flint 9 over flame/inferno?

[Anonymous]

does anyone here see any drawbacks to starting a new company based around flint 9 (comparded to starting one with flame or inferno) other than the obvious no modular keyer and the other features flint does’t have. it basically does everything the flame and inferno can do (at least for commercial work) no motion estimation could get third party software no 3d tracker can also get 3rd party modular keyer same thing (master keyer seems pretty good just by itself) (i like the modular keyer but i definately get by without it.) one issue that i could think of, is the possibility of not being able to charge as much but the client generally isn’t going to know the difference between a flint and a flame (the interface looks the same) the ibm system seems very fast and combined with burn you could really get through stuff fast. i guess the heart of the matter is why would you spend all that money on a flame or inferno when you could really get by with a flint (as long as your not interested in doing feature work).

[TurboWidget]

Over and above the minor differences in software functionality, don’t forget the video I/O. flint on Linux is locked down to standard def only, no HD I/O whatsoever, and the general concensus is that the current hardware config of the Linux box will NEVER be able to support realtime HD I/O. And flint Linux is only 8 bit and that’s not going to change until discreet change the graphics card.

Having said that, one of our clients down here did a performance comparison between flame on a 4P Tezro and flint on Linux using the same 8bit SD material and in nearly all cases, flint matched the flame for speed. And I’m told the sparks for flint Linux are blisteringly fast.

It comes down to which market you intend servicing, if HD is a requirement in the near future, you’re better off going to extra mile and getting flame. In the greater scheme of things, when you add up the overall costs of setting up a HD facility, (compared to SD) the difference between flint and flame is pretty marginal.

Chris – South Africa.

[Anonymous]

well my position right now is would only be working in sd, where i work now basically thats all we do anyway. we maybe have the need to do a job in hd maybe once every 3 or 4 months. We’ve discussed the possibility of doing hd i/o with a g5 equip’t with a deck link hd card or kona or whatever it is and just sending the files over a network and vice versa for outputting. i’ve also heard a rumor that discreet may be upgrading the flint so that it will be 10 bit and HD i/o capable. Other than that i think the flint is going to be a great choice for what we need to do. (thats very reasuring that you’ve done a test between the 4p tezro and the ibm linux and they matched, wow!!)

thanks for the response.

[TurboWidget]

It sounds like you’ve done you homework and flint on Linux (or Flinux as it’s sometimes called) should be ideal.
I don’t know what the deal is in the USA, but on this side of the pond, if you go for the flint/smoke bundle it works out less expensive than just buying flint ! I guess discreet are making a big push to get smoke into the market. You’d have to check with your local reseller.
Great thing about the bundle is it gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of the kind of work you could take on. As a start-up company, you’ll need all the work you can get and smoke adds the on-line / finishing tools necessary for more traditional editorial projects.

Good luck
chris.

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