Why Apple's Severance gets edited over remote desktop software

Posted by shortformblog 3/29/2025

Why Apple's Severance gets edited over remote desktop software(tedium.co)

573 points | 342 commentspage 2

impoppy 3/29/2025|

Video editing is not as portable as coding, there ain't no git. It doesn't surprise me that they have to do that, I imagine it's simply speedier and comfier to connect to a desktop that already has the work in progress in the latest state instead of ensuring everything is synced on different devices one uses. I also imagine that beefy MBPs with M3 and upwards could handle 4K editing of Severance (or maybe 8K) and they'd edit on local machines, should it be actually more convenient than connecting to a remote desktop. It's a bit shameful to admit, but still something we have to deal with while having such crazy advances in technology.

jiggawatts 3/29/2025||

In principle a good editing tool could use Git for the edit operations (mere kilobytes!) and use multi-resolution video that can be streamed and cached locally on demand.

Uehreka 3/29/2025||

When I got into projection design I tried using git to keep track of my VFX workspace. After typing `git init` I heard a sharp knock at my apartment door. I opened it to find an exhausted man shaking his head. He said one word, “No.” and then walked away.

Undeterred by this ominous warning, I proceeded to create the git repo anyway and my computer immediately exploded. I have since learned that this was actually the best possible outcome of this reckless action.

impoppy 3/29/2025||

All jokes aside, it's too big of a pain in the ass to have that stuff version controlled. Those file formats weren't meant to be version controlled. If there's persistent Ctrl-Z that's good enough and that's the only thing non technical people expect to have. Software should be empathetic and the most empathetic way to have the project available everywhere is either give people a remote machine they can connect to or somehow share the same editor state across all machines without any extra steps.

jpalomaki 3/30/2025||

Two "Remote Desktop" tools mentioned in the article 1)Jump desktop 2)Parsec.

[1] https://www.jumpdesktop.com [2] https://parsec.app

omershapira 3/30/2025||

Meta: If I had to rank software features of an NLE when I was employed as an editor, key-to-photon (or click-to-sample, etc) latency would rank #1, far outpacing all other concerns. It's fundamental to the rhythm feel of the result, and prevents fatigue.

Avid bent over backwards to optimize for that in their software. I can't imagine cloud/remote editing being a good artist tool.

vsviridov 3/29/2025||

Most editing software, eg DaVinci Resolve allows editing with low resolution proxies, and final rendering is done with the full size footage

atonse 3/29/2025|

Final Cut Pro also lets you edit with proxies…………… I think.

mattl 3/29/2025||

It does, yes.

https://support.apple.com/guide/final-cut-pro/create-optimiz...

Which is how I’m editing stuff on an 8Gb original M1 Mac Mini and it just works.

whalesalad 3/29/2025||

Makes sense why the framerate is so bad during some of the playback scenes. Also makes sense as multiple editors will be sharing the same editing tasks and it’s easier to share a single resource with the scenes loaded that are connected to local storage, and manipulate remotely, versus trying to pull that content to your machine and then push it back.

chris_pie 3/29/2025|

I have to say, I laughed when I noticed the framerate, in what's (in a way) a hardware ad

megadata 3/29/2025||

The Thin Client idea dates back to the 80s at least.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client

jmull 3/29/2025||

I've been working this way for a long time. Not video editing, but it's the same principle -- I want to be over here (with my monitor, keyboard and mouse) but the large, complex, performance-sensitive environment I need to use is over there.

Jump is excellent, BTW.

The article seems confused though. They say they are confused if Macs are being used to edit the show, but since the editors are remoting from one Mac to another it seems unambiguous.

The flavor of both the local machine and remote machine makes a difference. The OS of the machine you're remoting to makes the biggest difference, but since different OS's have their own ways of handling input devices, the local machine's OS is significant too. Every combo has its quirks, but I find Mac to Mac over Jump to be good.

crimsontech 3/30/2025|

I really want to find a good solution for this. I used to use low powered devices like Intel NUCs but ended up with a bunch of them so my employer bought me a workstation, it makes so much noise in my office that I barely turn it on so I'm not getting good use of it.

I think some kind of KVM over IP solution would probably be what I need so I can put the workstation in another room.

jmull 3/30/2025||

I consider KVM over IP to be one form of remoting. It hasn't worked as well as Windows RDP or Jump's "fluid" though (for my purposes). The problem has been the video -- it's too high bandwidth, so you end up making tradeoffs (resolution, compression artifacts, latency, refresh rate) and I couldn't really find something that would work for me. RDP works at a higher level of abstraction than "a video signal" so can be a lot more efficient for the "typical desktop computing" that I need. I don't know how the fluid protocol works, but it must use a higher abstraction as well.

The beauty of kvm over ip, though, is that it can work without any software whatsoever being installed on the client. You plug in a usb and video cable and from the client's perspective, it's the same as if you directly plugged in a mouse, keyboard and monitor. But if you can install software on the client (or enable the existing software, as in the case of Windows RDP), you can typically do better.

krupan 3/29/2025||

He's saying that Apple stuff is hard for IT people to configure, customize, and virtualize, but isn't Apple's whole selling point that you don't need to be an IT person to use their products? It's a different market.

I think that's why a lot of tech companies now give their employees Apple laptops (they are easy for employees to self-support) but use everything but Apple in the data centers.

danhau 3/30/2025|

The issue is: how well does Apple hardware integrate into business networks? Does it integrate with Active Directory?

alwillis 3/30/2025||

Um… macOS has supported Active Directory since at least 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Panther?wprov=sfti1

fathermarz 3/29/2025|

They did mention it outright by saying something along the lines of “remote into”. I don’t see this being a show stopper for the use case.

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