CompuServe Messages

>>I have been asked up front by clients what format I will deliver, and been told that if it's not BetaSP don't bother. What am I supposed to do? Lie and give them something else? OK, now I'll go along with that because that's not what you said earlier. Earlier you said the client was dictating what brand and model# of deck you should use to do the recording as a measurement of video quality and I said I felt this was just a ploy to disqualify you as a bidder rather than based on actual facts of quality. You use minimum beta SP to be the same as minimum PVW. I would only agree in a contract to beta SP which means the format not the brand machine. Have you ever heard of BTS? Your logic, based on your current knowledge, of the MAX is good. I too am concerned somewhat of the single resolution restriction in the PAR. But, I won't pay 3X the price to have a slightly lower resolution capability. I can do a lot of double renderings for those $. I might be inclined to pay 3X more for double the horizontal pixels so that I could attain full broadcast 700 line res. standard. Even the ATVISA doesn't achieve this output res. The consideration for me was did it meet the minimum threshhold in output quality and after viewing the three brands I was convinced that the PAR was equal to the MAX in output visual quality on the animation. The Bandit had mucho technical problems. The PAR was demonstrating longer sustained runs of PAR output than the MAX. Both technologies were very good. I will also say that if I had an illuminator pro installed and just had to buy the software and the Studio Xpress my decision might be for the MAX. However, having said that, I would like to add that the MAX is a far more complex a process, integrating different manufacturer's products to get the package and this alone makes me nervous. I count 4 different makes of equipment and software in the total MAX package not including the harddrive. In case you don't have the specs on the MAX, its package includes products from Matrox, Miranda Technologies, Rapid Technology, and Adaptec. With the reputation this industry has for pointing the finger at others when problems arise it has to be a consideration as well. It was for me. Regarding compression ratio, artifacts and video quality. I have a thought on this that you and others might consider. It has been my experience from the demo of these technologies that the artifacts being discused within these compression ratios are very suttle. Maybe only detectable on a still image but not for me in a moving image. It would be an interesting test to perform the same animation to a matched set of BVM type monitors side by side to a panel that wasn't told what equipment they were looking at and then do the same for a still image. My bets would be that the MAX vs. PAR would be 50:50 on the animation. meaning the picture quality would be so close the respondents would be guessing randomly. With the still image, I'm not so sure it would be a draw. SVHS customers? I'm not surprised. If the client can use your material to edit in a higher format such as 1" and distribution is VHS then this format might work but if editing in SVHS and distribution is VHS then the final chroma res. will be so low that all colors will just look like a glow on the screen. Graphics just doesn't hold up with color under recording and duplication. I use 3/4 here and while much better than SVHS for the editing it still is nothing to brag about with graphics. BTW I have SVHS here too.