[Mel Feliciano]

Tim Dowse, thank you for this thread. I’m in the same boat as you. I had a look at the bundles offered by Tolis Group and figured that even though their prices are not too bad, I can save money if I buy only the parts that I need. For example, I don’t need an HBA since I already have one. The one year support is nice to have but many times, just like extended warranties, is just a peace of mind insurance that we seldom use and if we need to, it usually turns out in a very unsatisfactory experience that does not meet our expectations as customers. I usually get better support from the forums. Tim Jones here has been very helpful, and he is the reason I would purchase BRU PE if the less expensive alternatives don’t work. Bob Zelin with his vast knowledge and experience also offers a lot of good info and advice, but I’m afraid he tend to focus more on larger, high-end operations.

It is not about being “cheap”. It is about new markets and business models. There is a huge market of freelancers and independent producers that have the same problems and concerns (albeit in a smaller scale) as the big television networks; how to backup and archive hours and hours of content (Terabytes of data). We need companies to do to the LTO archiving market what Apple and Blackmagic Desing did to the video production market…”Democratization”.

[Mel Feliciano]

After many tests and clean installations, I narrowed down the problem to the 2 G-technology drives (one firewire and one mini-SAS Raid). I remembered that I never formatted these drives, since they came preformatted for Mac and ready to use out of the box. So, I decided to re-format the smaller of the two first, since it was easier to backup. That fixed the issue and both, Media Composer and Symphony finally recognized the drive. Now it was time for the G-Speed eS Pro. I went ahead and created a new folder to keep all my other folders organized in one place, ready for the backup. Much to my surprise, I didn’t have to re-format the drive, it was recognized immediately by MC and Symphony. To me, it is still a mystery why a simple re-organization of my files seems to have solved the problem. Go figure…

Just want to thank you all for your suggestions!

[Mel Feliciano]

It has been 2 months since the last time I posted on this thread and prices on the LTO drives have not changed.

The HP LTO-5 is $621 more expensive than the IBM LTO-5 and the HP LTO-6 is $1,164 more expensive than the IBM LTO-6. For someone with my budget, that is a significant amount of money, specially for the LTO-6.

When it comes to post-purchase support, my experience with IBM was very positive, when I called about my Intellistation Workstation. I never needed to call HP about my inkjet printer, but I did call their sale department with questions about the LTO drives and was not impressed by the sales rep’s lack of product knowledge.

I’ve seen better support here from Tolis Group’s Tim Jones, and just for that reason I would feel confident buying BRU PE.

[Mel Feliciano]

Here is more details about the problem after more testing.

On the 2012 Macbook Pro (core i7) running OS X 10.8.4 (Mountain Lion)

Media Composer 7.0

LaCie Rugged SSD (format: ExFat)

It is recognized as Media Drive via thunderbolt and USB 3.0

G-Technology G-Dirve Mini (format: Mac OS Extended-Journaled)

Connections: Firewire 800 and USB 2.0 > Not recognized as Media Drive.

—————————————————————————————

On the 2009 Mac Pro (8-core) running OS X 10.7.5 (Lion)

Symphony 6.5.3

LaCie Rugged SSD (format: ExFat)

It is recognized a Media Drive by the Symphony via USB 2.0

G-Technology G-Dirve Mini (format: Mac OS Extended-Journaled)

Connections: Firewire 800 and USB 2.0 > Not recognized as Media Drive.

G-Technology G-Speed eS Pro (format: Mac OS Extended)

Connection: Mini SAS > Not recognized as Media Drive

Note; This computer has 4 internal WD SATA drives with six partitions in total, all of them are recognized as Media Drives by the Symphony; except for the OS partitions of course. The ExFat formatted LaCie SSD is the most compatible of all. I use Paragon to write to the NTFS formatted drive and it works great as a Media Drive. For the G-Speed, I use the supplied ATTO R680 raid controller. It was formatted and configured for raid 0 at the factory and it works great with Adobe Premiere Pro in the same system.

[Mel Feliciano]

Nothing happens when I type “alldrives” or “alldrives 1” in the console. Media Composer and Symphony still won’t recognize the firewire and the G-Speed mini-sas drive. Can you tell me what is the difference between “alldrives” with and without the number 1?. I noticed that when you type the 1 on this command, you have to use the 1 from the main keyboard, if I use the 1 in the numeric keypad I get an audible “error” alarm and it doesn’t take the command. Where can I learn how to use the “Console”?

[Mel Feliciano]

I’m not familiar with the console, but I did what you said and this is what I got. Nothing have changed. The problem still persists.

I also updated the Atto Raid controller driver and firmware and it didn’t fix the problem. I’m pretty sure that it has something to do with Avid and Mini-SAS storage. Very strange since my computer is Avid qualified and the Atto controller and the G-Speed are advertised as Avid compatible.

[Mel Feliciano]

Lets see…

LTO drive (standalone)

IBM TS2250 $1,798 LTO5 or
IBM TS2260 $2,195 LTO6

*Backupworks.com prices

Software

IBM LTFS (free)or
Tolis Group BRU PE $499

Atto HBA SAS controller (already own)

So the total cost for me will be anywhere from $1,798 to $2,694.
How much is the entry level ArGest?

[Mel Feliciano]

Carlos,

Adobe Media Encoder is included with Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Prelude, but it can also be installed independently if you down load it from the Creative Cloud. So if you don’t want to use Premiere Pro, you can still use it by itself. I recommend that you as least get Prelude. It works wonders in file based workflows. But the stand alone edition of Prelude is expensive when compared with the suites. You get the best bang for the money, when you subscribe to the Creative Cloud. That way you’ll have all of their products at your disposal, in case you want to learn Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Premiere…etc. To be honest, Premiere Pro is a great editor, specially with the new additions and fixes announced for the next version. Premiere Pro is going to be the perfect companion to Avid Media Composer, filling the gabs in those areas where MC lacks. With the new version of PP we are going to be able to view our dailies on Prelude, send the ones that you need to Premiere Pro, then in Premiere Pro you can choose to Edit the native MTS files; all in real time thanks to the Mercury Playback Engine or you can transcode the files to Avid DNXHD MXF and edit in Media Composer. Before, you needed Sorenson Squeeze with the Pro codec option or Telestream Episode in order to transcode to Avid native files outside of Media Composer/Symphony. Notice that Avid DNXHD files need to be in a MXF wrapper. I am glad I didn’t buy any of these products cause I won’t need’em with the new PP.

Are you familiar with Red Giant Pluraleyes (formerly Singular). Guess what, I won’t need this software either, cause Premiere Pro is going to have the same capability built-in. I don’t want to sound like an Adobe Evangelist, but we can’t ignore all the benefits their products provide. Adobe is in better position financially than Avid. I know that Hollywood is pretty much all Avid, but not all markets are the same. Biscardi Creative Media, a full service production/post-production company based in Atlanta, switched from Final Cut Pro to Adobe Premiere Pro. They purchased three Avid Symphony licenses and only kept one. I work for Discovery Latin America, based in Miami, FL. Here we use Avid Media Composer exclusively, but many of the editors prefer to use Premiere Pro when editing their own projects at home. The new versions of Media Composer and Premiere Pro promise new efficiencies never seen before. Round tripping between these two NLEs is going to be so easy that basically we are going to pick which system to use base on our mood for the day. Is going to be like choosing between a blond and a brunet. Still, for AVCHD MTS native editing nothing compares to Premiere Pro. Just, insert the SD card and start editing.

Regarding the GH2, yes they are harder to find now. I’m glad I purchased a second one when It was widely available and on sale. The GH3 is a better camera in every area except for “moire”. There is no hack for the GH3 yet, but Vitaliy has plan for it, once he can get a hold on the firmware. But to be honest, the picture quality of the stock GH3 is great. The bit rate is pretty high and similar to some of the settings/patches available for the hacked GH2. Also, the GH3 produces images that feel more “organic” (like Canons but sharper), even when using Panasonic lenses. My GH2s are impressive. People that watch my videos can’t believe it when I tell them what camera I used, but the image still looks kind of “video-ish” with the Panny lenses, so most of the time I use some kind of “Magic bullet” look filter.

Hope this information helps you in your decision making process.

[Mel Feliciano]

Hi Carlos,

There are definitely problems with AVCHD and Avid Media Composer/Symphony. I’ve been using Panasonic cameras for almost three years now and they are perfect for what I do. When people watch my videos, they always compliment the picture quality. Now the postproduction and workflow is not that smooth. I own Avid Media Composer 5.5, Avid Symphony 6.0, Adobe Premiere Pro 5.5/6.0, Final Cut Pro 7, and Sony Vegas 10. The last one running on Mac with Bootcamp. My main cameras are Panasonic TM-700 and Pansonic GH2 (hacked).

When I tried to edit my first video from the TM-700, I tried to edit on Final Cut Pro 7, I encountered my first problem, No log and transfer for MTS files. Then I tried to transcode using FFMPEG and got an error. Then I tried Premiere Pro CS5 at work, and found it kind of buggy. Then tried to transcode the same files in Adobe Media Encoder CS5 and got an error. Then I bought Media Composer 5.5 and Adobe Production Premium CS5.5 because of the special deal for Final Cut Pro owners. Adobe Media Encoder CS5.5 was a different story. I was finally able to transcode the same problematic files to ProRes and have the freedom to edit then on any of my NLEs. I tried Sony Vegas 10 and the performance with avchd was not good; playback stuttered a lot.

Then I bought an Avid Symphony 6 because I needed the “advanced” color correction capability. They heavily advertised AMA for avchd files. My experience was not as advertised. Every time I try to AMA link avchd files the Avid just freezes, so I can’t even transcode in Avid. After a long journey through NLE land I finally found a workflow that works great for avchd mts files. I subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud and got Premiere Pro CS6. Now I’m finally getting the performance I always dream about. All without transcoding. I don’t even have a powerful graphics card, but the memory and the processors are enough (8 core 2.66Ghz Mac Pro with 24GB Ram) to run the Mercury Playback Engine in software mode. I am still using Avid since that is what they use at work (they don’t deal with avchd mts), but have to transcode first to and an Avid friendly codec. I use Adobe Media Encoder, because of the speed and transcode to ProRes, because of the flexibility to edit natively on any of the NLEs.

Regarding cameras; if you’re looking for the highest picture quality for under $1,000 US dollars (I paid half that price for my second one), the hacked GH2 is your camera; a least until the Blackmagic Pocket camera starts shipping.

[Mel Feliciano]

I found the firmware on

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Professional/Computer-Drives/BDR-206

note:Read the warning before a firmware upgrade.

It was a long time ago but I pretty much sure I upgraded the firmware running Windows 7 on my Mac Pro via bootcamp. That fixed the dismounting problem. Then when I installed Lion, I thought I got the same problem back again but it was actually a configuration setting in the System Preferences.