Why Apple's Severance gets edited over remote desktop software

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Remote Editing Setup & Rationale

  • Editors are remoting from one Mac to another Mac (often iMac → Mac mini running Avid) using tools like Jump Desktop; the local machine is effectively a thin client.
  • Reasons given:
    • Centralized, very powerful machines with fast shared storage.
    • COVID-era remote workflows that never went away.
    • Easier multi-editor collaboration on the same project without copying huge media sets.
    • Security: keep raw footage off personal devices and block copy/paste, file transfer, screenshots.

Performance, Latency & Remote Desktop Tools

  • Experiences with remote editing are mixed:
    • Some say modern protocols (Jump, Parsec, NICE DCV, HP/Teradici, Moonlight/Sunshine) work “great” for editing and even gaming, especially over LAN or good VPN.
    • Others consider full-time editing over RDP-like setups “brutal,” citing visible low frame rate and poor scrubbing feel, especially for precise timing and color work.
  • GPU-based encoding/decoding (H.264/HEVC/AV1) is seen as the “secret sauce” that makes these systems tolerable.
  • There’s debate over whether LAN-based remote is meaningfully better than just using local high‑bandwidth storage.

Storage, Proxies & Avid Infrastructure

  • Raw footage volumes for a prestige 4K show are enormous (tens of TB per episode, ~PB per season).
  • Some argue nothing struggles with “a few editors” anymore and Avid/NEXIS is overpriced, coasting on legacy and marketing.
  • Others defend NEXIS as more than a “flag,” stressing its custom filesystem, link aggregation, and predictable performance under many concurrent clients.
  • Proxy workflows:
    • Commonly used to avoid heavy codecs and huge storage, and central to many cloud/“camera to cloud” setups.
    • Disagreement over whether proxies have “died” in favor of pure remote desktop; several commenters note proxies plus remote are still standard.

Apple, Final Cut & Enterprise Gaps

  • Multiple comments highlight that this flagship Apple TV+ show:
    • Uses Avid for picture and Ableton for music, not Final Cut or Logic.
    • Relies on third‑party remote desktop instead of an Apple-native remote/cloud editing solution.
  • This is tied to a broader view that:
    • Apple is primarily a consumer/lifestyle company, weak in enterprise and collaborative tooling.
    • Final Cut once dominated but Apple’s FCP X transition and Mac Pro missteps pushed high‑end post houses back to Avid/Adobe.
    • Apple had a server-side product (Final Cut Server) but killed it, and still doesn’t offer an integrated “cloud FCP” model.

Security, Insurance & Centralization

  • Centralized on-prem or cloud workstations are also driven by:
    • Anti‑piracy and leak-mitigation requirements from studios and insurers.
    • Strict handling rules for insured footage; remote desktops allow many to work on material that never leaves secured storage.
  • There’s recognition that “lots of copies” improves safety against loss, but conflicts with leak risk, so industry defaults to heavily controlled central storage.

Thin Clients, Cloud & Future Direction

  • Many see this as part of a long “thin client” continuum: powerful, possibly virtualized workstations in racks; quiet, cheap, or mobile terminals on desks.
  • Some think it demonstrates that the client OS doesn’t matter much once you’re just streaming pixels; others argue the Mac experience and Apple Silicon accelerators still matter on the server side.
  • Disagreement on whether this hints at a broader future of “terminal” personal computing or whether Apple is actually leaning the other way with heavy on‑device processing (photos, Siri, LLMs).