New Apple Laptops Air vs. Pro

[Mike P.]

I am using an LG Ultrafine 5k monitor that Apple promotes, so probably watching it in 4k/5k resolution, but I get the same results using the screen on the laptop which should be HD only. The M1 is supposed to support a 6k monitor. I admit it is confusing seeing so many different results, these are just mine.

That's good to know (gets rid of it as a potential unknown, anyway).

BTW The Learn Color Grading stuff I watched was all on Resolve, and I am not sure on the media he was using but if it was from Black Magic cameras, it would agree with what I found that BRAW works very nicely, it is the Red footage that struggles some.

It was r3d samples... the ones from RED.com. And yeah, LCG seemed surprised 6k WS 13:1 played back as well as 5k FF at 6:1 (which makes sense, since 13:1 is much [2x?] easier to playback than 6:1 and 6k WS is almost the same as 5k FF in overall resolution). At 8k 8:1 I think he only reduced the playback resolution to 1/2 (not sure about debayer quality; he didn't mention it, so I presume it was full) and it was all done on a 1080p timeline.

In any case, I'm glad to hear about the 8k & 12k braw playback... It's crazy if that can potentially playback realtime/full res on a ~$1k 2.5lbs MBA.

[Jon Dishler]

Yes, agreed, it is impressive overall, so much so that I am getting rid of my 2013 Mac Pro with 64 GB of RAM and substituting a new Mini M1, along with trading in the MacBook 16" for the new one. One thought I had is BRAW does a partial debayer in camera, this could make the 8k/12k files easier to work with than Red.

Also, Red 6k WS 13:1 and 5k FF at 6:1 I would expect both play pretty nicely with M1 Mac with 16 GB, it is really the 8k that is trouble, especially like 8k 8:1. I was looking at Phil Holland's nice data rate table for different resolutions and compressions, I would guess that as long as you are below a certain threshold things are OK but when that gets too high, then this little processor bogs down. For BRAW the data rates are reasonable and it seems to make better use of the CPU and GPU as seen with iStats, so it all seems to make sense.

[Mike P.]

Yes, that's precisely why braw plays back so well; the half-debayer (that was one of their reasons for using it... that it gets around all existing raw patents was a bonus. LOL.)

Also you can't really judge raw playback by data rates alone, in the same way that you can't judge playback of any codec by their data rates (e.g. without hardware encode/decode, H265 is harder to playback than codecs with 10x higher data rates... and on the flip-side, prores4444 with a data rate 2x that of any compressed raw format is usually easier to playback).

Personally, I want to see how the M1/16gb handles 6k 4:1... If that can playback handily at full-debayer/full-res, it'd definitely push me in the AS direction (it'd just be a matter of deciding whether to wait until the M1x/M2/MBP16" with AS, or buying one of these entry level ones and saving a buttload of money).

[Jon Dishler]

I totally agree, it depends on the codec, but for a given codec I think there is a dependency on data rate, for instance, in 2:1 format, 4k 4:1 and 6k 9:1 and 8k 16:1 all have a data rate of 77.10 MB/second, so I would guess that they would all perform similarly using Redcode RAW in post. I will give it a try when I get a minute, which lately there seems to be many of, to confirm as I have already recorded 8k 16:1. What is intriguing to me, and beyond the scope of this discussion, is if one were to record in 8k 16:1 and the same material in 4k 4:1 would the quality of both be very similar on a 4k or 2k final delivery? I suspect they would be and the advantage, if so on an 8k Helium sensor is that you would not need the crop and be able to record in Redcode at a lower data rate than Prores 422 in 4k, with more options in post but paying the penalty of needing to transcode in post to be at about the same place.

I did try 4444 2k out of camera and on the timeline it is ridiculously fast it is to work with and create h.264 exports with the new MacBook. I think for Multicam this would be the ticket. I have training in vision science, and to tell the truth, I think that 4k is overblown in importance for most things, now HDR is an entirely different story, as that is something we can see. Prior to getting this new MacBook, I was mostly using 4444 2k and only now have been exploring going back to Redcode with higher compression as an alternative.

I find it interesting that whether it is a 4.5k Red or an 8k red they all default to an 8:1 compression ratio, and while this might be somewhat optimal, if the final delivery is going to be 4k, it seems that a much higher compression ratio would be reasonable. This also does not answer the question concerning the newest Red camera, Komodo, which although it is 6k uses a different algorithm for compression so there is a lot more data to wrangle and I wonder how this compares to the other Red cameras of compression vs post efficiency. Thanks for the discussion.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Also, why didn't Max Tech attach the eGPU to the M1 to compare its performance?

eGPU's aren't supported on M1 Macs. (Personally, I doubt that will change in the future with Apple Silicon).

Maybe some differences in performances has to do with people using the SSD in the Mac, versus external storage as well?

[Mike P.]

eGPU's aren't supported on M1 Macs. (Personally, I doubt that will change in the future with Apple Silicon).

Maybe some differences in performances has to do with people using the SSD in the Mac, versus external storage as well?

Really? So they're limiting it to the comparatively weak integrated Apple GPUs only? That's haggard... I guess it's to protect their higher-end models (which I presume will have dedicated GPUs and external GPU support)?

I wouldn't think the internal vs external SSD makes that much of a difference only because the data rate of all these raw codecs is ~200mb/s (give or take 100mb/s depending on resolution and compression ratio). So even entry level SSDs should be able to handle that consistently...

...that said, if the GPU so quickly becomes the bottleneck and 8gb vs 16gb RAM makes such a huge difference in render time (literally more than 2x as fast in that one 8v16 FCP render test), whose to say that somewhere along the pipeline the throughput doesn't totally bog down. After all these are fixed systems; they're all the same, yet one claims it can handle 8k 8:1 usably well, while another can't do 4k 8:1... such wildly inconsistent results. (Thankfully I'm in no hurry to buy. LOL!)

[Antony Newman]

As TB3, and even TB4, have Bandwidth Limits and Latency issues that (seriously) impact performance - Apple are likely neutering this avenue;
If people need more power - Apple are going to have to deliver it in the 16" Laptop.

Apple have the luxury of being able to increase their GPU & CPU performance by upwards of three times (compared to the power consumed on their Intel Laptop).
If their 16" Laptop racks up twice the performance of the M1 - it would likely satisfy the vast majority of the market they are targetting.

It is curious however - what Apple are going to do in the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, as they will have to offer a beast of a machine that outdoes the 28 Core (56 thread) Xeon.
12 Firestorm (Apple Beefy) CPU cores are not going to best it (even if Apple cores are individually superior).

If Apple goes the multi-chip route (in the Mac Pro) - would that mean the 16" Laptop chip includes the gubbins needed for external GPUs too?
And if PCIe does not support memory coherency ... could this mean their next laptops include CXL?

AJ

eGPU's aren't supported on M1 Macs. (Personally, I doubt that will change in the future with Apple Silicon).<snip>

[Mike P.]

I was under the impression they were just gonna drop more M1s in the higher end machines and/or more cores in M1x/M2. Also from the synthetic benches, M1 has better single *and* multicore performance. If they went 16 or 32core, shouldn't it best the Xeon?

At this point, I'm more of a laptop user anyway, and I relish that Intel's power hungriness and thermal performance has inadvertently opened the door for more hardware (e.g. you could literally throw two M1s in the MBP16" AS and have the same battery life/heat management as a single octo-core i9).

...And again, as far fetched as it is, I would really dig it if Apple allowed you to connect other AS devices via TB3/TB4 (next gen iPad Pro, iPhone, etc) and have their AS processors help chew through stuff. Even if the gains were only marginal, they're devices that apple users would likely have sitting around anyway.