Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

variety.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 213 posts

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#151

Post by C1sc0cat »

dylan604 wrote: post #102
nickpeterson wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame really, I feel like we've lost something from the years of SGI workstations that looked like they came straight from the future.

The old SGI joke I liked was any system that required less than 4 people to carry was considered a desktop. The future must have very large desks for their users.

Well I can remember when fitting a new dual floppy drive (8 inch) to a pdp11 require two people to install it and a third to help run the cables through the chassis.

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#152

Post by C1sc0cat »

Havoc wrote: post #37
kalev wrote: post #30

The use of 'trashcan' to refer to the MacPro by multiple users in the link is pretty amusing. > Has anyone had their trashcans go down today out of nowhere?

That must really be annoying someone over at apple. Spend all that time design something beautiful. And... Everyone calls it garbage

Smaller Sun boxes where / are referred to a pizza boxs

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#153

Post by holy_city »

bananamerica wrote: post #138

Why people still use Avid?

Because it's the industry standard when you need to work with more than one person. Most other offerings don't scale with team size/production pipeline like Pro Tools/Media Composer.

And there's a certain class of professional who resists change/upgrades at every turn, specifically because of stuff like this where updates would typically break everything.

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#154

Post by [deleted] »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #58
RealDinosaur wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it's not just Avid. Some audio production software such as ReFX Nexus still uses a USB dongle. There is no way to use the software without it plugged in. It also has a policy where if you damage the dongle, you have to buy again and get a 10% discount off the FULL price of the VST. In the age of people gigging on laptops, I'm not entirely sure how they think they are gonna sell any more of them. I fancy it myself…

> There is no way to use the software without it plugged in. This is only true if the software hasn’t been crack?

[deleted]

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#155

Post by olyjohn »

dagw wrote: post #103
dzhiurgis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean bright LED's and transformer-like mods? I don't think so, seems like ALL gaming PC's are like that.

SGI workstations had hardly any lights. Their essential distinguishing feature where that they sometimes had slightly rounded corners and came in 'fun' colors. Kind of like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Tezro#/media/File:Silicone... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Octane#/media/File:SgiOcta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_O2#/media/File:Silicon_Gra...

I mean... they definitely look like they're from the 90's future.

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#156

Post by fredoralive »

693471 wrote: post #91
archi42 wrote: post #21

Sound like someone messed up a removal routine, equivalent to "rm $base_dir/$temp_dir -rf".

Not possible with SIP. The OS files are read only. Not even root can change them.

Someone else in thread mentions an kext for the iLok dongle AVID uses, so are kexts covered by SIP? Or are they counted as part of the kernel, and thus all powerful?

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#157

Post by munificent »

nkozyra wrote: post #51
KaiserPro wrote: post #31

rule 1 of hollywood tech support: Always take what the editor says with a massive pinch of salt. I spent ten years in the movie industry, and the people that were the most forthright, and almost universally wrong about technical things were editors. "The monitor is out of grade" No, you've set the background lights to red. "The sound is out of sync" No, you've turned off the amp and somehow managed to get the crappy…

What you're describing sounds like industry-specific anecdotes from a very common, cross-industry reality about non technical users.

That's generally true, but there's a more specific affliction you sometimes run into that the parent comment is referring to.

There are some single software programs so big and complex that you can build entire careers out of them. People who do that become wizards within that software suite, and then incorrectly generalize that to believing they know everything about computers. When really, they are Photoshop jockeys, Avid editors, Maya artists, etc. and they are mostly lost outside of those applications.

If you haven't worked in creative fields like video you may not have run into them, but they are definitely a breed.

(Developers fall prey to this sometimes too, but our job tends to require us to use a variety of tools and the underlying operating system itself, so we do end up with a greater breadth of experience.)

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#158

Post by [deleted] »

jon-wood wrote: post #53
nkozyra wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing sounds like industry-specific anecdotes from a very common, cross-industry reality about non technical users.

I'd revise that to the far more irritating segment of users who think they're more technical than they really are. Actual non technical users are fine, because they generally know when they don't understand a thing. The thinks-their-technical users will bravely throw in whatever phrases they've heard mentioned in relation to a completely unrelated problem.

[deleted]

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#159

Post by tunesmith »

bpyne wrote: post #107
jon-wood wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd revise that to the far more irritating segment of users who think they're more technical than they really are. Actual non technical users are fine, because they generally know when they don't understand a thing. The thinks-their-technical users will bravely throw in whatever phrases they've heard mentioned in relation to a completely unrelated problem.

That's the super-user syndrome. They know enough to get themselves into a bind but not enough to get themselves out. It's difficult just trying to get an accurate description of the problem because they lace the description with theories about what the cause is. "Please just describe the problem and, if possible, how you reproduce it. No, just describe the problem. What's happening when you press the button? No, just…

I tend to associate "super-user" with an admin who knows what they are doing. Back in the 90's we called these folks "power users".

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#160

Post by pier25 »

foxhill wrote: post #2

yikes. having written aax plugins for a while, i have to say, i’m kind of surprised this came from AVID. from what it sounds like (having scraped the surface), it’s not their editing software (Pro Tools, et al.) but their copy protection management tool/device driver - iLok. i’m sure there are some very anxious engineers in the AVID offices today.

I bought a plugin from UVI and had to use iLok for the first time recently and the experience was atrocious.

Not only that, if you want to sell and transfer your iLok license you have to pay $20.

I will never buy anything that requires iLok.

Post reply on HN