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Monitoring MC??
Hi guys
With the cost of MC coming down I’m looking to come back home to Avid after many (not so happy) years on FCP. Not a criticism of FCP but I never felt that comfortable.
The question is, Avid being Avid, how much is it going to cost me to get a decent 24fps workflow monitoring solution happening? On FCP I can be cutting at 1080p24 or even 2k for $2-3k. What does Avid require? (And why can’t they give it up and let the AJA’s and BMD’s in?)
Forgive my ignorance. I last cut on ABVB Avids. At least I won’t need a 2nd mortgage now – or will I?
Thanks for any help.
Cheers
Shane Betts -
16 Replies
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Since you last cut on AVBV, you will remember full screen mode? That’s an option again now. So you don’t even need an external monitor if you want to save bucks.
Next step is to keep an eye on Matrox’s MXO.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
Thanks Terence
Who’d-a-thunk it? I’ve done my numbers and, as I own a beefy PC and don’t have a Mac Pro, it’s going to be cheaper to go Avid than FCP. Woo Hoo!!
The Matrox box looks cool – good lateral thinking and one way to get around Avid’s lock-out – but I think I can deal with editing on a couple of Samsung 24’s with full screen mode until the MXO2 is ready. Very exciting.
Cheers
Shane Betts -
The main difference between the AJA and BMD cards for FCP and the DNA/DX hardware for Avid is hardware acceleration. The cards in FCP are really nothing more than I/O devices. There are a few realtime filters with the AJA stuff I think, but overall in FCP there’s still a lot of rendering for reliable playback even on simply things like graphic keys.
The Avid hardware on the otherhand has native support for Avid’s codecs and with the software works to provide improved and (generally) reliable realtime playback.
In Media Composer with an old Analogue Mojo I can get 2-3 streams of realtime 1:1 PAL, three matte keys and a colour correction in realtime. I probably wouldn’t just to tape without rendering some of it, but for client preview and my general workflow it is very efficient.
With DX hardware performance will be similar for HD.
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you’ll still be in it for 5 figures.
what are your beefs with FCP? At that price point it’ll still be a close one.
Strange that in todays day in age we still have to either overlook FCP’s media management or over look everything from Avid but their media management. (or at least we could until they created the bugs in media tool and left em there)
Still, I am looking at one company that says they are working on it and another that has lied too much to listen to anymore.
It’d have to be one hechuva deal for me to ever purchase another Avid product.
and it’d have to be used at that.
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Hey Grinner
Man, I’ve bitched about Avid as much as anyone over the years and nobody could be a bigger FCP advocate than me but, at the end of the day, I feel so much more comfortable on the Media Composer interface than I do with FCP. In all honesty, the biggest hardship for me in this will be working on XP instead of Leopard:-)
I’ve cut on FCP, I’ve sold FCP, I’ve installed FCP systems and I’ve worked in FCP development at BMD and I always said that if I had to buy a system I’d buy FCP but if someone was buying it for me to cut on, I’d ask for an Avid. I have friends – great Avid editors – who have made the move from Avid to FCP and would never go back but I just prefer the interface. Maybe I’m just too old a dog to learn new tricks…
As for price, here’s how I see it. Bear in mind I’m not setting up a for-rent facility but wanting something for my spare room to cut my ultra low budget (credit card) feature. The big difference here is that I don’t have a Mac Pro sitting around but I do have my Windows server that has been rendered obsolete by Leopard/Time Machine on my Macs. Right there is a $5k saving (and no, the PC isn’t the machine the Mac Pro is but its about bucks and it will do the job).
So I shoot on Red, no tapes, no decks, no RS422, no video in… I put a $300 dual head card in the PC, (it has 1.5TB of SATA storage in it now), buy a couple of Samsung 24″ screens (@$550 Aus each) and a copy of Media Composer for $3k Aus. Avid keyboard for a couple hundred bucks, pull my amp and speakers from the living room and just put up with whatever I have to go through in terms of render time from R3D to DNXHD36 and full screen display and I can cut my feature.
Now sure, if the money fairies come a-visiting halfway through the shoot or edit and I can afford an Adrenaline box or a Mac or whatever, cool. If not I’ll still be able to cut.
In the end, if I get distribution and need a film out I’ll be able to afford to take my R3Ds and an EDL to a colourist. If not, I’ll be looking at a DVD release and I’ll just grade it on the Avid and hope for a better budget on the next one.
Point is it’s a doable thing and, thanks largely to the Red camera, definitely means the difference between getting my film made and not. My mantra is: “It’s not my last film, it’s my first film”. If I have to spend the next 20 years making features this way I’d prefer that to using the best gear in the world to make dog food commercials. But that’s just me.
Cheers Mate.
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Hey Dylan
I’m talking about a low budget feature here. Cuts and dissolves, little time pressure, no clients, I’m the producer and the director (and the caterer and the… etc.) A digital Steenbeck.
Happy to render. My choice and I would like it to be my choice. That’s all I’m saying.
Cheers
Bettsy -
thanks for sharing that, man. Drew some wonderful images for me.
I too am too dang comfy with the interface to part full time.
I’d not be beant out of shape at all if I had never worked on “a real Avid.” It’s the old Avid user in me that hates the sluggy and buggy new ones. Had I begun there, I’d be tickled with everything from their creative advertising to the price drops.It’s simply amazing what we can do a production for now.
It was not that long ago when people stood in line to pay $450 an hour for cuts, wipes and disolves in rudementary liniar suites all over the world. Now, for what I use to get a show ready for online, I can pre-produce, shoot, edit and polish a finished product.
My lil FX-1 just rolled it’s 200th hour. It literally grins at me when I look at it like my old Quazar VHS camcorder did in 1984.
and I still have that camera.I decided on the same for the adrenaline. It has no resale value. I’ll need to upgrade greatly to hang on to my current rate. I think it’s destined to be a second suite for lower-end projects and family home movies.
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[grinner hester] “It’s the old Avid user in me that hates the sluggy and buggy new ones. “
Grinner,
I think you know I hated the Adrenaline and said so as loudly as anyone. But the new systems aren’t the Adrenaline! They rock in performance now! As soon as you can, take a test drive, you’ll be happy.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
Hi Shane,
I use a Matrox Parhelia APVe Graphics Card with MC and it works great. I have two monitors and a HDTV playing full screen at the same time. Using Windows, other software also takes advantage of the HDTV like Windows media player, Onlocation, Ultra.
Danny Hays -
Well monitoring with a BMD DeckLink HD Extreme or Matrox MXO is possible with Avid (using a combination of their OS support as a display and Avid Fullscreen playback option). It’s not perfect, as there is sometimes a refresh line visible in the image, and it’s only available in the editing mode, not colour correction.
Alternatively, a second-hand Mojo or Mojo SDI can provide a perfectly usable monitoring solution if you are happy to monitor in Standard Def.
I see you’re working with RED media, which is cool. At the moment the workflow with RED in Windows is somewhat more complicated than in OS X, but it’s certainly not impossible, and will improve substantially in the near future.
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