Apple set the technology industry on fire when they announced they would be dropping Intel processors in their forthcoming line of Mac hardware. The Cupertino-based computing giant began designing their own silicon in secret during the first decade of the 21st century, but it wasn’t until the release of the iPhone 5 that consumers got their first taste of what an Apple designed chip could do.
The results were impressive – ultra-low power requirements combined with industry-leading performance is the holy grail of computing paradigms. In the years that followed, Apple continued to improve the performance and features of their chips, and eventually began using them in their iPad line of tablet computers as well. Viewed in this light, it seems only natural that they would want to complete the switch to using only in-house designed silicon in their personal computing products.
A downside to Apple’s legendary secrecy when it comes to new products is that developers have no time to prepare new versions of their software. This is somewhat problematic when you consider that almost every world-class studio uses the Mac platform exclusively as their main computing devices. The result is a long wait for new versions of industry-standard tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and After Effects; but today is a great day – the wait is finally over.
Adobe Premiere Pro 22.4
Technology moves at an incredible rate these days, and developers are forever playing catchup even on open platforms such as Windows. We have had graphics cards with hardware rendering support for a couple of years now, but the latest version of Adobe Premiere is the first to take full advantage of the technology. What does this mean for video editors? The changes are nothing short of revolutionary:
- 10x faster video exporting for 10-bit 4:2:0 HEVC content on both MacOS and AMD
- Improved QuickTime screen recording
- Smart rendering improvements
- Export GIFs with transparency
- Distribute objects in titles and graphics
- HDR Proxies
If you are a video editor, the first item on that list is likely to have you salivating – how is it possible that the software can suddenly export videos a full order of magnitude faster than before? The secret is hardware encoding support, so you will need an AMD GPU or an Apple M1 processor to take full advantage of this enormous boost in performance.
And it isn’t just about exporting video either – scrubbing the timeline will be instantaneous, as the GPU takes all the strain off the computer’s main processing unit, so it is free to deal with other tasks. Hardware accelerated smart rendering and screen recording are likewise a huge improvement over previous versions of Premiere, finally bringing the software into alignment with the feature set offered by Apple’s Final Cut Pro.
The Apple Advantage
So far, so amazing – but what else could Adobe do to improve the software even further? Fergus Hammond, a product manager in the video team at Adobe has stated that they are working hard on adding hardware-accelerated encoding and performance for other video formats apart from 10-bit 4:2:0.
At present, only users with an Apple silicon equipped Mac can enjoy hardware accelerated decode and encode for 10-bit 4:2:2 footage. The company is working hard on implementing support for HEVC 10-bit 4:2:2 on consumer grade GPUs such as those manufactured by Nvidia and AMD, but this is no simple task.
The fact that Adobe can implemented advanced technologies with ease on Apple’s new hardware is a true testament to the power and capabilities of the M1 platform – nobody expected an ARM based CPU would be able to outperform the x86 architecture that has been the backbone of PC technology for decades, leaving traditional CPU makers such as Intel and AMD scrambling to find ways to make their own chips competitive with Apple’s offerings.
Progress is being made – Premiere Pro 22.4 can perform hardware-accelerated encoding and decoding tasks on the latest 11th and 12th generation chips from Intel but adding support for earlier chips as well as the products offered by AMD cannot be done with a simple driver update – the functionality must be supported in hardware.
While Intel and AMD are struggling to implement advanced graphical technologies into their processors, Apple is already pushing forward with even better chips such as the M1 Ultra – if you are a graphics professional of any kind looking for a new machine right now, there is simply no contest.
Apple’s machines are so far ahead of the competition that it may be years before their competitors can catch up. It’s an amazing turnaround on Apple’s part – nobody could have predicted that they would become the leading force in CPU technology even just a couple of years ago. The technology industry certainly is a fascinating place.
