the market that will play back 3 streams of 8K ProRes RAW. The Mac Pro does however need an extra 'Afterburner' card to perform this. Interesting to note that the benchmark tests were made with a pre-release version of FCPX.
Is this the return of the cheese grater? Maybe, but instead of having a door that opens at the side, the whole case slides off to reveal the 'modules' This is what Apple meant by modular, being able to configure and change modules within the casing.
The Mac Pro has been designed with three things in mind - performance, expansion and configurability. No mention at the moment if you can buy extra add-on modules, but the machine and the display will be available in the Fall (Or Autumn to us Brits)
Below you can see the subframe and a few people looking at the modules you can add with the help of AR. In real life the modules get configured into the subframe and then the case goes over the top.
First impressions? Size wise it looks a touch smaller than the original cheese grater. There are controls on the top and connections at the rear.
There's a power button, two Thunderbolt ports (great for plugging in a drive that would sit on the top) and the handle to lift the case off the subframe.
At there back, more Thunderbolts, USB connectors for keyboards (Very happy they are still on the machine) and a lot of slots for expansion. You can also see a card at the bottom that has four more Thunderbolts and a HDMI, we think!
Also good to see two 10GigE connectors built-in as standard. The machine can also be supplied with casters and a purpose built rack mount machine will also be available. Good news for the OB industry.
Price for the new Mac Pro starts at $5,999 although we expect there to be many more configurations available.
Apple also announced a new monitor, the Pro Display XDR. We have seen these screens playing back 8K RAW and they look gorgeous. Of course no photo on a webpage will ever do justice to the quality and dynamic range.
Even the scopes look great on the displays.
The back's not too ugly either!
The display will run at 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness and 1,600 nits of peak brightness. The Pro Display XDR starts at $4,999. The Pro Stand is $999 and the VESA Mount Adapter is $199.
If you were wondering what the ProRes RAW footage was shot on, a new 8K camera from Canon was also on display.
The ProRes RAW was being recorded by an Atomos. Feature film producers please take note of this workflow!
After our briefing, we will be back with more and more detail about the Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR.
It's been a pretty amazing day so far!
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
