[Ron Thompson]

Hi Tim…

I was very very close to picking up a Aurora PipeStudio. Its I/O’s are the BEST and duplicate the Cinewave setup exactly.

Now that NAB is here, there was no news from the Aurora camp, so that makes me a little nervous. All the buzz is with AJA and Decklink and that’s where I have narrowed my search. The Kona2 is nice because, like the Cinewave, I can work in SD and maintain HD readiness. BUT the I/O options suck! 🙂 While most of my work is slowly moving to SDI, I still do a lot of component and S-Video stuff too. So I would need to buy an iO LA or a bunch of AJA adapters to keep my studio intact. Or upgrade my decks and other hardware. (Now it’s more money than I planned on spending).

The Decklink cards are nice, and I like the Multibridge. And the multi-codec thing is nice since I work with that exclusively now in Cinewave. Decklink wasn’t in my original plan, so I will be doing a lot more reading now about Blackmagic. The chip problems they are having also makes me nervous.

So there you have it. My next step will be to setup demos somewhere so I can see these cards at work.
I’ve seen Decklink and KonaHD in HD suites… both were solid.

Ron

[Ron Thompson]

Well, I’ve never been an Avid guy, so I couldn’t tell you. But from the press releases it looks like they upgraded their entire product line too. Both Apple and Avid are now sharing AIM Awards from NAB.

(Since I’m not there, I read the press releases to stay in the loop…since I’m shopping for an upgrade to my Cinewave, this NAB is more meaningful to me than past NABs– so far I like what I see from AJA and Blackmagic).

Ron

[Ron Thompson]

LOL… Too bad I’m not in Vegas. I’ll wait to get a sample at the DV Expo when it comes to New York.
The 8GB cards aren’t doing it for me…and they have 5 or 6 slots… I dunno, I don’t question the concept, but the design gives me pause. I’m sure as the technology develops they will find a way to get more storage on these cards.
I can’t see myself in the field juggling 10 or 12 P2 cards just to get through a shoot. Not to mention the EXPENSE of the cards. almost $1000 for a 2GB card. You need a full house of cards installed just to get an hour of storage.
Depending on the cards you buy it can be $4000-$10,000 just for the cards.

Ron

[Ron Thompson]

Actually, I think the FCP announcement was pretty big: Multicam, Control Surface, etc…
Decklinks announcements were pretty big…announcing “mixed media” support for its cards…the first card since Cinewave to do that. As well as their multibridge stuff.

I like the battle thats going on between Avid and Apple. Seems like both companies came out swinging. Hard to say who the winner will be (since I’m not there).

JVC is trying to join the Panasonic/Sony battle. And HDV is trying hard to legitimize itself.
I’m not sold on the P2 drives yet, but XDCAM looks interesting.

A LOT of software updates…I think this years software offerings will make post a lot more creative and easier. Combustion looks promising, but we’ll see what they do on the Mac side.

We’ll see.
Ron

[Ron Thompson]

True…but the bigger issue is saving all of that hard drive space. Where a BetaSP package might yield 1 or 2 hours of footage…. people shooting DV,DVCAM,DVCPRO25/50 are now handing in twice the amount of footage. Tapes are cheap, experimentation is up! 🙂

It would be nice to keep everything in its native format… but we’ll see what happens. If a Cinewave card can do it, surely an all mighty dual G5 can do it too.

[Ron Thompson]

Yeah…stick with 10.3.8 and FCP4 for a little while. The last thing you want to do is install everything fresh only to find out your harddrives won’t work with the new configs. If you’re like most people, start visiting the websites of ALL your manufacturers and get a sense for what will be supported and when.

I’ve been doing this since FCP1, and I can tell you the average complete compatibility with software and hardware is 30-60days after a major upgrade is released…. then there is a period of time when bugs and other minor issues need fixing.

Good Luck.
Ron

[Ron Thompson]

That’s usually how it works. Also gives time for 3rd party cards/software to get up to speed (capture cards, SCSI, Fibre plugins etc…).
If you run a full production suite, you have a LOT of extra tools that need to be compatible with Tiger and FCP5. Drivers and Firmware will need to be installed before you can use this stuff anyway.

[Ron Thompson]

I’m with you Todd… production companies are adopting all different formats now. Shooting DVCPRO and PRO50, stock footage is BetaSP, DV25 for other stuff, DigiBeta output, and if you’re lucky, people still send stuff on VHS…. real world editing! Cinewave is still handy for that and I am disappointed that FCP5 didn’t address this. Oh well. Like Walter said, capture to one codec… but I am definitely spoiled with Cinewave. Lets hope Avid has something up their sleeve. (yeah right). Until then, AJA and Aurora have my attention. Hopefully with all of the new HD formats, Apple will take a look at mixed rez editing.

Ron

[Ron Thompson]

oops… I guess I didn’t scroll far enough. Thanks.

[Ron Thompson]

[Ed] “When I was your age I walked through 3 feet of snow to get to my studio”

Of course, with no shoes!!! and if you were late, the clients would paddle you… 🙂

Ron