Richard Sanchez
8
Avid Coins
17
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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I use the Spider Brace 2 all the time with my GL2 and I absolutely love it. I used to Glidecam most of my shots, but actually with a little practice you can get extremely smooth movement with the spiderbrace, and you won’t fatigue nearly as fast. You do have be careful with it, as it’s made primarily out of PVC pipes and is a little fragile, but i’ve been using mine for over a year and haven’t managed to break it yet. If you do get one, make sure you get the Spider Brace 2, the Spider Brace (or Spider Brace 1) is meant for cameras with an offset viewfinder, I.E. the XL series.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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Keep in mind, most grey marketers go much deeper than just not offering warranties. You buy the camera, typically you don’t get the charger, or the battery, or anything else. Of course, they’ll sell you all that stuff back, but once you’ve purchased all the items that come in the standard retail package, you haven’t saved much.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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I bought a cheap Canon mini dv camcorder, a ZR65. I bought it for $100 bucks on ebay. You wouldn’t want to wear the heads unnecessarily on the GL2, so I just use the GL2 to shoot.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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Major differences between the GL2 and the XL2 is that XL2 does 24p and the GL2 doesn’t, and the XL2 has interchangeable lenses and the GL2 doesn’t. I think the XL2 also has a slightly larger pixel count. That said, I absolutely love my GL2 and while I wish I could shoot 24p, it’s a big issue at all.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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There are other considerations, for example, PCI Bus segmentation, which is why often in addition to listing their approved stations, they list the proper slots to install cards onto to avoid issues. DNAs require the full bandwidth of their respective busses, and sometimes manufacturers aren’t great making that information clear. It’s less of an issue with modern motherboards though. The other issue is, Avid won’t take advantage of the quad core processor (at least as far as I know) so while they may in the near future, right now you’ll see no advantage to using a quad core PC.
As far as approved video cards, they list them on their website, but I use a PNY Quadro FX 1300 in my xpress system, but the PNY Quadro FX 1500 is a popular one for MC or Xpress.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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Where are you planning on taking the file once it’s rendered? If you’re bringing it into an Avid, you might want to go with a quicktime file render with an Avid 1:1 or Packed Codec (1:1 10 bit).
Depending on where you want to do with the video might make a difference which codec will suit you best.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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The most comparable system on Avid’s compatibility listing on their website would be the iMac with the same processor, but it required an Ati Radeon x1600 video card at 128MB. I don’t know about the upgradability of the Mac Mini, but without that video card, it’s highly doubtful if the the program would run at all. That’s a bet that I wouldn’t take.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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The DMTS DVD series, Inside Avid Xpress Pro will also be a great resource. It’s hosted by Steve Bayes, author of the Avid Handbook (which I second as being an excellent resource). Despite the fact that it’s made for Avid Xpress Pro, the interfaces are very similar and it will get you up to speed quickly.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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I believe 4GB is the maximum you can run in XP, but you will need to make a modification to the boot.ini file in order to allow the operating system to access it. Fortunately, your Avid application provides you a file called 3gb.bat which will make the modification for you. It should be in the folder where Avid was installed, called “Accessories” or something to that effect.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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When you installed your Avid application did you install the After Effects EMP? The Mojo driver alone won’t send the signal from After Effects to the client monitor. Once you install the After Effects EMP, you should see the option to send the signal out on the “Edit” pulldown menu.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks