[Bbalser]

All depends. What sort of work are you planning to do? It’s too flexible and scalable of a system to just pop off a price. But $30-40k sounds like way too much.

[Bbalser]

With all the new 3-D space in Motion, I’m sure whatever replaces Shake will a) rock, b) not be out before LATE in the year, IF this year…

[Bbalser]

And let’s all keep in mind, Apple is openly, proudly, and very aggresivley touting FCS 2 as leveling the playing field! “Editing Unleashed”, “Post Without Walls”, “Its A Final Cut World”, “Grading is in the house”, etc.

Apple never said they were going to do anything to help promote colorists or editors on any level. They HAVE said all along they’re trying to put top end tools into the hands of the common folks.

So I don’t get what the debate is? Apple is only doing what they set out, and promised us all these years, that they’d do.

I have the same camera, computer, software etc, as the pro-photography studio down the road. I don’t get nearly what they do for photography, and everyone knows I have all that stuff. I taught that woman how to use PhotoShop and Apeture and Studio Artist, etc! But I SUCK at studio photography. No one in our tiny town would pay me a penny for a photo! But they’ll pay me whatever I want for indstiral training videos, for TV and radio spot, etc.

The photographer down the road has a reputation based on her work. We have our reputation based on our work. The tools either of us use mean nothing outside of that.

Many, many years ago when I moved from other disiplines into video, I started doing weddings and events. Good learning experince, but I’m glad I don’t do them anymore. First lesson I learned from THE single top pro making top dollar in New Orleans was this; “Your clients don’t CARE what your hardware is, they do NOT want to hear about it, and if you bring it up, I’d bet you my whole business their eyes glaze over and you start to lose them.” Well, I found this to be 100% true then, and now. Clients could care less about your tools, they want to see your work! If you can NOT produce professional results, where are you going to get work from?

Is some kid making a Star Wars fan film in his bedroom that much of a threat to anyone else? Lord, I hope not! But that blog, well, you’d think it was EASY for any joe-blow to jump on the train and become famous over night! That’s not real life.

I’ve never had a client call me and say, “I need a project done, but it can only be done on NLE brand-x.” If they did say that, I’d tell them to move on, it’s a red flag for a problem client.

Again, back to the point, Apple is only doing what they have said they are trying to do all along. Democratize production.

My ex-wife did publishing (writing, editing, etc), had her degree, a long professional career. When Apple made desktop publishing a reality, we upgraded from my Mac Plus to an LCIII (state of the art at the time) and she worked at home. She worried about all the “hacks” who sprang up over night. Within a few short years, 99% of those newbies fell off the train and never looked back, and those left were the very talented of the bunch.

The day you fear hobbiests, you need to reasses your self-image, your opinion of your work, and your opinion of your clients. If you fear a hobbiest with top end software, the problem is not “outside” of you or your studio.

Just some random thoughts…

[Bbalser]

Or get P2 Log to import the P2 files. But yes, you could use your method. The P2 Import window in 5.1 re-wraps the data into a QuickTime DVCPRO-HD file, and THAT QT file is makes in your Capture Scratch folder is what you can bring anywhere to work with. 5.0 will support DVCPRO-HD, just not the P2 import.

[Bbalser]

Depends on the codec your using, and if you’re doing multiclip, etc. I use a plain old FW800 500GB LaCie on my QuadCore G5 with DVCPRO-HD 720p24, and I have no problems. If you’re doing HDCAM SR or some other higher end codec, you may have to go with a RAID. There are other forms of RAID that stripe you could use. But it’s for swaping out drives going bad, not a full back-up system.

If you’re worried about losing data, you should have a dedicated back up system in place. Hard Drive, Tape Drive, DVD, whatever. Dedicated back-ups are NOT replaced by Stripe in a RAID array.

I’ve seen stripe RAID arrays go bad over the years, with very little recoverable data.

[Bbalser]

You do know that FCP 5.1 has round trip from FCP to Shake and back. That’s not new, it’s been there.

I was scheduled to take a Shake trainer class with Apple next month, but they canceled it 4 hours after I got on-line and signed up, made plane reservations, etc. I was told they would not have scheduled that training if Shake’s next incarnation was close to release. But, then they cancled it a few hours after I paid for the class, flight, etc.

So, is it true we won’t see the Shake replacement for awhile? Or was the person I spoke to mistaken and they cancled for that reason? Who knows. But I’m still out of my airfare, missed NAB (couldn’t afford both, chose the rare Shake T3), missed the class, missed everything, especially $350 airfare. Thanks Apple…