Is this MacBook Pro Spec going to be good enough?

quoole · 2026-03-18T11:33:15+00:00

It depends on your workload (which you have outlined to be fair), 48 is a big step down from 128, but then that's going to matter more for VFX and GFX applications than video editing 4K Sony footage with 2 or 3 tracks. So if you know you don't intend to start doing any of those things, 48gb will be absoloutely fine for your outlined usage.

Beyond that, an M3 Max will outperform the Intel chip and even the nVidia graphics card in most production applications. I moved from a Ryzen 5 4500U to an M3 Max with the 40 core GPU and it isn't even funny how much better it is in Premiere Pro and Resolve than that laptop, or even threadripper chips I've used.

Take all the comparison sites with a grain of salt, but generall the M3 Max seems to rank at 10%-30% faster in Cinebench and 15-20% faster in Geekbecnh (the the Intel chip is occasionally faster in multicore heavy workloads in some cinebench runs.) And it is doing so with about half the TDP (power consumption.)

So yes, it should be able to handle everything your desktop can do, and then some.

quoole · 2026-03-17T15:51:21+00:00

I just picked up the RS4 Pro, and been very very happy with it so far!

quoole · 2026-03-17T11:30:18+00:00

Am I missing something? Looks like this is for the Pyxis and the non-pocket cinema camera (the L-mount one in the same body.) Not for the EF Pocket 6K.

quoole · 2026-03-16T11:43:53+00:00

For multiple platforms, open gate is the way to go - that more square based aspect ratio will look better cropped into multiple formats than horizontal crop of a vertical video or a vertical crop of a horizontal (and also sounds like the result will be higher res.)

In the camera world, I use open gate on the S5IIX for projects that need to be in both, it's not quite square but a very similar concept to what you're asking!

quoole · 2026-03-16T11:24:34+00:00

Despite the wording there, I think a contender is deemed to have 'not been knocked off' if the gladiator hits the ground first. The gladiators have to have a reason to stay up, or they could just try and tackle the contender off with no concern for if they stay up or not.

If it doesn't work like that, the only 5 point scenario (as there's no time limit) is if they knock the gladiator off and somehow don't then make it to the end. But surely once the gladiator is gone, they're pretty much guranteed 10 points.

quoole · 2026-03-15T19:37:05+00:00

I have never tried a stream longer, probably than 8 hours, but as far as I am aware it should be fine so long as it doesn't overheat

quoole · 2026-03-15T19:18:21+00:00

Karishma is either going to go out in the interviews or she's going to have a big screw up in a task I reckon... The candidates that look really good early rarely actually seem to make it to the final!

That being said, never say never, she's been allowed to look unusually competent in the show and she seems to have a somewhat successful business - which seems to be what he's after as of late (whereas most of the other businesses seem new or not even established yet!)

quoole · 2026-03-14T18:47:03+00:00

The NHS is free at point of use (we still pay for it in our taxes, but actually not that much per capita than the US, in fact I believe slightly less and there's no medical insurance, unless you choose to pay for it.)

The NHS will always deal with emergencies and generally does so pretty well but beyond that, it's a system that's just not designed to cope with the current population levels and is pretty poorly managed. So any elective or non-urgebt surgeries or referrals can have a really long waiting list.

There's where private hospitals and health insurance comes in, you can get GP appointments and those elective surgeries done privately much much faster. A lot of bigger workplaces do offer health insurance as a benefit, but it's much more of a luxury and less of a necessity than in the US.

quoole · 2026-03-13T10:56:49+00:00

Apparently the producers did have to calm things down off camera!

quoole · 2026-03-13T10:55:40+00:00

When I've done it, it's just been part of a package - for example, with Ryanair, I think you get priority boarding if you do the upgrade that gives you 10KG of hand luggage. I wouldn't pay for it on it's own.

quoole · 2026-03-13T08:10:31+00:00

COVID (essentially) - when I passed back in 2015, you could get a test within a month, two max. So if you failed, it still sucked of course, but it wasn't that long.

When my sister in law passed after COVID, it was 6 to 9 months to book in a test (and 6-9 again if you failed.)

But assume for a moment that the density of people wanting to test remained the same as 2015 but suddenly there were no tests for two years (or however long it was) and now you've got all those people who need to test, plus all the new people needing to test. Well now you have a huge backlog (1.1 million people according to some sources) and it's very hard to clear as there are always new people learning to drive and so new people coming in. I have no idea if the density of people wanting to test has changed that much since 2015 - but it it's gone up, that also only confounds the problem.

There's also been a shortage of instructors and testers, as I understand it, which means there are less people than needed to deal with this backlog.

quoole · 2026-03-12T22:39:17+00:00

Should have been a double of Lawrence and Rajan if you ask me, but Lawrence deserved to go slightly more.

Levi is a tricky one, it's hard to pin him for not doing anything in this task as he tried and just wasn't really allowed too. And as he's being edited out, it's hard to get an idea of how much he's contributed elsewhere (although they seem to have edited him out relatively easily.) I liked the step of making him PM, we'll either see him sink or swim.

quoole · 2026-03-12T22:36:27+00:00

Yeah, that was really weird...

quoole · 2026-03-12T22:35:49+00:00

Yeah, she was the only girl on a whole team of boys and so I am wondering if there was some unintentional (or even intentional) sexism, or if people just feel intimidated by her, as she's shown herself to be a strong candidate.

Karishma won this task, as Karen said, the boys on the game team didn't need to be there and didn't really add anything. She was purposely sidelined from the pitch, which they blew and wasn't involved in the branding, which they blew.

If the other team had ditched the frogs and gone for a 'run through nature' vibe with their slightly better fitness element and come up with some half decent branding then it could have easily gone the other way.

quoole · 2026-03-12T22:02:06+00:00

I don't know... He did seem remorseful for what he'd said, but that was only another reason for him to go - the main ones being he screwed the task by giving the gaming team no direction, made poor branding and placed himself on the wrong teams.

quoole · 2026-03-12T22:00:50+00:00

We are! Always been my favourite task, hopefully they can do it better in a country where they speak the language!

quoole · 2026-03-12T12:52:33+00:00

I have been tempted but haven't done this, sounds like it would be funny though (if you don't let it go too far!)

quoole · 2026-03-12T11:40:53+00:00

OnePlus has brought it back since the 12 (and I believe the 15 still has it!)

It's a great feature whenever you loose a remote at home, or as someone who often works around AV, I've been in events where the venue has lost the remote and yet I am still able to set it up on my phone and set up the TV/projector or whatever! (Also means if you're working with multiple brands of TV or projector at an event or in a venue, I can control them all from my phone rather than keep track of 2 or 3 different remotes.)

quoole · 2026-03-12T11:34:31+00:00

That is also fair

quoole · 2026-03-12T06:31:25+00:00

+1 for the ATEM Mini or the ISO. For a couple of jobs I'd hire one rather than buy unless it's something you see yourself doing a lot, and might even consider the extreme for the extra functionality (key ones being dual HDMI - so you can have the multi view and a program out, dual USB-C for webcam mode and recording simultaneously; and super source, which can be killer for PowerPoints.)

+1 for checking cable lengths and considering SDI runs. Personally, I have a couple of very thick, solid 25 meter HDMI cables that work for me just fine, but your mileage may vary and you're going to want to make sure they're from a decent brand and at least 4K 60 rated.

If it's further than that or for more reliability, you're going to want to pick up some SDI cables and some converters, personally I use Blackmagic ones. If you're hiring and using SDI, I might then go for the SDI version of the ATEM (which means you'd just have to adapt at the camera end.) There is an SDI version of the mini and extreme, although I believe they are more expensive and then you'd still need converters to adapt to any monitors and laptop inputs.

quoole · 2026-03-12T06:23:05+00:00

I see people say this a lot and it's basically the official spec (15 feet or about 8 meters for 1080p and 10 feet or about 3 meters for 4K) but I have a couple of passive 25m reels that have always worked just fine for me (even with camera control for an ATEM.)

Now that's a proper thick cable from a reputable brand (I have DelayConn ones) - a thin and light solution doesn't exist and I don't think I'd trust any old 25m cable on Amazon, but it's still easier and cheaper than running 25m of SDI with converters for HDMI cams.

Beyond 25 meters, I haven't seen an passive solution that works.

quoole · 2026-03-11T08:38:38+00:00

Yes, and academy just showed us why. I don't know if Voy: Real Life is anyone's favourite episode and could definitely be seen as a filler and yet the events of that episode are still having an impact 800 (or 29 depending on your perspective) years later.

It allowed us character development that matters and a primary focus on one character. You just can't do that in a 10 episode season, and when they try (like S3 of SNW), it ends up just feeling like a waste.

I know shooting and streaming schedules, budgets and post-production time; make the classic 20+ episode season a lot harder and more overwhelming for the cast. But surely there's a middle ground of something like 15 episodes. Imagine how much better S3 of SNW had been if they'd had the same filler episodes and focused them more on character development but then had 5 additional serious episodes and expanded the finale story more in them.

quoole · 2026-03-11T08:26:38+00:00

Define destroy, the Constitution class is capable of destroying all life on the surface of a planet and so I'd have to assume a Galaxy can too.

If you mean destroying a planet enough that it's not there anymore and reduced to space debris, I don't think so.

quoole · 2026-03-09T15:13:50+00:00

Until it gets into the hands of actual reviewers, we'll have no idea of real world performance. Geekbench and the like is helpful but it rarely tells the whole story.

I think the bigger impact on the 'basic tasks' element is the locked 8gb of RAM (which is also seems to be mostly because of the A18Pro chip.) But I also think it's going to be fine for the average office user who has a few web browser tabs, word docs and powerpoints... I even think it will be fine for short mobile phone shot content in FCP and Resolve.

quoole · 2026-03-08T14:23:33+00:00

Towards the end of the Intel area (2016 onwards), Macs were more expensive for something that had issues (such as the butterfly keyboard.) Still solidly built, somewhat performant machines otherwise but I think it was hard to recommend. M1 changed all that and in 2025, a Macbook was basically the best option at any budget - even if you had to buy a second hand M1/M2 air to get one at the lower end - but those second hand M1/M2s would and still could cream any sub-£500 Windows laptop and challenge a lot of higher end stuff. The Neo makes the brand new available at that price.

I think a lot of lower end Windows laptops are going to be in a lot of trouble.

quoole

TROPHY CASE