This IS the Avid L2: [Avid-L2] Re: System setup recommendation

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

[Avid-L2] Re: System setup recommendation

This is a very important point. AJA is old school like Grass Valley, in fact many of their people use to work for Grass Valley. BlackMagic has done some phenomenal things in lowering prices but the downside is lack of reliable access to support. BM is better than Apple but a far cry from anything I would want to rely on in mission critical situations. Unfortunately in some cases like Resolve you have no choice on I/O boards but those seem to be working pretty well for the people I know. The only real issue I've had with some of the BlackMagic IO cards is the quality of the components makes for more jitter on SDI lines. I've seen a BM card fail with a reasonable run of 1505A Beldon cable that an AJA card has no issue with. I've been told by the chip manufacturers that BM uses lower quality components tha AJA. Always a balancing act between price and performance.

--- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, "Terence Curren" <tcurren@...> wrote:
>
> One thing to be aware of with BM is the poorer quality and lack of replacement support. When a piece of BM gear fails, they expect you to buy a new one if it's out of the short warranty period.
>
> For contrast, we have had a few AJA pieces go bad over the years, and they always overnight a replacement for free. Doesn't matter how many years old the gear is.
>
> --- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, "Edit B" <bouke@> wrote:
> >
> > I would not be that scared of BM nowadays.
> > Last week i did a big job with an vision truck and a sattelite truck, fibre from my feed was over BM stuff, and both trucks were loaded with BM stuff (router, vision mixer etc)
> > For the money, you can buy the stuff double for safety.
> > And if you want cheap, this is as cheap as it gets.
> >
> > Bouke
> >
> > VideoToolShed
> > van Oldenbarneveltstraat 33
> > 6512 AS NIJMEGEN, the Netherlands
> > +31 24 3553311
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: superhorschd
> > To: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 12:09 PM
> > Subject: [Avid-L2] System setup recommendation
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > an friend of mine asked me for advice, but my experience on 3rd party I/Os and Thunderbolt stuff is limited, therefore this posting:
> >
> > For a longform doc film a "not too expensive" Mac offline editing system is needed. They probably buy a new iMac with Media Composer 6.5 and want to connect via Thunderbolt:
> > - a media drive (for DNxHD 36 / XDCAM EX Media Files)
> > - a 3rd party Interface to connect a large screen to it
> > - a second Display
> >
> > As I've heard about problems with 3rd party I/Os I'd like to hear what works best with MC 6.5 or what problems exist. They're thinking about a box from Blackmagic but I really like AJA stuff in general (an personally never would buy something that has to do with black magic!).
> >
> > I wonder how many Thunderbolt devices play nicely together..
> > As the drives they want to buy have both Thunderbolt and USB 3 they can use to USB if needed. Well, our students edit on USB 3.0 drives quite often and it works very well for them..
> >
> > Any experiences, advices or ideas greatly appreciated!
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> > Ben
> > --
> > Benjamin Schreiber
> > ACSR Elite
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>