I mostly do broadcast TV jobs in the UK at home in my converted loft (when they let me). I have a garage full of old equipment and cables that I have slowly ditched along the way. I now run a totally slimmed down system.
I'm on PC so there's a big and hot z800 quietly humming away on the floor. The Matrox MX02 LE gives me any in's and out's I might need from HDSDI and HDMI to SD composite RCA and balanced XLR out for the audio. I've got 2 x fantastically slim and shiny HP x2301 computer monitors running HDMI off the PC and a JVC DTV24L HD Monitor for client viewing and grading (slightly annoyed that I bought it just before they brought out the one with the built in scopes).
The Matrox comes with great calibration software that hasn't let me down yet - certainly good enough for the quality of programmes I'm working on and I use the Avid scopes which aren't ideal but they do the job. (please upgrade them Avid!)
Audio goes direct from the Matrox into a pair of Edirol MA-10D's. Good enough for basic mixes. If I'm doing any proper audio work I pull out the Sony Headphones.
I use the PPMulator XL plugin within MC for audio levels. It has PPM and EBU R128 and seems to be very accurate. Runs a bit ahead of the actual audio coming out of the speakers at the moment but I guess that is just latency in the Matrox. Gives me look ahead monitoring! https://www.zplane.de/products/ppmulator
For guide voice overs (scratch track) I use an XLR to USB cable plugged straight in to the PC with a nice Sennheiser mic (one of the few old bits of kit I am still using) and I reckon I get better results than most of the final voice overs that I get sent over from New Broadcasting House at the BBC! Just have to switch to Windows Mixer in the capture tool and bingo.
6Tb of SATA storage inside the z800 and another 6Tb external storage as a backup which is synced to the internal storage every night. I backup my Avid projects once a week to a remote server in case the house ever burns down.
All footage is ingested straight in nowadays normally off drives. For my next job I'm hiring in a XDCam reader but I'll transfer everything on to drives before AMA'ing into the Avid.
Lots of room on my desk for my Macbook, tea, biscuits etc. AfterFX and Photoshop can output through the Matrox although I haven't set that up since I don't do much graphics work.
In the trash pile I have 2 x DSR-45 DVCam recorders which will probably never be used again. I got rid of a BetaSP 75 for free to a colleague who had a large back catalogue of SP tapes. I've hired in DigiBeta's and HDCam machines but with the new AS11 file standard that is becoming a thing of the past as well. I've got a box full of S-Video cables, Component BNC's, Avid XLR to XLR cables, Firewire 400 cables, DVD writers, VHS recorders and yes a patch bay and audio mixer all of which are completely worthless. But it is a much quieter and more pleasant working environment and it will all go in the boot of my car if I have to work away.
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Posted by: nick@paddywack.co.uk
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