MP 7,1 Afterburner video accelerator card for new Mac Pro

[vladi]

Single streams of it maybe but this thing isn’t designed for single streams. If you’re running a large Multicam production you could have easily 4+ streams at one time. That’s gonna choke most computers. I’m cutting 6 streams right now, if that were 4K or any kind of raw format I wouldn’t stand a chance.

I've never touched ProRes RAW in the workflow so far so I have no clue how does it behave, if it has any kind of GPU support at all on Windows. Any kind of info would be great, I didn't have any of such footage come in my way and our cameras can't output it so I'm in for the surprise. I'm aware of the fact RED has finally came to their senses to support mainstream GPU for decoding but we don't work with RED at all. If R3D footage comes in great but again we don't shoot RED. When it comes to RAW we only do X-OCN because of F5 and Venice with XAVC 480 or ProRes 422 "as proxy" but most of the time "proxy" is good enough for final delivery with X-OCN being used for VFX flexibility but those are rarer occasions. I work on non visible VFX, that's my expertise besides setting up color and mood. Sometimes clients insist on RAW workflow but most of the time they just ask for it for archiving purposes. In many occasions we've finished the project with XAVC instead of RAW without them even knowing or seeing the difference because stuff we did was not feature film demanding. We do short promo pieces for internal purposes and b2b and we do work with multicam but never with 6 streams or something extreme like that but then again I'm not the one cutting it Thank god for that lol.

Bottom line ProRes RAW is a mystery to me cause none of the pieces I use support it, even Cion which outputs strictly to ProRes doesn't have it (yet). So it's a waiting game for us.

 

[bsbeamer]

Craig Federighi is now being interview by John Gruber on the The Talk Show Live from WWDC. He talked that Afterburner is a FPGA and like all FPGAs, can be instantly reprogrammable - no news here - but it's the first time I knew that Afterburner will be open to new applications and from what he talked, new applications will be developed for it.

Would be great if someone discussed or released intended or even approximate ballpark costs. At $500 everyone will jump on it and it could be a game changing device. Literally every video software developer (even many plugins) will write their apps to be compatible, or sidekick/offload things through it in some fashion. Even more if there is an accessible API that requires "little" effort from the developers. At $7500 it's a niche item and I do not envision as widespread developer support. The install base would be much more narrow and you're looking at FCPX, AVID, Blackmagic, and Adobe only doing certain things through it (like ProRes and maybe that's it). Would RED even really bother at that point? They have their own hardware card at that price.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Work as in supported configuration on the older cheese grader ? Probably not (they all are in vintage/obsolete status now).

Work as in performs to the max performance that Apple talks about in the sales literature around the card. Definitely not. The no vintage/obsolete systems are PCI-e v2. This care is probably firmly grounded in a PCI-e v3 context to hit those "max" stream marks. Once got x8 v2 it won't work as well. It will do "something". It will also probably "do something" on a Thunderbolt v3 link as well ( slower and more latency). The MacPro 2013's Thunderbolt v2 links are an even bigger issue.

One of the issues also it probably going to be which slot this card is in in the Mac Pro 2019. The slots oversubscribe the PCI-e lane provisioning. Some of these x8 slots are sharing bandwidth. Again sucking in 8K ProRes RAW footage and on-the-fly converting it is going to test bandwidth. Smaller resolutions will be easier.

The streams are passed from this card to the video card over the PCI-e links. It isn't the "coming in" from storage that would be the bandwidth constraint. It is passing it back out to be viewed. ( could be some GPU feature set needed also if going far enough back in time )

Yes, In most cases it would not make sense, especially for 8K. I'm still primarily shooting 1080p, in some cases, using a ProRes recorder. 1080p maybe 4k, it might still work.

 

[2bcool]

Do we think we will be able to use it externally with an IMAC ? do we think other companies will bring out similar product to use with iMac pro ?

btw pricing on the new card i think might shock us just like the mac pro price, just like the display price, and just like the stand TAX ... a reasonable price may be up to 1k.... im guessing they will ask for 2k...
they could ask for 4k+

the only thing that makes me need to buy the new mac pro over a specked out iMac is i want to be future proofed when i get a new 8k camera from z cam this fall. the entry level mac pro is very underpowered compared to iMac /imac pro. id save 3k getting the same speed or better from the new iMac compared to 6k mac pro.

for 3k id get 8 core, vega 48, 500gb ssd, 5k screen + FREE FRICKING STAND!! for 6k id get 8 core, Radeon Pro 580X graphics, 256gb ssd. no 5k screen.

the new iMac would be perfect if i can have an external
Afterburner video accelerator card

 

[deconstruct60]

Do we think we will be able to use it externally with an IMAC ? do we think other companies will bring out similar product to use with iMac pro ?
......

the new iMac would be perfect if i can have an external
Afterburner video accelerator card

Apparently not. In a blog chat the Product Manager for the iMac Pro and Mac Pro makes a comment ( around 0:30-0:32 minute mark https://www.relay.fm/mpu/485 ) that "...things like Afterburner which we can't bring to the iMac Pro"

Unclear if they don't want to support at full specs or there is some latency hiccup and system will abort if comm traffic isn't on same 'local' PCI-e bus. ( for example if the Afterburner card is doing direct point-to-point DMA data transfer directly to the GPU there may be a local bus constraint put in the code. )

He also mentions that the modules they mention on the tech spec page will be "for sale". So if it happens to work but not officially supported folks may be able to use it anyway.
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... Even more if there is an accessible API that requires "little" effort from the developers. ....

I didn't write down the exact timecode but the Product Manger mentions that if just simply use Apples Foundation framework for accessing ProRes context then basically will get Afterburner usage if it is present. So QuickTime player gets it and anything else that is just using Apple's ProRes APIs. [ Folks who wrote their own stuff may have something to change. ]

 

[Pressure]

Craig Federighi is now being interview by John Gruber on the The Talk Show Live from WWDC. He talked that Afterburner is a FPGA and like all FPGAs, can be instantly reprogrammable - no news here - but it's the first time I knew that Afterburner will be open to new applications and from what he talked, new applications will be developed for it.

Would be great if someone discussed or released intended or even approximate ballpark costs. At $500 everyone will jump on it and it could be a game changing device. Literally every video software developer (even many plugins) will write their apps to be compatible, or sidekick/offload things through it in some fashion. Even more if there is an accessible API that requires "little" effort from the developers. At $7500 it's a niche item and I do not envision as widespread developer support. The install base would be much more narrow and you're looking at FCPX, AVID, Blackmagic, and Adobe only doing certain things through it (like ProRes and maybe that's it). Would RED even really bother at that point? They have their own hardware card at that price.

FPGAs are expensive. The Virtex UltraScale+ development board has a list price of $6,995.00 to give you an idea.

 

[deconstruct60]

Yes, In most cases it would not make sense, especially for 8K. I'm still primarily shooting 1080p, in some cases, using a ProRes recorder. 1080p maybe 4k, it might still work.

x8 PCIe v2 is same bandwidth as x4 PCIe v4. If they can't get it working with the iMac Pro and bandwidth is a core issue they are about in the same situation. If there is "princess and the pea" low latency issues again PCI-e v2 means not quite the same ( local incrementally better than Thunderbolt but on tight thresholds it would still be a problem).

I suspect the official Apple answer is gong to be 'No'. However, folks have hacks to make eGPUs to work on MP 2013 (so in the "happens to work" state. )

 

[bsbeamer]

I didn't write down the exact timecode but the Product Manger mentions that if just simply use Apples Foundation framework for accessing ProRes context then basically will get Afterburner usage if it is present. So QuickTime player gets it and anything else that is just using Apple's ProRes APIs. [ Folks who wrote their own stuff may have something to change. ]

More mentions of ProRes... not that it's necessarily a bad thing, but if this is ever going to expand beyond FCPX usage it needs to "do more" than ProRes. Blackmagic RAW, RED RAW, even H265 would be great. I'm really curious what RED has in plan for Afterburner, if anything. They may be leading the pack on initial support outside of just ProRes functions. Adobe apparently was weaning off of ProRes API's recently, but that may have only impacted PC users. Will have to look into that a bit more.

FPGAs are expensive. The Virtex UltraScale+ development board has a list price of $6,995.00 to give you an idea.

Aware of FPGA and I'm fully expecting $1K+ for this card. Just stating, at $5K+ I'm not sure the market is there for what keeps being referred to as a ProRes acceleration card. To command that $7K market price, it needs to do more than ProRes. RED's own ROCKET card is $7K and that is pulling a lot more weight than ProRes flavors.

 

[Pressure]

More mentions of ProRes... not that it's necessarily a bad thing, but if this is ever going to expand beyond FCPX usage it needs to "do more" than ProRes. Blackmagic RAW, RED RAW, even H265 would be great. I'm really curious what RED has in plan for Afterburner, if anything. They may be leading the pack on initial support outside of just ProRes functions. Adobe apparently was weaning off of ProRes API's recently, but that may have only impacted PC users. Will have to look into that a bit more.



Aware of FPGA and I'm fully expecting $1K+ for this card. Just stating, at $5K+ I'm not sure the market is there for what keeps being referred to as a ProRes acceleration card. To command that $7K market price, it needs to do more than ProRes. RED's own ROCKET card is $7K and that is pulling a lot more weight than ProRes flavors.

You can easily tag a few thousand on that guess heh. You barely get a monitor stand for that these days

 

[linuxcooldude]

More mentions of ProRes... not that it's necessarily a bad thing, but if this is ever going to expand beyond FCPX usage it needs to "do more" than ProRes. Blackmagic RAW, RED RAW, even H265 would be great. I'm really curious what RED has in plan for Afterburner, if anything. They may be leading the pack on initial support outside of just ProRes functions. Adobe apparently was weaning off of ProRes API's recently, but that may have only impacted PC users. Will have to look into that a bit more.

Apple’s new hardware will bring a mind-blowing level of performance to Metal-accelerated, proxy-free R3D workflows in Final Cut Pro X that editors truly have never seen before. We are very excited to bring a Metal-optimized version of R3D in September.” — Jarred Land, president, Red Digital Cinema

 

[bsbeamer]

Apple’s new hardware will bring a mind-blowing level of performance to Metal-accelerated, proxy-free R3D workflows in Final Cut Pro X that editors truly have never seen before. We are very excited to bring a Metal-optimized version of R3D in September.” — Jarred Land, president, Red Digital Cinema

Metal optimized R3D doesn’t need Afterburner, it needs Metal GPUs.

We’re going to need an official info page or specs directly from Apple, or third party developing for Afterburner making a statement to officially know more. Until then, still thinking of this as “just” a ProRes accelerator card for FCPX. Everything else is pure speculation.

 

[bsbeamer]

See this video around the 15min mark when he moves over to the FCPX station to hear the "sales pitch" on Afterburner:

This is another heavy ProRes/ProResRAW pitch on the card. Will certainly be a nice to have for FCPX workflows, still not sure about any other platforms - Adobe, Avid, Blackmagic Resolve, etc.

18min mark question about pricing and answer given "Should be on the website"

 

[PowerMike G5]

Now that we have the launch of the 7,1, I wanted to bring this thread back to help those interested the Afterburner have a consolidated thread for info.

As a heavy Adobe Premiere Pro/CC user, I'm interested in getting this card with my order, but am a bit bummed that they didn't release a page with more info about it. It looks like it only works with ProRes codecs for decoding. But will it greatly accelerate workflows like trancoding to ProRes from other formats to take advantage of this decoding for editing? That's my big question.

 

[bsbeamer]

It looks like it only works with ProRes codecs for decoding.

That's all the card has been advertised as since it was announced. Adobe has NOT announced any support for Afterburner at this time, so would use caution with purchasing for that particular use.

I'm fairly positive it can (eventually) be purchased after the machine:
https://www.apple.com/us-smb/shop/mac/mac-accessories/mac-components

 

[Pressure]

Reasonable priced at $2,000.00, compared to that $5,800.00 graphic card.

 

[deconstruct60]

Now that we have the launch of the 7,1, I wanted to bring this thread back to help those interested the Afterburner have a consolidated thread for info.

As a heavy Adobe Premiere Pro/CC user, I'm interested in getting this card with my order, but am a bit bummed that they didn't release a page with more info about it. It looks like it only works with ProRes codecs for decoding. But will it greatly accelerate workflows like trancoding to ProRes from other formats to take advantage of this decoding for editing? That's my big question.

Apple's sale pitch on the Mac Pro marketing page for the Afterburner is

"... No more time-consuming transcoding, storage overhead, or errors during output. Proxy workflows, RIP. ..."

They are essentially talking about skipping transcoding. For a $2K price tag you'd think they were including it, but they aren't ( at the moment). The heavyweight transcoding is what they are trying to sell the Vega II options to do.

Folks wouldn't get the storage overhead reduction, but the same path to create ProRes proxies now would be the precursor to aligning with Afterburner.

The access to Afterburner is entirely through Apple's AV Foundational libraries. They weren't trying to do API expansion to cover Afterburner. Apple has some RAW conversion libraries so perhaps that is a future path for them, but if it did come then it would probably be along another existing Apple API.
[automerge]1576004673[/automerge]

That's all the card has been advertised as since it was announced. Adobe has NOT announced any support for Afterburner at this time, so would use caution with purchasing for that particular use.

The only people who have to announce support for Afterburner are the folks who bypassed Apple's AV Foundation libraries to work with ProRes media files. If have been following Apple's guidelines then there is nothing to do (or announce).

 

[PowerMike G5]

Yeah, for a lot of cameras that shoot in other H.264-based formats or RAW formats, having this card act as a fast transcoder to these applicable ProRes formats would be amazing. With this card then handling all decode during playback for editing, your CPU and GPU are then used primarily for effects acceleration/rendering/final output.

This would be beneficial for my workflow at least, if the card will never support outside the ProRes codec. CRM to ProRes RAW and XF-AVC to ProRes HQ for Premiere would make this worth it for sure.

I just wish we knew more. I'd like to purchase as a write-off for 2019, so buying it with the machine would be better. But it's a bit of a gamble without knowing more, especially since I'm not using FCPX.

 

[PowerMike G5]

I also remember reading somewhere from the BlackMagicDesign CEO about how the Afterburner provided real-time color correction on their 8K footage. So if this card also accelerates real-time color grading adjustments at full resolution, then suddenly it becomes amazing for the working video editor.

 

[deconstruct60]

I also remember reading somewhere from the BlackMagicDesign CEO about how the Afterburner provided real-time color correction on their 8K footage. So if this card also accelerates real-time color grading adjustments at full resolution, then suddenly it becomes amazing for the working video editor.

Real time on ProRes RAW probably. The context of that statement would be important. The original quote is contains "With the new Mac Pro and Afterburner, we’re seeing ... " . it is leap to attribute that only to Afterburner ( i.e, what Vega II's were in the system and how much are they doing the transcoding. )

[the quote I found was here. https://ymcinema.com/2019/06/10/app...he-mysterious-card-to-enhance-8k-raw-editing/ and
here
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019...react-to-the-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr/
]
[automerge]1576009503[/automerge]

Yeah, for a lot of cameras that shoot in other H.264-based formats or RAW formats, having this card act as a fast transcoder to these applicable ProRes formats would be amazing. With this card then handling all decode during playback for editing, your CPU and GPU are then used primarily for effects acceleration/rendering/final output.

The last Compressor update got Afterburner support. (back in October)

".. Improves performance of ProRes and ProRes RAW decode when using the Afterburner card on Mac Pro .."

If there is decode there is probably some encode abilities too. It is matter matching up how much of the format transform want to do already have built in support in Apple's AV libraries. If Apple is already doing the conversion , then it is a reasonable candidate to being added to Afterburner coverage in some future update with the file sizes are "big enough" to be worth the effort.

to some extent Compressor is Apple's batch transformer and it covers a fair amount of formats. https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/compressor/

 

[joema2]

Yeah, for a lot of cameras that shoot in other H.264-based formats or RAW formats, having this card act as a fast transcoder to these applicable ProRes formats would be amazing. With this card then handling all decode during playback for editing, your CPU and GPU are then used primarily for effects acceleration/rendering/final output....

The utility of the Afterburner card is still unclear. The Mac Pro already has hardware-accelerated H264 and HEVC decode via the T2 chip. The only mentioned use of the AB card is ProRes and ProRes RAW decoding.

But ProRes is already super fast -- it is the internal rendering format for FCPX. ProRes RAW is also extremely fast - way faster than 4k H264 on my iMac Pro, at least in FCPX.

Maybe the AB card is for NLEs besides FCPX that are slower on ProRes. Another possibility is at 8K, maybe even FCPX on the Mac Pro becomes CPU-limited for multi-layer ProRes RAW decoding, and the card helps that.

Yet another possibility is the T2 cannot handle H.264 and HEVC decode above 4k resolution. An FPGA-based card theoretically could, but this has not been mentioned by Apple.

Yet another possibility (also unstated thus far) is the AB card will later be programmed to accelerate RED RAW. The FPGA nature means new algorithms can essentially be embedded in hardware. This is how Blackmagic added BRAW to their cameras -- they contain an FPGA which was programmed in a firmware update, essentially creating hardware-based BRAW encoding on existing products.

 

[Korican100]

ugh i want to get the Pro Vega II, but im torn between that and the 580X and afterburner.
Which one would give me more bang for the buck for FCPX video editing?

 

[PowerMike G5]

The utility of the Afterburner card is still unclear. The Mac Pro already has hardware-accelerated H264 and HEVC decode via the T2 chip. The only mentioned use of the AB card is ProRes and ProRes RAW decoding.

But ProRes is already super fast -- it is the internal rendering format for FCPX. ProRes RAW is also extremely fast - way faster than 4k H264 on my iMac Pro, at least in FCPX.

Maybe the AB card is for NLEs besides FCPX that are slower on ProRes. Another possibility is at 8K, maybe even FCPX on the Mac Pro becomes CPU-limited for multi-layer ProRes RAW decoding, and the card helps that.

Yet another possibility is the T2 cannot handle H.264 and HEVC decode above 4k resolution. An FPGA-based card theoretically could, but this has not been mentioned by Apple.

Yet another possibility (also unstated thus far) is the AB card will later be programmed to accelerate RED RAW. The FPGA nature means new algorithms can essentially be embedded in hardware. This is how Blackmagic added BRAW to their cameras -- they contain an FPGA which was programmed in a firmware update, essentially creating hardware-based BRAW encoding on existing products.

Yeah, it feels like the most prudent step at the moment is to wait and see exactly how AB can affect particular workflows. Given that it seems like you can buy the AB as a standalone purchase at the same price, there's no immediate rush, unless the claim is needed as a deduction for 2019.

 

[PowerMike G5]

Apple just releases some FAQs for the machine, including one for the AB.

Does Afterburner accelerate ProRes or ProRes RAW encoding?
Afterburner accelerates ProRes and Pro Res RAW decoding and playback.

What are the main benefits of using Afterburner?

• Play back multiple streams of ProRes and ProRes RAW in resolutions such as 8K.
• Free up Mac Pro (2019) CPU processors (up to 28 cores) for additional processing and effects.
• Faster transcoding and sharing of ProRes and ProRes RAW projects and files.

So it seems that it does not accelerate ProRes encoding. But it also says faster transcoding of ProRes files. So still uncertain if it accelerates H.64-based codecs to ProRes upon transcoding.

 

[vinegarshots]

Adobe apparently was weaning off of ProRes API's recently, but that may have only impacted PC users. Will have to look into that a bit more.

Adobe JUST added ProRes codecs to Premiere Pro export on Windows this year. So that seems like the opposite of weaning off

 

[Korican100]

Reasonable priced at $2,000.00, compared to that $5,800.00 graphic card.

whats weird is that, if you look for "afterburner" on apples website, it takes you to its product page, and the price is $1800. But its not available for purchase...yet?