#Eraseable Optical Drives
17 messages in this thread
24-bit animation being an absolute pig for memory, storage and frame
accurate recording capability, I'm considering attacking the second with a
large capacity eraseable optical drive. Does anyone out there have any
experience with these beasts? I've done some checking around, and the
Ricoh 640 MB unit ($1899 internal, $2499 external, $349 per cartridge)
seems to be about the best buy. I'd be using my GVP 33 MHz '030 Series II
accelerator/SCSI controller board to talk to the drive. There are some 1 GB
units around, but they seem to start at around $3500 (although cartridges
are no more expensive than the 640 MB ones).
I'd appreciate any experience others have had (successful or otherwise).
BTW, as for the third obstacle mentioned above, the best (but not
cheapest!) solution I've seen is a recordable laser disk machine. Sony
makes one (about $20,000!!) that takes composite, component or RGB video
input/output. Panasonic makes one (even more $) that is eraseable. These
guys hold 40-50000 frames (25-30 minutes) on a cartridge. Best part is –
NO wear and tear on the transport mechanism of a very expensive tape-based
single frame recorder. Also, essentially no generation loss, as the
incoming video is digitized and stored in binary format. Oh well, I can
always dream…
Thanks, Joe Pizzicaroli
I've been using an older Panasonic optical recorder for a week or so no.
Its the Model 2200, and is about 6 years old. On its 8 inch disc it can
record about 15000 frames – with discs costing around $170 each. The image
quality is okay, although not as good as one would get with more modern
VTR's or laser recorders.
It works with lightwave (video toaster) too. I got it used (of course) for
around $3500….
Lou
p.s. On the subject of optical drives you might want to look at an article
in AmigaWOrld about a year ago…three models were compared.
Are you saying it delivers VHS, S-VHS or Hi8 quality? When it doesn't
deliver, what does it do?
Lou –
Thanks for the reply. The price sure is right on the unit you refer to,
but I'm bidding on a job for a client who insists on nothing less than TRUE
network broadcast quality. His studio is built around Betacam SP gear, and
from what I've looked at, new decks of that format start at around $20,000
and rapidly get up to $35,000 or so (OUCH!!!). That's why I thought that
recordable laser disk was a viable alternative. The SONY unit I mentioned
inputs and outputs NTSC composite, component, Y-C and RGB formats.
As for eraseable optical SCSI hard drives, thanks for the reference. I'll
go back through my AmigaWorld archives and look for the article you
mentioned.
– Joe
Joe,
I was told by a guy at AmiExpo (attendee, not a company rep) that ther is
a 1gig RW optical available for the Mac at just under $1000. He said he
was getting one for his Amiga. It is a scsi using standard cabling and
should work off a GVP accelerator. I haven't had time to check on it yet,
though, so I don't know if it is real or not.
wmc
Sounds too good to be true at that price. If you find out more, though,
let me know. The products and pricing in this area are changing so fast
that it's hard to keep up. Thanks for the response.
– Joe
I checked one local Mac dealer and he had nothing on it. So I assume it
was a misstatement. The closest I found was a 1 gig dat for 1300.
wmc
Wayne –
Thanks for checking it out. The best value I've come across so far is a
new unit from Ricoh, the HyperSpace. This is a 5 1/4 inch SCSI eraseable
optical 650 MB cartridge drive. It's pretty fast, too – 37 ms average
access time and a 1 MB/sec sustained transfer rate. It goes for about
$2850 and cartridges for about $180. Still not cheap, but I figure in the
long haul it'd be more cost effective than a big hard drive, or Syquest or
floptical drives.
– Joe
Joe,
I'm inclined to agree with you. Just have to find an interim place to
store all the animations and art that I need to create/sell to pay for the
Optical RW drives!
wmc
Wayne –
Sounds like a familiar story. I've been buying floppy disks in bulk
quantities, but it's really a pain to see a 10-second HAM animation
sequence eat up 20 or 30 disks (for the IFF frames themselves AND the anim
delta files). Then when it's time to record to video tape, it's an
excruciating process of loading stuff from floppy until the hard disk is
full, recording to tape, purging and doing it all over again until all the
stuff is recorded. I can't even conceive of doing 24 bit work without
massive storage capability, but I'm painfully aware of the chicken-and-egg
problem to which you refer. Like you, I'm trying to bootstrap my
capability a little bit with each paying job. Hopefully, one day, these
crude techniques and mountains of floppies will be but fond memories.
– Joe
Actually, check recent issues of MacWeek for a cost/meg comparison between
Syquests, 120 M opticals, and 600 M opticals. The 3 1/2 120 M opticals
make sense if you're buying more than a dozen Syquest carts. The 120M
drives are about $1900, with disks about $25.
John –
Thanks for the heads up – I wasn't even aware there were 120 MB optical
drives. The price sure sounds good. I figure that one upcoming project is
going to produce around 1 Gig or so of 24-bit IFF files, so even at
$25/disk, that's only around $250 on top of the cost of the drive. On that
basis, it sounds more cost effective than a 600 MB optical drive. I'll try
to dig up some recent MacWeek issues and scout around. In case I don't
turn anything up, can you give me any leads on who makes theses 120 MB
drives? Thanks in advance,
– Joe
You'll find them. I think Sony makes one.
John –
Thanks. I just came across an ad in the May issue of PC/Computing for a
unit by Pinnacle Micro. It's a 3 1/2 inch 128 MB unit and uses the Sony
drive mechanism. List price is $1995 and cartridges are $79. Not bad,
I'll seriously consider it.
– Joe
ya can get em from Creative Computers I Believe
Peter –
Much thanks for the info. I've dealt with Creative before and had good
luck with them.
– Joe
Always Glad to help Joe.