Anyone still using Meridien?

[Jon Zanone]

I got as far as v12 and a Mac G4 1.4ghz processor (the system started on a green G3). Ran fine until the boards started going.

Jon

“So you want to throw out the old you – but the old you is old enough to know it won’t make it better”
Del Amitri – “Make it Better”

[Carl Amoscato]

I’ve got a regular client that’s running a Meridien Symphony on an HP 8000 or 8200 (I haven’t looked that close), and it runs like a champ.

good luck,
Carl

[Grinner Hester]

they is what they is.
which is why they were so good.

[Dylan Reeve]

One of our clients is still cutting documentaries and series work on an old Meridian system. Also the post house I used to work for still has at least 5 Meridian systems (some in suites, others for dry hire). And the large production company I was at before that was cutting around 6 hours of primetime TV a week (at peak) on Meridian and ABVB systems (they went all Xpress Pro and Lanshare for offline a year or two ago).

The Avid suites really can return on their investment. I certainly don’t know any 5-10 year old FCP suites still churning out broadcast TV.

[Jason Brown]

OK…so now with everyone’s feedback, is it absolutely time to upgrade? How feasible is Meridien in today’s market? We still acquire most of our stuff in SD 16×9 Betacam.

My issues/quesions are: is a potential move to some sort of solid state media (acquisition – P2, XD) out of the question? Could it work with those files?

How about upgrading the PC? We have the old 64-bit PCI cards, and apparently it isn’t easy to find a *new* faster PC that can support the old AVID hardware.

Anyone have any experience with these issues?

-Jason

[Dylan Reeve]

You’re pretty much stuck. You’ll have a seriously hard time getting anything newer PC-wise. You may be able to find some ‘newer’ stuff (but it will be old) that is a big gruntier than what you’ve got.

I think you’re out of luck with solid-state formats, unless you can operate them as tapes (like you can with XD discs). If you can get it in with 9-pin remote and SDI/Component video then you’re fine, but that’s increasingly difficult (I don’t think there’s a solution for XDCAM EX that way).

You’re pretty much going to have to re-invest in a whole new setup to move up in the world – a modern qualified PC or Mac workstation, Media Composer software and Mojo SDI or Mojo DX when it comes out, at the least.

However keep your Meridian system, I bet you’ll still be able to squeeze jobs out of it.

[Kevin Monahan]

I certainly don’t know any 5-10 year old FCP suites still churning out broadcast TV.

Unfair. FCP has only been around for 10 years, so that’s a hard statement to qualify. At that time, I was running FCP with a Targa 2000 board (Component Beta SP that looked way better than AVR 77, closer to M100’s 300KB) and it ran great on a Mac G3. I used it for years. If I still had the board, sure, it would still work. I have a few friends running Cinewave, one churning out DVDs for Disney, and that system is well over 5 years old.

Why all the bad mouthing of FCP? Like Avid, it’s an awesome tool. I know you don’t like it (you say so here in this forum quite often), but I think you probably just need to use it more to be more aware of its capabilities and workflow wins.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Jason Brown]

I just wanted to add…as my company is looking to update editing facilities and going through the AVID/FCP debate…

Is there a huge gap in the fact that FCP can utilize blending modes in the timeline…and AVID cannot. I haven’t heard anyone address this specific issue, and was wondering if FCP can do it natively, or requires a special plug-in. I’ve heard of plug-ins that can do it through AVX in AVID.

*Hope I didn’t start a huge debate!!*