[Bob Zelin]

Hi Joshua –
so you are a video professional, looking to help us loose weight and have more energy ?

I will tell you what – I will meet you at the local pub, and we can discuss this over a few rounds of Jamesons. You buy, and I will answer anything you want about the professional video business.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Jim –
I don’t know what you want me to say at this point. All American and Western European manufacturers do this. Did you ever deal with AVID ? They won’t even answer the phone for you to negotiate with them, unless you have a paid valid support contract. It’s all these companies.

In 2015, I started to deal with QNAP, because they were dirt cheap, and had no support contracts. I make money from doing installation and support (I do support for free after the initial installation on that hardware only) – so companies like QNAP, Synology and Netgear work out for me. But I know the drill. You, myself, and pretty much everyone else that is reading this, had to pay medical insurance, auto insurance, mortgage, etc. and we need to make regular money. I have NO IDEA of how QNAP and Synology can produce systems so cheaply. And as other manufacturers in the US and Western Europe will quickly point out – these manufacturers have great support – and the Chinese manufacturers do NOT have great support (unless you use some idiot like me, who is always available). So I got involved with these Chinese companies. Their stuff is cheap, I get to do a lot of installs, and no one really cares if their 5 year old system is starting to fall apart.
And as you have now seen, your super expensive system is starting to have issues, and the US/Euro company wants money. What do you want me to say.
I can appreciate you want a place to vent, and get some response, but all the US and European companies do this. When you say “I get free upgrades in firmware” – you are talking about AJA, Blackmagic, etc. Adobe does not give you free upgrades. AVID does not give you free upgrades.
And the worst offender of all – APPLE – well, they just decide one day “your computer is just too old, and there are NO upgrades for any price – and you just have to buy a new Apple computer”.
Same thing with repairs. If you have a Mac Pro that you purchased in 2013, and it has a dead power supply – unless you go to unauthorized repair – that Mac Pro is going into the garbage. Apple is not going to help you.

I feel for your situation, but there is nothing you can do about it. Next round, buy a QNAP or a Synology (and Promax has a new Mediahub which is only $2000 – and you add your own Thunderbolt RAID array). So – lets take that last example. You buy a ProMax Mediahub (nice product) and you add a Promise R8 thunderbolt array onto it. Do you think that Promise is going to be responsive to you ?

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Jim –
you made the decision to purchase a $30,000 system. The American based professional companies need to stay in business, and make a living. Do you make editorial changes for your clients for free, even though you charge them a lot of money for your editorial services ? I bet you do !

SO, what you are witnessing is why so many people buy Chinese based shared storage systems today from companies like QNAP and Synology. They don’t cost $30,000 – they cost $3,000. And there are no maintenance contracts, no comments of “well, you can’t use Catalina until you pay us more money”. It’s just free.

NOW – with your $30,000 purchase, I bet in those 3 years, this company gave you GREAT support. You had an issue, you called, and they helped you. Do you want them to work for you for free for the next 7 years, while you continue to make money using their product, so that YOU can make big profits ? Well – the Chinese companies do exactly this. Want an update – it’s free. Want great phone support when you have an issue – well, not so great (unless you call a moron like me – who IS going to charge you when you have a problem).

All electronics purchases are terrible investments. The days of keeping an Arri film camera for your entire career – well, that is over. What are you going to do with a Sony HD Camera system now ? What are you going to do with a Quantel Harry or Henry now. What are you going to do with a REAL ORIGINAL $400,000 Davinci Resolve system now ? What are you going to do with a Sony HD Cam VTR now ?

So all of a sudden, you say “ok, I will spend $3000 for a QNAP, and if it lasts 3 – 4 years, well – I get my money out of it”. And thats why people buy systems like these today.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

According to AJA Data Calc, a 2K-1556 files at 23.98 with a ProRes422 (HQ) codec is 38.10 MB/sec.
So eight streams of that is 304.8 MB/sec. Any modern 10G connection will give you about 800 MB/sec (unless you are using the Sonnet Solo 10G T2, which is only about 400 MB/sec), but now you have to talk about TOTAL AGGREGATE BANDWIDTH. SO – if you have 3 users, all doing 304 MB/sec, that is about 900 MB/sec total aggregate bandwidth.

Any modern 12 bay or 16 bay RAID array with 7200 RPM drives will provide this for you.
ProMax makes very nice equipment, and can do exactly what you want. The cheapest equivalent QNAP system is the TS-1685. This is a 12 bay with dual 10G ethernet ports. This product costs under $3000. If you put in 12 10TB Seagate Ironwolf drives (about $280 each), you will have 120 TB raw, and 100 TB after RAID 6. Your total aggregate bandwidth with 7200 RPM SATA drives is about 1200 MB/sec total. If you move up to a 16 bay RAID chassis, your bandwidth will increase to about 1600 – 1800 MB/sec total aggregate bandwidth. So going with a 16 bay single static RAID volume will give you more overhead, and less likelyhood of getting stuttering video.

With all of that said – be it ProMax or QNAP, or Studio Network Solutions, or EditShare, or Facilis or AVID Nexis – who in their right minds is doing an 8 camera multicam job with full res 2K media. This workflow is just stupid. Their post production supervisor must be 26 years old.

With the ProMax, you will connect your computers to thunderbolt 2 to 10G adaptors. My suggestion is the Sonnet Solo 10G T2, which is $199, but limited to about 400 MB/sec, or the more expensive Sonnet Twin 10G, which is $495 and will give you 800 MB/sec bandwidth. For the ProMax, you will connect directly to a multiport 10G card on the rear of the ProMax chassis. (this method is also used by Studio Network Solutions and LumaForge). For the QNAP, you will link aggregate the two 10G ports to a Negear XS708T managed switch (about $600) and the Sonnet 10G adaptors from each computer will connect to the Netgear switch.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

oh – is this where the old people sit around and get to complain –
well heck – I am old – so now it’s my turn.

It’s beyond the comprehension of many young people that an AVID that would do cuts only at 15 frames per second was $80,000, and you had to conform your cut between two Sony 3/4″ VTR’s like the Sony VO9850 and Sony VO9800. This concept is inconceivable to young people.

Of course, it was inconceivable to Bill Warner and Eric Peters that in order to remove one simple cut from a video tape, you had to “auto assemble” the entire show from the original masters, using three Sony or Ampex 1″ VTR’s at $80,000 a piece, plus an $80,000 CMX or Sony edit controller and an expensive GVG switcher. “That can’t be accurate”.

And of course, all the REAL professional who were doing graphics on a $250,000 Quantel Paintbox used to call Photoshop “Photo toy”.

As far as “I’ve broken their machine” – my favorite story was here around 2000 in Florida, when I started to do stuff for Spectrum Cable (it was Brighthouse Networks at the time) – and I was working on their crappy old AVID running on a Windows NT box. I don’t even remember what I was doing at the time, an update, or adding drives, or whatever, but the Win NT PC would no longer boot (the boot drive failed), so I asked for a Win NT recovery disk (floppy disk) and when they could not find one, the head of their IT department said to me “well – it was working before you touched it”. Please remember that I had just come from NY, as a complete psychopath, and I was the big AVID guy in NY. It’s a miracle I was not arrested.
Here we are in 2019, and I am still the contractor for Spectrum Cable.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

I just had to add this, because it just happened.
Received an email 30 minutes ago “we are having problems with xyz. ”
I wrote back and said, “I can fix that for you, would you like me to call you”
they wrote back “that’s great – when can you call” –
I wrote back “right now”
I called their office #, and both of their CEL #’s. No one answers the phone.
I emailed them and said “I just tried to call all 3 of your phone #’s”.

Nothing – it’s been another 30 minutes.
What is that ?
Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

one of the greatest scenes ever.

“No, we don’t shoot in 8K, we shoot in 16k” – why – “because 16k is so much better than 8K.
Why don’t you just call 16K, 8K – “well, because 16k is so much better”.

You did not show the second part of that memorable scene – I will translate it for this crowd –
“this is my new Mac Pro. No, you can’t touch it, don’t point at it – don’t even look at it” –
but it’s not on –
“but if it was on, it would be SO MUCH faster”.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

the 1531 is a 6 core processor and the 1521 is a quad core processor. It will not make a difference for your application as a shared storage server for video.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

yes, that is the right model. You just need to add 12 drives, a 10G switch, 10G adaptors for all your computers, and someone (not Span) to configure it for you.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Bob Zelin]

when does this go on sale at Walmart for $349 for the 65″ version ?

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com