[Brian Betz]

Thanks again Ted. I have looked into the ML website and it is amazing what this software is capable of doing. I also began eyeing some of the DSLR’s that come out of the box capable of a clean HDMI out. It might just be a bit less of a worry for me to have this feature. Canon seems behind on this as, to my knowledge, the lowest price DSLR capable of clean HDMI out without ML is the 5D Mark III. An impressive camera but at 3 k for the body only it does seem to be a bit out of my price range. I see that some of the lower price Nikons have a clean HDMI out and I was surprised by the low price point (e.g., D7100).

I’m going to be digging down into all that I can find on the option of a DSLR as a camera and Ninja/Ninja2 as a recorder. I think you’ve got me on the right track.

Thanks again.
Brian

[Brian Betz]

Thanks Ted this has given me something to research a bit. I’ve heard of ML, but at one point felt a bit paranoid about running software that was not from Cannon and, thus would void any warranty.

Nevertheless, I will look at this carefully and the review you posted is certainly correct on the issue of lens quality. I actually have quite a few Canon lenses around…unfortunately my Canon camera collection includes the first digital model made and a 35mm. But the T4i and 5 are very reasonably priced.

Thanks again!

Brian

[Brian Betz]

Hello all,

FYI I’ve been working with my ADK workstation for a few months now and very happy….ADK a great company and excellent tech support. Much thanks to Tom for the info on the company.

Brian

[Brian Betz]

A true “relief” to finally make a decision…I went through this last year and bailed, but feeling good about this one.. Thanks again Tom!

Brian

[Brian Betz]

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the assistance in helping me with my workstation selection. A special shout out to Tom as I decided to finally go with ADK and got the ADK 3900 Core i7 model. Nevertheless, all comments made were very helpful in learning about my options and what makes the most sense in line with my budget and need to optimize for After Effects CS6. I did call around a bit, but just felt very comfortable with ADK. I spoke with a Dave and as I would ask a question he would anticipate what my next one would be…thus he seemed very knowledgeable. This is a great forum and I really appreciate all the help!

Brian

[Brian Betz]

Tom,

No Red or 4K….not anytime soon. Thanks for the tip…I will give him a call. I have heard good things about ASK. I may go with the HP system with some modifications, but it is making my head swim a bit.

Brian

[Brian Betz]

Thanks Tom….Yes the dual 8 threaded processors and the Dulce do look nice. I just don’t think I can spend that much at this point. I guess trying to keep this under 5 K can be very difficult. Trying to get the basics so that I can add on later. I had thought about adding an external RAID sometime in the future.
Brian

[Brian Betz]

First off thanks for so much great advice! After doing some searching around below is what I’ve come up with and please do not hesitate to offer suggestions. I am trying to keep my price manageable and figure I can add to the system at a later date. I have points next to components and questions follow:

P Z820 Workstation
Windows 7 Professional 64
HP Z820 1125W 90% Efficient Chassis
Xeon E5-2609 2.40 10MB 1066 4C (My understanding is this not hyper-threaded and thus only 4 core. I noted on the HP website that the Xeon E5-2630 (2.30 GHz, 15 MB cache, 6 cores) was hyper-threaded and thus may go with this instead.
HP Single Processor Air Cooling Kit
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2.0GB Graphics (I may take Tom’s suggestion and buy a PNY GTX 570 card and install myself.)
24GB DDR3-1600 (4x4GB+4x2GB) 1CPU Unbuffered RAM
256GB SATA 1st Solid State Drive (This would be the system drive)
256GB SATA 2nd Solid State Drive (Cashe drive for After Effects)
500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3rd Hard Drive
500GB 7200 RPM SATA 4th Hard Drive (These 2 drives would be the media drive set to RAID 0 – I know there is no redundancy, but may be my price point for now.)

A few questions below:

1. Any thoughts on the processors? I typically make short videos but use After Effects heavily and thus I don’t think the 4 core will be enough.

2. In terms of the graphics card, I do see you can save a lot by doing what Tom suggested (going with a Nvidia PNY GTX 570 instead of a Quadro. I also may be able to get a good deal on the GTX… But I am a little nervous getting a new system without a card and having to install. I use to do more of this in the past.

3. The HP rep told me that “RAID can only be factory installed when the primary hard drive is included in the RAID. In this instance it is not. You would have to go through the BIOS and select which hard drives you want in what RAID setting.” Thus, again something I would need to do….and yeah I once did this type of thing quite regularly and have just gotten away from it.

Any thoughts or suggestions are most appreciated!

Brian

[Brian Betz]

Thanks Tom and Walter…yeah that was one of the reasons I decided to wait last year as the salesperson just didn’t seem to be all that knowledgeable and it was the time HD prices were on the rise….I will check out ProMAX or DV411 and see what I can figure out on my own. Funny that sales would be so weak on this system. I’ll have to see what I come up with.

Brian

[Brian Betz]

Thanks again Tom. I specked out a system last year and remember that the graphics card was one item I was going back and forth on….but yes I’ve heard that Mercury Playback is an important issue.

I would like to just get everything from HP and swap parts our latter on down the road, but may go your route, if it will save considerable money. The ideal situation would be first get a workstation that is good to go from day one. Hopefully when I’ll get someone at HP who is fairly knowledgeable.

Brian