Holly Cow Batman!!!
27 messages in this thread
If you haven't heard about the new DPS SCSI being released you're probably
living in a cave somewhere. (Yes Batman that means you.)
Anyway, the long and the short of it is, its a total DREAM machine!!!
There's a post in lib 6 PERFAQ.TXT which explains it all, way better than I'll
attempt to. Provided that everything works as it should ITS A TOTALLY AWESOME
DIGITAL RECORDER!!! No price mentioned, but that's about the only thing left
out. It sounds like it was designed by some people who have been really
listening to what is needed and then some, the possibilities are staggering.
I'm very very impressed with what I've read…
Hats off guys, I'm glad its not April 1st, cause I wouldn't believe it. <g>
John
Well, I just checked it out and the description sounds awesom. I think DPS is
truly out doing them selves with this one. PCI bus? windows NT? DPS is
positioning themselves for 1996 market, not 1995 competition. I am really
impressed. I'm also pleased with how DPS is continuing to support the PAR.
eg. decimation chip for AVI. It would appear that compression will be non
addressable. Like the Cube. I'm not sure how I like this yet. I have mixed
feelings about this.
I hope to see one at Comdex as I can't make NAB this year. I even have a pass!
>> DPS is positioning themselves for 1996 market, not 1995 competition. <<
Interesting point you're making there. Half the market is moving full steam
ahead and half the market is stalled in the water. Do you think that if NT
dropped its price it would make a difference? I wonder if that's the stumbling
block, otherwise it should be clear sailing it seems to me.
On another provocative note, what would you think if Truevision said, we'll
make an NT driver but it'll cost you $50.00? They haven't said this but I would
feel alot more secure that Matrox and Truevision were actually doing something
if I had to pay for it. I'm thinking the Targa and the Ill Pro may pass into
oblivion for want of a driver.
John
I think the price may be part of it but really, the consensus out there is fear
of MIcrosoft bug list. It's the total cost of making the change that scares
me. Like you said how much of your existing system is not going to port over
due to lack of a driver or what will all those drivers cost. Scared of the
unknown in J'ville.
>> It's the total cost of making the change that scares me. <<
I've been taking it step by step, software being the biggest so far, but that
seems to be under control. Then I started thinking about my video cards and
thats where I started seeing a glitch. All the display cards have NT drivers
already, but not the Targa and not the Ill Pro. I don't know how useful the
Targa will be without Tips… but I was counting on being able to run QFX and
PShop on the Pro and it sounds like their planning on writing a driver so that
3DS can render, but no commitment to a display driver.
BTW I wouldn't mind paying for an Ill Pro or Targa driver, as long as it was
reasonable which is kinda why I brought it up. I get their point, which is, all
of a sudden they're supporting DOS, Windows, Win95, OS/2, with NT in its 3
flavors on the horizon. Its more than they're equipped to handle… So I'd
rather pay for the dang driver than lose the boards… How does that go? For
want of a horse a kingdom was lost… something like that. But as I said, no
one has suggested it, and I get the feeling they'd just as soon drop the boards
than deal with it. You wouldn't think there would be cause for concern, unless
you'd spoken with the guys that are supposed to be handling it…
So what other things are of concern to you? Other than networking… which is
the next step for me…
John
>>So I'd rather pay for the dang driver than lose the boards..
Here he comes to save the day! Enter Super (driver) man Vibrant Graphics.
Here's a thought, With the network, why not keep one machine on WFW, which is
supposed to mesh with NT as a workgroup peer. Keep all the older stuff on that
platform.
>> Here he comes to save the day! … Super Vibrant Graphics.. <<
You'd think I intentionally played right to you on that one. <g> Not
consciously. Aren't you listed as an endorsee for Liquid Speed? <G>
Well, the Ill Pro is not a card they support, not their doing I'm sure, and
even so, it would be for rendering only. Not a display driver. But if you've
got some pull <g> I'd be happy to contribute monetarily. As a matter of fact,
the Ill Pro is one card that could definitely benefit from increased speed as a
display card. I'm hoping that Matrox will write a driver that can run above 1
mb and utilise as much memory as you want to allocate.
>> Here's a thought… keep one machine on WFW… <<
I never bought WFW as LAN 6 handles Windows very well. I looked through the Lan
6 manual and it does support NT through SMB client, the adjustments include IRQ
and I/O base for adapters etc. I'd rather go NT across the board however.
John
Don,
I don't think DPS will be at Spring Comdex, but we'll be glad to show it to
you on our booth M7135.
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Thanks, Jamie. I've made note and will see you there. I think Comdex and NAB
are too close together this year. Must be hell for the vendors.
Don,
Yeah – NAB one week, Comdex the next – If its Tuesday
must be Belgium ! (Obscure film reference)
I'm actually writing to you from the booth right now
we are right near the entrance, next to Microsoft. Can't
miss us !
See you soon.
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Well, I'm back! Was a great show, overall. I enjoyed meeting you and was
really impressed with your demo of Razor PRO. While, Premier 4.0 is very nice,
I can see now that if one owns a PAR the really smart choice to go is with
Razor PRO. This is because Razor Pro is specifically designed to work with
DPS-PAR format. I have moved RAZOR Pro high on my must have priority list.
Please keep me posted on those 3D DVE effects development we discussed. This
is the only area I saw lacking in your product.
Thanks again,
Don Landis
Don,
Sorry its been a while before replying, I've just about
dug myself out of all the post show work.
Thank you very much for your kind words about RAZOR PRO.
We have seen a fantastic response to the product and we
are being deluged with tapes from people who have been
working with it. Its great to see how people have been
using it and in ways we never expected. Someone uploaded
an audio file the other day which was a 20 track piece
that he had edited completely in RAZOR PRO. We never
realised that there weren't any audio packages out there
that could handle as many as tracks as we do and this
guy was tickled pink about the fact that he could cut a
whole song in RAZOR PRO with 20 tracks of CD quality audio.
By the way, if you know anyone who is considering sending
us a tape please ask them to send it in. We are looking for
material for Siggraph and we would love to be able to
include work in our Siggraph show reel.
Our NT version with a new more accurate 3D DVE is in the
final stages of development. (Of course the NT version
includes a lot of other stuff too) and we are still on
schedule for a June 1 release. We will be supporting
the PAR and Perception with the NT release with versions
for the DEC ALPHA and Dual Pentiums. There will be a PowerPC
version too although I don't know whether DPS are doing a
PowerPC version.
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Excellent!
3D DVE's like we discussed are what's lacking on many NLE platforms. This is
why the Alladin is having a field day with being a third party add-on to many
other editors. If you want I can give you a list of canned 3D DVE effects that
are often called for. Also you should have a good chroma keyer. A real hit
would be a subtractive/additive chroma keyer. Check out the Jaleo on the SGI
to see what I'm talking about.
The Midisoft products can handle many lines of music for compositing. Cost
<$100. Learning curve for non muscians is steep though.
Don,
We have a really powerful chroma keyer in our current version.
Because its not having to work in real time we do some special
calculations which make the result look better than most
studios chroma keyers.
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Jamie, Do you have a cost yet to upgrade Razor Pro to the NT version? Someone
had siad it might be $700 which seems way to high to me. Though it sounds like
it will be very nice. BTW, I did a 6000 frame animation using RP 1.0d and the
PAR, complete with audio. It was a fairly boring presentation for a trade show
but RP did a great job with it all. Just thought you might like to know.
DM
Jamie,
The NT verison sounds great.
Enhanced keying (Don's suggestion), and enhanced audio are definately things
I'd agree with. I'd love to see features of the SGI composition programs, as
well as After Effects' being implemented into RP. A program that is scalable
and able to take advantage of processing power in order to improve
productivity/interactivity is also something I'd like to see.
JNJ
I think that if a good compositing program came out on the PC, something to
rival
Aftereffects or Wavefront Composer, the developers would make a killing. I
talked to Adobe at NAB, and they said that they will do a Intel version of
After effects, but they haven't started yet and it will probably take 1-2
years. I know we (BLUR)
are desparate for such a program, and we're thinking of buying a PowerPC just
to run Aftereffects, (I HATE having to do it). Please, somebody, anybody….
Video post is about halfway there, if it were just more interactive…
Tim Miller
BLUR
I agree, the developers would make a killing for a quality composition program
like After Effects/Composer/Jaleo, etc. Too bad Yost Group's kinda busy at the
time.. (you are, aren't ya? <g>) or I'd say they should do it. Apparently
Adobe doesn't frequent this forum, or aren't listening, because they definately
could be making some money off of Premiere/PAR, After Effects, etc..
Couple things I'd like to have:
alpha channeled objects that are keyframable around the screen (like old Rio
Animator, but 90's), with automatic dropshadowing. Interactive levels,
transparency, etc. with a positional light source. So you can put a dot
somewhere on the screen, and it'll move the dropshadow around, kinda like
raytraced shadows, but simpler. (could move objects around too, not limited to
dropshadows.) Or mabe just keyframable dropshadow levels, settings, etc.
Additive, Subtractive, If lighter/darker, color, hue, difference, multiply,
etc, etc. per object, just like Picture Publisher object operands.
powerful keying for poorly lit walls, etc. This would let you select a couple
colors from the picture to use, instead of just one.
background removal- removing the background using a bitmap to use as the
subtractor. For "keying" type things without blue/green screens. You would
take a static picture of the background, and then use that static picture as
reference to figure out what's foreground, and subtract all the similar areas
(background) from the entire clip. (camera must not move, but SW would give a
little tolerance for tripod shake)
-just a few of the many ideas banging around in my head. Some already done,
some not. (some being improved) Now if only I had a few programmer slaves
lying around..
JNJ
John,
RAZOR PRO does the compositing your asking for…
"alpha channeled objects that are keyframable around the screen (like old Rio
Animator, but 90's), with automatic dropshadowing. Interactive levels,
transparency, etc. with a positional light source. So you can put a dot
somewhere on the screen, and it'll move the dropshadow around, kinda like
raytraced shadows, but simpler. (could move objects around too, not limited
to
dropshadows.) Or mabe just keyframable dropshadow levels, settings, etc.
Additive, Subtractive, If lighter/darker, color, hue, difference, multiply,
etc, etc. per object, just like Picture Publisher object operands."
Alpha channel objects – thats what we work with. You can move them around the
screen in 2D or 3D using the orientation effect and the graph display which
means you can move the image around interactively.
Dropshadowing – Use the alpha channel object and make a second copy of it
then make it greyscale by using the black and white effect. Change its trans-
parency by using the transparency effect or the video levels. Change its
position
as above interactively. Once in greyscale the dropshadow could be then colored
to any color using the tint/color correction effects.
"powerful keying for poorly lit walls, etc. This would let you select a
couple
colors from the picture to use, instead of just one."
Our chroma keyer can be applied more than once to the same image. Apply it
once using one color and then apply it again and pick out another color. We
have had many professional video people use this in situations where they
found no other tool could handle this.
"background removal- removing the background using a bitmap to use as the
subtractor. For "keying" type things without blue/green screens. You would
take a static picture of the background, and then use that static picture as
reference to figure out what's foreground, and subtract all the similar areas
(background) from the entire clip. (camera must not move, but SW would give a
little tolerance for tripod shake)"
An important effect which we are working on and should be ready shortly.
"just a few of the many ideas banging around in my head"
Please let us know of any other ideas you have and we will set our programmers
on them. That's what we're here for…
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Tim,
"I think that if a good compositing program came out on the PC, something to
rival Aftereffects or Wavefront Composer"
We have Wavefront Composer users call us all the time saying that they used
to run Composer and they're now running RAZOR PRO because its got the
same features, its faster, and because it runs on a PC.
Composition is what RAZOR PRO is all about.
Jamie Carr
in:sync
John,
We have been adding a lot of new features to the NT version as well
as some fairly considerable improvements to the speed. Obviously
we will take advantage of mutliple processors if your system has
them as well as parallel processing (DEC style). You will see some
really massive speed increases on the DEC alphas.
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Jamie,
What kind of rights do you need for the Demo reel. I have got some good stuff
that I would be willing to send you. After I got the release from Autodesk for
their demo reel there wasn't a %$%$^ in Hell that I was going to be able to get
my customers to release my work for their demo. I would like to have some of
our work seen at Sigraph though. We edited our demo reel together with Razor.
Andrew McClary
Graphic Alchemy Interactive, Inc.
Andrew,
"What kind of rights do you need for the Demo reel. ?"
All we would be looking for is the ability to show the work at the
show, we wouldn't be after a lifelong commitment or anything
like that.
Let me know if you are interested.
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Jamie,
Can you run the PAR on a Win NT machine? Will the current version of Razor run
on it?
Andrew
Graphic Alchemy Interactive, inc.
Andrew,
You will be able to run the PAR on an NT machine once DPS release
the drivers for NT.
The current version of RAZOR doesn't run under NT but we are working
on a new version which should be ready June 1st which has been
optimised for NT. Its a total rewrite to take advantage of NT's capabilities
and its really fast. (when compared to running on the same machine
running 3.1)
Jamie Carr
in:sync
Jamie,
Will there be any charges for the upgrade to NT? I have only recently been
able to use the 3.1 version with the new update you gave me at COMDEX.
Andrew
Andrew,
Massive changes are in the works for our NT version.
The June release will include EDL output, machine
control, real time playback of cuts only edits, much,much
faster performance (even on equivalent machines)
a project based library.
3.1 users should note that we will be releasing a new
improved (sounds like a washing powder doesn't it ?)
orientation effect with support for fields and antiliasing
and which looks extremely good compared with the
original version.
We will post the new version on our BBS when its
ready. (release date – end of next week probably)
Jamie Carr
in:sync