Teranex Ultrascope with Thunderbolt HUB and Mini?

[Bob Zelin]

what is a thunderbolt hub ?
Let me assure you that the Ultrascope function works perfectly with the Mac Mini ( I do this all the time), and if you want more Thunderbolt stuff, most products have thunderbolt daisy chain on them, which is how thunderbolt is designed to be used (think drives, monitors, etc.).
So I ask again – what is a thunderbolt hub ? I am unaware of any Apple supported thunderbolt hub.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
maxavid@cfl.rr.com

[Brandon Kraemer]

Something like LaCie’s eSATA hub or Belkin’s Express Dock (which has 2 thunderbolt ports + USB 3.0 and eSATA ports) so we could use thunderbolt for both the Ultrascope connection to the mini and add on a fast hard drive at the same time.

I ask because our mini is only USB 2.0 but has a single thunderbolt port.

thanks,

bk

[Paul Provost]

Have you tried the teranex implementation of ultrascope yet? It’s not great IMHO…

http://www.4Kfinish.com | owner-colorist | Hollywood, CA
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[Brandon Kraemer]

No I havent, trying to get some end user info on it before I pull the trigger on the Teranex. We could use a Teranex but it’s not as vital as scopes, thought I could kill 2 birds since we have a mini lying around.

Thoughts?

[Bob Zelin]

if you just want scopes, you can get the SmartScope Duo right now for $995 retail. But the Teranex is an amazing value, and you do get to “kill 2 birds with one stone” by getting the Teranex, especially if you have the Mac Mini with thunderbolt lying around.
And there is nothing wrong with the Teranex implementation of the Ultrascope. Leave it in unity gain.

As for the Lacie and/or Belkin USB hub – I simply have not tried them, so I can’t give you an honest answer.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
maxavid@cfl.rr.com

[Paul Provost]

Teranex is awesome, I have one. But currently there is no way to completely bypass conversion, even when set to “unity”, when using the built in ultrascope. On this unit, the scopes are meant to monitor the converted signal – not the input. Which kinda defeats the purpose of scopes. That being said the processing is so minimal as to not really be a big issue.
Bigger problem is the delay caused by the terranex “allways on” processing, which to me renders the scopes unusable for using with resolve for example. The duo scopes are a great deal, especially if you didn’t already have a Mac mini and monitor. And if you have ability to rack mount – I used to have acres of rack space in my facility, now that I no longer have tape decks, I have discarded all racks.
I recommend ScopeBox ($99). Buy a blackmagic mini recorder for $149, and for $250 total, you have accurate, responsive, customizable scopes. Works pretty darn good.

http://www.4Kfinish.com | owner-colorist | Hollywood, CA
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[Brandon Kraemer]

Great info Paul and Bob.

Purpose of these scopes is for our edit assist room where versioning and broadcast compressions are made, as a way of QC-ing levels. We also do our conversion work in this part of the facility so the Teranex is a desired component, so this might be “good enough” but I will look into your suggestion of ScopeBox. I ran the demo a while ago and wasn’t impressed with it’s stability but it’s worth a re-look before I pull the trigger.

Separately for the Resolve suite we are looking to add the SmartScope Duo.

Sure wish BMD would fix the FCP/Drop Frame issue however… don’t feel great about buying more of their products when I am dealing with issues like that every day.

bk

[Paul Provost]

Terranex might be good then as it has ultrascope error logging.
Describe your drop frame fcp issue with resolve
Btw I find ScopeBox very stable

http://www.4Kfinish.com | owner-colorist | Hollywood, CA
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[Brandon Kraemer]

here is the thread about the FCP drop frame issue with BMD cards: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/124/882831

[Paul Provost]

ahh, ok – I thought you meant drop frame tc.
yeah I saw this long ago, and have just turned off the warning. only an issue if you are laying off to tape. I would use media express for that from a self contained movie – extra step, I know, but small price to pay to get freaking Resolve on a mac! anyway, fcp 7 has long been EOLed, and expect it to break with an os update at any time. If its really an issue to keep FCP7 running into eternity, best to have an alternate boot drive frozen in time with OS 10.7.5, decklink 9.6 or whatever.

btw, I like the ability to make scopes REALLY big on a 24 or 27″ monitor with scope box. duo scope is a little small for me once you get used to a big monitor. frustratingly ultrascope has locked small screen size too. and they almost never update it.

http://www.4Kfinish.com | owner-colorist | Hollywood, CA
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