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Upgrade Media100 or switch to Final Cut Pro/Avid
Hi everyone. This is my first post here and have to admit I’m not as “techno” as most of you. Here’s my delima; my church purchased the following back in 2002:
Apple G4 933 256/DVD-R/CDRW/60Gb HD
Media 100 ilx DV
2 256mb G4/EPRO
240 Gig IDE Raid SystemI’m now full time at the church and producing a weekly 30 min show, video announcements and whatever else asked to do. After I’m finished with a 30 min show, it takes more the 3 to 4 hours to render which to me is alot of time one computer is tied up with.
In my research, Avid really seems to be the industry standard but a big expense. The company we purshase from in 2002 will upgrade Media 100 to the iFinish for close to $600.
So I guess my question is do I upgrade the current computer and software or make the switch to Avid/Final Cut Pro? I just want to get the best I can for less.
Thanks very much for your time!
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5 Replies
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[NewLife] “I’m now full time at the church and producing a weekly 30 min show, video announcements and whatever else asked to do. After I’m finished with a 30 min show, it takes more the 3 to 4 hours to render which to me is alot of time one computer is tied up with.”
What are you rendering that takes so long? What are your source formats, and what is your target? Tape? DVD? Web? Maybe there are ways to optimize your rendering times with your current hardware.
[NewLife] “In my research, Avid really seems to be the industry standard but a big expense. The company we purshase from in 2002 will upgrade Media 100 to the iFinish for close to $600. “
I would not recommend iFinish as an option. There is no more development done on the iFinish software.
[NewLife] “So I guess my question is do I upgrade the current computer and software or make the switch to Avid/Final Cut Pro? I just want to get the best I can for less.”
The question is what you want to spend and what you need. Media 100 has some very good offerings these days, which are very scaleable from FireWire I/O only up to HD uncompressed. If you are comfortable with the Media 100 UI you will be up to speed on the new systems in a couple of hours. And your rendering times will be much less than they are now. 😉
Anyway, independent of which system you chose, you can expect that you need a new Mac or PC anyway, so you should include that in your calculation. -
Upgrade Media 100 i to iFinish? That makes no sense, as iFinish is more dead than Media 100 i (bad grammar, sorry)…
If you regularly revisit old projects, you would have to rebuild all these by swtiching away from media 100. Also, the new media 100 systems are much faster than the software/hardware your using today, so I suspect the lengthy exports would be far less painful on the new m100s.
Do you like the Media 100 UI? Are you comfortable editing on Media 100? You’d have to learn new software by switching.
have you tried contacting Media 100 to see what they have to offer?
A.D. -
[Floh] “What are you rendering that takes so long? What are your source formats, and what is your target? Tape? DVD? Web? Maybe there are ways to optimize your rendering times with your current hardware.”
Floh, my source format is DVCAM and miniDV. My target is BetaSP. I render and 28:30 program that has titles/lower thirds through out the program.
Thanks very much for the response and information.
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[NewLife] “I render and 28:30 program that has titles/lower thirds through out the program.”
With a new Media 100 SDe (or the HD systems) you would need no rendering. Even if you would want to render it (e.g. for export to QuickTime) it would be pretty fast.
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We’ve edited a 28:30 video for our church for many years. Nothing takes that long to render. Keep in mind that many lower thirds and other titles will play back fine outputting to Beta SP.
We edited on Media 100i for many years and it workd great. Now I’m editing on Media 100 Hde and FCP.
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