Boris acquisition of M100 appears to be official

[Anne Renehan]

Yes the acquisition is official. Below are the details.
Thanks,
Anne

Boris FX to Assume Media 100 Technical Support Obligations
Existing Media 100 Customers Guaranteed Technical Support

Boston Massachusetts – Boris FX, the leading developer of integrated effects technology for video and film production, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire all operating assets and the Customer Technical Support obligations of Media 100, a division of Optibase. All Platinum support subscribers and customer phone and e-mail support will continue uninterrupted as Boris agrees to provide the same high level of customer service. The newly formed Media 100 Support Division will operate independently as a business unit of Boris FX.

[Bobby Mosaedi]

so is boris will be continuing technical support, will they also be doing the further r+d for all media 100 software as well? as far as m100 sw goes, or further releases of m100 HD , how does this make a difference?

[Bearbiter]

Boris engineers will be supporting the Media 100 code which is a good thing. The immediate plans are to get the M100 sw out the door and then start integrating Boris products more deeply into the M100 products.

There will be very little difference in the short term, more improvements as more people come up to speed, and continuing good engineering and support in the future.

Steve Bayes
Director of Product Marketing
Media 100

[Keith Hill]

Steve,

will this ultimately mean that the powerful boardset that made up the power of 844x and was incorporated into M100 HD continue to grow with Boris FX and all incorporated into future machines and software?

Keith Hill
https://www.LightedPath.biz
Dallas, TX
Final Cut Pro 5.0.2, Combustion (MAC-v3.0.4), DVD StudioPro 4 (v 3.0.2); MAC G5 (v10.4.2-Tiger) 2Ghz, 1.5 RAM

[Bearbiter]

That’s a really good question and I don’t think I have a definitive answer for you. Basically the HDX board is used for high quality I/O and up/downconverting (including aspect ratio conversion in RT) and right now is a very powerful, integrated solution. We are always looking for ways to offer more value to the Media 100 installed base, so like with the Media 100 sw product, we find we can also release a really valuable product with no hardware at all (except, of course, the shiny G5)!

You will see continued support of the HDX board and you might also see more RT effects through an Open GL card — not a new rev of the HDX with a proprietary DVE. This is something Boris already has well underway for development like in the Blue product – no promises, but tighter integration of the Boris product line with Media 100 is an important short term goal. I guess this is the long way of saying that we will continue to evaluate cost effective ways to add features and functions to the Media 100 products through both hardware and software development to stay affordable and competitive at the same time. The best outcome of this strategy would be to give you more cool stuff without forcing you to buy a new HDX board sometime in the near future for an upgrade.

HTH!

Steve Bayes
Director of Product Marketing
Media 100

[Floh Peters]

Steve,

thanks a lot for your responses here. I really like the idea of a deeper integration of the Boris products with the Media 100 HD/sw. I think this whole OpenGL route is probably the most cost-efficient way to get video-effects done these days, so here

[Keith Hill]

Steve,

Do you think it possible that the HDX board could be made to be an I.O board ala Kona/Decklink for Final Cut Pro?

That would be interesting. If the cost were right I would be interested in such a product.

Keith Hill
https://www.LightedPath.biz
Dallas, TX
Final Cut Pro 5.0.2, Combustion (MAC-v3.0.4), DVD StudioPro 4 (v 3.0.2); MAC G5 (v10.4.2-Tiger) 2Ghz, 1.5 RAM

[Bearbiter]

We will definitely continue to look at ways to lower the cost of a full featured Media 100 HD system. Can’t say just yet until we get all the Boris engineers looking at the possibilities.

Stay tuned!

Steve Bayes
Director of Product Marketing
Media 100

[Arthur Dent]

allowing the Media 100 p6000 board to run under adobe premiere in the ‘QX’ and ‘QXC’ days turned out to be a great way of boosting the economy of scale on that hardware to bring down costs. Allowing the HDX board to run under FCP may be a good way of shipping more hardware and thereby allowing you to drop the price on the HDX board as you increase units shipped… Perhaps learning from the past successes of media 100. (there were a couple of them if we look back far enough :-/ )

[Keith Hill]

Yes. This would be interesting indeed. My MAC G5 is more of mulit-application workstation than ever before. Not only do I have Final Cut Studio applications running, but I have Autodesk Combustion, Photoshop and a host of plugs. Not to mention, I’m adding more audio functionality that allows to start and finish a project on one workstation. Even Digital Intermediate and color correction with MAC specific apps like Silicon Color’s Final Touch HD.

A board that is capable of delivering in this type of envirnoment would be welcome and is one reason why AJA and Black Magic have done so well. I beleive that this space would welcome the HDX boardset.

Keith Hill
https://www.LightedPath.biz
Dallas, TX
Final Cut Pro 5.0.2, Combustion (MAC-v3.0.4), DVD StudioPro 4 (v 3.0.2); MAC G5 (v10.4.2-Tiger) 2Ghz, 1.5 RAM