In the wake of COVID-19, Final Cut Pro recently hosted their 6th annual conference virtually.
The FCPX Global Virtual Summit was held from November 16-22 and featured seven days of cutting-edge sessions, presented by top industry professionals.
OWC wrapped up the conference with their platinum sponsor session featuring industry leaders: Larry O’Connor, Sam Mestman, Jeff Greenberg, Peter Wiggins, and Jonathan Sims.
The session was facilitated by Sam Mestman, CEO of We Make Movies.
What’s new with Thunderbolt 4?
Larry O’Connor, CEO, and Founder, of OWC, discussed the recent release of the new Thunderbolt 4. Larry explained to Sam that it essentially provides the same capabilities as the Thunderbolt 3 on a Mac; however, the previous challenges incurred on a PC have now been eliminated. In the past, Apple did the full Thunderbolt implementation, where the PC previously didn’t support devices with power delivery properly.
The dock has a built-in hub with additional ports and an external device with the primary feature being “hubbing.” “Every port on the hub is a full 40-gig port and you can now put multiple Thunderbolt ports on the same hub,” said Larry. It’s more convenient now to disconnect and reconnect items that you want to take in and out of the chain, and you can more easily rearrange workflows, and put more ports on the device, while not limited to just one hub.
macOS and compatibility
Larry told the panel that everything is going to interchange very nicely between Thunderbolt 3 and 4 across both PC and Mac. He explained that Thunderbolt 4 cables are always “C to C,” and no matter what you plug it into, it will always work at maximum speed. The host and device work together so you will never have to worry about having the right cable. The Thunderbolt hub supports compatibility mode but you will have to run macOS 11 in order to use all of its capabilities.
Additional advantages are the elimination of daisy-chaining, more device stability, convenience, and better workflow and performance from devices. The biggest improvement mentioned was for PC users, as the Thunderbolt 4 is now featuring everything that Thunderbolt 3 was missing, including an 8K display. “As a PC owner, you will now have everything that Mac has,” said Larry.
“With the new Thunderbolt, it’s just going to work. It’s that simple. Just plug in and go.”
Larry O’Connor
New Apple Macs
Jeff Greenberg, CEO, and Owner of J Greenberg Consulting specializes in post-production, compression, color correction, and video editing. Jeff, on the hardware ecosystem of Apple’s M1, the Thunderbolt 4, and iPhones: “It’s a very exciting time to be a Mac user, as they are really pushing the envelope and putting pressure on other companies.”
Peter Wiggins, Editor in Chief at FCP.co, explained that all of the new technology is important and that the 10.5 update is one of the biggest ever done because it runs on the new silicon, a Mac transition that Apple announced this past June.
“Everything works almost like they changed something under the hood, and I think they will sell thousands upon thousands of new Apple silicon machines.”
Peter Wiggins
iPhones and iPads telling a story
Jonathan Sims, Owner of No Reservations Productions, is building one of the first OWC media centers in Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. According to Jonathan, they are truly pioneering in his community, where media is still very taboo. “We’ve given kids a way to document what’s going on in their community from the inside out,” said Jonathan. “The kids are telling their own stories in the midst of a pandemic.” As a self-proclaimed Mac-geek, he said that the technology of shooting media on iPhones and iPads showed amazing potential.
According to Jeff, the big picture is the idea of 10-bit HDR phones creating great-looking pictures right out of your pocket.
“The best camera is the one that you have on you.”
Jeff Greenberg, CEO, and Owner of J Greenberg Consulting
Watch the full summit video below.
Related Links
Maybe Macsales makes a Thunderbolt hub for a Mac in the future!
Well, the future is here – Check out the OWC Thunderbolt Hub!
Thunderbolt 4, M1, MacOS 11 (macOS 11) and more… ?
8K on TB4, yet what Macs, currently, if any – support TB4? Sounds like TB4 adds a few features, 8K – so TB3 ‘Mac/Apple’ is just as good as TB4 on ‘Windows 10/intel’?
Also the BT is buggy on the M1 Macs. This is very odd, since BT has been around since the Viking Ages (#facts).
One basic feature that boggles my mind, for iPad – or maybe just iPad Pros is a lack of full multi-tasking, screen sharing (splitting, really) and apps that fail to follow commands (rotate). YES, I know many do not support this feature.
Does Apple hate its DEVs or his paying customers, more? Which one, just curious.