News posts from 2002

[Jeff Donald]

You don't have to blow all your money on hardware. That's a common PC myth about Macs. I don't want this to turn into a Mac vs. PC war, but used and refurbished Macs are available for very reasonable sums. The savings in the software (FCP vs. Avid Xpress DV) will make up for price differences in hardware. So, the next time your upgrading hardware consider a Mac and the advantages it offers. All things considered a switch might be in order.

Jeff

[Jacques Mersereau]

We have both systems here at The U of M Media Union.
Avid XpressDV and Final Cut Pro are both great IMO.
You can't go wrong running either of these two programs.

I learned on Avid, so I prefer XpressDV over Final Cut, BUT Final Cut
has an incredible array of tools and capabilities. Apple isn't
holding any features back, whereas Avid sells $150K systems, and
therefore doesn't want to kill that market by giving XpressDV
90% of a Symphony's function.

We had a demo of Avid DS (Softimage digital studio) a couple
of weeks ago. Now THAT, is da BOMB!

[Martin Munthe]

Yeah. The Avid DS is what? $350 000? That will buy you 35 uncompressed FCP setups...

[Henrik Bengtsson]

Yes. Avid|DS is expensive beyond most setups. And question is if you really make any progress since for that money you get one impressive Uncompressed FCP + AFX setup which technically can rival most of the stuff you can do with the DS system. And if you are fleshing out $350k (not even sure this is enough) for a DS (which btw is for the base system, you need some additional hardware to get the system fast and easy to use). And if you are looking at that kinda system why not start looking at a Flame or Smoke.

You need some serious clients with serious money to afford that kinda system. I worked on one for 2 years and was laid off due to lack of clients.

/Henrik

[Jeff Chandler]

Your point is taken, Jeff. I should have explained that I teach video production at a high school, and because of budget concerns they are not purchasing any new equipment for me. I build my own PC's and I had one that I had been running Premiere on, so I bought the the academic version of XDV3 for $500. As far as I know, Apple doesn't offer academic pricing on software. I wanted my more advanced students to have have the opportunity to edit on something other than Premiere, to help prepare them for the next level. I would like to offer FCP to them too, but my personal budget won't allow it. Unfortunately, with the heavy emphasis on increasing academic performance, many schools are cutting back on expensive technology classes. It's a shame (and I think very shortsighted), because I have a girl that is a Junior that has been making money editing event videos. And I have others that are getting close to that level. I need about 10 more editing stations with any editing software right now, but I won't get them. If funds become available though, I will keep your sggestion in mind.

[Chris Hurd]

I thought Apple offered FCP at an educational rate.

Jeff, you might want to look into Pinnacle Edition:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage.asp?Product_ID=561&Langue_ID=7

and also the Canopus products:

http://www.canopus.com

I know for a fact that Canopus has an academic sales channel. Hope this helps,

[Jeff Donald]

Hi Jeff,

What a coincedence, I teach also (digital photography and photography). Apple sells FCP for $299 (educational discount). In your situation I would look at several year old iMacs. My 9 year old son edits on his iMac (mostly movies about his hamster) that is 2 years old. I bought it on ebay for $500.

Apple has educational discounts on their hardware also. Take a look here http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/243/wo/IO5KQ1Pny1lYpQE9zj/0.3.0.3.16.4.0?44,7 for educational discounts. This also might help http://www.apple.com/education/

Jeff

[Jeff Chandler]

Thanks for the responses, Chris and Jeff. I knew that Apple offered academic discounts on their hardware, but I hadn't found that info about their software. I should have asked here sooner! Your suggestions are very helpful. I may have to check that credit card balance!
Jeff, is your school cutting back on technical and vocational classes? I have talked to technology teachers in other districts in Arizona, and it seems to be a growing problem here. What concerns me is that, although I think raising academic standards is a worthy goal, I'm afraid that we are beginning to treat all students as if they are going to a four year college, when many would be better served by going on to technology schools where they can get training specific to their career goals. It's hard for them to discover that, though, if we end up eliminating technology classes.

[Jeff Donald]

I don't teach in Public Education at this time (I teach at a Fine Arts school). However, I did briefly teach Video Production at a Vocational High School in Ohio several years ago. The cut backs in Florida are not good. But lots of money for constuction because of the ever increasing student enrollment. I've only lived in Florida a little over a year and the education system down here is way behind education in the more northern states.

It seems to me this whole vocational education issue runs in cycles. I remember back in the '70s vocational education was thought to be the wave of the future and huge sums of money went into building seperate vocational buildings to teach the trades. The problem was that for the most part they didn't teach technology. They taught printing, auto mechanics, carpentry etc. Cutting edge technology, like computer science, was taught at the main high school because CS was a college program. Now, much of CS can be taught at a vocational level. But no money for the equipment.

Jeff

[Richard Alvarez]

Nice review of XpressDV 3.5 in this months dDV magazine by Frank Capria. He rates Avid XPressDVover FCP...

"Xpress DV 3.5 is the best software-only NLE I have ever used. For facilities that do a significant amount of DV editing, it's worth the $500 difference in street price over Apple's Final Cut Pro. This is getting to be fun. I can hardly wait to seee how Apple counters."

That's why there are reviews....

[Jacques Mersereau]

Frank and I have crossed swords many times on the Avid L
in the past four years. He has always been a big Avid supporter
and user, so like everyone, he most likely has his bias.

As I said in my previous post, I prefer XpressDV
to FCP because I am intimate with Avid, and I would guess
the same goes for Frank. Avid's interface is still more elegant
and easy than FCP, but . . .

Restating my position, BOTH of these programs are great!
If you are way into PC, that makes the choice easy.
I would also say that FCP does much more for a grand than
XpressDV "base" program. The cool stuff doesn't
really begin until you get the $3500 "loaded" xpressdv.

[Don Berube]

This summer, JVC very quietly introduced the JVC HM-DH3000 D-VHS recorder for a list price of $1999.00, with a retail price of $1299.00. D-VHS/ D-Theatre (dvhs.com) is advertising the unit for $999.00, and I am also seeing this unit being advertised elsewhere on the web between $769 - $899. That's assuming that they have them in stock of course, which many sites are claiming that they do. hmmmmmmmmmmm,,,

I would like to know if anyone here has yet invested in D-VHS and what their experiences have been so far? I know the video inputs are either composite or S-Video, but the JVC HM-DH3000 DOES offer IEEE1394 I/O, so how about using the DataVideo DAC-2 Bi-Directional DV to Y.U.V. Convertor to input component video?
http://www.datavideo-tek.com/content/product_info/dvformatconverters/dac2/dac2_specifications.htm

Does anyone in here know of a better solution in this price range?

Also, if you have seen and/ or used this unit, or if you have any experience with D-VHS/ D-Theatre equipment, please do add your input below.

Looking forward to some good responses!

JVC HM-DH3000 links:
http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?modelId=MODL026758&page=2

More from dvhsmovie.com:
http://www.dvhsmovie.com/hardware/hardware-detail.asp?hid=1

CNET REVIEW:
http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0-6342375-1305-9718907.html?tag=rev-rev

BuyDig.com: (supposedly in stock for $769)
http://www.buydig.com/cgi-local/shop/web_store.cgi?cart_id=6596177133.1034124376&page=outlet_frontpage_db.html&details=yes&exact_match=on &pro_id=JVCMDH30000U&search_request_button=yes&accy=&as=

- don

[Keith Luken]

This may be stupid, but why invest in DVHS, you have no compatability with anyone else. Why not output to DVD. I assume the attraction is DVHS has larger capacity, but I think they are late to the game making DVHS affordable, had they dropped it in 2 years ago at say $500 I think plenty of preople would have hopped on board. My guess is there is a niche for it, but a shrinking one at that.

[Don Berube]

Hi Keith,

Not a dumb question at all Keith. Certainly, this technology format will probably be replaced in a few years by some form of HD DVD player/ recorder. Don't forget that this is a stand-alone unit with multiple analog and digital I/O. I'm hearing about some editors who are picking up these units to create a DV tape "master" of projects with timelines that exceed the 80-minute tape length of miniDV or the 3-hour tape length of DVCam for that matter. I'm sure that any good video dub/ transfer house is capable of handling a D-VHS tape.

It also makes one very sweet "VHS" recorder to have around the house, if you are into recording high-quality digital video and do not want to stock up on multiple hard drives. I'm sure that the cost of one D-VHS tape that allows you to record a good 4 hours at the highest level of 1080i HDTV quailty is still a lot cheaper than a 60GB or higher hard drive to record -and- store that same 4 hours of 1080i HDTV quality video.

As JVC puts it for those who want "a recorder capable of recording capturing HDTV broadcasts in their original, full high-definition quality, D-VHS is capable of recording 50 GigaBytes on a single tape.

That's approximately 4 hours of 1080i HD broadcast, 8 hours of standard television definition (STD), or 24 hours of LS3, digitally recorded in MPEG-2 format (the same compression used in mastering DVDs) — great for digital archiving.

Now users can record and playback in analog VHS, Super VHS and Super VHS ET, as well as high definition digital D-VHS — all on one deck"

Still contemplating the idea myself, but for certain applications it does seem to make a lot of sense. It sure seems to be a lot cheaper than any standalone HD DVD player/ recorder solution that may (or may not) exist in the here and now.

- don

[Joe Carney]

There are actually a few movies released in this format. HiDef stuff, but it supports Dolby 5.1 only, none for DTS. Still it does sound like a cheap way to go HD.