Probably the question I am asked the most is: "
What computer should I buy?" And the answer, as you might guess, is: "It depends..." But, ah, no one likes to hear that because it doesn't provide specific guidance; even if it's still true.
The other thing I've noticed is that many editors obsess to the point of distraction on CPU speed. While this is a nice, easy number to focus on, it isn't particularly meaningful. (The number of CPU cores, support for hyper-threading and hardware-assisted video compression are much better indicators of performance.)
Still, that "CPU thing" is hanging out there. So, this week, I decided to look at how both Final Cut and Premiere use the CPU and, in doing so, provide more concrete examples of when it makes sense to spend more on CPU power and when you don't need to worry about it. It's my
lead story this week.
In another area, media is undergoing a significant transition in storage. Spinning media, the hard disks we've used for years, are not going away, but for pure performance
SSDs are taking center stage. What's significant is that SSDs are falling in price, increasing in capacity and a new protocol -
NVMe - is promising speeds up to 6X faster than a standard SSD. However, older systems may or may not be able to take full advantage of all this new-found speed. This week, I have a product review of the new NVMe
Aura Pro X2 SSD from OWC. I think you'll find the results highly interesting. The review is below in the Articles section.
Webinars are re-starting in June. I'm planning to cover visual literacy, shooting and editing VR, and editing HDR over the summer. I'm researching these now and will post details to my website later this month. Webinars will be scheduled for Thursday mornings, LA time.
My third article this week came out of the latest episode of the
Digital Production Buzz. We discussed sound isolation booths with folks from
VocalBooth and
WhisperRoom, as well as mentoring with the managing directors of
SMPTE,
HPA,
EIPMA. There's nothing worse than recording a great performance only to have it marred by noisy audio. This week, we look at different ways to keep the noise down. Listen to the
show here.
Now, at the end of the school year, students are looking for advice on how to get their careers started. Our industry needs new people and mentoring is the best way to get them started in the right direction. I really liked our interviews on The Buzz with
Barbara Lange and
Bernard Weiser. From these conversations, my third article is a reflection on what makes a
good mentor. You'll find it in the Articles section below.
The summer is a good time to set goals to learn something new. I'll do my part with new webinars and new ideas to think about. In the meantime, I'm always interested in your comments and questions. Until next week,
edit well.
