Symphony Nitris?

Avid Media Composer

Symphony Nitris?

Posted by Dorkalert on May 3, 2007 at 6:41 pm

I got some questions for the Brain Trust here –

I work for a production company that likes to finish their own work. We are looking to purchase a Symphony Nitris system.

Right now, the majority of our problems lie in offlining in SD and then onlining at HD, and all the headaches that come with that.

My questions are, besides doing 1:1 video and having beefy color correction, what else does the Symphony Nitris do? And what is Total Conform?

And can we start offlining with DNxHD 36? Does it work at all frame rates & resolutions?

Thanks in advance

Mark

Bill Stephan replied 19 years ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
4 Replies

Bill Stephan
May 4, 2007 at 4:05 pm

If you think of the old Symphony that runs much faster and does HD, you pretty much have the idea behind Symphony Nitris. You get Spectramatte (which works much better than Ultimatte), tracker/stabilizer, secondary color correction, Marquee that is actually usable, Timewarp & Fluidmotion effects, BCC plug-ins, ability to work with the newest video formats (P2, XDCAM, etc.).

One major omission is the ability to use the frame rate metadata from DVCProHD. Avid wanted us to buy a copy of Media Composer to run on the Nitris to solve that problem (at $5,000 additional), but I have my own solution for that. Don’t tell anyone, but I run Varicam footage through Final Cut Pro. The boys in Tewksbury get somewhat upset over that.

I haven’t tried DNxHD-36 yet (we pretty much do on-line finishing), but it should be the ultimate solution to off-lining for HD as it is 16×9 and works in all the HD frame rates. It eliminates the problem of off-lining a 24P project in NTSC. You can conform the final master in any HD format/frame rate.

The Symphony Nitris is a good, solid and stable machine that I recommend to those who need its capabilities.

Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City
Steve Pomerantz
May 4, 2007 at 4:20 pm

I agree with Bill that Symphony Nitris is a great finishing tool. However, DNxHD36 DOES NOT work with all HD frame rates. It is limited to progressive rates only.
Specifically, 1080p/25, 1080p/24 and 1080p/23.976.
For projects that are 1080p/29.97, there is DNxHD45, and for 720p/23.976 there is DNxHD60.

I used to think that NTSC vs PAL was confusing. Man, I hate all these variations!!

Steve Pomerantz
Digital Ranch Productions
Sherman Oaks, CA
Dorkalert
May 4, 2007 at 4:24 pm

Thanks Bill!
Your Final Cut Pro secret is safe with me. I myself have used FCP at work to do certain things as well.

One last thing – Avid sells the “Total Conform” idea pretty hard on Symphony. What exactly does this consist of? The demo online of it is pretty vague as well.

Thanks again.

Mark
Bill Stephan
May 4, 2007 at 9:31 pm

Total conform means that whatever you build into your off-line using any version of Avid software — effects, audio levels, eq, color correction, nesting, etc. — will be understood and recreated at the on-line resolution.

Any 3rd party plug-in effects used during off-line must also be installed in the on-line Avid.

Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City

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