True, but consider this possibility:

Right now everyone's looking at the traditional model. That is, a portable CPU connected to a GPU connected to a display, and adding in a wireless form factor to it.

What if, instead, the base station contained the CPU AND the GPU connected directly together - much like a desktop system now - to do all the hard math and 3D rendering? - which then outputs a wireless PCIe signal, which is then picked up by the portable device, like a netbook, with a basic GPU, a small processor, and little to no HD space? It's only job would be, much like a thin client - would be to provide you access to the computing power in the "main" section of the house.

It would be like having a docking station for your netbook that turns it into a desktop powerhouse - only you could walk around the house with it. And, when the time comes that you want to take it outside, you still have the basic capabilities of a netbook.

That might be a product worth selling to, say, a family of four. "You can pay for four notebooks, or four netbooks and this powerful base station".

If you really want to pay me back for the comment, wait until I sign up with my new login, "boykotemplatedigital", then put in a good word when I say something smart there.

Here's the thing. I'm in new media marketing. I write the company blog for CA|NetQoS, and part of it is promoting both the blog and the CA|NetQoS products... ...which are awesome... ...but from day one (October 9, 2006) I've always taken the stance that when I participate in blogs or social news sites, or forums, or whatever, when related to the business, that I disclose my affiliations so that people can use the information to determine whether or not I am biased - or more specifically - so that they know that I am when they evaluate my point.

So I signed in as "boyko.at.netqos" when I registered for Slashdot. Right there is my name, and the company I work for.

In a couple weeks, I'm going to find out whether my immigration visa is approved to go work for a company in New Zealand called Template Digital. It's a start-up which hopes to be a buy-and-sell marketplace for motion graphics (Adobe AfterEffects) professionals who want to sell both to each other (it helps to start a project with a workable template rather than designing everything from scratch) or to final consumers of motion graphics work. (We actually sort-of segment the market by charging for "exclusivity." - so that a television production company, or large corporate entity could use one of the templates exclusively as part of their branding.)

I'm kinda getting ahead of myself here...

The point is, my excellent karma and +5 comments will not follow me to my next incarnation on Slashdot, a move I have to make both for transparency's sake - and also for accuracy's sake!

Just be kind, and keep a lookout for me.

-- Brian Boyko

I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Like, okay, you know in Star Wars, when Leia hands out medals to Luke and Han, but Chewie's just standing there on the podium - he doesn't get a medal?

Well, here's the thing, if you're an Ubuntu contributor and you're chosen for membership, it's like getting those medals. But if you're an Ubuntu contributor, and you're not chosen for membership, you're like Chewie - no medal. But that's not a bad thing, because, you know what? Chewie is standing up there on the podium too, and you know what, it doesn't matter if he gets a medal - because Chewie is a frickin' bad ass, and Chewie knows it.

Hell, the only reason Chewie doesn't get a medal is cause he's got like 20 or so of his own from back in the day. Let the noobs have some fun, you know? Besides, if he wanted too, he could take that medal from whiny-boy or smirk-merc. Lightsabers? Blasters? They're no use when you fuggin' rip their arms out of their sockets.

EPIC FILE!

You think a dog is bad - you should see the ecological footprint of an Irish child!

Indeed. Call of Juarez looked great, but I wasn't prepared to buy it until I could get it used; when I did, I found out that while it had a decent multiplayer, the single-player game was horribly broken. I still haven't gotten past those three guys chasing me in the beginning of the game.

You're right - I've never done broadcast, where HDCam is the standard.

When you have an army at your disposal, tape is probably the way to go.

I don't have an army. All my shots are run-and-gun - for me, AVCHD has been the best thing since sliced bread.

I don't know if I'll ever work on a broadcast production, but I'm never going to buy a camera that uses tape ever again. Between dropouts, bulkiness, capture time, and disk space, I'm fed up with tape formats.

HDCam is higher quality than AVCHD; but most people can't tell the difference and I'd rather save the 48 hours of post time to do things more important.

> "- And why would it be hard to get a Mac replacement? You know they deliver, don't you?"

Delivery isn't "quickly" when you're filming a documentary - less so when filming, say, in many of the one-horse towns across the globe. If you're in Auckland or Wellington, New Zealand, you're okay, but if you're in anyplace smaller than, say, Palmerston North, you might be out of luck. (Basically, Dick Smiths does carry the Mac line, but not at all stores, but not at all locations.) I can't imagine trying to find an Apple store in someplace more rural.

Additionally, the "mac tax" may be mythical, but Apple doesn't sell low-end computers; so if you need something quick and don't care about the specs, you can go that one computer store in that one town and come out with a PC for much less than the Macs - lowest priced Apple notebook is $1858NZD ($1120USD) at DickSmith.co.nz - a netbook will cost you $758NZD ($450USD).

As for the speed of FCP; I can tell you this much: I had a MacBookPro 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo system with 4 MB of RAM. I used it to edit high definition footage what was filmed in AVCHD.

Even disabling RT, applying some really basic effects like color correction won't play until you render out that clip. Rendering clips in FCP is slow because it only uses one core; and I find myself having to render constantly so I can see what I'm working on. When rendering the final product, of course, I can use Compressor, which has multicore support, but that really doesn't matter.

I'm currently using Sony Vegas on PC for my workflow - and yes, from a UI standpoint, FCP is better. Tools such as LiveType and Motion are top notch. It's friendlier and easier to use.

But Vegas never prohibited me from seeing what I was working on when I was working on it - it dynamically adjusted resolution and framerate to do so, which means that I can edit once, render once, and be done with the project. The multi-core support helps me render faster.

And of course, by setting processor affinity, I can commit the cardinal sin; have an instance of Vegas rendering on one core, while I edit the next video on the other core.

There is no such thing as a "wrong" workflow, and FCP is rightly lauded as a great choice for filmmakers working in Hollywood. If you had to standardize on a workflow, that's a good one to standardize on. Preferring Vegas doesn't mean I'm FUDding Apple.

But I make short documentaries for the Web and I do it quickly. If I was stuck out in the wilderness and had a computer die on me, but I'm able to save the hard drive, I'd want the computer to be a PC, so I can just shove the old hard drive into the new computer, or put it into an enclosure, and be done with it.

I actually make travel documentaries - when I was on the road, the most important thing for me was a computer that worked, not the OS.

The OS really shouldn't matter, but I would advise using a Windows machine with the crew. The advantages of the Mac platform are in the editing phase, so the Final Cut Studio advantages aren't a big deal.

The thing is, most of your equipment will work with Windows out of the box - we're talking things like field recorders and video capture. But the biggest aspect of Windows-based PCs that you're going to appreciate on the road is that when it breaks (and I've had a Mac break on me in LAX, and spent 2 weeks in New Zealand without a computer,) you can get a new Windows-based PC quickly and easily, so you don't have to change your workflow up. Since you're cloud computing for most stuff, just make sure that you have Google Gears and you should be fine.

----------

That should answer the original poster's post. That said, I think anyone editing on a Mac these days is missing out on a lot. Yes, Macs are still the standard for AfterEffects and Motion, but Final Cut Pro can't take advantage of multicore processing until you go through Compressor, and they can't take advantage of CUDA applications. That makes editing -slow-.

My personal workflow is Sony Vegas for a render to an uncompressed format, then Badaboom for render to MP4.

Though I'm thinking about getting Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.

You know it's bad when even the drop bears are leaving town, saying: "Well, that's it then, you're on your own, mate."

I got hit with that once, doing a documentary on Austin's air-guitar competitions. I thought that 10-15 second clips, recorded through an analog hole - a microphone placed not near the speakers, but near the air guitar stage (I was more interested in capturing the grunting and movement of the performers than a picture-perfect rendition of old 80s tunes) ... point is, I thought that'd be fine.

Time Warner, as a whole, just doesn't get technology. CNN thinks "holograms" are a great way to tell the news, they want to put caps on broadband, and they are so worried about protecting "their copyrights" that they don't understand how or why people buy music, and what they use it for.

Every business that they run that has any technological background at all is running itself into the ground because they want to sell you something first, then TELL you how THEY want you to use it, and are willing to go to absurd lengths to make sure that you only use it in the manner that they wanted you to - not the reason you bought it in the first place.

This is why they'll sue auto repair companies playing CDs for employees to listen to at work, why they'll knock on people doing anime fun conversions, why they'll knock on air guitar guys.

It's also why they'll offer broadband but put in caps so people can't use it, why they'll offer news programs but only present one or two sides of a multifaceted issue...

What can I say? They're crappy.

No ethical hacker would ever work for the DHS.

Indeed; nearly every flight I take from Austin ends up connecting through Dallas. It's a 35 minute flight and I'm usually in the airport about 2 hours beforehand. I'd love to just skip that leg. I don't know if it would save me money, but a Dallas/Waco/Austin/San Antonio route, with a Houston/San Antonio, or Houston/Austin connection might make me interested.

Come to think of it, I have never been to Dallas, or Waco, or Houston, except the two times I drove from the East coast to move to Austin. I might visit Houston more if I didn't have to drive 4 hours to get there, and drive 4 hours back, you know? It'd still be 8 hours out of my weekend, but I can work on my book on the train, browse the Internet on my phone, all sorts of good stuff.

That's it, in a nutshell.

The RIAA has sued people it knows to be innocent, engaged in barratry, has tried to stifle long-term technology to preserve dying business models.

On the supply side of music, has been the bane of recording artists in music and movies for years - Prince changed his name to that weird symbol not only to be provocative, but also to get out of bad record contracts.

On the demand side of music, it was pretty clear even early on that piracy didn't hurt music sales. In fact, CD sales were going UP until the PR backlash from suing customers, coinciding with legal digital downloads and a down economy. What was happening was that Napster was exposing people to more music - different music - and indie artists.

They hated Napster not because it cut into their sales, but because people no longer relied on the radio to find out what new music was playing, meaning that talented artists didn't have to sign with the RIAA's labels. It was a threat to their cartel, not to their bottom line.

So, long story short, no matter what you think about the Pirate Bay or whether what they were doing was taking money away from artists or whatever -- they were Robin Hood.

They took from the evil and rich, and gave to the poor and smart. They did it while thumbing their nose at the Sheriff of Nottingham.

That's why they're loved and adored on places like Slashdot.