This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] Re: Anyone love or hate the Blackmagic Ultrascope?

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Re: [Avid-L2] Re: Anyone love or hate the Blackmagic Ultrascope?

It's lacking only when compared to 50,000 buck omnitechs and much more engineering oriented scopes.

It's more than adequate for delivery if any network show as a tech check.

I work in pal so u and v are up/down and left/right if I and q vectors are such a big deal you can china graph them in your screen for much less than the cost of another scope, but if you don't know where they are by now...

I look at them as being the ev, hamlet or systems video scopes of today. Sure they aren't tex scopes but they get the job done.

However I love the r g b overlaid big waveforms in the davinci scope set and I keep asking grant to put that in ultrascope as an option instead of the video display. Is also like a diamond and bow tie but I believe these are not licensed.

Having said that the histogram display means my photoshop people can now use a scope as that alone helped them understand what's going on... There's more to scopes these days than a bow tie or diamond display.

Mike

On 10 Nov, 2013, at 2:47 am, "johnrobmoore" <bigfish@pacbell.net> wrote:

How would you define basic work? Presence of signal and basic signal integrity? There is no doubt the Ultrascope can be used to deliver a show but as you say it is lacking for color correction. What tasks do you throw at the Ultrascope and what do you assign the more functional scopes?

--- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <tcurren@...> wrote:
>
> LOve the cost, hate it for color correction. For basic work, it's more than adequate. Take an old PC, add a new OGL 2 GFX card (less than 100 bucks) and you now have a scope.
>
>
> ---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <bigfish@> wrote:
>
> The Ultrascope while functional, and I have color corrected shows with them by bringing in my own Tek 601A to have access to the diamond display I like to offer an additional screen, are a very basic layout with no I and Q vectors and no expanded vectorscope function. Someone please correct me if these deficiencies have been addressed. Many have been asking for I and Q for years, it's just a little graphic file that you overlay to the vector display section which can't be much work, but alas it seems to fall on deaf ears. This lack of refinement is something I won't put up with in my day to day work.
>
> What do you need the scope for? The Ultrascope does offer error logging but I've found the EBU preset overly sensitive so I've had to detune that to avoid unnecessary error alarms.
>
> What is support and performance worth to you. I am a huge fan of Tektronix on all levels. They cost more but what is failing QC and a redelivery worth to you. I've been able to able to get a b stock scope at over 50% off and it's paid for itself in the first few jobs.
>
> On multiple occasions I've sent screen shots of waveforms that a QC Monkey has flagged directly to the Tektronix field engineer and he gave me an expert opinion. On every occasion I've been able to talk the QC Monkey off the ledge and avoid a redelivery that would cost in the neighborhood of $3,000.00 dollars in machine time fed ex etc.... Just once and my scope almost paid for itself.
>
> Also Tektronix offers all kinds of great tech seminars in many areas of the country for free. To me that means a lot and I like to support that old school we've got your back approach. When I purchased my scope it took a while for it to get delivered and when I had a job for it come up the folks at Tek sent me a loaner until my unit arrived.
>
> So in my opinion it's better to pay more up front for all the extras you get with Tektronix. Leader and Harris/Video Tech have some decent units and I've been helped by them too but never to the extent that Tektronix has for me so I would strongly encourage checking them out and seeing what deals they can offer. You might be pleasantly surprised as I was.
>
> As always any mention of Monkeys is meant with the kindest regards to our primate friends and the QC community at large.
>
> --- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com mailto:Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <blafarm@> wrote:
> >
> > Agreed. Good for general use -- but not on-par with dedicated scopes.
> >
> >
> > It does scale nicely in a facility where every room does not require scopes at the same time -- and where HD-SDI has been homerun to a central machine room. In that scenario, the Ultrascope computing platform simply lives in the machine room and every studio can access it using a KVM Extender over Cat5/6.
> >
> >
> > Alternatively, you could purchase the PocketScope and a qualified laptop -- and just move the laptop around as needed.
> >
> >
> > If you're formulating a CapEx budget, be sure to include the cost of a fully-qualified hardware configuration, as UltraScope (PCIe or USB3) does not play nice with many computing platforms. I learned this lesson the hard way.
> >
> >
> > ---In avid-l2@yahoogroups.com mailto:avid-l2@yahoogroups.com, <mikeparsons.tv@> wrote:
> >
> > It's fine for general use I have one on my smoke but I really wish I could get the resolve scope as a standalone.
> >
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > On 9 Nov, 2013, at 4:00 am, Tim McLaughlin <mcltim.156@ mailto:mcltim.156@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I'm creating my 2014 tech budget and a recent project reminded me that we REALLY need something like this.
> >
> > Please let me know if you love it or hate it and why.
> >
> >
> > Thanks!
> > --
> > Tim McLaughlin
> > Final Cut, Avid and Premiere Pro Editor
> > http://vimeo.com/mcltim http://vimeo.com/mcltim http://vimeo.com/mcltim http://vimeo.com/mcltim
> >
>