[Alexander Higgins]

Not StereoScopic, but yeah and Stereo WAV file. Are you not having any problems with Audio?

[Alexander Higgins]

So I got the Audio to IMPORT, but now on playback it is very scratchy and bumpy.

[Alexander Higgins]

I buy MAC memory at the same place, have for the last 10 years.

OWC MacSales
https://www.macsales.com

[Alexander Higgins]

One more for the WAVE, I love it, much more than the MC COLOR. MC COLOR’s buttons are too small, and its not as customizable.

[Alexander Higgins]

I have watched the dust bust capabilities of NUCODA and it is very cool, but its kinda a NILL selling point in my opinion.

You have PFClean, and Correct DRS, and Foundry Furnace Plugins.

The only reason I even care to comment about all this is that when I have been in a situation where I have looked into buying a NUCODA product, the SALESMEN/CLOSERS would not shut up about its dust bust capabilities. I mean JESUS, i’m not going to buy a 200k system because it can remove dust and hairs. How often have I dealt with that? Maybe once?

If MGM opened their vault and gave me 4k LOG scans of their movie archive, yeah, it would be worth while purchase, but other than that.

I was also terribly annoyed by the salesmen knowing nothing about the industry or really what their product does. Engineers and Artists do NOT sell high end products or advertise their capabilities, Marketing and Sales people do. Anyway, gripe over.

[Alexander Higgins]

There should also be a price base reason for each app, as well as facility integration, cost of operation, and cost of upgrades, up-keep etc..

I have had personal demo’s on every turnkey finishing/grading/coloring product there is, each has its benefits. Nudoca Fuse is awesome, but 70k to get into. Baselight is better for just grading and film prep, but 80k to get into. DaVinci HD for Mac is going to be about 20k to get into. SMOKE for MAC about 40k to get into.

My biggest problem is that I have been a SHAKE super user since about 1995, and jumped into NUKE about 5 years ago.

FUSE has some composting and keying capabilities that make it better than baselight for cleanup, quicky composites etc.. BUT I would much rather do it in NUKE, my toolset is 10 million times that of FUSE. YES FUSE has GPU acceleration, but when doing tricky composites, the GPU doesn’t help at all.. There is a benefit of having it all on the timeline, but as things get

Another problem is that I could do a lot of that which FUSE can do in SMOKE for less.

NUKE is going to have 5 release a year, while FUSE might have 1 release every 2 to 3 years.

There is no perfect app, perfect solution, or anything like that. If price was no issue, people wouldn’t even post things on this forum.

[Alexander Higgins]

Its kinda been a rumor, but basically Apple has been in talks with AMD/ATI for a while about using their processor’s for Apple computers. Apple’s stand is that they would get AMD chips for pennies and make AMD a bigger better company and then they would probably own a bit of AMD’s future technologies as well. So when NVIDIA got wind of this they got mad and told INTEL and now INTEL and NVIDIA are kinda mad at Apple. Intel not as much because they do other stuff with Apple, but NVIDIA really mad, because if technologies come out that use ATI chips and compete with NVIDIA CUDA, then.. It’s all corporate B.S. and we the consumers are getting the SHAFT.

Anyway, LINUX options are looking better and better everyday. I have been an Apple zelot for years, but with Steve being sicker then any of us can even imagine and Apple doing weird things before Steve “Leaves the Building” I’de imagine iPads are Apples future not what we are griping about here. I think LINUX will be the future of high end computing.

[Alexander Higgins]

Honestly, it doesn’t matter, I have called, its sold as a turnkey only from autorized re-sellers. At the time of my inquiry, there was no possible way of a person building their own station. This might have changed, but if I where to guess, I would say it hadn’t.

Honestly, the 90k baselight is a great deal. The 90k Nucoda Fuse. And even doing a 20k DaVinci isn’t bad, still, even after Apple has left us out to dry with a most disappointing upgrade.

I know how you feel though. Apple has not fulfilled any hopes or dreams I might have had for 2010.

I still think SMOKE and DaVinci if the XML translate properly, will be, without a doubt, for HD, as good as you can get. If not better.

[Alexander Higgins]

Thanks Jack, I have looked at Baselight, Scratch, Nucoda. I have also looked into MISTIKA, but only as much as the website can tell someone. I know SGO Mistika has some ex-Quantel people running the UK division. I would assume Mistika is a pretty nice system. In the USA, Mistika is really really hard to get access to and so its hard to justify looking into it further.

I have used the Tangent with apple color as well, and if DaVinci can get that level of functionality, then I will be happy. The DaVinci control panel would be great, but then Nucoda fuse for $70k, and Baselight $80k seem like good options as well once you add 30k to a more limited DaVinci OS X.

Again, like you said, Nucoda has more finishing capabilities and Baselight is strictly just a color grader.

Right now in the US, it has to be about talent and not tools, so having a system I can put together for 20k(DaVinci) that is 80% as capable as a 70k(Nucoda Fuse), its hard to make the math work for Nucoda. Since at the end of the day, the same artist would make it look exactly the same on either system.

Aside from that.

Did you think the system was snappy and responsive?
Was it previewing on a broadcast signal out?
Will the DaVinci OS X be able to do 4:4:4 dual link?
Do you know if the GPU card was the GeForce GTX 285 or the Quadro FX 4800?
Do you have the audibility to render(cache) the 2k images, then add more secondaries to the GPU, so you can get beyond the 2k realtime secondary limit?

Thanks Again Jack!

[Alexander Higgins]

Hey Jack, Thanks for the info.

Do you feel like you want to opt for the Control Panel because it seems DaVinci is faster and more manageable with the complete $29,995 panel?

It seems to me if the workflow for building nodes and secondaires is cumbersome to be mouse driven, the Resolve workflow would be much inproved with the full control panel.

I have also looked heavenly into FUSE. Its about $70k for a complete system, but you get the control panel, etc.

The only thing I dislike about Digital Vision, is that everytime I talk to a Sales Rep, I feel like they are old QUANTEL or AVID “closers.” They are very slick at telling you why this system is so amazing, but I feel like they really don’t understand the market that well, and very eager to make a sale.

If the market is changing the way it has been, Digital Vision and others have to keep dropping their prices. So I am pretty excited to see where it keeps going.