Lessons from The Big K
So I was recently computer-shopping for something that would work decently well for high-definition video editing. My little super-light Sony Vaio laptop which otherwise serves my needs well has proven not too great for HD video; it crunches the bits enough (it’s a dual-core Centrino with 2 Gb RAM), but falls down in disk speed, didn’t pass the basic disk-speed test for Firewire capture of streaming HD content. It also got so hot trying to do heavy loads of HD rendering that I thought it was going to melt the coffee cup behind it. So I thought maybe instead of thrashing and shortening the life of a nice little laptop that I bought for its very light weight I should maybe look for a big iron-clanking moster machine with bare-bones options, just a fast CPU, muy grande memory, room for lots of disk drives, but not much else. It could be painted in grey primer for all I care. I bought a machine like that from Dell a few years ago, a WS360 workstation with every option stripped except the fast bus, fast CPU, and lots of expansion capacity. (That machine is still decidedly non-obsolete today -- my son still uses it as a fast gaming machine.)
Alas, no such thing to be found anywhere anymore, and in fact I couldn’t find a single new PC anywhere without Microsucks Vista already on it. Also they all seemed to come with a zillion goombah gadgets already in them, all of which I’d have to rip out by the lungs, and half of those would resist that and end up leaving their vestigial tails behind to clutter the disk and memory.
So on to option 3, build the clanking-iron monster from scratch. I’ve done that before, but unlike pimply-faced 15-year-olds, for me building a PC is just a chore to be done, not an priestly ritual of rapture. But by the time I was done costing it out – Core2 Xtreme quad processor, power supply the size of Hoover Dam, etc. – it was going to be $2500 plus probably many grief units from me (perhaps partly offset by multiple way-coolness units from my own domesticated pimply-faced 15-year-old). At that point someone pointed out that maybe I should just go buy an Apple Mac Pro workstation that would require no grief units, just turn it on and start editing.
So I went and looked at the desktop-workstation Mac Pro, which is sort of the replacement for the former G5, but bigger and badder. It was about 10 minutes from laying on of eyeballs to reaching for plastic. I have to say that I didn’t realize Macs came in such high-horsepower versions: The one now sitting on my desk has quad Xeon CPUs, two terabytes of 3Gb/sec serial-ATA hard disks in RAID 10 configuration (striped and mirrored), and slots to install up to 16 gigabytes of RAM. And it’s virtually built around the concept of content creation -- key ports (including Firewire 800) in both front and back, HD editing and media creation built in, etc. Just minutes after booting it the first time I plugged in my HiDef camcorder (a Canon XH-A1, for vid-geeks), the Mac immediately recognized it, opened the video console, and there it was ready to stream and edit, all in about 3 seconds and with no installation of anything, not even a device driver. As a PC user I had to blink my eyes a few times to realize what I’d just seen. And of course the Mac OS and UI look and feel about 10 years ahead of where Vista is today. If it didn’t weigh 50 lbs and suck down several hundred watts I’d strap this thing to my back and take it everywhere instead of a laptop.
All of which reinforces my ongoing suspicion that Vista will prove to be Microsoft’s Waterloo, the battle that ends its aura of invincibility and begin its slow decline from dominance. When even Fortune-50 corporate IT shops are considering non-Microsuck machines for its everyday users, you know that unhappiness with Microsoft is starting to bubble over the top.
What I’m having a hard time figuring out, though, is what comes after that. What will be the shape of a world where Microsoft no longer dominates? Will Bill Gates be be able to get broadband in Elba?
---
“Big K,” by the way, is the name I’ve given to the Mac Pro whose weight is currently distorting the frame of my desk at home. “The Big Kahuna,” of course.
Alas, no such thing to be found anywhere anymore, and in fact I couldn’t find a single new PC anywhere without Microsucks Vista already on it. Also they all seemed to come with a zillion goombah gadgets already in them, all of which I’d have to rip out by the lungs, and half of those would resist that and end up leaving their vestigial tails behind to clutter the disk and memory.
So on to option 3, build the clanking-iron monster from scratch. I’ve done that before, but unlike pimply-faced 15-year-olds, for me building a PC is just a chore to be done, not an priestly ritual of rapture. But by the time I was done costing it out – Core2 Xtreme quad processor, power supply the size of Hoover Dam, etc. – it was going to be $2500 plus probably many grief units from me (perhaps partly offset by multiple way-coolness units from my own domesticated pimply-faced 15-year-old). At that point someone pointed out that maybe I should just go buy an Apple Mac Pro workstation that would require no grief units, just turn it on and start editing.
So I went and looked at the desktop-workstation Mac Pro, which is sort of the replacement for the former G5, but bigger and badder. It was about 10 minutes from laying on of eyeballs to reaching for plastic. I have to say that I didn’t realize Macs came in such high-horsepower versions: The one now sitting on my desk has quad Xeon CPUs, two terabytes of 3Gb/sec serial-ATA hard disks in RAID 10 configuration (striped and mirrored), and slots to install up to 16 gigabytes of RAM. And it’s virtually built around the concept of content creation -- key ports (including Firewire 800) in both front and back, HD editing and media creation built in, etc. Just minutes after booting it the first time I plugged in my HiDef camcorder (a Canon XH-A1, for vid-geeks), the Mac immediately recognized it, opened the video console, and there it was ready to stream and edit, all in about 3 seconds and with no installation of anything, not even a device driver. As a PC user I had to blink my eyes a few times to realize what I’d just seen. And of course the Mac OS and UI look and feel about 10 years ahead of where Vista is today. If it didn’t weigh 50 lbs and suck down several hundred watts I’d strap this thing to my back and take it everywhere instead of a laptop.
All of which reinforces my ongoing suspicion that Vista will prove to be Microsoft’s Waterloo, the battle that ends its aura of invincibility and begin its slow decline from dominance. When even Fortune-50 corporate IT shops are considering non-Microsuck machines for its everyday users, you know that unhappiness with Microsoft is starting to bubble over the top.
What I’m having a hard time figuring out, though, is what comes after that. What will be the shape of a world where Microsoft no longer dominates? Will Bill Gates be be able to get broadband in Elba?
---
“Big K,” by the way, is the name I’ve given to the Mac Pro whose weight is currently distorting the frame of my desk at home. “The Big Kahuna,” of course.
Labels: Apple Computer, HDV editing, Mac Pro, Microsoft, Vista
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