The principle applies as much to software as hardware; students and staff at the Academy use a range of Apple software for video production and post-production, including Final Cut Pro, Motion, Shake, DVD Studio Pro and Cinema Tools. They also uses Adobe After Effects, imaging packages such as Adobe Photoshop, and 3D modelling and animation packages such as Maya and 3D Studio MAX.
Dolman is also a great admirer of Apple’s Qmaster, the distributed rendering system integrated with Shake. He says: “One of the most critical things for parallel computing at the University — particularly for the render farm and dealing with After Effects — is Qmaster. Once I understood it, it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my life! It’s the difference between me waiting 36 hours to encode a high-definition film on a quad processor and putting it through the farm on Qmaster, which takes about three and a half hours”.
Within a week of both phases of installation, students and staff were making use of the equipment for research and project work as well as administration, email and Web browsing.
The flexibility of the system is key. For example, because Apple has put server technology in its top-end desktop machines, we can use these computers as a render farm, as well as for teaching and research.
Ben Dolman, IT technical tutor at Loughborough University
Dolman and Wells have had very positive feedback and, overall, regard the Apple solution as thoroughly cost-effective, not just from a price-point perspective, which they say was comparable with other vendors, but also from areas such as flexibility, longevity and software.
Dolman explains: “The flexibility of the system is key. For example, because Apple has put server technology in its top-end desktop machines, we can use these computers as a render farm, as well as for teaching and research. A single piece of kit can be put to three uses. Making a computer fulfil different jobs over a period of time amounts to a cost benefit”.
In addition, thanks to the build quality of the Apple hardware, the University will ultimately save even more money. Dolman explains: “Our Macs have a long life-cycle; even after two years, when they’re no longer cutting-edge and we’ve finished using them for research, I use them in the teaching labs. After that, five years down the line, I can sell them to students and staff. Again, that’s a cost-benefit derived from the build quality Apple maintains”.
If there is further SRIF funding in the future, Dolman says he’ll be knocking on Apple’s door again. He concludes: “Next we’re hoping to improve our archival systems and access to them, and once again we’ll be looking to Apple for a solution”.