New MBP for audio and video

[Tarmo M]

What are the recommendation for new MBP if I want to run audio and video off it?

Video should be able to handle at least 2 projectors simultaneously with couple of layers running on each one at least 1080p without being choppy.
Will the new MBP 14” 2021 with M1pro, 16GB RAM and 10 -core CPU with 16-core GPU be enough? 

[Sam Kusnetz]

Hi Matt

While we haven’t put our hands on one yet, just from reading about them I am convinced that the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips are going to offer the absolute best possible QLab performance of any Mac.

QLab 4 does not (and will never) run natively on Apple Silicon processors, so it’s hard to predict exactly how it will behave on these new processors but extrapolating from QLab 4’s behavior on the M1 processor is what leads me to this conclusion.

I think two 1920x1080 projectors on an M1 Pro or M1 Max computer is likely to be totally well-behaved.

Best

Sam

—

Sam Kusnetz (he/him) | Figure 53

s...@figure53.com

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[Graham Coates]

Why will it never?  I don’t know anything about programming for an Apple Silicon computer, but never seems like a strong word!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qlab/CAOOK5AY8o%2B4J5fhqopzqgHR%3D1%3DDFMVbk5NvbC%2BWgxO%2B5bMrzHw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Sam Kusnetz]

On Nov 2, 2021 at 4:48:05 PM, Graham Coates <gra...@gmail.com> wrote:

Why will it never?  I don’t know anything about programming for an Apple Silicon computer, but never seems like a strong word!

“Never" because we are developing QLab 5 right now, which will be native on Apple Silicon as previously discussed on this list, and it makes no sense to dedicate developer hours towards updating QLab 4 in a fundamental way instead of dedicating those same hours towards working on QLab 5.

[Tarmo M]

Is there any timeline known for release of Qlab 5? 

Last time I upgraded from 2 to 3 then about in two months before 4 was out. I'm still running 3 and planned to upgrade to 4 in the first quarter of 2022.

[aroom]

hello all,

discussing hypothetical user case of the m1 pro and m1 max, I would like to pic the group brain about what can we expect from those chips, if anyone is literate about how this technology works, when the software meets the hardware.

in other words, how do the claim of supporting 2 or 4 external displays (2 at 6k 60Hz for the pro - 3 at 6k and 1 at 4k 60Hz for the max) could translate in a Qlab user case?

for example:

- if the m1 pro can only support 2 external displays at 6K, could it support more displays at a lower resolution or not?

- when you use a video capture card like an AJA U-TAP SDI for video input, should you count it as an external display in the GPU bandwidth or is it completely different?

- how would 200 or 400 GB/s of memory bandwidth be used in QLab world?

- and will QLab be happy to have more GPU core or at the end it doesn’t really matter if it’s on 16 or 24?

- are those new laptops only tailored to edit 8k youtube videos?

eager to learn, thanks

aroom

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[Sam Kusnetz]

On Nov 2, 2021 at 5:25:16 PM, Tarmo M <tarmo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there any timeline known for release of Qlab 5? 
Last time I upgraded from 2 to 3 then about in two months before 4 was out. I'm still running 3 and planned to upgrade to 4 in the first quarter of 2022.

We don’t like to announce release dates until we’re sure of them, and we’re usually not sure until the day of :)

But I am comfortable saying that v5 development and testing is in high gear.

Best,
Sam

[Sam Kusnetz]

aroom asked:

- if the m1 pro can only support 2 external displays at 6K, could it support more displays at a lower resolution or not?

My best understanding is that M1 Pro-based MacBook Pros won’t recognize more than two external displays, no matter their resolution, but you can get more physical displays by using devices like the ones made by Datapath and Matrox which appear to the Mac as a single display and divide up that single display raster into several separate physical outputs.

If you do that, the apparent resolution of the multi-output video device needs to be 6K or smaller; easy to ensure.

- when you use a video capture card like an AJA U-TAP SDI for video input, should you count it as an external display in the GPU bandwidth or is it completely different?

If you’re asking if video *input* devices count as displays, the answer is definitely no, though of course everything a computer does “counts” against the total processing power of the computer.

QLab supports video output using Blackmagic devices, and these do *not* count against the number of displays, but rendering video to those devices of course takes work, so using them does indeed count against the total available CPU, GPU, and memory resources.

- how would 200 or 400 GB/s of memory bandwidth be used in QLab world?

Very quickly!

Kidding, kidding.

It’s difficult to calculate the effect of having this kind of memory bandwidth available. Much of the reason that Intel integrated GPUs are so lousy is that integrated GPUs use system RAM, not dedicated VRAM, and system RAM bandwidth generally is much lower because CPUs generally don’t have any reason to need extremely high bandwidth.

Apple’s answer to the problem of wanting an integrated GPU but also wanting it to be world class was to raise the performance of the whole memory system to the level that GPUs want. 200GB/s to 400GB/s isn’t world-changing for VRAM speed, but it’s sort of unprecedented for system RAM speed. We’re all going to learn together what sorts of implications that has.

My first, immediate guess is that the performance of non-native video outputs (things like Blackmagic devices, Aja devices, NDI, Syphon, etc.) is going to get a LOT better.

- and will QLab be happy to have more GPU core or at the end it doesn’t really matter if it’s on 16 or 24?

That depends entirely on what you’re doing. Anything that uses a GPU can benefit from more GPU as long as you have enough work to feed it. It’s very difficult for me to say in advance how much GPU power will be needed to achieve a particular goal.

Once I have one of these laptops in my possession, I hope to conduct the same series of tests on it, on my “old” Intel i9 MacBook Pro, and on a yet older i7 MacBook Pro. Hopefully I’ll be able to shed some light on how each system behaves against a few simulated real-world-type QLab setups so that folks can make more informed purchasing decisions.

- are those new laptops only tailored to edit 8k youtube videos?

No. I’m not even sure what that would mean, but any CPU- and/or GPU-intensive tasks like audio, video, or photo editing, software compiling, or development will benefit from these new laptops.

All my best

[aroom]

Thanks Sam for taking the time to answer. The number of external displays is were I need to make a decision. I’m not really looking forward to work with a matrox.

- are those new laptops only tailored to edit 8k youtube videos?

No. I’m not even sure what that would mean, but any CPU- and/or GPU-intensive tasks like audio, video, or photo editing, software compiling, or development will benefit from these new laptops.

It’s was a joke because most of the reviews we have about those new laptops are from youtubers who are also video editors and thus amazed how fast the rendering is…

bye

aroom

[Sam Kusnetz]

On Nov 4, 2021 at 11:51:52 AM, 'aroom' via QLab <ql...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

- are those new laptops only tailored to edit 8k youtube videos?

No. I’m not even sure what that would mean, but any CPU- and/or GPU-intensive tasks like audio, video, or photo editing, software compiling, or development will benefit from these new laptops.

It’s was a joke because most of the reviews we have about those new laptops are from youtubers who are also video editors and thus amazed how fast the rendering is…

Aaaah I see, yes, good joke! My bad. :)

sk