[Scott Thomas]

Whiskey Tango… Duck

[Scott Thomas]

You might try to locate a Leitch DPS 575 frame sync. It has an S-Video input and outputs standard def SDI. It can also embed audio and has an option for noise reduction. It can be a read swiss army knife for transfers.

[Scott Thomas]

I remember seeing Xpri in the trades, back in the day.

Lots of physical panels with buttons and knobs. Seemed like they were going after Quantel in a way.

Never saw one in real life.

[Scott Thomas]

There was someone who did CGI (Lightwave I think) work who also wrote for the trades. His solution was to buy equipment for a production and quickly turn around and sell it after completion of the project. That doesn’t really work for post production workflows, but perhaps there’s something to that. Sell the system and upgrade while the old hardware still has value. Easier said than done.

[Scott Thomas]

Bob already knows he’s smart, so I doubt that he says things to make himself feel smarter. To try and summarize what Bob was saying; Time is money.

I personally have spent a lot of time and money on storage solutions for my home system that have never really performed well, but that’s my money and time. At work, I’m running two 10 year old Criprico MediaVaults with Atto FibreChannel. They’re way too old! I’m working on proposals to get them replaced, but we certainly have gotten our money’s worth. My point is, Bob is right. When it matters, buy the best you can afford. I’ve never had to apologize to my boss for selecting that hardware.

[Scott Thomas]

Try a search online for “terminal command OS X HIDPI”

I believe this was the command:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true

I used this awhile back to force Mavericks to treat my Samsung 28″ 4K monitor as Retina.

Another note I read says to hold down ALT when clicking the “Scaled” button in display Prefs.

[Scott Thomas]

Where I work, a previous engineering regime had bought a Pocket Ultrascope and had it attached to a “portable” computer. I dragged the system out of storage and tried to use it.

The motherboard had USB 3 but there was also a PCIe USB 3 card in the case.

Finally figured out that the Ultrascope wouldn’t work with the motherboard USB and software would run when connected to the PCIe card, but there was no display, just the window frame of the app.

Finally, disabled “Aero” in Windows 7 and the thing now works.

YMMV

[Scott Thomas]

Blackmagic showed a new TB3 UltraStudio.

I saw a PCIe card (looked 4 lane) that had a USB 3.1 (C) connector and was told that it would work in a MacPro tower.

Now that wasn’t confirmation that it would provide TB3, maybe just USB 3.1? They seemed to lead me to believe it was TB3, but I felt that in the too-good-to-be-true category. Besides, there are no Mac TB3 drivers yet. No Apple system has it yet; just laptops with USB C.

I did see a “prototype” TB3 to 2 adaptor. So you can step down to 2, but not go the other way.

One small TB3 RAID box I saw is designed so that if you plug it into a USB C port without Thunderbolt, it steps down to USB protocol and still works.

Also, TB3 to PCIe boxes.

Proof that it’s here before next NAB? Maybe not, but I was hearing about TB3 last NAB, there are already PC motherboards with the standard… out now, and there was an entire pavilion showing working, if not production-ready hardware.

I think with the shared connector (USB C) we’re probably going to see a faster uptake and better selection of devices. On the other hand, we’ll probably not see much in the way of new TB2 devices in the future.

Finally: hopefully we’ll see a new MacPro at the WWDC with Thunderbolt 3.

[Scott Thomas]

I went to their booth and walked around it. Most everyone was busy, but one guy came up and engaged me and probably scanned my badge. After I finished explaining my storage problems in detail, he tells me that he’s “just the hired help” and attempts to find someone to help. Why was this guy here?

May be a fantastic product, but I never made it back.

Did talk to Tiger, Small Tree, Facilis and others.

[Scott Thomas]

Neat to hear the history of that machine. I believe the one I used was purchased from CIII and sat next to a newer DP-MAX.