adrenelinev vs ds nitris

[Oakmozart]

The Media Composer Adrenaline system is for cutting programs. The DS Nitris system is more of an effects/compositing box than an editor…though it can edit.

Heavily-“effected” promo’s are (from my understanding) EXACTLY what the DS Nitris is designed for. Lots of power (courtesy of the Nitris DNA), support for more HD resolutions (and truly uncompressed RT HD), lots more effects/features than Adrenaline, etc. The bad news: Total Conform isn’t real good with it coming from lower-end Avid’s. Oh, and it’s $150K. I think I’d rather buy a house, thank you very much. I’ve also heard that lots of folks in the market for a DS have been going with Discreet flame systems instead…the very product Avid was supposedly trying to compete with, but don’t seem to have been as much as they used to. One good thing to mention about the price (if you can call it “good”): DS Nitris comes complete with software, Nitris DNA, graphics tablet, computer and (computer) monitors, graphics tablet, storage, etc. It also features a “free” copy of Symphony Nitris installed on your computer in a dual-boot configuration. (Symphony Nitris = Media Composer on STEROIDS!!)

Media Composer Adrenaline: “cheap” (compared to a DS-Nitris), used everywhere, nice array of i/o and format options, basic effects/compositing features, EXCELLENT built-in keyer (Spectramatte), tracking/stabilization (the same tracker/stabilizer as in Symphony Nitris–which is built on technology from DS Nitris), the full Film Composer toolset, full support of Total Conform, etc. Bad: not as powerful or format-robust as DS, not natively 64-bit like DS Nitris 8 is, doesn’t have the effects/compositing/color-correction abilities of DS, etc.

Media Composer is a NLE with basic effects features (expandable via Avid FX), while DS Nitris is more of an effects/compositing system with more basic editing features (or so I’ve been told).

Hope that helps a LITTLE bit.

[Mike Harper]

yes it did. Actually the station I am at has a SYMPHONY NITRIS and a NEWSCUTTER Adrenaline.I was playing around a bit with the effects in the symphony. they look preety good. I am most intrested in keying, color correction and blurs I am not sure how it is with multi layering. we’re using DV25-411( I know yuk) yet i can only get a few layers in real time I am assuming this has to do wth the SAN its running off of

[Oakmozart]

It most likely is…Symphony Nitris should chew through LAYERS of DV25-411 with NO problems. Symphony Nitris (as well as DS Nitris) are guaranteed to provide 2 layers of uncompressed HD or 8 layers of uncompressed SD 601 video in Real-Time (including a title, color-correction, DVE/Blur with transitions between clips). Most of the folks I know who are running Symphony Nitris with a current CPU are reporting RT uncompressed SD video streams of around 13 or better. The new dual-core CPU workstations are going to elevate the number of RT streams immensely, I think.

[Mike Harper]

[AK-Jake] “Most of the folks I know who are running Symphony Nitris with a current CPU are reporting RT uncompressed SD video streams of around 13 or better. The new dual-core CPU workstations are going to elevate the number of RT streams immensely, I think.”

I would imagine so. This is the part I dont understand about the nitris what is cpu intensive and what is hardware intensive?

[Oakmozart]

Nitris works like all of Avid’s other DNA products. In a nutshell, and this is strictly from my understanding, so I could possibly be somewhat wrong here, your CPU runs your OS (operating system, aka “Windows”), and your software (Symphony, DS, etc.). The Nitris DNA Hardware handles all the rest of the video tasks, including playback of your footage, effects, titles, graphics, etc. It provides the power to your software to allow it to work in as much RT as is possible, allowing your host CPU to function on simply running your software. In a software-only configuration (XPro sans Mojo, for example), your host CPU has to run not only Windows and XPro, but also handle the playback of your footage, run your effects, display your titles, transitions, graphics, etc. Needless to say, when you go software-only, you’re taxing the CPU more than if you have DNA hardware acceleration, which gives you decreased performance, and far less RT capabilities than with DNA.

Make sense? Oh, and in case your French is a little rusty, “sans” means “Without.” 🙂

Take care.

[Michael Hancock]

How heavily effected are your promos–lots and lots of matte keys, rotoscoping, color correction…is secondary color correction necessary? What kind of timeline do you typically work on? If it’s necessary to turn and burn, then you’ll want as much power as possible, and if you’re loading up the effects I imagine DS will do it.

I say imagine DS Nitris will because I haven’t had the chance to work on one, but I cut promos for the local NBC affiliate–we use an older Xpress Meridien, Xpress Pro HD, and Media Composer Adrenaline. A lot of the stuff I do there are the more effects heavy promos, but I typically take it to After Effects or use Sapphire plugins and suffer the render times–I use the Xpress Meridien with the broken 3D board (they stuck me on the oldest system because I edit the fastest and have the most Avid exprience, so I can afford the render times and know most workarounds). The media composer is reserved for commercial shoots primarily, but I jump in there when I get a chance and it still amazes me how powerful it is with the Adrenline box. Nothing like bringing in a couple of uncompressed streams of video, throwing in a realtime chroma key (spectramatte is unbelievably good), some animated matte keys, color correction, and rarely do I have to render.

I would find a local reseller and get some time on each system to determine what’s best suited for the work you do. DS Nitris is really expensive and the interface is very different from the rest of the Avid line, like Xpress Pro, MC and Symphony. It may take some getting used to if you go that route. No matter what, though, have fun!

Mike.