Norman Lafranchi
Forum Replies Created
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Currently the fastest system would be a dual-processor, dual-core Opteron system of some sort.
A SCSI or Fibre-Channel RAID of some sort would be good. Preferable RAID 3 or RAID 4 for hot-swappable redundancy. A separate drive for audio is always a good idea.
For real-time effects performance, an Axio would be ideal, although pricey. The Decklink or comparable boards offer some realtime performance, but it uses the computer’s processor and the graphics card for acceleration.
You may want to consider a G5 + FCP if you want a smooth running system, particularly with uncompressed HD. It seems the PP solutions (possibly apart from Axio) are still a bit clunky. And you will get better realtime performance (again without the Axio) by using FCP.
Try to get some hands-on experience with both systems, for example a PC running PP + Decklink and a Mac running FCP + Decklink. If you’re biased toward one system or another, try them both anyway, in order to see which really gives the results & performance you want.
I use a PC but if I had the cash I’d use a Mac + FCP. 🙂
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I think that FCP is superior to PP if you are doing lots of layers and effects, and you want to stay working within your editing application.
Particularly if you are doing uncompressed or HD material, and using a card like Decklink, FCP is definitely superior. You can do many more things in realtime in FCP, such as colour correction, motion and scale, and others. (Unless you have an Axio.)
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B&H is generally below retail.
From Canada, their prices look very cheap. If I can save 5-10% but I don’t know the retailer, I’ll still buy from B&H. It’s not worth it to get ripped off.
Here’s another interesting site. It shows a picture of the physical location of a lot of these camera stores in the New York area.
https://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/
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I’m trying to follow this blog but it’s a mess… how do you follow the article? I can’t see anyway of going from one to the next. (There’s no links to the next article in the blog).
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These systems run pretty clean with firewire only, or a simple card like the Decklink Extreme PCI (which we have). We own the self-same motherboard that you are thinking of investing in (2 mere single core Opterons). This system has been running glitch free for 8 months with a Decklink card, and it was pretty much plug-and-play with the decklink.
However, I have no experience with the Matrox cards. Having had experience integrating discreet edit systems myself, my past experience, especially with Digisuite, was that you have to have a compatible system. But that’s probably all changed with their new solutions.
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It sounds really good… if you are buying the parts from an integrater, and they don’t charge too much, I would get them to put it together and test it for you.
Also, get a bigger system drive. For an extra $30 or so you could get a 250 GB drive instead of 80 GB.
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Why not cut out the middleman? Digitize direct to your editing system. The only drawback is, no safety with the P2 card (although it’s erased soon enough anyway). So I would still get the Focus direct to disk option, then record to both your editing system and the Focus at the same time, if possible.
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Our Decklink board is PCI only. But we may reconsider the Brand for our next purchase, which is coming soon, based on what you’ve said. Any recommendations?
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We also have the K8WE board, which does rock, but of course adds considerable cost with it’s own price as well as the price of the Opteron chips required for it.
I’m curious as to which problems you had with the Asus A8NSLI32, and how those manifested themselves. We have the same MoBo running decklink extreme (non-HD), and have had no problems. We also use an NVidia 7800GT card. Perhaps we are running slower than we think and don’t even know it!
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Upgrade your hard drive and power supply, unless your budget is limited. 250 GB SATA is less than $100, and a small bump in price will get you an Antec 540W power supply. Also, if possible, get these components integrated by the Vendor. They’ll usually do it for less than $50.
I also wonder if you’d do better getting an NVidia 7900GTX card instead of the professional series Quadro. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the 7900 has better performance even though it’s a gaming card.