I need to encode 1700 hours of betaSP to MPEG2 – solution?

[Daniel Low]

Not sure why the client is asking for Digital Rapids but anyway it’s a turnkey Hardware/software solution which happens to have some of the best hardware deinterlacing around.

You seem to be getting some answers from the other forums but I’ll add my bit:

I too prefer to use Mac over PC because Mac just works and windows is a horrid insult, but in this instance you need a workhorse, cheap, and there are a bunch of PC options out there that aren’t on the Mac.

If the client insists on Digital Rapids, you have no choice but to get it and charge the client accordingly (and re-use the kit for future projects, it’ll fit right in).

I don’t want to teach you to suck eggs but:

1700 hours of Beta SP will take you at least 2000 hours to ingest to a realtime transcode. (Tape Cue/rewind/etc)
Add to that 3000 hours of total QC processes

I’d do a deal at £30 per hour, or call it a deal at 2.2million South African Rand…

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Fonts are like cologne:

A bad choice speaks louder than a good one.

[Llewelyn Roderick]

Thanks Daniel

That’s a great suck. BTW, you don’t have any suggestions for a software video Quality Assesment solution do you? Apart from QC’ing the encodes I’ve got to also give the client the option of passing all the tapes through a QAR before hand!
cheers
Llewelyn

Llewelyn @ Fireworks
HD for indies post production
http://www.fireworksfilms.co.za

[Daniel Low]

This is what I’d use:

https://www.inlethd.com/encoding/19/17/Semaphore/

If QAR = Client review then you could look a stupid amount of time to get this project done. If that’s the case don’t do it for a fixed price.

__________________________________________________________________
Fonts are like cologne:

A bad choice speaks louder than a good one.

[Llewelyn Roderick]

The client wants a software QAR which will give a report of each tape/encode which perfectly matches your suggestion. Thanks!

Llewelyn @ Fireworks
HD for indies post production
http://www.fireworksfilms.co.za

[Chris Blair]

Holy Cow. 1700 hours! Are they related to Andy Warhol? You could buy a nice set of hardware and software based encoding tools and still make a good chunk of change on this!

One benefit to the Digital Rapids line is you can control your decks via RS422 (with the StreamPro software), where you set in/out points and create capture lists like you do with editing apps, then it captures and transcodes to your format of choice in real time. Plus you get the nice de-interlacing that Daniel mentioned.

We don’t have one but I have a colleague that uses one of the PCI card based solutions with the StreamPro software and he raves about it, especially for big jobs like (of course he’s never mentioned a job THIS big). And they’re not all that expensive. I think he paid $4000 for his card and software…or something like that, and put it in an $800 HP xw series PC he bought off lease from ebay.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com