#Eqpt Recommendation
24 messages in this thread
Could one of you please recommend the best equipment to put together an
inexpensive single frame animation studio? I already have a 486/33 PC and
AutoDesk Animator. I want to sync animation to vdeo tape and also with
music. [AA shopping list would be appreciated with estimated costs.
My personal favorite is the Sony Hi-8 with Diaquest software controller.
Hi-8 is component suitable for mastering and is nice and hi-tech. The desk
is about 6K and the controller software is $995, last time I checked.
thanks for your advice. Let me consider everything and decide how to
proceed. -larry
Larry,
Another favorite for people on thiss forum (other than the Sony) is the
Panasonic AG-7750 VTR matched up with a Targa+32. For the animation
controller, I'd recommend the SoftVTR by Chase Technologies.
Total cost … around $8K
Ang
thank you for your help. after I pull all this info together, I may be
asking more 2questions. -Larry
There are three levels of expense here that I could recommend.
1. You don't need a "single frame" system to record animation. You might
want to start out just by recording your animation in real time to your
home VCR. If you get any sort of video output card you can do this. You
can pick up a cheap one to play with for around $500 (maybe less by now).
2. To upgrade to a single frame system inexpensively, just buy a single
frame controller (any one will do). When you have finished creating your
animations and want to record them, RENT an appropriate VTR such as a Sony
VO9950 from a video rental place, and away you go. The output quality will
be good enough for low-budget corporate, as long as you are careful with
your colours and work hard to make the animation look nice. I always
advise against buying a VTR. You will spend 3 days making an animation and
one hour recording it, so you don't need to have a VTR all the time.
Single frame controller: $2000
VTR rental: 100/day
I would also recommend that you buy Animator Pro ($800) but it is possible
to make some very nice animation with just Animator.
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3. If you plan to eventually upgrade to a broadcast or near-broadcast
system, you will eventually have to buy a higher quality (and more
expensive) video output card such as the Targa+. If this is your plan, and
you can afford it now, get the Targa+ now rather than a cheaper video
output card. Unfortunately you cannot send in your cheap video card and
get a discount on the Targa+! (Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if you
could…) You'll also need some better software at this point, such as
Animator Pro or Axa Quickcel or any of a half a dozen others. The really
good stuff goes for about $2000-3000.
Good luck, and if anyone tells you you have to spend more than $3000 to
begin experimenting, then they are just faint-hearted. Sure it's hard to
get anything magnificent out of a cheap system, but that's half the fun!
A couple of years ago I worked with just a video output card recording
Animator's 320×200 output in real time to SVHS, and I sold a LOT of
animation to low-budget production houses. I even made a TV commercial that
was played on cable.
Good luck!
Michele
thanks for your advice here. I've gotten some very good replies, so let me
consider them all and go from there. If I need more help, this looks like
the place to be. -Larry
Larry,
Thought I might break in here to relay some very expensive and hard-learned
experience. If what you're interested in is purely for recreational
purposes, a VGA to NTSC card might fit the bill. But if you have any hope
of selling your work, I strongly recommend not wasting your money on any of
these 8 bit boards. I originally thought I could make use of a Truevision
VideoVGA and perhaps sell something to finance a better system. What I
found, in at least my market, is even the better wedding video
people/places are using MII level equipment for editing purposes. And even
they want no part of VHS or S-VHS level output. In animation for hire in
my market your only hope for survival will be a single frame accurate
setup. Yes, it is possible to rent anything from Betacam SP to Laserdisk
technology on a daily basis, and they'll even deliver it to you, but you
definitely must have some sort of frame accurate deck for doing previews
before you pay the big bucks for the rental. Panasonic AG7750 SVHS or the
Sony EVO9650 Hi8 can work well for those purposes and you may from time to
time find a client that doesn't mind the output-second generation to VHS
only. Past that it's totally unusable. There also might be some used 3/4
inch equipment available. Definitely check the used market. There are
always people who found they made a mistake and should have bought better
in the first place. If you've got any more questions feel free to ask.
Roger D.
P.S. I don't want to burst anybody's bubble here, but I wasted a lot of
money listening to the overoptimistic and salemen types.
Hear, hear!
Greg,
You're not actually agreeing that anyone who doesn't use Betacam or
Laserdisk technology is misdirecting their funding are you? There are alot
of people out there who make EXTREMELY comfortable livings and run
EXTREMELY successful companies off of 8bit alone. We have had months where
we've generated +$30,000 off of 8bit work alone. We have both SVHS and
Betacam, but we do a fairly large amount of work in corporate
presentations, CBT, CAI, education, etc. As a general rule, this work
doesn't need 24bits, much less Betacam. I always listen attentively to your
threads because I love your work. My VCR is already set for the CBS show. I
feel extremely strongly however that giving new animators the idea that
they aren't going to make it without a Betacam suite is as misguided as
telling them they can't make it without a series of 4D's and Wavefront,
Alias, Pandemonium, etc.
Paul
Paul:
No, what I was agreeing with was the 'overenthuastic salesman' description,
who goes around selling SVHS equipment telling people new to the field that
it can be used for 'broadcast quality' presentations, and, quick, give me
$5,000 so your output will look just like Industrial Light and Magic's!
I guess I was a bit vague, but the description hit pretty close to home!
I've had quite a few comments recently telling me this is what has
happened, and there are quite a few used SVHS and Hi-8 single frame decks on
the market considering how new the technology is! <g>
Thanks for clarifying!
Greg
PS – Did you catch the date change for "Noah"?
CBS, February 20, 9pm to 11pm PST
And I just heard they cut our best animation going from 2-1/2h to 2h!
Greg,
I agree with you on the overenthusiastic salesman attitude. I've picked up
a couple of AG7750's extremely cheap and relatively unused thanks to their
misleading people.
Paul
-anxiously awaiting the CBS special.
Greg,
When's "the show" again?
Ang
PS
I know that you've got laser disks (I can't remember which one … the
re-writable or the non). In talking to some other people on the video side,
they were indicating that the laser disks weren't up to the spec's of Beta
SP. Is this true? I countered that this really shouldn't of concern to the
animator since we're dealing with pixelated image anyway …. the SP would
be lost "in the noise" (ha ha get it … in the noise) <gr&r>
Any thoughts?
Ang:
Funny you should ask today! I just had lunch with the Sony West Coast Laser
Disk marketing manager, and one of the subjects that we discussed was
laser quality.
He told me that the CRV was Beta-SP quality. His words, not mine!
The re-writable disks are lower quality than the write-once.
We have the Sony LVR-5000a (write-once) disk system.
Greg Pyros
>> he say's Beta SP
Greg,
If I wanted a quote off the back of a brochure … well anyway what I want
to know is do _you_ think, feel, regarding the quality as compared to SP?
Ang
Ang:
Wow! You want _MY_ opinion? Not something I read, or heard, or was
spoon-fed? The actual results of a full year of having one in-house?
OK, you asked for it…
Yes, the Sony laser disk is full BetaSP quality. However, in addition to
that, it has _many_ other advantages. I'll share these with you, also. <g>
1) Direct RGB in and out – 756×486 straight to and from Vista, no encoders,
decoders, or other junk in between to take down the quality. (or 512×486 to
Targa, for those of you not following the graphics board quality thread! <g>)
2) Full serial control from computer. As you know, we took advantage of this
to write a suite of programs to work with 3D Studio to lay off, play back,
and are finishing up one to do rotoscoping.
3) NO pre-roll!!! The laser disk acts like a fast hard disk! Just 'throw'
a frame at it and it will be recorded. Speed is phenominal due to this.
4) Image degredation after 100,000 playbacks – ZERO. Always EXACTLY what
was on it in the first place. No heads to clean, nothing touches the disk.
5) True non-linear editing system. We have a series of programs to
play-back different sequences of animations. Each one is a master, and can
be recorded directly to tape – Architectural, logos, etc.
6) The laser will hold a still forever – and generate sync at the same time!
You never have to lay down heads/tails again! Easy rotoscoping!
7) Different speeds for playback. Do you want that sequence to play back at
1/2 speed? 1/3? everything from 1/1 to 1/255, and then up to three times
faster, also. Great for special effects, etc.
Is that enough? I could probably come up with a few more if you wanted…
Greg Pyros
Ang:
"The Show" is Saturday, February 20, 1993 from 9:00pm to 11:00pm on CBS.
At least for this week!
Greg Pyros
I agree, there are LOTS of people out there making money – well, who knows
how much exactly – doing extremely cheesy wedding video, with 150 x 150
pixel B/W resolution text, and charging a mint for it. I have friends
around town who think about doing video work with their computer, they
think they need to double their investment, when in fact, they could
probably make it even if they cut their equipment in half. The next time
you hear of someone who spent $5,000 on a wedding video, ask to see the
first five minutes of it.
Hey, I used to be one of those cheesy-wedding-graphics people, so
watch your mouth. <g> Except mine was all 320×200 8-bit colour, out
to SVHS.
I still believe that nice stuff can be achieved with Animator Pro
going out to Hi-8 or SVHS, but you must be EXTREMELY careful with
colours (no saturation) and you must anti-alias everything to within
an inch of its life, and you must have a sense of motion and some
animation skills, …
Unfortunately, the first people to get their hands on this
VGA-to-video stuff were computer enthusiasts with no graphic art
skills, thus the proliferation of cheesy graphics.
Michele's Broadcast Quality Rule of Thumb:
If the tape deck is small, slim and black, it's a "home" model.
If it's big, heavy and beige, it's "broadcast".
Michele
>>must have frame accurate deck to do previews
??? If you are using Animator Pro with a video output card of any sort,
even the Targa+, you can preview the animation on a monitor without having
any sort of tape deck involved.
Big bucks for rental? If I am doing a $2000 job I can spare the 100 or 200
bucks for a rental. If you rent on Friday afternoon you can sometimes get
it for the whole weekend. This is ample time to record and even correct
any problems that might crop up. At that kind of price it's even
affordable for the enthusiast with no clients who is just doing it for fun.
I also used to plan it so I recorded 2 or 3 jobs on one weekend. A
professional VTR is just too expensive for an individual, sez I. Since all
the other pieces are relatively affordable, it seems a waste to say "you
should purchase a deck" when the outrageous price will keep many people
from doing animation who would otherwise be enjoying themselves as we all
are.
Renting also neatly circumvents those nasty salesmen. <g> I agree, they
should all be locked in a cell with 320×200 Animator, a Video/VGA card and
an SVHS deck, and told that they cannot come out until they have made a
broadcast-quality animation.
Michele,
Whether it's the difference in time you and I got started in this stuff,
difference in regions/market, or just point of view, I don't know. But I
just don't want anybody who's probably not seeing very clearly through all
their optimistic hopefulness of a career in the exciting and challenging
field of computer animation<g> to get the wrong idea. And I don't doubt
that someone who has the customers that purchase $30,000 of graphics each
month also has some customers who purchase 8 bit animation. But if you're
going to try to take this guy's customers in a tough economy, you're going
to have to do a better job in a lot of ways in order to get the business.
And showing your work on consumer level equipment is not going to pull his
customers to your small, new, struggling, underequipped and underfunded
business.
<<you can preview the animation on your monitor>> I have never seen a PC
that'll do 30 frames per second. Even Dell's hot local bus setup had some
noticeable tear at 640 x 480 when I saw it at Siggraph last summer, much
less trying to put that to tape.
<<If I'm doing a $2000 job I can spare the 100 or 200 bucks for a rental.>>
A PVW2800 Sony Betacam SP editing deck rents for $275 per day + $125 for an
encoder around here. Perhaps I'm just a perfectionist, but every project
I've ever produced changed once it was in its "final" form. And I'd much
rather own a cheaper deck, than pay the $400 for final output that wasn't
final.
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[Continued]
<<I also used to plan it so I recorded 2 or 3 jobs on one weekend.>>
Perhaps I should be more careful about reading the section I'm responding
in. Most of my work is 3DStudio, although I do have something I produced
in Animator Pro on TNN every Saturday. I didn't say that it was good or
that I liked it <g>. But even that required some rework once I previewed
it and laid it to tape. Having that equipment sitting around while doing
lengthy reworks just makes me real nervous.
The bottom line–in order to learn animation to video tape you have to have
practice, and if you're going to output all the money for rentals or
post-houses, why not own a prosumer quality single frame VTR. But don't
expect it to do professional quality output.
Roger D.