CompuServe Thread

You might not save boat loads of money up front. But if a NL system will work in your situation, you will save boatloads of time in the long run, which should = money. 1st off, the toaster is a great tried and true product, but even the lastest product from them them is buggy. They are already getting ready to ship an update to fix bugs from the new release this fall. Bugs will always be (see our discussions about a product called MediaEDitor, a software based editor for the Amiga that is "bug city" for more philosophical thoughts on this). Already having the top of the line Mac puts you in a good position in that area except for the Video Cube (ImMix) as they supply a Mac with their system and won't break it off. They supply a turnkey system, Mac/monitor/cables/disks everything to plug and play. They are also the most expensive. around $50k for the base setup with storage for 1 Hour Digitizing time. They use a proprietary hardware setup so you must buy additional storage from them. All you supply in the video deck. NTSC composite and Y/C video i/o. The newest kid on the block and the one that seems to get rated very high by those who have actually used one as far as picture quality is concerned is the Data Translation Media 100. You are in good shape there. This system requires a Mac Quadra 8xx, 32mb memory, a 14" or larger monitor and they reccommend a quick draw accelerated 24bit graphic card. To this you ad an NTSC monitor, disk drives and video tape deck. The system has both NTSC composite and Y/C I/O. They support any SCSI disk drive (I or II) that meets certain i/o requirements. This would typically take you into a name brand drive. The full blown Media 100 system costs about $14000. To that ad prices of above stuff for a total of about $27k. This should be equivalent or cheaper than bying 3 high end S-VHS decks/full blown toaster-Amiga setup, time code editing hardware, audio stuff etc..) The other player is the MediaSuite Pro from AVID. High end AVID systems are the defacto standard brand in the "professional" world for digital OFFline editing. They were basically there first and have the largest dealer and support network built up. Avid MediaSuite Pro is somewhat like the Media 100, you supply your own Mac that is fast enough (Quadra 950 or better). Used to, they ONLY worked in a 950, but I think they'll work in the Q8xx Macs now. (Don't buy one til they do!) They come with about 4 cards that need to plug into your mac, so slotspace must be available. There is a big controversy over the drives with AVID systems. This has been raging in the BP forum for a few months. Basically to be safe, you need to buy Avid drives (more $$$). The base system for the MSP is $10K. I don't have Avid drive prices handy. I haven't done any one system justice and have only covered Mac systems because you need an online system, not offline. There are some PC based products, but I don't think any of them that are shipping have the picture quality to be considered "on-line". Who knows what will be a NAB this year though. There is supposedly an Amiga based basic non-linear editor called Broadcaster32, but it was vaporware last time I checked. I also saw a rumor here on CIS that NewTek will have a NL system next fall (so maybe it will be out in beta at NAB) for about $26k. I have no idea what would be included in the $26k or where that info came from. At that price, depending on storage they supply (if any), they will no longer be the bang for your buck champions unless the quality of the video image is way better than the other guys (I assume that $26k wouldn't include an Amiga). One quick note I just thought of. If you were looking at toasters, did you look at the FAST setup, you can get a Mac version of it for about $6000. They are beta testing a digital compression board that is supposed to integrate with the system. The basic difference I see here is, the compression system will just be like an instant access tape drive. The editing would take place in a more traditional interface environment, just reducing the search/shuttle times down to nothing. I certainly believe that with good, well lighted S-VHS source footage shot on a good camera, that you will see as good or better results from these systems as with traditional tape editing. If these are for spots, I assume you would be destributing 3rd generation to the stations (source->edited master->station dubs). This is pushing the limit for S-VHS. You could make your station dubs right from the NL setup, being only a second tape generation. However the price for gaining the tape generation is the softness introduced by digitized data in the NL arena. You have to see this to know what I am talking about. Some systems are barely noticeable, others it is very obvious. The softness is no more objectionable than the fuzziness of a 3rd generation S-VHS tape. BTW, will your station accept S-VHS for broadcast ? The bottom line is, when you have $$$ in your pocket and are ready to buy, go to all of these people (thier nearest dealer). Last summer they were bending over backwards (AVID and ImMIX) to make the sale. They were offering to set up systems (in your facility) for week or month long hands on. You must go hands on before you buy because the interfaces are all different. If you are a Mac-type person, you will probably like the straigh Non-Linear interfaces better than something like the FAST traditional interface. There is just too much to cover here, so I'll leave it up to you to ask more specific questions. Call AVID, DataTranslation, ImMIX and any others and they will send you a package and a demo tape produced on their own systems so you can take a look. The longer you wait, the cheaper disk drives and peripherals get. Oh yeah, with a digital system, ad about $1500 for an 8Gigabyte DAT or 8mm backup tape drive. Info on NAB?? You mean tickets. If these guys see you as a serious player, they will probably give you tickets to NAB. Matrox gave me tickets to Comdex (supposedly $75 value to general public) when I wrote them for info. I even almost got to go ! Brian

Peter: I checked in the photography forum and couldn't find a Steve Schwartz listed in the membership. Is there more than one photo forum? Do you happen to know Schwartz's CIS address? Or even just a phone number for B&H? Thanks. David

Laurie, Just when I think I have a handle on it….another play jumps in. Am I to understand from your message that all systems have redundant Amigas and HDs for fail-safe operations, or just this particular system ? Also, how do I convert to American $$$. Thanks for the info. Brian