There’s been much wringing of hands over the future of the Mac Pro, which is long overdue for an upgrade. New chips from Intel are imminent, but Apple’s been characteristically quiet about what’s in store, and if there will even be another Mac Pro.

The current 27″ iMac is no performance slouch, and with Thunderbolt technology built in there’s been speculation about the true need for internal slots. Put multiple Thunderbolt ports/busses on an iMac and you’ve got a pretty capable machine for video editing and graphics, with plenty of room for external expansion thanks to Thunderbolt. At NAB this year there were plenty of new Thunderbolt accessories.

The sticky-wicket is GPU performance. Thunderbolt is fast, but it’s current iteration isn’t nearly as fast as an internal 16-lane PCIe connector, which is where high-performance graphics cards sit.

This video recently popped up on YouTube, demonstrating an NVidia Quadro 4000 accelerating the effects in Adobe Premiere CS6 over thunderbolt.

As I am fond of saying, “It’s amazing that it works at all!”

This got me wondering how important the 16 lane PCIe speed really is for GPU performance. How much performance is a result of data moving across the buss, and how much is simply on-card number crunching? I decided to do some testing.

I recently replaced the GPU in one of our Mac Pro 3.1 towers, pulling the ATI 3870 and putting in an NVidia GTX-470 that came from eBay, its ROMs flashed for Mac compatibility. I wanted a CUDA capable card to take advantage of the accelerated features in Adobe’s CS6 tools, and this card offers a high price/performance ratio. It’s a lot of CUDA cores for the buck, and it’s been running flawlessly for a couple of months.

Here are some test results from the GTX-470, installed in the 16-lane slot in the Mac Pro. First up, some stats from the CUDA-Z utility, which is designed to benchmark CUDA cards on the Mac.

So that’s our baseline, running in the 16-lane slot.

I also ran the Cinebench test from Maxon, which is designed to test OpenGL performance. Here’s the results from that test:

That’s the GTX-470 in orange in the results list, 26.16 fps.

Now, interestingly, the GTX-470 doesn’t set the world on fire when it comes to OpenGL performance. If you look at the list of result you’ll see that the ATI 3870, a much older card with less memory, outperforms it. I did some research, and the conclusion seems to be that NVidia did some internal bandwidth bottlenecking on this card to keep it from competing with the much more expensive Quadro series. As a gaming card, the GTX-470 is designed to get images rendered to the screen quickly, but for OpenGL it is limited in getting those rendered images back to the CPU. The CUDA pipes are wide open, I’m told.

So what happens when we benchmark the GPUs in the 4-lane slot, which is closer to the bandwidth we’d expect to have over Thunderbolt?

First up, the GTX-470 CUDA test in the 4-lane slot:

Here’s the 16-lane slot test again for comparison:

These results are pretty much what you would expect. The speed of getting data to and from the card drops significantly in the 4-lane slot, yet the internal functions of the card stay close enough to call even.

Here’s the OpenGL Cinebench test in the 4-lane slot:

It’s nearly the same performance that we got in the 16-lane slot, close enough to call even.

Based on this test, for OpenGL we would likely see no real-world performance hit from running via an external Thunderbolt chassis.

I also tested the older ATI 3870 card, and it went from 31.2 fps in the 16-lane slot to 30.9 in the 4-lane slot, not what I would consider a significant difference.

So while the raw numbers from the CUDA-Z benchmark show a significant performance gap in getting data to and from the GPU, the more real-world Cinebench tests seem to indicate that in this particular combination of hardware it’s not as big a performance hit as you might expect.

This is far from the last word on this. There are, of course, flaws in this method of testing. It’s a bit Apples vs. Oranges comparing the raw CUDA numbers to the OpenGL numbers. I didn’t set out to create the be-all-end-all statement on GPU performance in Mac Pro slots, rather I was simply curious to know how much of a difference slot-placement actually makes, and if the notion of using a high-performance GPU in an external Thunderbolt expansion chassis makes any sense. So I took a couple of hours and played around with it. I’d love to see some real-world comparisons using some of Adobe’s apps, and to see what the threshold is for when the number of lanes starts to make a real-world difference. It may be that for many users that threshold is rarely reached. There will, of course, be those who lust after every possible shred of performance and spare no expense getting it, and there are probably apps for which the threshold is, indeed reached pretty quickly. (DaVinci Resolve comes to mind, for example.)

Based on the prototype video posted above and these test results, I’m much more optimistic about this being a practical solution than I had been previously. A 27″ iMac with an external CUDA card could prove to be an extremely viable, cost-effective workstation. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see another round of Mac Pros, but even if Apple decides to drop or significantly rework them the situation doesn’t seem nearly as grim. We have options.

Plankton, via Wikipedia

That would be Plankton, the tiny nemesis of Mr. Krabs on the Nickelodeon show SpongeBob Squarepants. He’s the classic self proclaimed Evil Genius, who’s brilliant plans are inevitably thwarted by the innocent bumbling of SpongeBob. His over-the-top delusions of self-importance crack me up, but he’s also one of those acts that has to been seen to be appreciated. Merely describing him (as, um, I’m doing here) doesn’t do him justice.

So when a colleague of mine asked about the Plankton stuffed animal who sits on one of the video monitors in our main edit suite, I fired up YouTube, hoping to quickly show him a collection of best-of-Plankton clips.

I was out of luck.

Turns out there’s very little SpongeBob content on YouTube, and virtually all of it is low quality, and doesn’t stay up for long. Viacom, Nick’s parent company, has famously sued Google, who owns YouTube, claiming copyright infringement because, they claim, YouTube isn’t aggressive enough in deleting Viacom’s content that users have uploaded to the service.

Let me be clear, here, that I agree that Viacom has a right to demand that Google remove their content from YouTube. Turns out they do have ad-supported clips on their own web site, and I certainly could have purchased a Spongebob DVD collection, or even have purchased and downloaded episodes from iTunes. They own the content, and if they want to keep fans from uploading clips to YouTube, that’s their right.

But in this case, I think it’s a stupid, short-sighted thing to do.

Here I was, a huge fan of Viacom’s product, eager to share my enthusiasm with a friend who was unfamiliar with the show. And in that moment of shared enthusiasm, we went searching for some short samples of the show on the world’s second largest search engine, and failed.  Excitement shifted to frustration, and eventually we just gave up. The “Oh, you have got to see this!” moment passed. And my friend still doesn’t really “get” all the fuss I made about Plankton.

That’s a missed opportunity for Viacom. They had a chance to win a new fan, someone who was being led to their content by someone they trust, which is one of the most powerful and effective ways to win new viewers. Why would they want to get in the way of that?

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away, Lucasfilm takes a decidedly different approach.

Check out this feature length documentary, Star Wars Begins -

Yep, that’s the whole movie, enhanced with informational tidbits, deleted scenes and other content that Star Wars junkies like me can’t get enough of. (There are versions for Empire and Jedi, too.)

An argument can be made that since this a documentary it falls under fair use, but there’s enough Star Wars related content on YouTube to safely conclude that Lucasfilm has a pretty liberal policy toward the use of their content. It seems that as long as you’re not attempting to profit, they pretty much leave you alone.

This strengthens their relationship with fans. I’ve seen the original Star Wars trilogy hundred of times, practically have the films memorized, and yet I spent seven or eight hours watching these videos on YouTube. (Go ahead, roll your eyes.) Fan-created content like this helps keep the films relevant for long-time fans. (And yes, I’ll be buying the BluRay editions when they come out.)

I wonder how much of a difference it makes that Viacom is a publicly traded company, and that Lucasfilm is privately owned and run by the person who actually created the content?

What do you think? Is a company like Viacom ultimately hurting themselves by clutching their content so tightly? Is Lucasfilm being foolish, allowing the free use of so much of their content? Who’s doing a better job building long-term fans, and which philosophy will work best in the future?

I had no idea what a Strobist was.

Can you spot the Strobist in this photo?

My earliest recollection of David Hobby is that he was the buzz cut Dad who showed up at events at our kids’ school in shorts and a sweatshirt, and when he used his DSLR he always held the flash off to the side. (“Hmmm…maybe this guy knows a thing or two about lighting…”)

Somewhere along the way he and I figured out that we share a love of geeky gadgets and subversive humor. When we’d run into each other we’d end up quizzing each other on the latest gear, me asking him about photo stuff and him asking me about video, along with the occasional intellectual sparring over the latest Macbooks or iPhones.

Last year, over lunch, David shared that he was formulating his plans for his next round of Strobist instructional DVDs, and wondered if it was a project Pixel Workshop would be interested in. I put on my best poker face and said, “Well, tell me more about the project…”, all the while thinking, “Are you frickin’ kidding me? Interested?”

Ideas flew back and forth. His previous set of DVDs had proven popular and well-received with Strobist readers, and he wanted to take this set to the next level, with more advanced lighting techniques and higher production value. We agreed on a behind-the-scenes feel, as if you were tagging along on a Strobist shoot. Nothing too polished. Mistakes teach us as much (if not more) than success. Al dente was the phrase David used.

Field Production - Shooting the Shooter

The schedule was aggressive but achievable. We had multiple locations to shoot, plus a series of studio segments with David sharing what’s he’s learned about what motivates his work, and how to make a successful business blossom from a love of photography. Multiple HD video cameras would document the action, and give us creative options in the edit suite.

Here are some highlights.

Howard County Conservancy - This was the first thing we shot. David put a call out to his readers to come out and volunteer a few hours to help gather representative beauty shots for the conservancy, a local land trust and environmental center. We both figured it would make a nice way to ease in things, and weren’t sure what, if anything we would end up using. It ended up being one of my favorite segments, stylistically different, more of a magazine-style documentary than a how-to piece.

Bees - “Turn out bees don’t work when it’s below sixty degrees,” David lamented. We were in the middle of fall, and each day the high temperature was getting lower.  So we high-tailed it out to a local beekeeper’s, before it was too late. The bees cooperated, and no one got stung. David even wore long pants. (Really. What’s the worst that could happen?)

Sticky the Frog / Blacksmith - Back to the conservancy to shoot a tree frog in a tank and a blacksmith in a black box. The frog was cooperative, and never hopped off his branch. (I guess we just got lucky.) The blacksmith segment was more challenging, shooting in a small, dark, dirty, dusty room. We were lucky to have a set of Rosco LitePads that we could clamp to the rafters to bring the levels up a bit. Not to mention +18db gain.

Dancer - Capturing a gravity-defying dancer in front of a sheet of white seamless paper. How hard could it be? This shoot was as much about establishing rapport with your subject as it was about the nuts and bolts of lighting. Freezing the shot while she’s in mid-air is one thing, but capture her beauty and emotion? That’s something else. We had three cameras on this shoot, including a handy GoPro Hero HD cam for high wide shots.

Soccer - We’d already shot with animals, so why not kids, too? (What could possibly go wrong?) It was a cold, windy day, but the boys came out in their shorts. (And by “boys” I mean “David.”) We set up and walked through the technical stuff before the players arrived, so they could focus all of their pre-teen energy on soccer.

Studio Segments - Shooting with David was challenging, and I mean that in a good way. It’s unusual for me to work with a client who knows lighting, who knows not just what they want their project to contain, content-wise, but how they want it to look. Throughout the shoot, David would challenge me to be edgy with the lighting, to take risks. “This isn’t one of your corporate or government gigs!” he would tease, but he would also respect my expertise when I told him something just wasn’t working, and that we needed to come up with other options.

The Edit - So Many Stills

Meanwhile, back at Pixel Workshop, footage was ingested and logged into our edit systems, and rough cuts were strung together to make sure there were no gaping holes.

After some experimentation, we chose a technique for showing both the live video of the shoot, as well as the photos David was shooting. Each still we wanted to include would have to be manually placed, but it made for a much more interesting and educational experience for the viewer. It also made for a much longer edit, even with a few automation tricks we cooked up, but it was worth it. (By my estimation there are over a thousand still images edited into the project.)

In choosing a slower yet more creatively satisfying route for the edit, our comfortable post-production schedule suddenly got a lot tighter. Large projects like this are notoriously challenging to schedule, because of the sheer size of them. It takes an entire day’s worth of man-hours, for example, just to watch through the entire set of DVDs. We had a drop-dead date for getting the master files out for duplication, because David had other projects on his plate. The last week of editing was intense, and we even did an overnight in the studio when a snow storm made travel ill advised.

The Finished Product

We all had a blast producing this project, and I think it shows in the finished product. Everyone involved put in the extra effort to make this something special, something that we’re all proud to put our names on, something that Strobist readers will find valuable.

Special thanks to Dave, Erik, Lisa and John for all of your help on the shoots. We couldn’t have done it without you.

But most of all, thanks to David Hobby, for bringing us on board and being such an amazing creative collaborator. I learned a lot, and had fun doing it. And it doesn’t get much better than that.

When he gets back from that bus trip, we’ll have to spend some quality time tooling around town.

Here’s a sneak peak at one of the segments from Lighting in Layers.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sk-4fcncQs

Clip © 2011 David Hobby / Strobist.com. Used with permission.

It was also mind numbingly boring. We were doing the same shows, week after week.

The same. Shows. Week. After. Week.

So we were constantly on the search for ways to amuse ourselves, such as labeling all of the equipment in the studio and control room after Star Trek, (The studio was labelled “Holodeck,” the switcher “Helm.” We even convinced the director to say “Engage!” instead of “take” to call for a different camera.)

Our nervous boss was endlessly agitated with our antics, and regularly called us in his office to remind us that our antics could not only cost us our jobs, but cost him his job, and he had a wide and family to support, so we’d better knock it off. And we would, for a day or two, after which the boredom would set in and we’d find a new way to amuse ourselves. (And I’d like express my thanks to you, dear tax payer, for financing our tomfoolery.)

One day he’d clearly had enough, dragged us into his office and started yelling, “Humor is dangerous! Do you understand me? Humor is dangerous!”

That phrase still resonates with me, years later, because it’s an attitude we contend with regularly as we help our clients with their communications needs. Particularly with large companies, we’re often brought in to help come up with ideas that are “edgy” and “out of the box.”  But it’s rare (and, might I add, awesome) for a company to be comfortable enough in their own skin to actually do something that’s original and funny. Humor involves taking risks, not the least of which is the chance you might offend someone. Sometimes you hit a home run and strike comedy gold. Sometimes you strike out. But far too many companies aren’t willing to swing for the fences, and instead go for the safe base hit. (And that’s quite enough of the tortured baseball analogy.)

Done well, there’s nothing better than humor. Here’s a great example -

Why does this work? NPR has an extremely strong brand and loyal listeners who are intimately connected to that brand. They’re known for being sophisticated, somewhat stodgy and even a tad elitist. And this video pokes fun at all of that. Also notice that there’s very little winking at the camera. By playing it straight they make the situations even more preposterous than they would otherwise be.

Would your company have the confidence to do a piece like this, with bleeped profanity and blurred nudity, poking fun at the most recognizable elements of your brand? And if not, ask yourself,  what’s controlling your message?

Passion and courage can propel your ideas forward. Fear will hold them back.

The latest post on his blog is all about how we learn from stories and experience. He writes:

Stories have an emotional component and when you engage people’s emotions, even just a little bit, you stand a better chance of them paying attention and remembering your point (whether or not they agree with you is another matter entirely).

I couldn’t agree more. The emotional component is critical, such a powerful tool of persuasion, and it’s amazing how many overlook or marginalize it. If you engage someone emotionally, that means on some level they care. They may agree or disagree, but they will take notice and engage.

Giving your customers the facts isn’t enough. You also need to show them why they should care, why the product or service you’re providing will make them happier, healthier, improve their sexual stamina, make them lose weight and make their children love them. Okay, there’s no reason to venture into snake-oil sales-mode, but you get my point.

Check out the rest of Garr’s post on Presentation Zen.

The article is about how “younger”members are leading the charge in using social media to spread the word about Rotary, attract new members and raise money for our efforts. (One of the nice things for me, personally, is that the demographics of Rotary are such that I’m still considered a “young” member!)

Here’s one of my quotes from the article -

“If you want to attract a younger crowd, you have to be able to communicate with them in the manner to which they are accustomed,� he says. “I think there’s definitely an opportunity to expand your club, to spread a wider net, by using social media tools. Facebook allows you to be in touch with a larger circle of people in a more efficient way. Once people get that, the light bulbs go on.�

Rotary is an amazing organization, one of the most efficient charitable organizations in the world, and a great place to meet and work with successful business professionals in your community. It’s not a networking group, but as you’d expect, you tend to want to do business with people you have an established relationship with. For me, it’s a chance to give back to my community, do good, and have a lot of fun while I’m at it.

Here’s a link to the Rotarian article, and my club web site is here.

Here’s a link to the article on Renee’s site.

It’s still a work in progress, and we’ll be making updates and additions int he next few days. Thanks for visiting, please say hello and let us know you dropped by!