David, fair play, I understand but Resolve Studio has a ways to go before it is performing fully with M1. I haven't used one but I do have Studio and online/offline broadcast on both Avid and it, up to 4K regurlarly and I can see from BMD's forum that no serious professional finishing bay is using M1 for Resolve at this moment in time. It can play media remarkably of all kinds but it gets bogged down with any heavy lifting (not to mention dongle/video I/O issues). I remain optimistic and open minded for future iterations but Avid have communicated where they are at currently with M1 and where they hope to be. As professionals we need the full feature set of Avid to be certified and capable now with the hardware recommended and is standard practice to wait until a piece of hardware arrives on their qualified list first.
Totally agree. Just one things, I've a Resolve Studio license and a M1 mac mini 16GB. I use Resolve to transcode for Avid and back to it for color correction and general post work. I can tell you that transcoding footage ProRes 422 4K is just impressive. I think it could be huge for an offline editing on the Avid (I'm always talking about offline editing cause is my job). Obviously, we're not talking about pro machines and we agree, but still I believe it's completely worthwhile to start coding in ARM for Avid
Like I say David I'm keeping a watchful eye. I'm committed to powerful laptops now, for a number of professional case use reasons such as remote and onsite and I'm not too overawed by HP's latest offerings because they don't offer a compelling upgrade on my fully rigged G5 yet and for a form factor that is surprisingly too small for me. If future M1 MacbookPros offer amazing performance over current Intel/Nvidia then I'm very interested. We don't do a lot of ProRes output here in UK broadcast but since the Win Avid now has it, it's always there
Mercer: Current M1 offerings are consumer devices, that in no way yet match high end workstation enterprise hardware, certified and recommended, to run Avid properly. Despite the hallyballo over M1 it cannot handle heavy FX laden, NR and grading in Resolve Studio, in anywhere near the shape and form of high end rigs. Believe me I'm platform agnostic and work in Avid on both - it's the same with the right hardware - but, in my view, it is ridiculous to blame Avid because some folks jumped straight on the hype. In a professional environment you are led by the software you use and it's certification/recommendations, not the other way round. Avid will have to develop for M1, if all other pro platforms and the industry moves towards it but at this stage, I would not substitute my ZBook for any current offerings. I will however seriously consider M1 in 2 years time if it fulfills it's promise of miraculous revolutionary performance, in pro laptops and workstations.
Current M1 offerings are consumer devices, that in no way yet match high end workstation enterprise hardware, certified and recommended, to run Avid properly. Despite the hallyballo over M1 it cannot handle heavy FX laden, NR and grading in Resolve Studio, in anywhere near the shape and form of high end rigs. Believe me I'm platform agnostic and work in Avid on both - it's the same with the right hardware - but, in my view, it is ridiculous to blame Avid because some folks jumped straight on the hype. In a professional environment you are led by the software you use and it's certification/recommendations, not the other way round. Avid will have to develop for M1, if all other pro platforms and the industry moves towards it but at this stage, I would not substitute my ZBook for any current offerings. I will however seriously consider M1 in 2 years time if it fulfills it's promise of miraculous revolutionary performance, in pro laptops and workstations.
Consumer devices that don't match the high end workstation, yet the Intel Mac Mini (@16 GB RAM min) is still a qualified workstation in the realm of Avid as of 2021.5 - so is the 13 inch Intel MacBook Pro. If you are benchmark and numbers kind of guy, you can see that M1 in it's current form in a native environment runs circles around what that Intel Mini can do. Of course I expect Rosetta to perform like garbage not only because it is a stop-gap, temporary, solution but with all the moving parts involved with Avid (some moving better than others). Getting it actually out and released though would be a statement that they intend to support the platform.
For people who buy a Intel Mini or 13 Inch Intel MBP now one can only hope their reseller gives them the buyer beware on performance. Or if they are on their own, using the trial they can see for themselves.
I am glad that you are able to work on such high end stations and I am sure it results in great work, but for education markets, developing markets, offline only facilities, etc, there needs to be lower price points which the mini and MBP fill and not every place wants an iMac along with the other monitors.
If Avid is going to support the Intel Mini and Intel MBP at those sizes, they should bring support to the M1 equivalents and allow people to see for themselves if it is worth the time. If they want to remove those systems from their qualified list and not support the current M1 offerings, I am fine that way as well.
davidemasi: I don't think Avid can afford to leave a whole future generation of Mac users behind. I think they're going to support at least Rosetta for this month and to switch completely by the begininnig of the next year (as they announced). If you think about it, they're the only big software house that still doesn't even have support for Rosetta (native Resolve-M1, obviously Final Cut and Premiere is in beta), I don't think it's convenient for them to lose a good slice of users. Furthermore, according to an article by the Hollywood reporter, they're seriously thinking about investing in the M-chips in Hollywood. (article: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/what-apples-new-mac-products-and-m1-chip-mean-for-hollywood-4090774/) Plus, according to their official document (link: https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Compatibility/macOS-Big-Sur-Support), there already native Avid's app for M1 outhere. So let's be more optimistic
I don't think Avid can afford to leave a whole future generation of Mac users behind. I think they're going to support at least Rosetta for this month and to switch completely by the begininnig of the next year (as they announced).
If you think about it, they're the only big software house that still doesn't even have support for Rosetta (native Resolve-M1, obviously Final Cut and Premiere is in beta), I don't think it's convenient for them to lose a good slice of users. Furthermore, according to an article by the Hollywood reporter, they're seriously thinking about investing in the M-chips in Hollywood. (article: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/what-apples-new-mac-products-and-m1-chip-mean-for-hollywood-4090774/)
Plus, according to their official document (link: https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Compatibility/macOS-Big-Sur-Support), there already native Avid's app for M1 outhere. So let's be more optimistic
I would love to be optimistic, but this is Avid we are talking about who on the Mac side of things has disappointed us for years. They love operating in silence for some reason and then act shocked when what they do release has extremely subpar results. Their current M1 native apps aren't the most complex in the world (Avid Link and Sibelius) but is still good to see espcially since it gives the opportunity to move Sibelius to iPad since it is all the same codebase at that point.
You're right, they are not but it is a signal that they're moving towrds M1
theHFIC:I am glad that you are able to work on such high end stations and I am sure it results in great work, but for education markets, developing markets, offline only facilities, etc, there needs to be lower price points which the mini and MBP fill and not every place wants an iMac along with the other monitors.
I am able to work on high end workstations because it's my job - has been for over 30 years. I have not always been able to afford such equipment but if I was not able to do so now after so many years, I wouldn't be any good, would I? Not bragging it's just time served. Avid is a professional piece of software that requires professional hardware. Yes it will work on some good consumer stuff, I have used it so myself very often and those who don't earn their living with it/are training whatever can get by. Yes, some of the iMacs seem more consumer than their Windows counterparts (I was always surprised Avid qualified the Intel i5 at one point) but the assumption is you can do most all normal offline work on quite modest hardware, only that to fully leverage the full power of Avid you need high end enterprise hardware. Not just because it's powerful but also because it has warranty, service, robustnees that enterprise 24/7 professional production requires. I online, grade and finish up to 4K, as well as offline - I need such hardware, it pays for itself.
You are not telling the whole story with M1, very few are. Yes it can decode and encode an amazing variety of media as good as, if not better than Intel. Yes, it seems very promising. But it cannot compete with high end Intel/AMD workstations when it comes to gpu colour, fx and processing, yet. I repeat if you bought M1 as soon as it came out it is unfair to criticise Avid because it not yet qualified or functioning correctly - it is a completely new code base, not a new cpu generation. If M1 catches on and becomes the new revolution and everyone adopts it professionally, and Avid lags far behind, then you can have a go. I don't feel we're there yet as it's only just appeared.
Mercer:You are not telling the whole story with M1, very few are. Yes it can decode and encode an amazing variety of media as good as, if not better than Intel. Yes, it seems very promising. But it cannot compete with high end Intel/AMD workstations when it comes to gpu colour, fx and processing, yet. I repeat if you bought M1 as soon as it came out it is unfair to criticise Avid because it not yet qualified or functioning correctly - it is a completely new code base, not a new cpu generation. If M1 catches on and becomes the new revolution and everyone adopts it professionally, and Avid lags far behind, then you can have a go. I don't feel we're there yet as it's only just appeared.
No hardware has been purchased on my end. That's the problem. There is upgrade money literally AND thankfully burning a hole in my employers pockets with the only catch being we keep our ecosystem as Mac based. I am not going to recommend Mac Intel machines that aren't going to get any more software updates in 3 years after the last Intel Mac is sold. And I don't want to put my faith in Rosetta which is going to be discontinued once Apple Silicon is across the board on all Macs being sold.
All I am asking for is Avid to make a statement, that isn't from one person posting on their facebook account, that gives some kind, any kind, of roadmap of what their plans are for the future of Apple. If they want to drop support, fine more power to them. Every other player in the field has either made a statement on support or released a product in final or beta form for the platform. Except Avid.
If I have to break the news that we need to move to HP stations or worse stay on Mac and migrate to a product with a future on the platform I'd much rather do it sooner rather than waiting for the next time NAB is in person for Avid to announce anything new.
I hear you but at times like this I am reminded of that old ancient philosopher, Seneca, who wrote that anger is about unrealistic expectations. So in a modern sense, the more you honk the horn in a traffic jam, the less it will make a difference over when that jam moves - it'll move when it can - and it will only get you more worked up to no avail. Not saying that you are angry but you see what I mean? Surely your frustration should be aimed at Apple, since it is they preventing you from making forward investment decisions having announced the end of the road for Intel and you can't base those decisions on present consummer offerings, can you? And I think Avid have stated their case somewhat. I would urge you to look at the BMD forums to see that M1 is not a bed of roses there either. I hope you are able to move on this, I understand
All I am asking for is Avid to make a statement
Pretty sure that means they are not going to drop Macs.
I do know that Avid as a publicly traded company is somewhat limited in what it can and cannot disclose re: roadmaps.For clarity: this is not in defense of Avid, just sharing the information. I sincerely wish this would not have taken so long.
That said: if you are not willing to invest in Intel machines right now, as they might become obsolete too soon: I'm not sure, as the recent Mac Pros will likely be supported for a while.
But also: thinking about machines becoming obsolete: I would personally have an issue with buying any machine with 16GB or less in 2021. That seems to be a sincere limitation on M1 Macs currently. I would advise any institution planning on running apps like MC, PT, Resolve, AE, etc. to invest in machines with so little RAM.
One more thought: I love my Macs. But I don't like the way Apple has treated our industry. Back in 2000, they killed of 6-slot machines, which at the time were needed to run MC, PT and other editing apps. G4 and G5 machines lacked the horsepower of competing workstations. Then the change to Intel procs took a toll on all software manufacturers. Then they abandoned the Mac Pro for _years_. Then they finally came back with the trashcan, which lacked the horsepower (and practical features) of competing workstations, so many users had to squeeze every last drop out of their Cheesegraters. Then Apple once again (pretty much for the third time) abandoned the Mac Pro for _years_. Then, shortly after finally releasing kick-#ss new Intel-based Mac Pro workstations, they start the transition to Apple Silicon, making the status of these new Mac Pros a little odd.
This leaves out of the equation their decade-long refusal to allow ProRes generation on non-Macs. It doesn't include the horrible gamma shifts caused by ColorSync messing with Quicktime encodes.
So, again, I love my Macs. But I don't appreciate how the company has behaved towards our industry. And thank heaven I do not need to rely on Apple machines for all use cases in my entire business.
An intervention here.
I understand your thought Job but I don't agree with "16 GB and consumer things" because as said in the 2021.5 documentation the Intel Mac mini 2018 from 16 GB is still supported. So the statement of "Avid doesn't support consumer machines etc etc" doesn't stand up. If they support that Mini, they defeinitely can support the mini M1 GB. According to several comparison the M1 is far superior.
And more: I can understand everything. A totally new code, a less than perfect communication by Apple towards Avid but now, half June 2021, the M1 was announced a year ago, the first M1 macs came out in November 2020. Not even have a Rosetta 2 version is just injustifiable
Its unknown as yet if the new M1 makes better use of RAM than Intel chips but even if it does The RAM requirement for MC have been growing over time and yes 16GB machines are still listed but at the bottom end of the spec range and for the simplest of editing tasks. typically offline proxy workflows.
So why work so hard to support a platform that is limited to the minimum. It makes no sense. We may as well have demanded Ipad and Android support.
There are rumours of an M2 chip that may improve the RAM support and if so that would be the chipset to target for support in my view.
Broadcast & Post Production Consultant / Trainer Avid Certified Instructor VET (Retired Early 2022)
Still offering training and support for: QC/QAR Training - Understanding Digital Media - Advanced Files * Compression - Avid Ingest - PSE fixing courses and more.
Mainly delivered remotely via zoom but onsite possible.
T 07581 201248 | E pat@vet-training.co.uk
I don't know Pat. Chips changes but the code (ARM) is the same so I can't see why not start to support just by now.Furthermore offline editing is a task however and an important one. I read a very interesting article on Frame.Io blog about how Oscar nominee editors work and all of them edited with a maximum DNxHD 125. So offline editing with proxy files is not a "secondary task". Anymay we'll wait for the M2 and hope for a M-chips Avid release
I don't agree with "16 GB and consumer things" because as said in the 2021.5 documentation the Intel Mac mini 2018 from 16 GB is still supported
I haven't used and would not use the 'consumer' tag. But I also would not recommend buying the model you reference _today_. (Although that model allows for an aftermarket RAM upgrade.) It's not just about today (otherwise you could buy the current Intel-based model, right?), but about more future-proof purchases. I'd sooner risk getting an Intel now (will likely be usable for another 5 years) than risk a 16GB RAM limit (which will likely become an issue in less than three years). My 2 cts.
According to several comparison the M1 is far superior.
From what I read and watched, it seems to depend on specific tasks. While supported, I understand Resolve on the M1 Mini is not a very workable setup.
But of course, ARM is the future of the Macs.
And had Avid managed to support the M1, even under Rosetta, I would have gotten such a Mini, even just to test it out.
It's clear now. I agree with all you said, Job. Hope to see M1 MC soon. Have a nice day
© Copyright 2011 Avid Technology, Inc. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Site Map | Find a Reseller