EP042: Technology Lust

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:14:16
Robbie
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Offset Podcast. And today we're talking about managing technology lust. Stay tuned.

00:00:14:18 - 00:00:33:06
Joey
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00:00:33:08 - 00:00:41:00
Robbie
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Offset Podcast. I'm Robbie Carman, and with me, as always, is Joey D’Anna. Hey, Joey. How you doing, buddy?

00:00:41:02 - 00:00:42:10
Joey
Hey, everyone.

00:00:42:12 - 00:01:08:20
Robbie
Joey, today I got an issue or, topic that I think is a good discussion, but, it's primarily border brought around because my thinking about doing this episode was because, as you know, I am a major, major, major sufferer of technology lust In fact, right before we got on this call, we were just debating the merits of some, you know, crazy, technology plan that I had.

00:01:08:20 - 00:01:28:14
Robbie
And, you know, you try to talk me down off the ledge. And so it made me sort of realize that, you know, especially in the business and the industry that we work in, right? Technology is always changing. There's always something faster, better, bigger out there. And I think it's really easy to succumb to those technology desires.

00:01:28:14 - 00:01:49:15
Robbie
Right. You know, always wanting to stay at or ahead of the curve no matter the cost. And today I just want to discuss the merits of that, maybe the downsides of that and some things to think about, when it comes to, you know, specific, you know, pieces of technology, how to go about thinking about it, whether the investments worth it, how to pay for it, all of those kind of things.

00:01:49:15 - 00:01:54:07
Robbie
And along the way, I'm sure we'll have, some tangents that we go along for.

00:01:54:09 - 00:02:17:01
Joey
Yeah. I mean, this one is dear to my heart because, as you know, and as anybody who's talked to me in the past, like month knows, I have spent weeks almost paralyzed on a computer purchase decision. Right. Because my old Mac Pro, best computer I've ever bought. I love this machine. It's treated me so well. It's paid for itself 20 times over.

00:02:17:01 - 00:02:49:02
Joey
It is amazing and I love it. It is starting to run out of steam, especially with the latest version of resolve that's so heavily optimized for newer Nvidia GPUs or newer Apple GPUs. The old Intel AMD GPU combo. It's really starting to slow down, and I just had a couple of really fusion heavy, high resolution jobs that were honestly pretty painful, and it started to be like, okay, now I need to seriously think about upgrading my main workstation.

00:02:49:02 - 00:03:11:14
Joey
And we all know I've said it a million times. I am a snob for workstation. So I was going between do I buy a huge supermicro? Do I get a big home build Intel, Nvidia monster? Do I go with the kind of universal Mac studio that everyone is loving right now, or do I wait for what I've talked about?

00:03:11:20 - 00:03:18:02
Robbie
I even I even tried to I even tried to convince you to go, DIY approach, which gave you a nervous breakdown.

00:03:18:04 - 00:03:39:09
Joey
Yeah. You know, I, I thought the long and short of it is, I want the next Mac Pro that I've built in my brain, and that's not available right now. So I needed to do something and we came up with the plan. We'll talk about my plan in a little bit. You know, thought process of do I spend $6,000 now?

00:03:39:09 - 00:04:12:20
Joey
Do I spend $10,000 now? Do I wait and spend $15,000 later? You know, all of these factors kind of add up because everything we do is technology related, from the computers to the control surfaces to scopes to networking, to monitors. We have a much bigger cost in hardware now than we do in software plug ins, licenses, etc. hardware is our biggest cost, and therefore it's our one biggest spot to find efficiencies and make good business decisions.

00:04:12:22 - 00:04:29:05
Joey
But also it can be a weak spot for, you know, wasting money or chasing something that we don't want to chase. And especially, you know, Robbie and I are both nerds. We love this stuff. You know, there's a lot of colors out there that are like, I've been working on my five K iMac for the past like decade.

00:04:29:05 - 00:04:48:13
Joey
I just work in proxies in HD and then render it 4K later. And it works great for me. And I feel like my my artistic work is all I focus on. I don't care about the technology. That's a perfectly valid approach, but it's good to have some of this knowledge in place and technology is part of it. But for us, it's just second nature.

00:04:48:13 - 00:04:55:06
Joey
We like the technology along with the artistry. So like we're always fighting this. What do I buy win?

00:04:55:08 - 00:05:12:08
Robbie
Totally, totally. All right, well, before we dive into all that, let's just do the normal housekeeping stuff. Just a quick reminder to everybody. You can head over to the offset podcast.com. The big reason to head over there, by the way, is that we do have a submission button. If you have some topics or theme things that you'd like us to explore can be technical stuff.

00:05:12:08 - 00:05:32:10
Robbie
It can be creative stuff, it can be business, whatever the idea is, feel free to use our form over at the offset podcast.com. Right at the top of the page. You can submit an idea, as we get closer to, 50 episodes in the can, for this show, every little bit of help that we can get from you guys, our audience, on some ideas is always very, very helpful.

00:05:32:12 - 00:05:50:08
Robbie
Of course, you can find us on YouTube and all the various places that podcasts are out there. Just do us a favor. If you do find the show and you like this episode or other episodes, just like and subscribe, you'd be amazed, how much that does help the the spread of the show. And then, of course, if you do like the show, we would love it if you'd consider supporting the show.

00:05:50:10 - 00:06:03:17
Robbie
It does take a lot of effort to get these shows out the door every two weeks. So you can head over to this link here on screen for, buy us a cup of virtual coffee, and that, that support helps us, to make more shows and, turn them around in a quick way.

00:06:03:17 - 00:06:22:15
Robbie
So we really appreciate that. Help. So, Joey. Yeah, in the intro there, I mean, you kind of hit on the nail on the head. I mean, I, I have to be honest with you, when I think back on this, I have had this, I don't want to call it a disease, but this, this issue for pretty much my entire life.

00:06:22:15 - 00:06:40:00
Robbie
I mean, even as a kid, when I first started getting into, you know, music and guitars, I wanted, like, you know, the latest, like, you know, Tascam Porta studio and then later this, you know, guitar and the new, the new strings and the new amp and then, you know, obviously later got into computers and all kind of stuff.

00:06:40:00 - 00:07:02:14
Robbie
And I admit that I have a problem. I mean, that's the first step in getting help, right? Is admitting you have a problem. And my thing is I hate the feeling it's FOMO. It's 100%, you know, the fear of missing out on something that could be revolutionary. It could be, you know, life changing. Now, honestly, you know, in tech, that's seldom the case.

00:07:02:14 - 00:07:24:02
Robbie
You know, where a lot of the technology that we're into and that we use, updates are relatively iterative, right? If you have, just use a recent example. Let's say you have, you know, an M1 Mac Studio versus an M4 Mac studio. Is the M4 faster? Sure. Of course it is. Right? Is it life changing? So. Well, that's some of the things that we're going to discuss today.

00:07:24:02 - 00:07:42:14
Robbie
And I and I, I see the arguments for that, on both sides. Same thing with monitoring. Right. Hey, great brand new HDR monitor came out, but maybe you're not doing any HDR. Is it worth that investment? Maybe. Maybe not. Or staying ahead of you know, the the curve on storage and servers. Right. So there's all these areas that we want to talk about.

00:07:42:16 - 00:08:10:09
Robbie
But I guess the first thing that, you know, you hinted at earlier was sort of like, hey, the industry we're working, this is just the state of affairs, right? It's all about tech, it's all about capabilities and etc.. So I want to get your opinion on this because, you know, one thing that I think has helped, you know, in 20 years of doing this, you know, on my own or on our own is staying ahead or at that technological curve, I think gives you a leg up.

00:08:10:09 - 00:08:30:20
Robbie
And it used to be that this was impossible to do right. In the in the golden age of the post House, you were not going to go out and buy a Quantal Henry or a flame, or an EC or a DaVinci or whatever, because these boxes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and we don't have to rehash the, the, you know, the, the democratization that's happened there.

00:08:30:20 - 00:08:52:11
Robbie
But the reality is now all this stuff is accessible. None of it's really, truly expensive. Comparatively, to where we were a decade ago. And so I think it leads to a lot of people always chasing that next thing. Right. And I'm one of them. But I guess my question to you is like, that's never like it's a never win scenario.

00:08:52:11 - 00:09:13:02
Robbie
So how do you go about managing it? In the first question I'll ask you is, okay, there's new tech. Maybe you need it, maybe you don't. How do you go about balancing the desire to have new cool gadgets and toys versus the real impact on your day to day work, right? I think that's a harder question than it seems.

00:09:13:04 - 00:09:34:05
Joey
Yeah, because there's more factors than just the cost and the impact on your day to day work. One, you don't really know what the impact on your day to day work is going to be until you've started working with whatever this new piece of tech is for a while. But also any time you change your overall kind of set up an infrastructure, there's a ramp up period.

00:09:34:05 - 00:09:55:02
Joey
There is. I need to configure this. I need to figure out how it works best in this environment. I need to get all my settings together. I need to figure out how to do this or that. There's learning curves involved. So for me, in the example I pulled up earlier, buying a new computer is a major, major disruption, right?

00:09:55:04 - 00:10:20:10
Joey
It means ripping out stuff in the rack. It means configuring a whole new working environment. It means getting all my macros, all my plugins, all my software migrated over, getting my storage connected, figuring out all of the little hiccups that are going to come up when that happens. So it's gotta be worth it from a speed or capability standpoint.

00:10:20:10 - 00:10:46:08
Joey
As in, like I said, I just had some fusion jobs that really brought this old machine to its limit. That is why I need that new machine. So what I ended up doing is kind of a stopgap solution, right? I don't think the Mac studios are where I want to be for my main workstation forever. I want something bigger with more GPU, with more thermal dissipation capability, more of a traditional big hero workstation.

00:10:46:14 - 00:10:57:11
Joey
But that doesn't really exist in the Apple world right now. So the thought came to me, do I buy a big Linux box? Love Linux, would probably rather use Linux than Mac or Windows.

00:10:57:13 - 00:10:59:09
Robbie
But there's a whole set of challenges. Yeah.

00:10:59:11 - 00:11:14:12
Joey
Exactly. That kind of ramp up period. I've got a thousand stream deck macros that I built. They're going to pass over to a new Mac relatively easily. Okay. I've got network infrastructure set up designed for the way the Mac mounts volumes.

00:11:14:13 - 00:11:16:01
Robbie
Nothing. Not to mention not to mention.

00:11:16:01 - 00:11:18:01
Joey
A new Mac immediately.

00:11:18:06 - 00:11:30:00
Robbie
Yeah, not to mention plug ins, you know, things of that nature. Like it would be, it would be a week or two of just getting up to a baseline to switch over.

00:11:30:02 - 00:11:50:19
Joey
So that first metric of, is this really going to save me time? Maybe in the long run, yes. But in the short term, no. So I looked at the long term possibility of do I spend $15,000 on a giant super micro and this is my main computer for the next 5 to 7 years, because this Mac Pro is less than me, almost seven years.

00:11:50:21 - 00:12:08:17
Joey
And I thought, yeah, the transition to Linux is going to be too hard and too kind of annoying, and I don't think I'm going to get as much performance out of that. And if I'm talking about a seven year investment, I don't want to get two years into that and have this dream Mac Pro that I'm waiting for them to come out with, come out.

00:12:08:19 - 00:12:31:05
Joey
And then I've already spent a huge load of cash and I don't have the cash to get what I really want. So I like to look at it from a holistic perspective of how I can kind of put technology down the line. And this is actually Robbie's idea, got to be sold and got me buying a mac studio for my main machine right now it's it's shipping.

00:12:31:06 - 00:12:57:14
Joey
It's in the mail. Right now it's on the boat. My assist station eventually is going to need to be upgraded. It's an old M1 Mac studio. It's starting to feel its age as well. It's pushing 3 or 4 years old. So I can get this new Mac studio that's going to outperform my Mac Pro right now. Use it for one year, two years, wait for the next generation Mac to come out, which is what I really want, and then kind of regroup.

00:12:57:17 - 00:13:16:15
Joey
Is this investment reuse that Mac Studio that I just bought as my new assist station, buy something new from here, and the whole thing goes down the line. So I guess the long winded answer to your question of how do you know if it's worth it or if you're just doing it to feel cool? Is is it going to have a tangible like good impact on your work?

00:13:16:15 - 00:13:35:19
Joey
In my case, yes. I need it for this fusion job. Yeah. Okay. Two is the cost worth it? Yes. Because I'm not spending the gigantic chunk of change. I'm kind of spending a little bit less than I would if I bought a new massive workstation. And is the ramp up time going to be onerous? No, because I'm just swapping one Mac for another.

00:13:35:20 - 00:13:55:00
Robbie
Yeah. No, those are all great points. So there's a lot to unpack there. So a few things that you said I want to hit on. So I think, you know, for me the desire versus real impact factor is one that I'm always sort of fudging in my head and always rationalizing a little bit in my head to, I'll give you a, a wonderful example of this.

00:13:55:00 - 00:14:15:21
Robbie
Before I talked about something that's germane to this conversation about forecasting. But this box sitting on the workbench right behind me is a perfect example of desire versus real impact. Right? So I'm building a brand new mass slash VM box all around slash rate and high speed networking. So you can see the little, flash, Ray right there in the front.

00:14:15:21 - 00:14:37:06
Robbie
I got eight eight terabyte NVMe ease. That little white thing on top is another eight Sata SSDs. I'm going to connect that all to an existing disk shelf of 200TB of spinning disk. And of course, it's like, what are you doing? You already have an astronaut. Yes, of course I already have a NAS. It's sitting right over here in the rack working perfectly fine.

00:14:37:06 - 00:14:58:18
Robbie
Okay, so one of the things that I battle with is, staying ahead of that technological curve. And I have learned over the years that there's some ways to do this. Right. And one of the ways that I manage desire versus real impact is by not being at the curve, not necessarily ahead of the curve or right behind the curve.

00:14:58:19 - 00:15:23:08
Robbie
So I'll give you a case in point with this box. So two years ago, putting 64TB or 128TB of flash storage in a box, impossible, right. It would have cost me, you know, $100,000 to do two years later. Much more, much more, realistic. That's number one. Number two, I'm not using, you know, a lot of these things, but what I think I'm not at the curve.

00:15:23:08 - 00:15:43:22
Robbie
I'm not at the technological breaking point. So, for example, this box I put in 100 gig, nicking it 100, Gigi nicking it. Right. Two years ago. That was at the absolute, you know, data center level. Breaking that curve today, there's two, 400, even 800 gigabit, Ethernet that data centers are using.

00:15:43:22 - 00:15:46:16
Joey
So this he's already got them in his Amazon card.

00:15:46:18 - 00:16:08:05
Robbie
Right. So this card, which a couple of years ago was $2,000, plus I got an eBay for 300 bucks, right. Dual power 100 gig. Nic. So one of the ways that I manage my desire versus impact is that when I'm when I'm feeling the lust factor, the first flag that goes up in my head is you don't need the latest and greatest.

00:16:08:09 - 00:16:31:09
Robbie
Can you improve what you have now and make a big leap without breaking the bank, without being technology that you don't understand can't work like so. If I went to like, say, an 800 gig McNair one, I have no idea how to use it. Two it would have been ridiculously expensive. Heat, temperature, you know, electricity. Use it.

00:16:31:09 - 00:16:56:11
Robbie
Right. So now I'm using something that's mature enough, but still brand new to me and still makes me feel like, oh, you're going from ten gig or 25 gig Ethernet to 100 gig. You do that. That's a huge jump. So one of the ways I look at this is okay, it is a desire, but can I effectuate real world impact in my day to day workflow, but without having to necessarily be on the cutting edge curve?

00:16:56:12 - 00:16:59:20
Robbie
But I'm on the still on the cutting edge for me, if that makes sense.

00:16:59:22 - 00:17:25:05
Joey
Now, the other part of this that I want to kind of play devil's advocate here is we're in front of these stupid boxes for eight, ten, 12 hours a day. Yeah. And sometimes something that you like or want because it makes the experience more enjoyable is just worth it. If you want the latest and greatest tablet, for example, you want to upgrade your tablet to something nice and newer and better.

00:17:25:07 - 00:17:49:10
Joey
By all means, do it. Throw more stream decks at the problem because they just came out with something cool, and you want to be able to add more macros or whatever. Biggest example of that for me, a non insignificant amount of my decision making to buy this Mac studio is that the Mac Pro can only output a 60Hz UI refresh, and the Mac Studio can do 120.

00:17:49:12 - 00:18:05:19
Joey
And if you've ever used resolve on like an iPad that has the high frame rate display with the little Apple Pencil, and you just move a clip in the timeline and you see how smooth it feels at 90 120Hz UI refresh, you're like, oh, I want that all the time.

00:18:05:20 - 00:18:21:10
Robbie
I want that all the time. This is not hyperbole. This is not hyperbole. Joey has literally been lusting, like, in a literal sense, lusting. He's like, I don't care, can it do 120Hz? Can I do 120Hz? And so, you know, you're right. You're right. It is like it is a quality.

00:18:21:12 - 00:18:38:17
Joey
I cannot wait for that thing to come in. I plug it in. I had to buy a new UI monitor that supports 120Hz. Is my old one. Didn't don't care. The second I pick up that pin and feel that smoothness, I'm going to be happy. And I'm going to keep on being happy for eight hours a day, for ten hours a day.

00:18:38:18 - 00:18:47:02
Joey
It's just going to make my job feel better. And that's okay. That's worth spending money. That's what that's an intangible thing that's worth spending money on.

00:18:47:04 - 00:19:03:12
Robbie
Yeah, I hear you. I mean, so I think that there's that that always going to be that balance of desire versus real impact. And I think to a certain degree, things that are quality of life improvements, I'll put even like things like, oh, well, that chair that's been ruining your back for, you know, for ten years. Like, you know what?

00:19:03:12 - 00:19:05:05
Robbie
Spend the grand on the new chair.

00:19:05:05 - 00:19:06:19
Joey
Work by $1,000 chair.

00:19:06:22 - 00:19:27:19
Robbie
Don't be depreciated. You know, all of those kind of things. Those things matter. But I think we're we're really comes down to if I can categorize, categorize how I evaluate the real actual impact because that's different than design. But how do I I do spend a lot of time evaluating the real world impact. And to me that comes down to kind of 3 or 4 things, right?

00:19:27:20 - 00:19:46:12
Robbie
First, and I know this is your mantra about a lot of things, but alleviating, you know, repetitive tasks or eliminating steps in my workflow, right. If there is a piece of technology that I can insert that saves me actual steps in time or whatever done deal like I'm, it makes sense to get it right.

00:19:46:14 - 00:19:48:19
Joey
And that could be software keyboard maestro tool.

00:19:48:19 - 00:20:13:19
Robbie
It could be lots of little things. Significant speed improvements. And this one is a little bit of a black hole. Right? Because part of the thing, especially with computing and servers and network technology, etc., you have to weed through a little bit of the marketing mumbo jumbo, right now, like for a computer manufacturer, of course, it's their job to come out and go, oh, it's 78% faster.

00:20:13:19 - 00:20:30:10
Robbie
And then you read the bullet point and it's like on this one little task, right? Like so. But you have to dig deep on some of those things, right? There is not a computer that a why I can't say never has existed. But generally speaking, a generation to a generation, you are not talking about 100% speed improvements, right?

00:20:30:14 - 00:20:47:15
Robbie
You are not talking that big of a jump is a little bit faster on certain things. Sure. Right. So this especially the way that a lot of these companies work, Apple's a perfect example every year. You know, every fall it's a new phone, every, you know, spring it's a new laptop or whatever. But you have to weigh that a little bit.

00:20:47:15 - 00:21:06:19
Robbie
And I you know, that desire versus the real world impact because the impact especially on significant speed improvements, it's probably really not there generation to generation. I think you build some momentum, whether you're talking skipping a generation or 2 or 3, if you're going from a, you know, an M1, for example, to an M5 that's rumored to be coming out soon.

00:21:07:01 - 00:21:10:19
Robbie
Yeah, that's a significant generational leap on a lot of levels, right?

00:21:10:19 - 00:21:15:21
Joey
If you're going from Intel to the current. All right, you'd see a big jump, which is what I'm huge jump.

00:21:15:21 - 00:21:25:09
Robbie
Right. But is going from, you know, M4 to M5 is going to be a life changing thing for most people. Most, most workflows probably not. Right. But you got to.

00:21:25:09 - 00:21:28:14
Joey
Decide how many generations you want to skip.

00:21:28:16 - 00:21:49:08
Robbie
Right? The other thing I think about is just, you know, where does from from our capabilities, right? Where does this get me from the competitive edge. The new capabilities, the services point of view. Right. If I can say, hey, look, this new piece of equipment allows us to do X, Y, and Z that we were never able to do for you before.

00:21:49:13 - 00:22:09:21
Robbie
That's a consideration. Or if I can say this new piece of equipment saves us tangible hours on processing, rendering, etc. that where we can build the same for, you know, a fraction of the work. That makes sense as well. But all of these things, part of my thinking is, and I you make fun of me a lot. My family makes fun of me a lot about this, but it's fine.

00:22:09:21 - 00:22:36:13
Robbie
I can take it. And that is, I do a lot of forecasting in research, right? I'm always reading industry rags about display technology, about GPUs, about CPUs. I know a lot of really nerdy things about things that don't matter at all. But the reason that I stay up on all of that is so I can make somewhat intelligent forecasting decisions on, oh, you know what?

00:22:36:13 - 00:22:56:02
Robbie
It's not this year that I'm going to buy all the flash. It's probably in a year or so when you know, these things come down and whatever, whatever, whatever, and, you know, is that risky? Sure. But that's how I like to think about it. I always like to keep my finger on where all these things are and make decisions, you know, when they all kind of follow mine.

00:22:56:03 - 00:23:35:16
Joey
Yeah. So we've covered the computer aspect, I think, in pretty good detail. The next biggest thing, and in fact, in some cases bigger thing for colorists or post-production professionals is reference monitoring. Right. And that I think, has a completely different set of requirements to evaluate the purchasing decision. And we're facing that too, right. I want to talk a little bit about kind of where I'm at with reference monitoring, where we're at, you know, as a business unit, together with reference monitoring and where we kind of think the plan is for that because, you know, the reference monitoring is a very significant long term investment.

00:23:35:18 - 00:23:59:09
Joey
And up until recently, even even with current offerings, there's a lot of pros and cons, right? There's a lot that goes into that decision making. And if we kind of apply the same standard that we've been applying thus far, which is does this have a tangible impact on what I can do, what I can bill, and how fast my job goes?

00:23:59:11 - 00:24:27:02
Joey
Right. You got to decide kind of where you're at now, monitoring wise and where you want to be. Biggest example for that right now, me holding on to my trusty Xm3 ten K and local dimming, full array local dimming, HDR reference monitor. Right. Rabi was at a different stage of the reference monitor upgrade cycle. So he has moved on to the latest and greatest technology, which is the qd-oled.

00:24:27:04 - 00:24:58:01
Joey
Fantastic. If I was buying a reference monitor tomorrow, I would buy the new X 311 K that Flanders is offering the 31 inch because that's my preferred size QD, OLED technology. It's got better viewing angles, deeper black levels, no halo ING or, local dimming problems. Right? That would be a big day to day upgrade for me to get those advantages.

00:24:58:03 - 00:25:16:15
Joey
However, I can't justify it because there's nothing that it does that I can't do with my 310 K. I just need to manage the backlight modes and be knowledgeable about it, which is that was always the compromise with full array local dimming. I went in there. Yeah, I was an early adopter of the technology, knew that going in.

00:25:16:15 - 00:25:38:20
Joey
It has served me incredibly well, and I'm probably going to wait 1 or 2 more generations before I leapfrog into a quantum dot OLED display. However, if you're now just starting to get into it, I want a 4K or an HDR reference display. It's a great time to make that jump because the prices have gone down so much, while the capability is just gone up and up and up and up.

00:25:38:22 - 00:25:47:09
Joey
Basically for what we would have spent 30,000 on a couple of years ago, you can now spend 10,000 and get something better. So yeah, I.

00:25:47:09 - 00:25:47:22
Robbie
Mean, I would.

00:25:47:22 - 00:25:52:13
Joey
Just like the Nexus, the crossing point of for the masses. It's time to buy.

00:25:52:15 - 00:26:10:16
Robbie
Yeah. I mean, I look at monitors in a slightly different category, obviously, because it is a different category than computers and stuff. They're a little more evergreen in the, in kind of the, the use of them. Right. You know, and this is largely driven by the life cycles of the, of the panel manufacturers themselves. Right? They invest in generations.

00:26:10:16 - 00:26:30:20
Robbie
They spend billions spooling up these factories and these lines, etc. they're going to get the most that they can out of any given piece of technology. Right. But it has some it has some analogous things to computers. Right. Like, you know, where we are. Qd-oled. That's a great example of this, right? You know, Gen 3 or 4 or wherever we are now, you know, is it better than Gen 1 or 2?

00:26:30:21 - 00:27:01:11
Robbie
Yeah, certainly. Right. A little brighter, a little bit better gamma performance, etc.. Is it life changing? Hard to say if it's life changing. If you're like, you know, I have you know, I'm sitting right across from an XMP 550, which is a 2008 Qd-oled. Flinders, for example, has announced that they have the 551 coming out, which is a 4000 it in my day to day with the current workload and works that we're working on is the difference between having a 2000 nit version of this monitor and a 4000 version of this monitor life changing for me.

00:27:01:13 - 00:27:21:16
Robbie
No, that's not right. But it would make, as you said, if you're on older tech or whatever, it's it's super compelling, makes a lot of sense. And so I look at where we're computer, you know if we can put this into a year marker I look at computers as a 2 to 3 year cycle. I look at monitors more like, three, 4 to 6 year cycle.

00:27:21:16 - 00:27:36:22
Robbie
Somewhere, somewhere in that range. And you can definitely hold on it. Like one of the things I wanted to say earlier about computers and just this general balance of desire versus real world impact, and you alluded to this, and I do this a lot more than you do because you're I say this in the nicest possible way. You're a little bit of a hoarder, right?

00:27:36:22 - 00:27:57:07
Robbie
Compared to me is that I'm always thinking about. But I'm always thinking about the the life cycle of things. Right. So what that means to me is first step. How can I hand things down from their main initial use to a secondary use and finally getting rid of it, right. And I also think about that. We'll get to just a minute on the financial side.

00:27:57:07 - 00:28:15:23
Robbie
Right. It's like, oh, okay. Well this is a piece of technology that I'm not utilizing in the way that I originally thought it was, or it's a little long in the tooth. Can I sell it, get something out of it to help me fix that, that get that literal fix of, you know, technology that I need to help pay for the next thing.

00:28:16:01 - 00:28:38:07
Robbie
And I do that a lot. I'm always on eBay selling things, whatever, that kind of thing. But, yeah, monitors are a hard one. I think that they're, you know, I think that they are when they're well taken care of, well calibrated, they can last you a long time. And, you know, you have to take a serious look, because right now, the biggest differentiation between monitors is whether they're what level of HDR they do and how well they do it.

00:28:38:07 - 00:28:56:00
Robbie
Right. If you are in an SDR only workflow, spending 30 grand on the latest and greatest, you know, HDR reference monitor doesn't make a lot of sense to you, right? You know, like go get something a lot more affordable than that, right? So you have to kind of balance it out, do the forecasting that we spoke of, etc..

00:28:56:02 - 00:29:16:19
Robbie
In a similar category, I mean, storage is another one that I think that we're always constantly weighing. I was I gave that analogy about my storage box or whatever earlier. Storage is something that I think is I should I say, I think is I think takes a back seat a lot of time when it comes to infrastructure spending.

00:29:16:19 - 00:29:24:05
Robbie
And, managing that technology last. There's definitely a case of diminishing returns when I've hit that. Right.

00:29:24:07 - 00:30:03:13
Joey
So with storage, I think the best thing to do is to take that longer term strategy with it, just like you talked about with monitors, because, you know, a lot of people don't do the initial investment on storage, right? They buy external drives, they buy a small raid, then they buy another one, then they buy another one. They end up with a bunch of drives on shelves, a disorganized mess, shuttling drives back and forth, doing sneaker net really like workflow nightmares that are also reliability nightmares that really you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you look over like a ten year period.

00:30:03:17 - 00:30:32:07
Joey
If you spend $10,000 on random Thunderbolt arrays that are now on shelves, versus if you just spent that $10,000 on a really good fundamental storage system that's going to handle all your needs for the next ten years, that was the thing to do. I know it hurts at first to spend money on something that is not really front and center, but like, remember early on I was like, how much of a pain in the butt is it to upgrade and to change something out?

00:30:32:09 - 00:30:58:15
Joey
Storage is the hardest thing to upgrade because you got to figure out how to migrate all your projects, copy a ton of data, maybe transfer drives back and forth, move things in and out of racks. Right? Buying all new storage is a big, big, big both time and cost investment. So I think it's one of those things that people underspend on early and then end up overspending to maintain their initial underspend.

00:30:58:15 - 00:31:20:08
Robbie
Oh, that's over the years. That's definitely true. And storage is a category that is different than computers, monitors, etc. where it actually has some sublevels within it. Right. So like you might go out and like say where, where I am in my life cycle with storage is, you know, six, seven years ago I spent a boatload of money to build a real capable, high volume NAS.

00:31:20:10 - 00:31:38:21
Robbie
In the meantime, there's, you know, in that period of 6 or 7 years, I invested in my other parts of my storage backbone. Right. I bought, you know, offline storage, slow but high, you know, high volume. So I could have a good backup, you know, invested in, like, you know, the latest and greatest LTE all right, so now I have.

00:31:38:21 - 00:32:02:14
Robbie
Yeah, there's 3 or 4 tiers of this. I'm now coming back around to the top tier six, seven, eight years later. And I'm going to replace that. And then over the next few years that will trickle down a little bit. Right? I'll improve. You know, I'll improve my my offline I'll probably get the latest and generate, you know, I let this generation of lto to I can do less tapes, you know, all that kind of stuff.

00:32:02:14 - 00:32:26:06
Robbie
Right. It is a little cyclical with storage. And I think you're right. I think that you have to think about it. I mean, here's the thing about storage. If a computer dies, right? Processor catches on fire. Right? I can go down to, you know, Best Buy, Micro Center or Apple Store or whatever, get a new computer, and with a few hours on backup and working with storage, you lose stuff.

00:32:26:08 - 00:32:44:05
Robbie
It's it's potentially way more disastrous than any other part of the gear that we work in. And so I don't want people to sleep on storage. Storage, if and when it comes to this is is one place you should definitely be spending money. But at the same time, it's a balance act, right? Do I need a 100 gig?

00:32:44:09 - 00:33:00:18
Robbie
You know, 100 gig network performance to work with ProRes files? Certainly not when it's two computers or three computers on the on the box. Does it make me feel awesome? Yes. Right. So there's there's a lot of steps in between getting to there that you can still have robust storage solutions for sure.

00:33:00:20 - 00:33:17:07
Joey
Yeah. And I think the reliability aspect is number one with storage it's a feel good thing on the computer level. Like we've talked about this a lot. This is why I want the big heavy duty rackmount workstation, because I want to be able to look at it and have it be trustworthy every single day, and never have to think about it.

00:33:17:12 - 00:33:41:21
Joey
That's my attitude. That's why I've kind of not gone the Mac Studio route in the past, because it's a more consumer device, and I'm looking at it as a bit of a stopgap with storage. No, I want good redundancy. I want top level components. I'm not buying second hand drives. I'm not buying second hand memory. I'm not buying, you know, in VMs that don't have gigantic heatsinks on them that are made from a no name company.

00:33:41:21 - 00:34:03:19
Joey
Right? I want everything on my storage side to be buttoned up, and then I want everything on my backup storage side to be buttoned up. Because like you said, if everything else blows up, I can still go to the Apple Store or just get my MacBook and plug in a Thunderbolt to my backup array. And I've got all my projects and everything is back online.

00:34:03:20 - 00:34:19:13
Joey
My business keeps turning. The risk with storage is so much higher that I just. I cannot emphasize enough how much I think it's worth. Like heavy, heavy, heavy initial investment, not a incremental I'm going to buy more as I need investment.

00:34:19:15 - 00:34:24:14
Robbie
Yeah, totally. And I mean, but the loss factor is still there with it. I mean, like, I'm just, you know.

00:34:24:15 - 00:34:39:00
Joey
Yeah. Robby spends his days and nights with like the Blackmagic disk speed test. It's like burned into the back of his, his retinal wall. Just trying to get it. One more millimeter. One more millimeter.

00:34:39:00 - 00:34:40:03
Robbie
He just because you know.

00:34:40:03 - 00:34:41:03
Joey
You know it more.

00:34:41:05 - 00:34:53:03
Robbie
You know, when you're pushing, you know, 11, 12GB a second, through the pipe, you know, having that extra 30MB is really going to be the make or break situation.

00:34:53:09 - 00:35:09:13
Joey
It's that's where you kind of got to got to put your rational head on and be like, what? What is the is the juice worth the squeeze? Am I doing this because I want it, or am I doing this because it's going to make my business more successful? And like we said, sometimes because you want it is more than reason enough.

00:35:09:15 - 00:35:39:11
Robbie
Totally. And I think that there's, there's, there's part of the game that I also try to do with all of this stuff is I don't just, you know, if if money was no object, maybe I would be a little bit more impulsive with with what I do and how I do it. Right. But oftentimes, I spend months thinking about planning this, you know, running ideas past you, running past ideas past other people, and thinking about this.

00:35:39:11 - 00:36:05:05
Robbie
Because by the time I pull the trigger on this stuff, I want to be certain that what I'm doing is going to work first of all. Second, not going to be I've already planned how am I going to implement it when I'm going to put into, you know, all that kind of stuff? And then three that I have some grasp of or how like, I don't want to like the worst situation for me to be in is a situation where I went after something that was cool new computer, new monitor, new piece of storage.

00:36:05:10 - 00:36:37:12
Robbie
I put it into my production pipeline, not really understanding all the ins and outs of it, and it becomes a problem, right? That's his position. That's the situation you should never be in. When you put something in play, you should already understand exactly how it works, how it looks. So that might mean having a test bench for a computer or storage or whatever, putting it through its paces, doing some burning on a monitor, not literal burning, but like, you know, running a monitor for a week or two before you put it in the room with clients sitting in front of it, like all of those kind of things, can really, really come into play.

00:36:37:12 - 00:37:01:14
Robbie
Now, there's one subtext of this that I do want to make sure that because admittedly, we've said both of us have a little bit of a gear obsession, technology lust But there's a downside to this as well. And obviously that comes with the financial impact. But I generally like to say, and we've all seen this happen probably in our own our own professional lives is the idea of build it and they will come right.

00:37:01:16 - 00:37:24:18
Robbie
It is really tempting, I think if you're a technology nerd, to go out, get the latest and greatest of everything, stay ahead of that curve, as I said earlier or beyond that curve. But one of the challenges of that is that you could go out and literally bankrupt yourself for things that do not matter and make you money at the end of the day.

00:37:24:18 - 00:37:51:23
Robbie
Right. So do I think that, you know, some 128 core CPU with, you know, three petabytes of memory attached to it is awesome, of course. But if I went out and purchased that, you know, I'm spending 102 hundred grand. For what? Nothing. Nothing that's going to affect my billing whatsoever. Right. And that's one thing I will say that you have to be aware of in this whole game of technology, being quick to figure out what works and what doesn't work.

00:37:51:23 - 00:38:09:15
Robbie
If you get a piece of gear and go, yeah, this is not life is life changing as I thought, then move on from it. Don't just sit on it and absorb that cost if it's something that you could return. So etc. sometimes that happens. I'll give you a perfect case in point. Remember when the stream deck pedals came out right?

00:38:09:21 - 00:38:21:18
Robbie
And at the time I still use mine. I was all about it, right? Because I'm a guitar player, I have guitar pedals, I love it, I use that thing like three times, right? Because I was like, yeah, whatever. This looks play.

00:38:21:20 - 00:38:22:07
Joey
Heads.

00:38:22:13 - 00:38:40:01
Robbie
Yeah, I know, I know, there's reasons for it. But my point is, is that sometimes in some, some problems are bigger than others, right? It's a big difference between buying, you know, $150 pedal and buying a $15,000 computer. Right. Those are two big different things. But you have to ask yourself sometimes, am I getting this just because it's cool?

00:38:40:01 - 00:39:00:02
Robbie
It's a new little gadget. What is it really going to do for me? All right, last thing I want to wrap up the show with is this idea about kind of, as I said, the financial impact of new technology because I get asked, surprisingly, because I think I am a gear nerd. I get asked this by a lot of people, like, how do you pay for that?

00:39:00:02 - 00:39:20:04
Robbie
How do you work that? How do you go about that? And I want to be clear, this is not a financial advice show, right? Please, please ask your accountant, bookkeeper, business partners, etc. maybe lawyers. I don't know, I just want to kind of give you some thinking about how I go about this. Right. Gear can be expensive.

00:39:20:04 - 00:39:42:18
Robbie
And so I think about kind of things in three separate categories. Things I'm going to purchase, things I'm going to finance in one way or another, and things I'm going to rent slash lease right. And I know that different people have some hard, hard held feelings about this, right? Like you, for example, you love the feeling of this is mine.

00:39:42:18 - 00:39:59:00
Robbie
I own it, it's paid for. It's done right where it doesn't bother me at all that I'm like, oh yeah, I'm just renting this computer, right? Or we're using it while I can use it, right? Like so. I don't want to get into like the feelings about that, but I do think it's put on people's plate, I do.

00:39:59:00 - 00:40:28:17
Robbie
I would challenge you to look at things in those three categories purchase, finance or rent lease. Right. For me personally, I think that the changeover on a lot of this tech is so frequent right, that for especially for computers, leasing slash renting makes a lot of sense. Right. Because it goes, hey look, every three years I have this path to get the, you know, give back the old thing, get the new thing.

00:40:28:22 - 00:40:44:04
Robbie
Of course, the downside of that is that you're always paying for something, right? I get I get that, but from a cash flow point of view, instead of coming up with, you know, $15,000 out of pocket, right? I'm like, cool, that's going to cost me $300 a month, right? To with a little. Let me use that number wildly.

00:40:44:04 - 00:40:44:07
Robbie
Right.

00:40:44:10 - 00:41:03:17
Joey
And so that's the thing. Like, you know, we've talked a little bit about kind of the cost of these things and where your kind of tolerance is and how many years a purchase is for. That's the key for this decision of do I buy it, do I finance it, do I lease it? Right. You said that you consider a computer to be a three ish year investment.

00:41:03:17 - 00:41:24:08
Joey
I consider it to be 5 to 7. I like to stretch those out. So I buy the computer. I don't lease it. But if you're if you're planning on upgrading every three years, the lease is such a good move because by the time it's obsolete, yes, you might pay a little bit more if you were to lease it and then keep it, you would end up paying more total.

00:41:24:11 - 00:41:43:19
Joey
But if you're going to slip that back around, it saves you the effort of let me try and resell this now obsolete gear, right? It's just a lease. I can send it back. I can get the next one. I think for the upgrade schedule that you like to keep yourself on, the lease is a really good option that not a lot of people think about.

00:41:43:21 - 00:42:05:10
Robbie
Yeah. And related to that one is there is the financing vehicle. Right. So obviously I'm not I want to be clear here because I'm not talking necessarily about revolving credit. I mean sure, everybody can use a credit card to buy anything that's the same. Essentially financing something. What I'm specifically talking about is equipment financing companies that will give you a, a locked term at a locked rate.

00:42:05:10 - 00:42:21:19
Robbie
Essentially, it's a loan rate. They, you know, you go to a bar and go, hey, be an eight year. I got $100,000 with the gear. You work with a financing company, they're paying back up front. Being sends you the stuff, and then you're paying a monthly, basically repaying a monthly, you know, or a term loan until that term is done.

00:42:21:21 - 00:42:41:17
Robbie
So there are things like, hey, a $30,000 monitor, right? That's still 30 grand to come out of pocket on. Right. So in situations like that where, you know, if leasing is not available, financing makes a lot of sense to me as well. Right? It's kind of the benefits of the term benefits of a lease. But I'm not having to come out of pocket for that cash.

00:42:41:19 - 00:43:00:17
Robbie
And, you know, again, you have to manage. I'm not telling you one way or the other what the way is doing that. But I can say from my experience, especially when the lust factor is big for high dollar ticket items, right? The reality of it is, you know, if you got 50 grand in your bank account and spending that 50 grand is not going to have an impact on your cash flow.

00:43:00:21 - 00:43:03:22
Robbie
More power to more power to you. I want to I want to be just like you.

00:43:03:22 - 00:43:09:01
Joey
Also think about could you use that 50 grand for marketing, other investments, other upgrades?

00:43:09:02 - 00:43:29:11
Robbie
Exactly, exactly, exactly. So I tend to think of like there's in my head, I don't know if I've ever really done this in actuality, but like if it's like 15, two grand, $1,500 or less, that's clearly like a purchasing range for me, right? Like I can write that off. I can advertiser write that off in one year. Like that's done right gets a little higher than that.

00:43:29:11 - 00:43:48:06
Robbie
I'm considering those other options. Right. So again, good idea to talk to bookkeeper, accountant, etc. how this and that kind of thing impacts you. But one of the questions that I get a lot is like, dude, did you strike it rich? No, I didn't, I just I manage these things in different buckets and containers and the down. I understand the downside.

00:43:48:07 - 00:44:07:12
Robbie
The downside is there's always you're you're you're self creating overhead for you to always pay for these things I get it. But like at the end of the day, if I have let's just pick a number out of a hat. It's $1,500 to manage all of the equipment I have or whatever a month like that doesn't seem to me our business.

00:44:07:12 - 00:44:10:05
Robbie
That doesn't seem unmanageable, right? It might be a matter of.

00:44:10:06 - 00:44:13:09
Joey
The whole point of that equipment is you're going to use it to get engaged.

00:44:13:11 - 00:44:17:14
Robbie
Right? Exactly. So you have to figure out where those boundaries are, because.

00:44:17:20 - 00:44:20:08
Joey
You pay the power bill every month, too.

00:44:20:10 - 00:44:37:11
Robbie
Clearly, I've seen people bite off more than they can chew, right? They're like, oh, well. So in one go, we got four reference monitors, three sets of advanced panels and five new computers. Yeah, it's only $6,500 a month to pay for all of that. And you're like, you know, so you have to you have to think about that as well.

00:44:37:11 - 00:44:38:16
Robbie
So, yeah, I mean.

00:44:38:16 - 00:44:39:15
Joey
I balance.

00:44:39:17 - 00:45:02:12
Robbie
Balance for sure, for sure. And I think at the end of the day, you know, one thing and one last thing I'll put out there is that to fight this urge, sometimes, sometimes you'll be surprised about how you can like the stopgap measures that you can do to kind of fight that urge. Yeah. I was laughing earlier when you mentioned the Wacom tablet.

00:45:02:13 - 00:45:30:03
Robbie
Right. Like so something as small and as relatively affordable as something like a new tablet or a new keyboard or whatever, right. Even like a new UI monitor, as you alluded to. Right? You know, 3 or $400 for a new UI monitor can can can scratch that itch that you might be having to let you go. Cool. I can get another year out of this computer or I can get another year out of this monitor.

00:45:30:03 - 00:45:43:14
Robbie
But did you see my cool new tablet that I just got for my new iPad? Which for me anyway, sometimes, like the small things can scratch that itch of, you know, still stretch stretching the time that I have for the next big thing.

00:45:43:15 - 00:45:57:02
Joey
Yeah. Because, you know, like I said, if it'll make your day to day better, even even if it doesn't make it faster, even if it doesn't make it bill higher, if it's a couple bucks, something ergonomic to make your day to day better, that's worth it.

00:45:57:07 - 00:46:21:08
Robbie
I do think that there is some paralysis factor that can be at play here too, right? You know, the reality is get what you need now, right? That's not saying be uninformed about it. Right. But it's like, okay, you need a new computer right now. There's some capable computers out there like don't wait two years because of a rumor that you read about something maybe coming down the line.

00:46:21:08 - 00:46:43:18
Robbie
Right? Like if you need something, if it's going to impact you, but also like it's also a little bit of a litmus test, because if you're having to second guess about it, that's somewhere like back in the subconscious going, do I really need this? Like if you're doing that mental math about like if, when maybes, it could be more of a pointer towards this is not something that I really need.

00:46:43:18 - 00:46:45:11
Robbie
It's just something I lost after.

00:46:45:13 - 00:46:50:18
Joey
Until you first experienced 120Hz, you know all bets are off.

00:46:50:20 - 00:47:08:15
Robbie
All right, man, good. Good stuff. If you guys suffer from, technology loss yourself, please let us know in the comments. On YouTube or wherever you find the show. Be curious to see what you guys lost after. As a reminder, you can always head over to the offset podcast for, additional show notes, as well as peruse the entire library of shows.

00:47:08:15 - 00:47:26:18
Robbie
We're getting close to 50 of these doing every, every two weeks. As a reminder, you can always follow us on Instagram and on Facebook. Just search for the offset podcast for, recognize our logo and join my faces. And of course, if you do like the show, we'd really be, thrilled if you'd consider supporting the show.

00:47:26:20 - 00:47:45:16
Robbie
By visiting, the, buy me a coffee link here. Every little bit helps. So we really appreciate that. As always, huge thanks to our sponsor, Flanders Scientific. To our editor, Stella. And to you guys, our audience for checking out another episode. So, yeah. Joey. Good. Good discussion. I this is an ongoing battle. We might have to do a part two later on.

00:47:45:16 - 00:47:53:23
Robbie
You know, gear addicts anonymous here and see, see where we're at. But good discussion. So for, The Offset Podcast, I'm Robbie Carman.

00:47:54:01 - 00:48:01:14
Joey
And I'm Joey D’Anna. Thanks for watching.