#PAR vs MAX
James,
If you buy the optional TBC list $995 you can grab frames to the PAR. But when
you say we have BetaCAM SP and 1" then I have to pause and ask what level of
quality you're expecting. For industrials and Flying logos to be supered over
video the PAR would be fine. But in my opinion for a professional edit suite, I
would want the MAX. The reason being that ultimately it will allow a transfer
rate of 7+ MB per second as opposed to 3.5+ MB a second. The way this is
accomplished is that alternate fields will be stored on seperate SCSI drives,
which means you have half the compression and that much higher picture quality
as a result.
As far as its release date that question was still open as of NAB. They've been
working on it quite awhile.
I would recommend the PAR to the vast majority of animators but in some cases
the MAX is definitely going to be the way to go. In your case I would recommend
that you take a look for yourself at both systems. I'm very happy with the PAR
but for high end I don't use it. It is a wonderful tool for an animator as it
allows you to do alot of tests very quickly, which spares the wear and tear on
a Beta SP or 1" machine. For final output I'm still using an LVR in many cases.
It depends on the budget and the quality requirement.
-JE