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MillimeterEditor's Notes
Mar 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Cynthia Wisehart
Between last year's NAB and now, Intel has gone through one of its most productive periods in history, delivering the new Core 2 Duo chip and the new Xeon chips — based on completely new architecture and providing a call-to-action for multi-threaded applications. HP and Dell came swiftly to market with hardware implementations, including HP's quad-core xw8400 based on the dual-core Xeon chips. In a year, workstations have essentially gone from two cores to eight.
No software company benefits more from the multi-core bonanza than Autodesk. (At NAB, extensions of the company's Discreet-legacy and Toxik software will refresh all the company's major products. Check out the Lustre extension as well for new workflow and “look design” features.)
At press time, Maurice Patel, Autodesk's director of product marketing, reminded me of something I had forgotten. He ran through the history of the chip race that used to pit SGI against Intel, as the NT workstations started to creep into what was not yet called “workflow.” He reminded me of the tussle between processor speed and multi-core architecture, a struggle that went the way of processor speed, but it has now looped back to what SGI once did best — multi-core architecture. Of course, he reminded me that Autodesk software has been multi-threaded since the dawn of multi-threaded apps. “That gives us an advantage now,” he says simply.
This year, our reviewers have confirmed that the effect of new chip architecture is not evenly spread — many class applications are not yet optimized for multi-threading. So while Intel and its hardware partners have delivered the next-gen platform, life is more complicated in the short term. Not only must you consider what to invest in against future business needs, you must also make sure you're not matching your favorite software to a workstation configuration it can't leverage. (For more on my pre-NAB conversation with Patel, see blog.digitalcontentproducer.com/nab.)
We also have our own NAB debut: reel-exchange.com, a business-to-business networking site for film and video professionals. Individuals and member companies post reels and fill out a detailed profile. A robust search function will allow other users to search for cinematographers by format, editors by software, producers by geographical location, directors who make commercials, and HD producers who make digital signage content. Reels will be presented as Flash (via VP6) for ease of use and security, but members can also make their reels available in a high-res format of their choice and/or via DVD or tape upon request. Millimeter will market the site as a one-stop location for finding the right services and collaborators. We thank Dell, Sony, and Adobe for their support in launching this ambitious project. We also thank the participants in our first2know campaign, whose reels will debut with the site. If you attend NAB, you can stop by our booth #SL4626 for more information. Or go to reel-exchange.com.
