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New Facility ..
I thought I would finally chip in here as this is a debate and tell you where we are;
I remember back in good old 2008 I was at a post house in Soho, London that installed the first 4GB Fibre 80TB 10 set FCp and AE studio – this cost circa £80,000 with metadata controllers – XSAN – loads of SPF connector – Monitors blah blah blah.
Mnd you a 1 seat FLAME was 100,000K 😉
I have relooked at the situation and I have been looking at (gulp) Imac27Inch, UltraStudio, UltraScope and Smartviews – each suite will be in around £2500 per seat (we only need 4 seats) and this will be for reclocking and basic clean up of re-purposed commercials – NOT HEAVY loading but my point is this is complete doable now with thunderbolt and BlackMagic “throwaway” products.
The editing App … Well we are lucky to still have some seats of FCP7 so that will do.
Formats we work in SD and HD – no grading.
My interest is in AVID – I started in AVID in 1994 and thought this was the most amazing thing in the wold – back then I was ONLINING TV promos on a 910 edit controller and this old SP Betcam, now i am writing this on a 8GB – 8 Core laptop – Crazy …
With this version of Media Composer and the recent mass sacking of AVID – is it the last stab into the Apple corpse or will Apple come back 10 folder “early 2012” with the steal capped boots and kill them once and for all.
As for Adobe and the purchase of Autoducks wes – this makes me believe Premiere Pro will basically accept every form of XML FCPXML MYXML EVERYXML to try and scrap the dregs of the somewhat confused post market.
Autodesk with SMOKE is amazing but does require GPU and PCI slots – if the Tower has sung its last song I feel Apple are clearing the decks for a ‘stackable’ mini version so the punter can ‘group’ cheaper 12,24,32 cored machines with the new thunderbolt – as Blackmagic have the UltraStudio licked AJA will surely be very close behind with a better product and Matrox and new suppliers will be hot on their heals.
I for one are completely blown away that AutoMatic Duck and Now resolve are free – it makes my life open to creative where I would not normally throw 2K on software, it just shows that our industry that we love and pays our rent is involving into a beast that we can either swim with or be sucked out into the ocean.
Coming from a business side and can’t wait for NAB and IBC i see the future as very bright – but if they do indeed scrap the tower and not supply an alternative for us pros’ then all i have to say to Tim Cook is open the OSX code and do what Steve would be turning in the grave about – License the Operating system …. Hackintoshes for everyone 😉
Only time will tell – rant over – back to normal programming now
Adstream London, England
4 x Mac Pros, FCP7, 4 x Flip Factories, 35 x Rhozet Carbon Coders, Offices Globally
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13 Replies
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Perdon me but err… how do you get the utrascope to work with the imac?
Patrice
Patrice Freymond
Senior editor
FCP7 and FCPX Certified Trainer
Post ConsultantAlways learning…
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Very simple -)
IMAC -> Thunderbolt -> UltraStudio 3D – > SDI OUT -> Blackmagic UltraScope SDI IN
Adstream London, England
4 x Mac Pros, FCP7, 4 x Flip Factories, 35 x Rhozet Carbon Coders, Offices Globally
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[Craig RussillRoy] “Very simple -)
IMAC -> Thunderbolt -> UltraStudio 3D – > SDI OUT -> Blackmagic UltraScope SDI IN
Adstream London, England”
So what is the Ultrascope in (or connected to) for monitoring?
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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Sorry Guys – more info …
IMAC -> thunder out -> SDI OUT 1 to UltraScope SDI 2 out SmartView 17In or
IMAC -> thunder out -> SDI OUT 1 -> SmartView 17Inch -> SDi IN – SDI Out LOOP -> UltraScope
RS422 will be done with the breakaway and a Micro Videohub for switching if need be …. oh yeah a cheap PC with the correct graphics Card – All can be done with the best reseller in London NMR.com
I am astonished on what can be done now …
Adstream London, England
4 x Mac Pros, FCP7, 4 x Flip Factories, 35 x Rhozet Carbon Coders, Offices Globally
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So the cheap PC hosts the Ultrascope card?
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Hi Patrice,
Yep thats the plan – get the min requirements on the PC – Hang a LED 40-50inch off and have it as a monitor station – the good thing at my job is it is not client attend but what this shows is it can be adopted to each seat f need be – this allows us to use the Micro Videohub with the ethernet software and you are ready to go – what i did forget the mention was the storage .. Schoolboy error
Promise Pegasus R4 4TB (4x1TB) RAID System
per suite – all thunderbolt – Loop through.
Adstream London, England
4 x Mac Pros, FCP7, 4 x Flip Factories, 35 x Rhozet Carbon Coders, Offices Globally
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[Craig RussillRoy] “With this version of Media Composer and the recent mass sacking of AVID – is it the last stab into the Apple corpse or will Apple come back 10 folder “early 2012″ with the steal capped boots and kill them once and for all.
As for Adobe and the purchase of Autoducks wes – this makes me believe Premiere Pro will basically accept every form of XML FCPXML MYXML EVERYXML to try and scrap the dregs of the somewhat confused post market.”
I just can’t help but think that Avid’s hardware based business model is sustainable especially as things become more commodified.
Adobe’s model is a diversified content creator product line with interlocking pieces. Duck will ensure that their product can interlock with the outside world as completely as possible. I think this is a viable model by focusing on the changing tide of software products by hooking into them.
Apple has shifted in the last decade from from a small upscale market to a commodified ecosystem, with both large scale and high margins. I see both Adobe and Apple’s business models and long term viable.
Avid can only survive (IMHO) if they raise prices to have the high margins on the small niche they serve. Maybe they’re opening up hardware support for Media Composer is their first step towards accepting the “commodity” business model.
I think Apple has some tricks up their sleeve that will do some more damage to Avid. Adobe is already hitting hard. Avid has to sell Unity and Isis, Adobe and Apple don’t. Apple wants to sell commodity computers (and it’s why I insist they will innovate with the MacPro replacement . . . and FCPX eventually).
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In many respects you’re not too far off the mark.
I don’t think it’ll be an iMac though. The stackable Minis is closer. It’ll be a bit more powerful in both the CPU/GPU dept.
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No mention of Audio monitoring / metering ?
I had a partially out of phase stereo mix given to ,e the other day and as we know no FCP7 or (better) FCPx meters would have spotted that…
Patrice Freymond
Editor – FCP7 and FCPX ACT – Post Consultant
Always learning…
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hi Mate
Have you looked at the products ?
Has 8 Channels and a phase metre …
https://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/ultrascope/software/
Adstream London, England
4 x Mac Pros, FCP7, 4 x Flip Factories, 35 x Rhozet Carbon Coders, Offices Globally
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