Jim Wiseman
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Looks pretty ho-hum. Illustrator is faster. My everyday app.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500, Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
ProRes comes in quickly. What was your codec?
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500, Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
+1 !
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500, Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-680 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
And those OSX updates are not free for the same reason. Once a year, way too often, we have a new OSX and the hardware and software needs to be replaced or updated. Getting a “frozen” system for a couple of years is a real achievement. Pressure on developers and the user base. One reason I bought the 2012 Mac Pro Tower. Four and probably five different boots on it soon. Who needs to pursue a software rental model when hardware is so profitable? Works for Apple, and Blackmagic is copying. All this, and I’m still an Apple fan.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-680 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
To tell you the truth, it is the simplicity of the interface that I really like. Don’t need it to change. I can cut faster with it than anything else I have used, Avid, FCP7 and X. I can come back to it after months away, and it all comes back in a day or two. Easy audio control no matter how many tracks with real time effects and bussing. Maybe when I am proficient with FCPX I will use it more, but for cutting the documentaries I will probably be working on for the next few years, I’m in no rush. Cuts, dissolves and titles. Voiceover and music. Pro Res, all flavors in and out. H264 export. Mavericks, Yosemite and my 2013 and 2012 Mac Pros will be around much longer than these projects. Many hours of archival tape and HD files that need to be formed into coherent programs.
Will ease into FCPX in that time, perhaps. Have the software and the Ripple Training, but want to get to work now. Yosemite support is a major M100 development. One thing for sure, there is NO rental in my future. I already own two licenses to the 2.1.6 Yosemite version for 4 computers from free upgrades. I own the licenses outright to everything I need including FCPX. I’m at the point where I am doing my own work. Long term access is more important than effects flash or competing for clients. Rental is the opposite of my needs. At $99, others should be looking at M100 with Boris Red. I have limited use plugins for which I have paid more.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-680 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
I preferred the “Buy” button for $99, no rental. After that the “Install” in Yosemite.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-680 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
Thanks for clarifying the number of tracks video vs. audio. More than I ever needed, at any rate. I should have said Media 100 is finally promoting a great product. This, in itself is a comeback. It is quite a jump from never getting anything but the occasional OS and AJA update with no fanfare,to having a dedicated gung-ho website devoted to Media 100, the editor. It has lain fallow for a couple of years now, although new features have certainly been added since 2.0 came out. I see this as an opportunity for BorisFX and someone with enough vision to evangelize this product and get it to the people who can certainly use it. I have been in touch with the company and I know what the situation is. What we don’t know is what dynamic pushed things this far and who might be involved. I think there will be a real response to this, and if the Media 100 community and the potential users out there see what a value this product is, it will happen. Then we will have the “Comeback” or at least the next step. If you can’t tell, I believe in this product. For $99 it is an absolute steal, even without Boris Red.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-680 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
Oliver, thanks for the very interesting information about the hardware research and the Optibase (Israeli company) period in Media 100 history. It was difficult to get information about what was happening with the product then. Also people should know how advanced the hardware and research was at that time. Most people came to Media 100 for the hardware. Even at 80KB/sec it was for most purposes broadcast quality. Up to 300KB MJPEG B was supported. Now the codec choices are broad.
It is interesting the things you had to say about Optibase, the Israeli company that acquired Media 100. They only wanted the hardware, that is obvious. Media 100 was a new division of Data Translation, one of the best analog to digital to analog, etc. companies of the period. Media 100 was John Molinari’s baby. His father’s company was DT, and he or someone there must have been a D/A genius. I really thank you for filling that period in, as I only knew what was happening from the digital and video industry media then. Of course I was interested. Great information.
(Regarding editing history, people should check out Buck’s “Timeline” book(s). They are available as ebooks and are a truly valuable resource on editing history from early film through the present day. The only thoroughly researched history of motion image editing that truly gives you the history of electronic editing up to the present day. Much info about Avid, Media 100, Final Cut, up to the present (a moving target). Thanks for mentioning it Tim, thought this might be a place to plug it!)
But one last point. Although the interface is quite simple to use, it is also very easy to understand and make creative, high quality decisions with. That is the biggest reason I have stuck with it. I can edit quickly and easily without thinking about the interface. Almost all of the dedicated users say this. Anyone who has edited with it in the past knows that for straight cutting and real decision making it is extremely fast and easy to use. My application is mainly for documentaries, and for that it is ideal. A highly developed interface to AE has been part of it since the beginning for effects, Boris Red is directly integrated, and FCP7 XML can take it from there. Audio is excellent and more, dare I say it, tracks (bussable) than you would ever need. Realtime audio effects and dynamics.
Between it and FCPX I’m covered for the foreseeable future. And they are inexpensive (now) and paid for.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-680 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
Here is the Press Release from Boris:
https://www.borisfx.com/press/media-100-announces-yosemite-support-new-99-pricing.php?utm_source=social&utm_medium=FB&utm_campaign=media100Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-680 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD -
Great post, Tim. You and I share some history, but with different viewpoints, which is certainly one of the best reasons to write it down. I moved to Hawaii in 1985, freelanced in Honolulu doing production, but lived on Kauai. In San Francisco over ten years I had been with One Pass Video (first one inch in the US) and Chronicle Productions (KRON, NBC at the time) in their production units. Upon moving to Hawaii I started the visitor channel with two partners here on Kauai. Hurricane Iniki in 1992 ended that for me, and I ran into an opportunity to sell an Avid Media Suite Pro to a wiped out production company with insurance money. In short order, I became the exclusive Avid dealer in Hawaii. NAB 1994, enter a Media 100 rep who took me to lunch and offered me the dealership for Media 100. I knew what I was getting into, but I always liked to take a chance or two, so I took it.
I had seen Media 100 at a demo in SF, I believe it was their introductory tour. A guy named Tobin was doing the demos, maybe you can remember his last name, we stayed in touch for a bit. In short, I was amazed at the image quality. That stuck with me. Flash forward a couple of years, and now I was selling the products of the two cross town Boston rivals.
A place like Hawaii was actually a perfect place for Media 100. Although a greater part of my income was from Avid, who can argue with 25% margins when you have an exclusive and retail, which I got, was $50 to $125k. Anyone “serious” about production, the local post houses, needed Media Composer to be taken seriously. But there was the rest of the market who could only afford the low end Avid Media Suite Pro at about $25-30K. Compared to Media 100, which was close to the same price, a bit higher tricked out with storage, it suffered badly. It actually line doubled because of bandwidth constrictions. Media 100 was in a different league in quality, and was actually perfect for this market.
You’re correct, After Effects, originally from COSA, (still have my copy from when it was introduced at Macworld) was a huge reason people flocked to Media 100. They had the same image quality as the one inch houses on their desks at home or boutique, and they could do effects that the big places took a while to catch up with. But unlike in the bigger markets, most of my customers were doing straight production. Guys making surf videos for broadcast, people doing event video at the hotels for big corporations who demanded Betacam quality, boutiques doing commercials, in short people moving to digital who wanted high end quality, but couldn’t afford a linear tape suite. The Sony 1800 was the only VTR in the room. So the effects business wasn’t the driver it probably was on the mainland. It was the boutique and niche market one or two man production companies. I did sell a M100 to the Honolulu CBS station once they saw the light, but that was rare.
You’ve run down the history from there. What is missing is the improvements made after this period, when AJA became the supplier of boards and Boris took over. They made major changes such as excellent HD, better audio handling, many new features. Certainly enough to keep the average small production boutique happy. But then came Final Cut for $995. You could get in with an AJA board a Mac and software for less than $20K, depending on storage. It even appealed to the Avid houses. In 1998 I got out of sales for the most part, and went back to production. And I cut everything on the Media 100. Boris and company were making improvements in the software until a little over a year ago when they just issued updates for new versions of OSX and AJA drivers. It was looking bleak when Yosemite came out, as it wouldn’t launch without a hack. I have no solid information, but the main evangelist for M100 over the last decade has been Florian Peters who runs a respected M100 based production company in Germany. I believe he has a lot to do with the 2.1.6 version of Media 100 that provides Yosemite compatibility. That and cooperation from BorisFX. Floh, as he is known on the boards, has been doing the lion’s share of the Tutorials, many of which are on the new website, over the last decade or so. That is why so many versions of Media 100 are represented in the tutorials. They occurred over the multiple versions of the software that was released over that period. Media 100 continued to be developed. It is not the same as it was in the mid-nineties as some here have said. Many new capabilities and video formats, up to 4k and RED, for instance.
But the main thing that has current users excited is the marketing push that has been currently embarked upon. The media100.com website actually has a mission to push the product which it hasn’t had for years. There is some new blood in the equation. I honestly believe if this had occurred during the early days of the switch to FCPX, M100 could have been one of the top four along with Apple, Adobe, and Avid. For Boris, for whatever reason, it was not a decision he was willing to make. His business is obviously effects. But I am glad he and his company are involved, and welcome the new energy we are seeing from this current venture. I think it has a great chance of winning some converts. And who can argue with the pricing?
As they say, stay tuned!
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-680 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD