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yes, the openFX standard is under development… BUT note… a good app allows you to make these looks without the help of plugins… so be weary of what you get into.
As far as ease of use, my vote is for piranha…. but i will never discount flame as a good vfx engine.
hello,
i would also not choose avid cause of x86.
a highend editor with wintel is a joke. and for $150,000 it’s a HUGE joke 😉
fcp or even shake are not the same level and osx or even linux still have their way to go. not sure if they’ll exceed a certain level ever.like the others said i would also go for piranha or discreet. the sgi versions, of course.
>>If one built an Apple system with a $150k budget 8 streams of realtime HD can be achieved!!
Huh… no.
At 1920×[email protected] 24 fps * 8 layers, that’s 1.1 GigaBytes per second. That’s faster than RAM throughput, and *definitely* faster than xServe RAID speeds.
As for DS HD, one thing that struck me as a problem when I saw a demo of DS HD is that it couldn’t playback HD material on the graphics monitor properly. You *had* to use the HD SDI output to see your clips in HD at full rez. Is that always the case for DS HD?
On the other hand, Smoke HD can show you your clips at full rez on the graphics monitor. Smoke (like all discreet stuff) even genlocks the graphics to avoid mismatches between playback rate and monitor refresh rate.
Can DS (or FCP) manage uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB media in real-time? I thought DS used some “light” compression scheme on it’s real-time HD footage. I might be wrong, though… Can a DS HD user enlighten me, please?
— Xavier
FCP in 4:4:2 10 bit color space for HD, i don’t know about Nitris but the DS system before Nitris worked in 8 bit HD in realtime which was the big drawback compared to Quantel or discreet. I suspect that DS Nitris is 10bit HD.
FCP should be 12bit with version 5 because all the capture cards coming out for the G5 are 12bit
Avid DS Nitris is 10bit HD see below
Avid DS Nitris
Supercharge your creativity with the industryÂ’s hottest SD and HD solution for high-performance finishing and mastering. The Avid® DS Nitris™ system is designed for editors and artists who want the ultimate in quality, real-time performance, automatic conform, creative versatility, and interoperability. It combines deep creative editing and finishing software with the revolutionary Avid Nitris Digital Nonlinear Accelerator™ for guaranteed real-time editing and effects. Scale from DV25 to multiple streams of 10-bit uncompressed and compressed HD – even 2K/4K media. Unleash the power of Avid DNX™ highefficiency HD and take full advantage of Avid Unity shared storage networks and productivity tools for real-time, collaborative HD production. Create, edit, and master TV programs, films, and commercials – even theatrical releases – with the ultimate Avid finishing system: Avid DS Nitris.Don’t really see why you would pay so much for Nitris when you can get higher quality cheaper with Smoke 6. Far from the ultimate finiishing system. Fire 6 is the ultimate finishing system!!!!!!!!!!
rareelement wrote:Fire 6 is the ultimate finishing system!!!!!!!!!!yeah, true!! 😀
Quote:Don’t really see why you would pay so much for Nitris when you can get higher quality cheaper with Smoke 6. Far from the ultimate finiishing system. Fire 6 is the ultimate finishing system!!!!!!!!!!Well, it depends on what you are doing. I just worked on an HD show that was a conform from avid. The AAfs had up to 13 levels of video with multiple Sapphire plug-ins everywhere. In talking to the main Smoke guy where I work It would be alot more work on a Smoke because of all the re-building from scratch of every graphic segment. On DS this still wasn’t easy because of how DS decifers certain avid effects but translating was still pretty straigtforward.
All sytems are compromises. Discreet has better 3D DVE capability and better media management. DS has a more flexible workflow and the effects tree.
I like them both for different reasons.
I still kinda miss the Quantel Henry I used to run, warts and all.
There are many many things about Smoke* that I miss. Havn’t been on it since v4. It has the best motion tracker and DVE that I’ve used. I do mainly longform stuff though and it just aint the box to do it on. Awesome for music videos and spots but that’s about it. Nitris is great but it’s priced about twice what it otta be at. If it were 70k, I’d get one but at Smoke prices it just aint worth it.
The FCP remarks are to be looked into, man. You should also test drive the Sony Xpri before making a decision. A smoke it’s not but then neither is it’s pricetag. A little more realistic than Avid. That’s something to take into consideration too… Avid. It’s pretty obvious their focus is not on the high end but on the low end. Symphony has faded away, Media Composer got slapped hard with the XDV ugly stick and they just sunk an ungoldly amount of fundage into the consumer market. They would rather sell software on the shelves of best buy than remain the industry standard. I’m not saying Nitris will be totally neglected but I can tell you not as much focus will speant on it’s future as the future versions of Smoke, Fire and Inferno. Avid still hasn’t been able to make a product like DS. They’ve upgraded a bit since buying it but that’s about it. hardly worth six figures.
I dare say Avid won’t be getting anymore of my money.My 2.336 cents…
I have smoke running on an Octane 2 and a PC running linux. The linux box does not do HDIO (for now), but it does work with HD material. I can tell you that, based on my own internal benchmarks, the linux box is 2-4 times faster than the octane2. You can probably pick up a smoke on linux for $60k-$80k, and I would bet the number is closer to $60k. So, ask yourself how much a tricked out Mac for FCP would be, and figure it out from there.
Ultimately, it’s a tool. You only have yourself to sell.
HTH,
Andy
Times do change. Years ago I was anti-Avid…until I bought one.
I tried some of the cheaper options including the first iteration of FCP…thought it was a huge batch of worthless code.
I use Smoke v6 now and it is hands down the best finishing/compositing system I’ve ever touched, although I hate UNIX/IRIX. I’m hearing wonderful things about Smoke on Linux…if you’re not in need of HD, which we’re not for a while.
A friend edits on Avid DS and loves it.
Some other folks I know are considering adding a couple of FCP/SD systems to their Avids. They want me to consult a bit….I’m still scared of FCP, once you get that taste in your mouth…hard to wash out. I’ll try to make a fair evaluation of it. It better knock my #$%# in the dirt for me to recommend anything MAC!
NLE Editing systems from Sony seem to support the acronym Soon Only Not Yet.
What’s an honest editor to do?
Certainly no one system is going to handle it all, but most of them have some good strong points. They just have to suit you…I guess.smokeguy wrote:Times do change. Years ago I was anti-Avid…until I bought one.
I tried some of the cheaper options including the first iteration of FCP…thought it was a huge batch of worthless code.
I use Smoke v6 now and it is hands down the best finishing/compositing system I’ve ever touched, although I hate UNIX/IRIX.why?
Quote:I’m hearing wonderful things about Smoke on Linuxreally? what things?
i mean except for the price 😆
but it doesn’t matter cause you hate unix so you can’t take linux as well.Quote:…They just have to suit you…I guess.very good statement!
it’s only about the price and the personal preference.My reasons for not caring for UNIX/IRIX is just that it feels like I’m back in the dos prompt days. I’m an editor who likes to create; not “geek around” with code and commands. I need stuff to work fast. I know Smoke on Linux would be similar to UNIX if you have to get into code crap, there’s no way around that I guess. I haven’t had a chance to experience Smoke on PC yet but the good things I hear are it is blazing fast. Considerably faster than the much more expensive Octane 2 and it blows away the little MXE I have to work with today. I have also had pretty bad luck with the MXE hardware, many components including mother board replaced in first year.
So if it were my choice today I would get Smoke on Linux.
But for basic cutting I would go with an Avid and finish in Smoke.Just my 2.25 cents worth.
smokeguy wrote:My reasons for not caring for UNIX/IRIX is just that it feels like I’m back in the dos prompt days.you know that the most unices have a desktop? 😉
anyway you’re the editor so the system stuff has to be done by your admin.Quote:I haven’t had a chance to experience Smoke on PC yet but the good things I hear are it is blazing fast.always a matter of what is compared.
Quote:Considerably faster than the much more expensive Octane 2 and it blows away the little MXE I have to work with today.must be the reason why octanes are not sold any more 😉
mxe came out in 1998! imagine a pc from those days…the issue is one has to compare current stuff with current stuff. otherwise
it makes no sense.Quote:I have also had pretty bad luck with the MXE hardware, many components including mother board replaced in first year.really bad luck!!
in general sgi stuff is VERY stable and reliable.Quote:So if it were my choice today I would get Smoke on Linux.without having tested smoke/tezro??
what? no…you cant be serious!
how can you even begin to compare an apple Mac osx fcp to a discreet smoke 6 sgi product?it makes no sense and as i can see that you are all beginning
editors and possibly never experience any of them…..
but however, on another subject…if you did some how come a cross enough money or “funds” to buy a discreet system i would recommenddiscreet “fire” for edit/finish(that is, if you wanna play with the big boys!)
other than that… debate software topics that actually make sense!
ron_poler wrote:what? no…you cant be serious!
how can you even begin to compare an apple Mac osx fcp to a discreet smoke 6 sgi product?it makes no sense and as i can see that you are all beginning
editors and possibly never experience any of them…..
but however, on another subject…if you did some how come a cross enough money or “funds” to buy a discreet system i would recommenddiscreet “fire” for edit/finish(that is, if you wanna play with the big boys!)
other than that… debate software topics that actually make sense!
totally agreed!!
thank you VERY much 😛
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