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Media 100 SW…didn’t find many advantages..did we miss something?
We just tested the public beta Media 100 SW on a dual 2Ghz G5 with 8 GB of ram and OS 10.3.8. Aside from slightly faster render and compositing times (which were already pretty fast in Media 100i v. 8.2.2) we didn’t see any improvements over the hardware-based version. No more real-time effects than before and titles are still anything but fast and easy.
Is it possible that we’re missing something? Is this really supposed to be a worthy competitor for Final Cut Pro?
Also, would it be possible to use our existing Media 100 breakout boxes with SW or would we have to invest in third-party boxes or graphic cards with S-Video output? (to be able to use our pro monitor and dub to various formats including VHS)
As always, any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
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13 Replies
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If you are comparing sw to Media 100 i I think you are really missing something. When comparing to Media 100 HD you are right, the functionality is mainly the same without hardware support.
One of the main features of HD and sw is the fact that you have up to 99 video layers (the V1-V99 layers, named “Video Composition Tracks”). You can drop video clips in there (with or without alpha) and they play back in realtime with opacity settings, some effects, chroma/alpha keyer,…
And renderings (Boris, Graffiti,…) should be much faster than in Media 100 i, since they don -
I haven’t edited on a Media100 in 3 or 4 years so I thought I’d see if the software interface had progressed much since version 7. The only additional benifit I can see, is it now has a source and Program monitor and the ability to have mulitple video tracks. Final Cut pro and Avid have had this since the beginning. I didn’t see anything that would make me even think about switching back. The interface is still clunky to me. Just thought I’d put my 2 cents in.
Greg
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“The interface is still clunky…”
That is kind of a wierd comment when comparing M100 to Avid and FCP… Media 100 is a much more streamlined interface (and much more basic and simplified) than either of those two.
Media 100 can’t compete with Avid or FCP in features, options or settings… But what you do get is a simple and sensical interface for editing. Maybe not elegant, but definitely not “clunky”.
What exactly did you find non-intuitive? Maybe you are over-thinking a little bit here after getting used to FCP and/or Avid?
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What I mean by ‘Clunky’ is that you have to constantly move windows around to get to the colorfx, audiofx. etc. The screen real estate doesn’t seem to be very ‘streamlined’ to me. This is just my opinion. I’m sure there are lots of people out there who love the media 100 interface.
Greg
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Certainly do Greg, I intend to stay with it ’til I die! (providing they adapt to firewire & HDV for version 10 HD).
Michael Slowe
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I just downloaded the free sw version. I think the system is as streamlined as one could ask for. If you already know media 100, there is no learning curve at all. I’ve found FCP to be non intuitive. I’m in a unique situation, since we just moved to Atlanta from Sacramento and my Media 100 system was dismantled by thieves in the moving process.
But that’s a different story.So, now the question becomes how to replace what’s missing, namely the P600 board on a magma chassis. Should I wait for the SW official release? Will that mean using other boards instead of Media 100 hardware? Or do I drop the bigger change for the HD version? Any thoughts appreciated.
DigitalGeorge in Atlanta
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So, now the question becomes how to replace what’s missing, namely the P600 board on a magma chassis. Should I wait for the SW official release? Will that mean using other boards instead of Media 100 hardware? Or do I drop the bigger change for the HD version? Any thoughts appreciated.
Definitely the full sw version will not work with 3rd party boards, only FireWire I/O. But I would recommend getting a full HD system, then you get (nearly) all the I/O you had with Media 100 i plus all the realtime power of sw. Nice combination 🙂
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We definitely didn’t explore the new video tracks. We’ll have to check them out.
I guess what I was hoping to find was more real-time transitions and a better improvement on Boris render time. Again, we found it a little faster but nothing astonishing.
One question no one seemed to touch on is will it be possible to do simultaneous DVCAM and VHS dubs without the traditional breakout box? I suppose we could try doing a passthrough from the DVCAM deck to the VHS decks. Has anyone tried this?
Thanks again for everyone’s input!
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I haven’t hooked up the HD system yet, but running the M100sw on my Dual 2.0 seems to be much faster and much more responsive (than my G4 867 running 8.2.2). I’m still not getting as much real-time as I thought I’d get though.
Did you try putting a moving alpha channel (like a pre-rendered motion title w/ alpha) over some footage. Real-time moving alphas! That is pretty awesome… can’t do that on 8.2.2
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And Floh correct me here if I am wrong, I don’t own the HD version but I saw it at the roadshow in the fall. You can only use the uprez function of SD to HD if you have the hardware correct? I believe that this ability is restricted to the HD version only because the hardware is still somehow involved in this process. I am struggling to remember J.P.’s presentation in my head, but I know this topic came up.
Chad E. Valk
Assistant Director,
Video Production
Central CT State University
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