#PAR It's phenomenal
70 messages in this thread
I'm so excited to see my first output from the PAR I can't sit still.
It's cycling here on the monitor and there is no doubt which is
targa+ at tmode 25, targa+ at tmode 11 and the PAR. In my opinion if
anybody claims the output is comparable to targa+ then they either
need to get their monitor converged or have an eye exam. One of my
clients who is beta SP was ecstatic about what he saw. I showed him
the TBC IV cababilities in color correction and landed a job to
temperature correct a bunch of tapes for him. I also got my first
Betacam SP job too. It was a very exciting day here.
I would like to say thanks to Gus and Greg for doing a fantastic job
on the software. It is very slick how it works. And. a special
thanks to DPS for making this product available at such an affordable
price. I am more convinced than ever now that this particular
product is going to revolutionize the way we record animation at the
lower end of the scale. And I would also say that this output will
be a definite upgrade in quality for anyone doing targa+ at 512×486.
From one client that has an ATVista: " Damn! it looks as good as my
Vista." I don't have one so I'll just have to trust him on that
claim.
The negatives: So far I can say the installation here didn't go as
smoothe as others have reported, but then this is usually my
luck.<g> First the PAR arrived without software or Manual. The
TBCIV arrived with an ouytdated version of its software but I bought
the remote instead so that wasn't a really big deal as it eliminates
the need for the software. The next day the UPS lost the overnight
shipment from DPS for the software and manual. Once here in late
afternoon yesterday I proceeded to install the PAR and the software
wouldn't recognize the PAR address. I was using the default so I
began to change it according to the manual and discovered the dip
switches were backwards in the manual. Thanks to the program PARTEST
that debugged this. With the proper I/O addr. I was readdy to launch
the PAR.exe pgm. It locked up my machine. In addition I could no
longer launch 3DS. I tried the obvious and used different boot
configs and pulling all unnecessary hardware and still no fix. I
moved the PAR to a different machine and still had the exact
problem. Now I was beginning to think I had defective software or
hardware. A quick call to DPS tech support resolved the problem in a
couple of minutes. Apparently the Micropolis 2210A needs to have an
extra installation step that preformats it for the PAR service. When
I told the tech which drive I had he said he knew what my problem
was. This procedure is not in the manual. He talked me through it
and 5 minutes later I was calling people in to see this thing fly at
warp speed.
Well, back to the old grind because I have an 8088 machine
(teleprompter) to fix for a shoot tomorrow. I just had to let
everyone know that initial visuals by myself and others here are
living up to all my expectations. Maybe others will find it
necessary to stay with frame by frame, but, for me, I'm pulling the
DQ-50P and it's for sale.
Don't you wish you had an Amiga way back so you could've been
utilizing this state of the art technology for the last year? <G>
It's a darn shame that the PC community lags so far behind.<BG> I've
often felt that instead of buying an Abekas I should've just bought
an Amiga and a PAR.
>> I've often felt that instead of buying an Abekas I should've just bought an
Amiga and a PAR. <<
You know Paul, funny you should say that. I thought about saying
something when you were discussing buying the Abekas, but I guess, I
just figured you knew what you were doing. Now I'm sorry I didn't.
<G> Course having 3DS instead of Lightwave kinda makes it worth it.
N'est pas? 🙂
John,
The biggest thing that wipes people out on SGI machines is the support
contract. Most people budget a machine or two and never think about the support
contract until they get ready to pay for it. 1 year of support for an 4
processor Onyx VTX system is close to 13 thousand. The machine costs $165,000
but then every year you have to shell out an additional $13,000. The support
contract on our two new Indigo2's and four Indy's comes to $12,000 a year. But
if you don't get it and something goes wrong, you're screwed.
Paul
P.S. – Did I mention that SGI can raise the price of support on existing
machines everytime you renew? 🙂
Paul,
>> Did I mention that SGI can raise the price of support on existing machines
everytime you renew? <<
Gee no wonder they're doing so well. The SuperComputer lab here has a bunch of
them. My aren't they impressive looking! I may have mentioned this before; they
have names for them. And one came in this HUGE box all with Camoflauged paint
and burned in letter stenciling which read:
PREDATOR
Great showmanship but for the money? <g>. I would think the learning curve
aspect would also be killer. Locking you into a service agreement sounds like
the IBM school of business, but as the old saying goes, if you wanna play, you
gotta pay. 🙂
-JE
Wow! Maybe I should get out the paint and stencils, that would probably do
wonders in impressing potential clients. 🙂
Actually I've seen a number of companies do that, A local research facility has
blue sky and clouds on their Skywriter and the letters GOD across the top.
Paul
>> A local research facility has blue sky and clouds on their Skywriter and the
letters GOD across the top. <<
I suppose a research facility could get away with that especially one dealing
in something like quantum phyics. I'd like mine to read "Black Box" and paint
it accordingly.
"And here's our Black Box." "Oh yes I see." <g>
Saves alot of explaining. 😉
-JE
John,
I already have a black box. We rack mount our PC's in black racks with black
cases. It looks pretty nice. We've had them in racks for a couple of years. 🙂
Paul
Paul,
>> I already have a black box. <<
What can I say? <g> Like minds? What? <G>
-JE
For hardware, maybe. I had an amiga when the toaster was just 1 year
old. I was the technical director for a rock concert at UF. We had
4 cameras live switched with the toaster and I had a 5th roving
betacam that I used for inserts. The concert lasted 9 hours and
featured 10 bands. The show looked great. Then I tried to use the
thing for Lightwave and it was sooooo awkward. That's when I went
out and bought 3DS. Haven't regreted it at all. Seems the Amiga has
always had the lead for low end video but the PC comes through sooner
or later. In addition the stuff for the Amiga, many times is really
buggy so maybe it's best to work out the kinks on Amiga heads before
we see it on the PC. <g>
PS I didn't own the toaster just used it for that one project. I also
got a headache from that darn monitor after an hour.
Back to the PAR: Do you have any S/N specs for the targa+ or the
ATVISTA? One thing I think the PAR excells over the targa+ is in
this spec but I don't have any from truevision to compare. The
chromes look highly polished with automatic refl. With the targa+ the
same rendering at 512X486 looks more like a dirty chrome car bumper.
Like it has a coating of road film. I applied just a touch of
hilite.ixp and the higher res makes more points of hilite triggerable
pixels. I'd love to see what Greg's 1008 pixel rendering looks like
on chromes. I need to try some glass next with a 2-5% auto
reflection at this resolution.
You should have your 6 Pars by now.<g> What HD are you planning to
use?
I talked to my dealer today, and I don't expect to have the PAR's in
until mid March. 🙁 We are pretty overwhelmed playing with other
stuff at the moment, so it's not too much of a hassle. I'm only
getting two of them at first. We're just planning to use them for
previews. We're making a tremendous jump equipment wise extremely
quickly, and it has me pulling my hair out. BTW, I have a line on a
slightly used PVW, have you picked up an SP deck yet?
I was obviously joking about the Amiga. But that was an interesting
story about the concert.
The PAR should definately shine above the Targas resolution wise. It
will look alot better on alot of stuff. If you've been adjusted to
512 for a while, the jump to 720 should put a tremendous smile on
your face.
BTW, it's 2:30, what are you doing up? I thought I was the only one
out here who stayed up working all night. I've been reviewing
storyboards for almost nine hours. I can barely see.
The Par stuff was rendered to 752 not 720. A more comparable
comparison would be the ATVISTA at 756 to compare noise levels. Don't
you think?
I know you were joking but I just wanted you to know that I still keep
an open mind on all platforms. What ever works for the job. The
toaster was free and I wanted to use it. It worked out great.
I ordered the beta SP today. I wanted to go the PVW route but for
reasons I told you before I ordered the UVW. Even used PVW's are
high and I heard that the first year PVW's had some minor problems.
If I don't go non-linear by the end of the year the PVW will be in
the picture. I still haven't changed my "conservative" plan. The
deal for the Cube fell apart. Too many partners squabbles. I'm
kinda glad it did. I now have access to a betacam SP 507 rig and
thats really more important to me than the cube anyway.
What am I doing up? I just finished repairing a teleprompter needed
for a shoot at 9AM.
It all sounds great, I'm glad you ordered the UVW, I also played with
one yesterday while at my dealer. I'm pretty much in agreement that
the UVW should really excel in a PAR environment. I think if a client
is comfortable with the PAR output then he should be more than
acceptable with the UVW unit. We have a couple of local network
affiliates picking up UVWs, so the S/N difference obviously doesn't
bother them.
My biggest problem is that I deal with a bunch of video snobs who can
tell the difference between PVW and BVW output, so they'd probably
hammer me for going beyond PVW.
After a long conversation yesterday with several NAB exhibitors, I'd
have to say that the choice to not go with the cube was a good one.
Hope you got that teleprompter fixed. 🙂 Why not just get them to
remember their lines? <BG>
Paul
Re video snobs: You wouldn't believe who is the giggest video snob around
here. Constantly badmouthing all formats except beta SP and a toaster. He's
a wedding videographer. Would you believe it?
I did some frame grabbing today and now have experienced the artifacts of
compression. I'll post them for all to read as a separate message to all. I
still have to get a better handle on the way compression works on this PAR but
I'm close to figuring it all out and getting the total quality picture for the
PAR fixed in perspective.
The teleprompter has a dongle that I hardwired inside so they wouldn't keep
loosing it. I also created a single startup disk with menu prompts so computer
idiots could run the thing. No big deal but they were thrilled with the
improvements.
I've also been hired to design and build a new editing suite for them (with
existing equipment) That's the challenge. Might mean a lot of night work.
Don,
A great deal of video snobs like your wedding videographer have no real
justification in their snobbery. Unfortunately my snobs are producers and
editors. These guys actually gripe about some of the Abekas/BetaSp stuff. I
just smile and tell them that I need more production money to improve the
quality.
Paul
Paul,
>> These guys actually gripe about some of the Abekas/BetaSp stuff. I just
smile and tell them that I need more production money to improve the quality.<<
actually, you should tell them to "kiss my a**, because I don't give a sh*t!".
<g,d&r>. Gotta love it…
Martin,
Funny, very funny! 🙂
Since these guys pay me fairly well, I think I'll continue to deal with them.
The biggest source of their complaints come from the fact that the majority of
their work is shot on film. Their is a phenomenal resolution difference as well
as a "look" that they're used to. I undestand their prejudice, I just don't
have the resources to put animation to film. At the same time, the idea of
shooting their footage on tape is a sin.
Paul
Hey, Paul, here's something I've been thinking about. Did you ever wonder if
you could *approach* film "look and feel" with 3DS by (of course, start with a
great photo-realistic animation<g>) rendering to a relatively low resolution
(for film), say, 700 or so lines, and taking each frame out to a 35mm film
recorder like for slides? I'd love to know what these would look like shot from
a 35mm projector at 24fps. I know this is WAY less resolution than needed for
true feature film work, but what if you were just doing special effects for
television, and *video-taped the resulting film*? Maybe, using an intrim step
like this, productions like B5 could use computer-generated sequences without
that "culture shock<g>" you get as the video-based effect sequence cuts to
live-action (shot on film). Kinda like going from a movie on TV straight to the
news or a soap opera. The difference is pretty diconcerting when it happens a
few times each segment, and may very likely be part of what's keeping TV series
producers from jumping on the computer/video graphics bandwagon for Special
Effects any faster than they already are.
I dunno, just a thought….what'd'ya think?
-Alan
Paul: Do you know how to make video have that film look?
Shoot everything with HDTV 16×9. Use a soft focus lens. Stop the camera lens
down 1 Fstop. Take each frame into Photoshop and blur the hell out of the
edges. Record digitally using a peak white of IRE 50; black 10. Process
through a TBC strobe effect at 0.1 second rate. Should get that film look
you're after. <BG>
Paul,
I got such a laugh out of your quick temper on that one <G>. Funny how you
managed to explain yourself <before> appplying the "coup de grace".
>>actually, you should tell them to "kiss my a**, because I don't give a
sh*t!". <g,d&r>. Gotta love it…
He did say that, Martin, It's called the language of salesmanship.
And to All:
I'm getting a better handle on the artifact issue now and how the PAR handles
compressing its files for use. Here is a brief explanation for the uninitiated
so my evaluation will make more sense.
The compression in the PAR is handled two ways, One method for animation
renderings, ie. sequential TGA's and a slight variation to this method for real
time frame grabbing using the TBC IV.
There are two settings that the PAR uses. First, is the Q-factor and is
adjustable to a maximum of 23 (highest quality). The other is Block limit
which is the largest size allowable for a frame to be which is 508. I don't
know how these numbers relate to compression ratio and byte size.
The block limit is set for a particular hard drive performance. The faster the
hard drive the higher the number allowed. I have been using 240 for a
Micropolis 2210A but haven't really experimented with it yet. In animation
compression from targa files the Q-factor is optimized for each frame file and
will allow the file to grow to the block limit size for maximum quality on a
given frame. In real time frame grabbing of video the block limit is also set
but the Q-factor is manually fixed to a number for all frames in the grab
sequence. The reason for this difference is that with frame grabbing the
frames arrive on the PAR at 30 per second and apparently there is not enough
time to determine the Q factor for each frame individually. Typically I would
set it arbitrarily at 20 and try to record the video sequence. If the q-factor
is too high then the PAR will issue an error message advising that the q-factor
should be lowered. The lower you go the less quality the video will have. The
number varies for each piece of video grabbed so each scene might take several
run throughs to optimize the actual number. It would appear that the shorter
the length of the grab the higher the Q-factor could be. If one wants to grab
several minutes of video footage the Q-factor has to be down around 10 or
fairly lossy. I did some 5 second grabs at a q factor of 20 but the same video
linked together for 30 seconds required a Q-factor no higher than 16. All with
a block limit of 240.
What does all this mean? So far my opinion is that for animation renderings
that are low in what I will call the "busy factor" which translates to a lot
of movement and busy texture maps such as outdoor scenes and cloths etc. the
animation can be output to an almost lossless quality. If the busy factor is
great then there will be more noticeable pixelization and edge aliasing
visable. Chromes and reflections seem fairly low loss but lots of live images
maps tend to get lossy due to lower q factors. At this early point in time I
say that I still don't have a strong grasp of the block limit settings but an
early subjective evaluation is that the overall quality on animation output is
better than wh
at I anticipated but the frame grabbing is less than what I
expected. The frame grabbing is still superior in sharpness and chroma
integrety even at Q-factor 16 when compared to the targa+ using the diaquest
action animator frame grabbing. A good sharp video picture shot at the beach
with beta SP. produced a very nice still shot that I was able to mask the very
slight edge aliasing in Photoshop and it was used for a print piece for a
client today. He noticed the improved quality on the print piece comparing
with my former work with the targa+. I have a bunch of these video stills to
print to do and this is just one more way the PAR is improving my product
quality. I would say that tinkering with the Q-factor for frame grabbing
doesn't take long but is a trial and error process. Kinda like doing test
renderings with IPAS settings. What is more disappointing is to achieve higher
Q-factors one must grab shorter video sequences. To grab a couple of minutes
and then go to work with it is to suffer higher losses than necessary with the
PAR system. There are more trade offs to deal with than I anticipated.
I hope the above detailed explanation made sense to you non PAR owners but keep
in mind I'm still on a day 1 learning curve and just beginning to understand
what makes this thing tick myself. My work load is somewhat heavy right now
and the PAR just saved me 4-5 hours of time today with the real time frame
grabbing job. Not to mention the client's excitement when I presented him the
bill at less than half the quote and "twice the quality" (his words but I
tend to agree)
I'll keep you all posted with my findings, good and bad, as I continue to learn
this new system.
Don,
That was an extremely good explanation, and I am extremely impressed with your
candor. The types of pixelation artifacts that you experienced with frame grabs
is the same sort of stuff that we experienced with high detail complex texture
maps. Keep uploading those evals and updates, I'm very interested in your
continued explorations. The frame grabs is definately an area that the Abekas
excels at.
Paul
Let me try to explain the block limit issue. You were right in all your
assumptions. The Block limit is the maximum size allowable for each frame. This
size is set in blocks (disk sectors) of 512 bytes. A limit of 240 means that no
frame should be bigger than 122,880 bytes (120k or 240×512). This limit is
established by analyzing the hard disk throughput. In order to have a block
limit of 240 (or 120k per frame) the hard disk must be able to pump 3.6
megabytes per second (120k x 30).
In stills, the limit is fixed at 512 blocks. That means no single frame can be
larger than 256k bytes.
When an animation is compressed one frame at a time, PARDRV will try to use the
best Qfactor allowed. If the resulting size is greater than the block limit,
PARDRV will recompress the block using a lower, calculated, Qfactor. This
process is dynamic so each frame will have the best possible Qfactor according
to its own characteristics.
When an animation is recorder directly from live video (through the TBC-IV),
there is no time to calculate a different Qfactor for each frame. In this
situation, the "busiest" frame in the entire sequence will determine the
maximum Qfactor allowed.
Thanks Gus,
That was great information.
I printed it and pasted it as an additional page in my PAR manual!
Paul:
>> I talked to my dealer today, and I don't expect to have the PAR's in until
>> mid March. 🙁
I guess you are talking to the wrong dealer! We have a bunch in stock, could
ship the two out today! <devious g>
Greg Pyros
That's the overall lesson of the Amiga market. We were like travelers from
five years into the future, demonstrating all these great toys, chanting
multitasking, plug-and-play, 32-bit memory, coprocessors, cool video… and
frankly, no one cared. The Amiga did it all in 256K RAM, yet WinNT still can't
in 16 meg.
"Whudya want pictures to go with radio? How you gunna put Amos N Andy on this,
huhu, tella-VISION? It'll never sell."
Don't worry, you may still have a chance to buy a NewTek product. 🙂
Many years ago, I had my first experience with an Amiga. A friend of
mine who happened to be the son of a Saudi Arabian Prince, called to
tell me that he was going back to S.A. for a few months and wanted to
know if I would keep his computer equipment while he was gone. This
was in the days of the 8086 PC. Well when he left it, I wasn't really
interested in it. It was obviously nice equipment. He even had a huge
postscript printer and scanner to go along with it. Speakers, 17 inch
screen, modem, lots of neat stuff. But what the heck was an Amiga?
Then about a week later he called to check in and told me that there
were quite a few games in one of the suitcases of disk that he had
left. Soooo….. one evening I sat the unit up, and opened one of the
suitcases. There were close to a hundred games, and I decided to try
a few out. Following his instructions on accessing the media, I
started up a gunfighter game. WOW !!!!!! I had every game worth
having on the PC and MAC but I had never seen anything like this. It
had stereo sound, great graphics, unbelievable art work. I was truly
astounded!!! No wait … I'd say I was totally knocked off my feet.
There wasn't anything in the arcades that compared to this stuff. The
very next night, I had around 20 friends over, and everyone was blown
away, for the next couple of weeks, every night someone was over,
playing games. This was truly a computer subculture unto itself. I
quickly saw the demise of the PC. But … …. it never happened!
Even though it took PC's a good 5 more years to come close to
matching the level of gaming that I had enjoyed that week, the
onslaught of Amiga's never came.
Poor marketing? Maybe. Lack of insight from the Manufacturer? Maybe.
But certainly the power was there and there was also an extremely
strong group of programmers out there.
I have always been amazed that the Amiga did not take over the market.
Even today they struggle for acceptance in the major trade magazines.
Throughout the years the Amiga crowd has definately been first with a
number of new innovations, but it seems that the world never sees or
hears about them until they get ported to other platforms. Why is it,
that the Amiga just doesn't enjoy the same fanfare that other
platforms do? It's actually a shame that more work wasn't put into
marketing the platform. It could've revolutionized the graphics and
gaming markets many years ago.
Trust me, Amiga-heads wonder about the answers to these same questions, over
and over, endlessly. To Vulcan-like techies, it seems "obvious" that superior
technology should rise to the top and become the most popular. That doesn't
always happen. In some ways, the PC market is entirely amorphous and sluggish.
Although it's changed in major ways several times since the Amiga arrived, from
8088 to 80286, to 386, to 486 and now Pentium, from ISA to EISA to PCI, from
CGA to EGA to VGA, it's rarely made significant improvements in areas known to
be lacking: interrupt contention, DMA bus speed, video output.
I like the Amiga, but if I look back on the past nine years, I've made more
money in the PC and Windows market.
Paul,
I think part of the problem has been the perception that the Amiga is just a
gaming machine and didn't have different applications. The PC being a
"bussiness" machine was therefore more paletteable. So a certain degree the MAC
has suffered a similar stereotype although not the "gaming" perception, which
ironically it seems to be excelling in. Video people have also adopted the MAC,
mostly because of its easy GUI. The PC falls into the worst of both worlds but
has broad flexibility. I've rendered on Macs and until recently they've been
excrutaitingly slow. I've been told its attributable to the Mac GUI. I don't
know. The Amiga on the other hand was designed for animation and graphics,
although all the Amiga heads I know what to buy an Indy, because they see that
SGI will give the support that the Amiga lacks. Also, according to the Amiga
Guru's Newtek has a stranglehold on what happens with the Amiga. And these
people aren't well liked by many. Promises made, promises broken kinda thing.
The PC has the advantage of mass production and no single vendor like the Mac
and the Amiga and I think this is what has contributed to PC's success. If Big
blue had hung on to the market, its anybodies guess what would have happened to
the Amiga. I would suggest that a strong marketing effort with an upgraded
image and new name would have put it where SGI is positioning the Indy. I'd be
curious to hear your perceptions of the four markets and specifically where you
think the Indy is going and what kind of impact it will have or does have.
-JE
John,
The Indy is an interesting piece of equipment. It has a phenomenal amount of
power, but like the Mac, it's GUI causes big headaches in the speed department.
Obviously the largest problem that SGI has faced in grabbing the "desktop"
market is Unix.
So many people in the Graphics industry are both hardware and software idiots.
I recently had a top salesman and his graphics guru for a world wide company
call me in the middle of the night to help them with a hardware problem. They
were trying to "clean" a hard drive off for a trade show the next day. Their
problem? They had tried for over an hour to get two directories off of the disk
and couldn't figure out how to do it. The directories, they told me, were dot
and dot dot. Quite obviously this level of expertise isn't exactly in line with
trudging around in Unix.
SGI has fixed this problem by creating Indigo Magic, for the most part even a
computer idiot can move around with relative ease. This has dramatically helped
in grabbing some of the high end desktop market.
Physically the Indy is a strong performer and with it's 1 meg cache, it is
faster than the Indigo2 on alot of 2D work. However, one of the biggest
problems is once again perception. The participants in the SGI market look at
it as a "stepchild" and the participants in the PC market think that it's going
to allow them to effectively compete with the high end animation houses. Both
assumptions are false. A good Indy is going to run $20,000 with an R4400/150,
24 bit graphics, 32 megs of ram, 1 gig drive, and 16 inch monitor. Add another
64 megs of ram for $9,000 and you're in business. $29,000 and you've got a baby
Indigo2 without 3D software. Sooooo…. all of a sudden there's once again a
big price difference between the two platforms. Outside of the gaming market, I
don't forsee it causing a tremendous change in the hardware market. But things
change quickly in today's world. At the SMPTE conference in November, Jim Clark
said that in less than two years it will cost less than $15,000 to purchase the
computing power that costs $150,000 today. That's quite a change. Almost any
hardware purchase that can't be paid off in less than 18 months is probably not
a wise decision. We depreciate everything over less than 18 months.
As to the use of the Indy, it's a very wise decision for those needing
processing power. For the price of a single 4 processor Onyx, one can put 10
Indy's on a network and more than double the computational power. This is
extremely useful for rendering. This is perhaps where the Indy's shine most for
the SGI based operations.
Sorry about the rambling. I'm tired. If you have further questions or more
specific questions throw them at me and I'll see what I can do.
Paul
Paul,
What funny stories you tell; trying to remove the "dot" and "dot dot"
directories. <g> Its an interesting world we live in. <BG>
Thanks for your perceptions on the Indy. A few months back there was a lot of
hoopla in the trades, which seems to somewhat have died off. I hadn't heard
numbers that high in terms of what was needed, but I can see from the breakdown
that realistically that's what you're going to want to spend if you decide to
go that route. That's a pretty large spread from here to there and kinda puts
the whole thing in perspective. 18 months depreciation seems to be right all
around.
-JE
John,
The base Indy is $4995. This includes a diskless(no floppy disk/no hard disk)
box with 16 megs of ram, a R4000PC CPU, 16KB cache, dithered 8 bit graphics, 15
inch monitor, keyboard and mouse.
The R4000PC chip is slow as molasses. Minimum working level tends to be R4000SC
CPU ($4000 upgrade), internal floptical drive($500), Internal 535 meg
HD($2500), 16 meg memory upgrade($1500), External CDROM($1200) that puts you at
$14,700. If you want a base Indy with 24 bit graphics, R4400/150 CPU, 96 megs
of ram, 1 gig HD, still without a floppy drive or CDRom, and only a 16" monitor
it will run you $29,000 direct from SGI. That doesn't include the $2000 per
year hardware support. Without the support, you're totally on your own. SGI
offers no warranty past 30 days after purchase other than the hardware support.
Paul
P.S. – We just bought 2 Indigo2 Extremes and 4 Indys, so I assure you the
prices are right on the mark.
>> We just bought 2 Indigo2 Extremes… , so I assure you the prices are right
on the mark.<<
I didn't doubt it. I find it interesting, as with my general perception about
SGI, that what they advertise and what you end up paying for a working system
at the level you need are often very different. Thanks again for the detailed
breakdown. Should make some folks around here do a serious reality check.
-JE
Paul or John:
>>18 months depreciation seems to be right all around.
Can this be done legally? I was called on this during an IRS audit a few years
ago. I thought software was 3 years and hardware was 5. I know this doesn't
make sense with reality but does anything with the IRS depreciation rules? The
only other way is to Sect. 179 expense the stuff until you reach your limit.
Don,
I don't think it can be done as far as the IRS is concerned. I was talking
about a totally different aspect. The time line that I use to depreciate
equipment for working use and the time line my accountant uses for the IRS are
totally different. The equipment stays on the books longer, but I use a
seperate, 18 month, time period to justify and pay for equipment. After the
equipment becomes useless to me, I give it away to a charitable organization,
school system, or the like, and write off the difference.
Paul
OK– That makes sense to me. I do the same thing here. eg. The Par system I
just bought is figured on a 12 month ROI. The betacam SP deck on a 4 year ROI.
When people use the term "depreciation" I tend to think tax code. I will
probably section 179 the PAR but set up a lease on the beta deck. I don't like
leases but if the equipment has a reasonable life exceeding the terms of the
lease then it works, if not then you get burned big time.
Does the Amiga use an interlaced monitor as its main monitor? I looked
at them early on and the display of windows, etc. always bothered me.
It looked "cheap" somehow, and I wonder if it is the display system
that they used.
At the same time they were having trouble with their system software.
Not the typical DOS-style wierd bugs that come bite you unexpectedly,
but by an overall lethargy that made you wonder if you were running
on floppies or the hard disk.
I never really regretted buying into the PC line (I'm on my fourth
machine at home now) but I could see, then and now, that the Amiga
has some really neat features that cost a lot to reproduce on other
machines.
Yes, the default video mode of early Amigas is/was analog RGB
interlace. Most serious users buy a de-interlacer card on a
multisync. Newer Amigas (A3000 and beyond) include the de-interlacer
on board, but haven't lost the video-out abilities.
I thought that the Amiga that I saw last week running with a video
toaster looked a lot better than what I remember of the machines that
I saw a while ago.
One of my friends keeps trying to sell me his old 2500, but I've got
two PCs now (a 386 and a 486) and it looks like the PAR will do a
whole lot more for me.
Chris, John's correct the earlier versions didn't include the
interlacer, the newer version does. Actually the Amiga has come a
long way. It depends on your orientation whether it makes sense to go
that route or not. I view it this way. Mac's are the easiest to use
but don't give you very much flexibility. PC's are in the middle.
Fairly easy to use if you want to rely on the Windows interface, but
you've got the guts to play with with DOS and programming. Not to
mention a fairly large proliferation of hardware and software.
Amiga's are the Nerd machines although this isn't a really fair
assessment. They were designed around graphics from the start. I like
these Amiga guys cause they're always messing with something. <g>.
This one acquaitance of mine was programming his music chip to do
rendering. (You don't ask why, in this situations.<BG>) The whole
system is layed out to do specific tasks which is a nice feature from
a programming standpoint. And you can believe Bablyon 5 has a team of
mutant Amiga heads, tweaking and modifying and rewriting the system,
much as NASCAR does with "a stock chevy". But then the Amiga lends
itself to this. If I had an Amiga I never get anything done. <g>
Cause I'd be tweaking it all the time too, just for fun. 🙂
Programming a music chip to do rendering is wacky, surely. As for the other
kinds of "tweaking," it's not as low-level as you might imagine. For example,
the Foundation Imaging team might do most of their programming in ARexx, a
simple scripting language that controls and links applications. Imagine if the
PC had this… you could tie 3DS directly to Animator, Fauve Matisse and your
Exabyte. The scripts become custom labor-saving devices.
John,
<< a simple scripting language that controls and links applications. Imagine
if the PC had this… you could tie 3DS directly to Animator, Fauve Matisse
and your Exabyte. The scripts become custom labor-saving devices. >>
I'll take it as a wish.
jonas[adesk]
John, I'm aware of the ARexx and it is a great feature. Maybe the idea will
catch on in R4. After all Animator Pro has POCO. And just so you know, I admire
the ingenuity of these Amiga guys. Experimentation is the mother of invention.
<G>
-JE
One of my friends has had an Amiga for quite a while (a 2500) and
keeps trying to sell it to me. It turns out that he **isn't** doing
video stuff and all of the commercial software that he really likes
runs on the PC.
My use for an Amiga would be for video, and I'm already happily using
3D Studio. Given an infinite amount of money <g> I would end up
with one of everything eventually – but for right now I think that
I'll stick to my DOS machines.
I'm glad that I bought my original XT class machine before I saw the
original Amiga. I probably would have bought one, and I ended up
writing data acquisition software on PCs at work for a few years.
Having a machine at home made life a lot easier.
I wouldn't buy a 2500 except maybe to play with. Quite frankly I've
got plenty to play with all ready, and don't need anymore
distractions. There is plenty of stuff for the PC as your budget
allows. And if you can afford the higher priced items like an
Illuminator/MAX/Producer or Targa 2000 you'll be way ahead of the
game.
The Amiga is always on the borderline of falling down, there's never
any guarantee there will be a tomorrow. Which is why many of the
Amiga guys want to go the SGI route. I think SGI is overkill for what
I need. To me it comes down to creative talent in the final analysis
not what platform you use. That's why 3DS on the PC is the great
equalizer, because without the creativity you've just got a box that
has all these features but is no better than the operator. From an
artistic standpoint 3DS is easy to use powerful and flexible. But it
depends on why you want to do this stuff.
Some guys get off on writing code. Some on building their systems
and some on creating. Depending on your inclination, you might have
a tendency to lean more towards one platform than another. The PC
suits me just fine because there is a lot of good software at a
reasonable price and all things considered is a good value for the
money. But anyone can argue any point in favor of their preference,
as there are pro's and con's to each approach. What works for you is
what counts. 3DS works for me, so the rest is a moot point. <g>
John: Yeah, I'm happy with 3DS on a DOS machine. I'm using a 486DX2-66 at home,
and I can **always** use a faster machine. I'm thinking about networking my 386
and 486 together instead of getting a faster machine.
I've used a couple of SGI machines, but never with a real animation package,
mostly with RenderMan and some visualization software like Fast. We had
problems with the genlock boards on both of the machines that we've done
animations on, and you end up spending a whole lot to get to the point that I'm
at right now with my 486 and 3DS. (A version of 3DS on our 4 processor 4D/340
**would** be neat)
I used to do a lot of coding and I enjoyed it. I don't do as much anymore, but
I like to have a machine that I can program without too much additional
difficulty.
Chris
Chris,
I think you'll find when all is said and done that the amount of money you have
in invested in your 386 would warrant your purchasing another 486-66. Its kind
of a curious thing but I've gone through and itemized the costs/benefit for all
the components in a system and a new motherboard all things being equal is one
of the best investments you can make. The price of RAM and it utilisation is
further enhanced by the preformance advantage of a faster motherboard and when
you add up the component costs already invested in a 386 its really quite
amazing what a good value an up-graded board provides. Just something to think
about. Networking is an investment which will probably total close to the
purchase of a new motherboard, so I understand the dilemma, and its kinda hard
to move forward without a network.
Knowing that you used to do some coding, you might check into the IPAS3, its
got a lot of powerful features and just might get you interested in doing some
programming again. <g>
-JE
I was waiting for this account on your trial of the PAR. Thanks for
the real world account. The TBC IV sounds better than I had hoped by
your account of its color correction capabilities. Whilst the
install is still fresh in your mind, is there any chance you could
condense the problems you had into a step by step text file for the
ASOFT library? For your efforts I could repay you by detonating a
small tactical thermonuclear device in the proximity of John Ellis
<Huge G>.
>> For your efforts I could repay you by detonating a small tactical
thermonuclear device in the proximity of John Ellis
My gosh that thread must have had the whole world rolling in laughter.
I hope nobody ever takes the fun and games John and I do for
serious. We just get punchy between jobs I guess. When things get
busy around here I tend to get serious. I will say one thing though
You could probably achieve the same results by sending John a copy of
Rush Limbaugh's book. <BG> But don't do it on my account, John's OK
in my book, he bailed me out of a real jam once with his targa name
utilities. Good tools to have around if you're a Diaquest user.
As far as the installation is concerned, there were two problems I
encountered. You might not ever have the problem depending on your
situation. I spoke to Gus earlier this evening and he put the
problem in perspective for me. Here goes:
1. If you must use other than the default I/O port you will discover
that the manual is backwards on page 19 showing the dip switches if
you reverse the order to 4321 the chart will comply.
2. If you use a larger than 540 meg HD there will be an extra step to
format the drive that is not in the installation manual. I called
DPS tech support and their tech walked me through it in 2 minutes. As
soon as I told him I was using the Mic 2210A drive he knew exactly
what the problem was.
Other people may find other problems but for me this was all it took
to get everything to work better than I even expected.
BTW I've had the PAR drive loaded with a repeating animation for six
hours now and it keeps running without choking except for the T-cal
every 12 minutes.
>>For your efforts I could repay you by detonating a small tactical
thermonuclear device in the proximity of John Ellis<<
>>ou could probably achieve the same results by sending John a copy of Rush
Limbaugh's book<<
ROFL big time!!!!!
Don:
Just as you and John enjoy mixing it up here on the forum, I enjoy reading the
flame mail as it can be very entertaining as well as informative. I've come to
count on John to toss in a CIS grenade if anybody sings the praises of anything
too loudly. Thanks again for your PAR account.
Bob
P.S. I was down in your neck of the woods last week, Marco Island & Coral
Gables. I saw this creature that I've never seen before and thought you might
be able to give it a name. It was in a shallow bay and was swimming near the
surface. It had no skeleton and looked very squid-like except that there were
no tentacles. Instead of tentacles it had this ray-like undulating body fin.
If this description isn't good enough maybe I could model it in 3ds <g>.
Bob,
You're right, I do lob a grenade in now and then, and for good reason. Its
called "objectivity". While you might not like my style, I hope you can
appreciate the intent. This is a complex business in many ways and one of the
most complicating factors is that there are a lot of options but no single
solution. The PAR is a good case in point. I weigh these pro's and con's as
well as anyone. And if it makes me unpopular to point out the negative so be
it. It is important to recognize the drawbacks as well as the benefits. That's
the only way someone can make a valid decision on what approach will work best
for them. There is often alot more emphasis on the positive rather than the
negative. And also a lot of wishful thinking. When one buys something one would
like to conclude that they're making an intelligent decision based on facts. If
all you want to hear is the pillow talk, just avoid my comments. Maybe I can
Jeffrey Pike to put a little flag next to all the threads I respond to, that
way you can avoid "the reality check." <g>
-JE
John:
<<<While you might not like my style, I hope you can appreciate the intent.>>>
Don't get me wrong, I'm saying that I find your input quite valuable. I've
learned a buttload from hearing both sides to all of the topics that show up
here on the forum. The PAR is a perfect example. No flags next to threads
please, I do appreciate your objective intent.
Bob
Fair enough Bob, we'll try to keep it open and objective, but you can
understand if it gets a little heated now and then. <g> Really, I think a lot
of Don, we have many of the same interests, in some cases we just end up
approaching it from different angles. The net result being that we explore
whatever it is, fairly in-depth, which I hope would be of some benefit. Once in
awhile we step on each others toes, but when all is said and done, Don comes
through like a champ, and so do I, once in awhile. <G>
-JE
I, for one appreciate your occasional grenade. It's refreshing to
read a few "objective" opinions.
Well Scott thanks for the Kudos, and at an opportune time as well, as
I've just completed my preliminary evaluation of the PAR.
As I've said before there are a lot of options and no single solution
because everybody's situation is a little different. Features in one
approach may be very important to some while features in another
approach will be more imporant to others.
Having said this, I'd rather address the PAR with regard to my
particular application rather than trying to second guess how others
might want to use it.
My intended application has been as a production tool. Because my
final output needs to be at a Broadcast quality level. I consider
animations put to tape frame by frame on Beta SP or Animations
transferred to Abekas or D1 as being of the necessary quality to meet
this criteria. On the other hand, I have been able to create
animations with a Targa and put them to Laser Disk with very good
result. Many in Broadcast have accepted the Laser Disk as an
efficient means of transferring animations before finalising to tape.
But that is the minimum level of quality as the Laser Disk is
considered Beta not Beta Sp. People in the business know the
difference and if its going to be a problem, I know up front, and
will typically use Beta SP.
By these standards the PAR fits somewhere in between SVHS and Laser
Disk. It has better resolution than the Targa but it also has the
inherent JPEG attributes, so its not a reasonable comparison. And
that's part of the problem. What do you compare it with? Its
different. Its different like Laser Disk and Video Tape. Maybe too
much focus has been placed on its ability to meet broadcast
requirements. What should be pointed out is that for the money and
its capability it is an outstanding value. For an aspiring animator
with a limited budget its a real bargain. As an experienced animator
looking for a prodution tool to help in the development and design of
animations, the PAR will be most invaluable. That the PAR is an
economical way to preview animations at broadcast resolution and save
the wear and expense of the alternatives is reason enough for
acquiring it. In this regard it will pay for itself in short order.
Its other attributes are icing on the cake. Like being able to splice
mutiple animations, like being able to output to Beta for sound track
sync, like multiple first generation copies, like convience of
archiving, the list goes on and on. And I wouldn't rule out a whole
other market, that until now, I hadn't considered economically
viable. The other debates will be drowned out by all the applications
people will find for it. And that's my perspective, what's your? <g>
By you qualifying your standard of what constitutes "broadcast
quality" in your discussion I find your evaluation accurate and
concur with your findings. I only hope the development of faster
hard drives comes quickly to improve on those compression artifacts.
>> I saw this creature…..
I would need more description. Color, shape of fin(s). Size. Eyes? Mouth?
etc. You left out much important info. What was your visual perspective?
Above or underwater?
Don:
This creature was squid-pink with dark eyes. There was only this one ray-like
undulating fin. Couldn't see a mouth. I was standing on a dock and this quy
was about 1 foot long and about 1.5 inches in diameter around its head,
although I wouldn't say that it was cylindrical in shape. The head/unfinned
portion was about 4 inches in length.
Bob
P.S. Just to keep this under the right header, this creature was much thicker
that the PAR board and could swim faster if startled.
Thanks for posting your experiences and problems witht the PAR
installation. Maybe you could detail those steps regarding the extra
step formating the drive you mentioned.
Michael:
>> Maybe you could detail those steps regarding the extra step formatting the
>> drive you mentioned.
pardrv /u ; unload driver
pardrv /format ; format the disk – full format, undocumented, BTW
Greg Pyros
Greg:
Thank you sir. This little info has been duly recorded, set aside in the PAR
tech notes file. <G>
Did you get ship all those PAR boxes yet?
Michael B.
Yo,
Watch it for the PARDRV /FORMAT option. It won't ask you any question. It will
"totally" wipe out everything you have in the PAR disk as soon as you press
enter. If that's what you want, perfect. If not, don't try it! <g>
I did one extra step that Brick, DPS tech, instructed me to.
>>pardrv /u ; unload driver
pardrv /format ; format the disk – full format, undocumented, BTW
3. Launch PAR and then in the prefs. section click on format and answer yes to
do it.
Hey, Don, glad to hear you're up and running. Any more client's
comments on quality comparisons would be appreciated here.
I have a meeting scheduled with a high end industrial/broadcast post
house that has made a meager attempt at animation only to discover
how difficult it is, that it's really a specialty. He was eager to
hear about the PAR's output capability with MII and CAV. The
meeting's next week. I'll keep you posted. The other two big boys
in town have purchased Abekases and SGI machines so they won't be
interested in what I can do. I also heard that one of the local
network stations just bought a bunch of UVW-1800s so I'm going to stop
in to show them because they aparently haven't been bitten by the
anti UVW snobbery. Local cable is purported to be cutting back on
animation frills because of the latest FCC rulling on rates. Haven't
confirmed this yet but these are the markets I'm going to hit now.
Thanks, Don. You certainly seem to have your finger on the pulse of
your local animation market. PAR-to-UVW sounds like a good platform.
Hopefully, I'll be eye-balling some PAR-to-BetaSP stuff soon.
The strategy of the upgrade is "no weak links in the chain" and that includes
the customer. The 507 rig is a bit strong though. but if there are any strong
links it's best to put them up front of the chain.
Re the pulse of the local animation market– I wish I did. The best I could
judge is that it needs a pace maker. Last year nobody was doing active
animation except myself and a few accident reconstruction companies. Two
months later we have two A-66/SGI operations here. That end of the business I
know nothing about.