buying new media 100 hd version 11 or FCP?

[Kieran Matthew]

I’m in a similar situation and have been keeping an eye on developments before taking the plunge. I don’t yet have an answer but I’ll share some observations.

1. Whatever path you take (FCP or New media 100) you’re going to need a new Mac – PCI-E is more than likely going to be used in the new intel Power Macs so buying a PCI-E based card is important as you’ll probably want to upgrade the mac before the card. Getting PCI and PCI-X cards out of the equation puts the relative cost issues on more of a level playing field.

2. There are many card makers, but it seems from discussions here and on other cow forums, that AJA is the card of choice for FCP systems. Comparing the costs of AJA (OEM) based Media 100 and AJA (Kona) based FCP systems (card + software only as drives, monitors and the mac are the same for both systems) are again more favorable, though I believe still in FCP’s favour.

3. Although it has yet to be proved with a shipping system, FCP might be able to run on Media 100’s hardware. But,

4. You can’t build a media 100 system by buying an AJA card and the software separately. It comes as a whole so if 3 above proves to be the case, a joint system would have to be based on a Media 100 system with FCP sotware added, rather than the other way round.

The best thing to do is wait a while and see what happens when people get their hands on the new media 100 systems. That said, Boris (the man and the company!) are aiming the new systems at existing users – they see that as their primary market – so the system is going to be developed with us in mind. That alone is a good reason to stick with Media 100 even if it does prove to be a slightly more expensive option.

Just my two cents worth!

K

[Greg Ball]

Can you explain what the AJA (OEM) is? Is this the same as buying a IO or Kona card with FCP? Does this come with the Media 100?

[Mathias]

It seems the aja(oem) card is similar or identical to the kona2-card for mac/fcp – because I can’t see a mention of 4:4:4-capability in the m100 HD suite (which is a major selling point for the kona3-card). As far as I’ve understood from m100/boris’s website the different varieties of m100 (all but the software only version) ship with an AJA(oem) PCIe-card aswell as some form of a bob (possibly an oem’d aja “k-box”). Buying final cut studio and an aja card with similar specs as the oem card would probably end up about @ about 50-70% of the price of the m100 alternative. That said; I’m currently an fcp user growing increasingly p*ssd off at fcp’s inability to render anything at higher bit-depth than 8bit (an absolute necessity when dealing with colour correction etc.) – that’s why I’m sniffing around here at the m100 forums. Although going from fcp to m100 may be an unusual transition – being able to combine the two would probably be ideal; fcp for ingest and play-out, m100 for the rest..?
Any thoughts on this?

[Kieran Matthew]

Hi Greg,

OEM equipment is made by one supplier (AJA) and sold to another (Media 100) so that they can sell it as their own. Here, rather than Media 100 running on retail Kona cards, AJA is providing Media 100 with a special card that meet its specifications and requirements. This is common practice in the computer industry and AJA does it for a number of other companies.

This is the cause of the issues over whether Media 100 and FCP will ever be able to co-exist on the same hardware. The beta v11 was running on Kona hardware, but until people can get their hands on the OEM stuff, no-one can tell whether the OEM cards can take the FCP drivers.

Media 100 HD-AJA is a complete hardware/software solution and is sold together. According to Media 100, you won’t be able to buy the software/drivers on their own.

K

[Kieran Matthew]

Hi Mathias,

From a quick look at the AJA website and Media 100’s brochure, it looks like the HDe solution is indeed equivalent to the Kona LHe, but the specifications of the HD Suite don’t seem to match any of the cards listed on AJA’s retail or OEM site (note Media 100’s 8 channel analogue output and 8 channel AES IO – compared to Kona LHe’s 2 and 2, and Kona 3’s complete lack of any analogue side). This could mean that the HD suite is a custom card?

K

[Mathias]

Hi Kieran!
Good point about the analogue i/o’s. Quick change of subject – do you know if the software funtionality (gui-wise) of the sw only ver. is identical or different to the integrated suites? I’ve just been sitting trying the sw version out and have a sneaking feeling that something is missing – might just be the completely diffent logic at work here though (from other nle’s like fcp and premiere i mean) – it kind of reminds me of edit* but not entirely like that either…
M.

[Kieran Matthew]

The current SW version is AFAIK exactly like the integrated software (just minus IO of course). Coming from FCP or premiere it will feel simpler (and in a lot of ways is). Media 100 lacks a lot of the advanced compositing features found in FCP and the like, as Boris software like RED is expected to be used instead. This hand-in-hand approach is probably why Boris bought Media 100 in the first place!

[Rob N-media 100]

In the rush to complete the new Media 100 website there was an error on the product comparision page (thank you Kieran & Floh). The Media 100 HD Suite does not support analog audio i/o and I want to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. The website has been updated.

Thanks,
Rob N-Media 100

[Kieran Matthew]

Hi Rob,

So out of interest, which OEM card is the HD Suite based on ?

It seems from the comparison sheet that there aren’t that many reasons to plump for the HD Suite over the HDe (especially if you are already a RED user). Could you give us a list of the advantages of the HD suite ?

BTW, are you aware that the analogue IO error is on the hard-copy brochures as well ?

Thanks !

Kieran

[Rob N-media 100]

The two main features HD Suite offers over HDe is giving the user the ability to up-convert SD to HD and cross-convert 1080i to 720p or 720p to 1080i. Also, there are certain hardware features the Suite board offers that can be accessed for future development.

BTW: I realize the brochure contains the error and will be corrected for the next printing.