[Nicky Van der walt]

Feed your Y output from your BM Studio into the REF input on the back of your Betacam deck, then loop the REF output to the Y input on the Betacam.

The Y output on all BM cards carry a stable ref signal.

[Nicky Van der walt]

Hi,

I would suggest you look at something from Caldigit (https://www.caldigit.com) for storage.

I have 3x HDElement units running in our facility and have never had a better experience with any other storage product or company.

Even if you just start with their RAID card and an internal array, and later expand to a HDElement External unit.

Might be slightly more pricey than what you are looking at now, but at the end of the day your storage is one of the most vital parts of any edit suite.

I am running a 4 disk RAID 5 setup and have speeds of around 280mb/s on both read and write.

Good luck and enjoy the new system!

[Nicky Van der walt]

I’m probably not all that qualified or experienced to add my 2c worth to this discussion, but I will anyway 🙂

Down here in South Africa where we struggle to get the balance right between being third world and trying to act first world it is difficult to run your facility only on Mac Pro’s or HP/Dell/whatever pre built ‘supercomputers’. Because by the time you get those baby’s down south… the price has been inflated so much that it gets a bit crazy.

In our facility we run all PC and all custom built PC’s. But they don’t just get slapped together in a day after randomly picking components from a catalog. They get researched and tested to make sure the components work together and that they will work for what they are built for and that they will run the software etc

For example, I have 2x Intel Core i7’s and if I wanted to go the Apple route, my only option would have been to get MAC PRO systems at a much higher price, becuase Apple dont have anything in the same market. It’s either Quad/Dual Quad Core XEON based systems or an iMac with no options for capture cards RAID’s etc

I also have a Dual Quad Core XEON system running with 24GB RAM which cost me probably the same that I would have paid for a MAC PRO, but then I would have had to add a lot of extra cost to add more RAM, extra drives etc to get to the same level as the PC.

I think it is possible to run your facility on custom built machines as long as the builder of said custom machine is not your auntie’s gardeners cousin who slaps together systems in his garage in his spare time. Just do your research, know your components and do things properly or find yourself a technology partner that can do that for you.

Cheers.

[Nicky Van der walt]

Hi,

Windows XP 32 bit only uses 3 gigs anyway, so the extra gig does not really make a difference.

I understand what you are saying about previous versions working, but also remember software manufacturers develop new versions based on advances in technology (both hardware and software).

CS4 is optimized to run on 64 bit systems and perform much much better on Vista 64 / Win 7 64 than XP/Vista/Win 7 32 bit. Add at least 8 gigs of RAM and you have a system that should run smoothly.

Something else to note is that on a edit system you should run NOTHING else but CS4. Dont use it for internet / email / office work. NEVER play games on it. Also make sure you have the latest updates.

I guess we are lucky in the sense that we have access to budget to acquire the technology needed.

So to answer your question… No, its not just you… BUT with enough budget and technology CS4 can be stable and a pleasure to work with (in my opinion that is) 🙂

[Nicky Van der walt]

Hi,

Sounds to me like you are trying to do the impossible.

CS4 is a monster piece of software and is very resource hungry (a lot of people see this as buggy).

We are running CS4 on systems ranging from Core i7’s with 12 GB of RAM and 4 drive RAID 5 setups to QUAD CORE XEON systems with 24 GB or 32 GB of RAM and 8 drive RAID 5 setups, all on Vista 64 and its pretty stable.

Yes every now and then someone tries to do funny things with odd media and we stumble a bit, but other than that, if you run it on 64 bit system with enough RAM and fast enough drives, you should not have many issues (of course there will always be some issues, but this goes for all software).

I would never try and run CS4 on XP with only 3GB RAM or on a single internal drive or USB 2.0 drive (even worse!!). That would just be torture.

Good Luck.

[Nicky Van der walt]

I was under the impression he referred to the HDSTORM card. He mentions removing that card and then getting improved performance. Not sure he mentions removing drivers for the his graphics card…

[Nicky Van der walt]

Hi,

Most Video I/O cards I have installed have been purely for video input/output. I have not actually experienced a card that gives you a performance boost, yes they might promise that, but in theory… not so much.

In SD we only work with uncompressed video captured via SDI or Component Video as we mainly do broadcast work, so we stay faaaaar away from anything firewire. We use Blackmagic video cards in our facility.

Our HD work is also file based though.

And yes, you’ve proven that editing with software only works just fine 🙂 Computers are getting more powerful by the day.

[Nicky Van der walt]

If you only have the video card for external monitoring then you clearly wasted your money, but we use our video I/O cards to capture video from different sources over different connections (SDI, component, composite, digital audio, analog audio etc etc) and to play video out to a variety of VTR’s and monitoring equipment.

If you can also give solutions to do that without a video card, then yes, you’re probably right, but otherwise there is definitely a need for video I/O cards, and will be until everything goes completely digital and file based.

[Nicky Van der walt]

Well, you probably wont find any Sonic Creator systems available anywhere. They have been out of production for quite a while. Mine is about 8 years old. And back then they cost a small fortune.

Where are you located?

[Nicky Van der walt]

This functionality is extremely easy on old “DVD Authoring Systems” like Sonic DVD Creator.

I have also been trying to get this done on Encore, but with no success.

I tend to fire up the old beast every now and then for “simple” authoring jobs like the one you mention.

I am interested to see whether there is a solution to this.