upgrade path…

[David Battistella]

Probably not such a great idea and I am sure that KONA’s conflict catcher might not allow the two to coexist in the same machine. I wouldn’t plan to build a new system using that old hardware along side the new stuff. WHy not leave the Media 100 stuff inteh G3 and jus run to systems?

David

[Mike Cohen]

the main problem I have is that the G3 just takes forever to render my M100 projects, not to mention the slow Boris performance when setting up effects (keyframes take 5-10 sec to refresh).
Good to know that Kona does not play well with his older cousins.

[Jeremy Garchow]

If you are planning on upgrading your media 100 to the latest SD version, i would get a used dual g4 and call it done, unless you are planning on upgrading to Media100 HD. A shop that I work for has upgraded to M100 HD and although the hardware acceleration is sweet, the software is wrought with weirdness. Good ideas, bad implementations. It feels like it’s just not quite done and I’m working with a Beta. COnstant crashes and weird behaviors. At the time support was pretty bad as Optibase was looking for a way out. Maybe Boris’s support will be better, but who knows. Plus, you have to pay extra for it.

I don’t want to discourage you from upgrading your Media 100 and a G5, but unless you are going to Media HD I feel that it’s not worth it. Also, Media 100 HD requires top of the line RAID hardware and FCP is a little more scalable. Forget 720/24p at all with Media 100 HD, but that’s probably not important to you anyway. MEdia 100 upscales everything to 1080i so you need a big and fast array. You can get away with a LOT less drive speed in FCP.

The FCP/Kona2 is a good route to go. Aja’s products work very well, and their support is great and happens to also be free (just don’t expect 24/7 service). If you need analog in and out I would suggest with new Kona LH (analog/digital ins and outs SD and HD), or add on an io LA to your Kona2.

Also, even if you could put a Kona 2 and M100 board in one machine, it would leave no room for storage connection (such as a fibre channel or SATA card).

Jeremy

———–
G5 Dual 2Ghz <> 4GB RAM <> FCP 5.02 <> Kona 2

ATTO 42XS <> Huge Systems 1.25 TB 4105 Fibre

[Mike Cohen]

Thanks again for the explanation.
Media 100 has been bought and sold so many times it seems no one wants it anymore. We have used and continue to use 2 systems since 1999, but I am getting ready for FCP.

We’ll see what happens.

Mike

[Lawrence Marshall]

I don’t recall the original poster specifying whether or not he wanted to work in SD or HD. As a user of both M100 HD and FCP 4.5 on the same G5, I can attest that the M100 HD is a formidable tool. You are not limited to just 1080i… you can also work in 8-bit SD, 10-bit SD, lossless, and all other “flavors” of legacy M100 compression from 300kb on down, not to mention that you can mix all these codecs on the same timeline with no rendering needed.

I am currently working on a project with many green-screen talking heads shot in Panasonic 720 HD, but am editing the footage down-converted to 10-bit SD, and I’m using M100’s “lossless” compression setting for all footage not on green screen. I’ve done many A-B comparison tests between the M100’s 10-bit uncompressed and M100’s lossless codec, and I cannot tell any difference whatsoever between the two – but the hard drive savings are immense with the lossless codec.

I’ve cut numerous shows at 250kb on M100 HD using just a single Firewire 400 drive with no hiccups whatsoever. I am now experimenting with inexpensive SATA arrays which are holding up just fine with M100’s 10-bit codec…very fluid and comfortable. Also, I have no conflicts with FCP 4.5 on the same machine, although I’m using an AJA IO/LA and not a Kona or Decklink card.

FWIW, Larry Marshall

[Lawrence Marshall]

One follow-up to my previous post: you don’t need a “big and fast” array to work with M100 HD. Two SATA drives raided together makes for very comfortable, very easy SD editing. HD: yes, you’ll need to spring for more drives raided together.