Tell him the he'll HATE the hardware rendering when you use all your layers, or when you add a non-compliant picture, etc. 2 years ago at work we got the "Real Time" Matrox RT2500. It is reall time if you folow these 3 rules:
1) only 2 video layers with eigther fades or special Matrox 3D effects, and 1 overlay layer (1 picture)
2) All pictures MUST be in it's own ICG format. Which means making them with Alpha channel TGA's, then importing them into the titler program, THEN saving them again.
3) Any breaking of these rules (3+ video layers, pictures on 2+ layers, etc.) then you won't see a preview, you see a "Please Render To See Preview." NOT WORTH IT!

I've found Vegas mch easier to work with. If your boss isn't going to be doing the work, then suggest that it would be more productive to get a program that would enable you (or a new person) to use easier and faster.

Since I don't know your boss, I get to say he sounds like a airhead seeming obsessed with spending the company's money foolishly. You never know... his boss that probably DOES care may read this. :-)

I think you will find that even with hardware assist, you can't do more than two layers of real time preview. From an editor's point of view, this isn't a problem, but I can see why a client (or boss) would not understand. Try to get some real demonstrations of the software being using by competent editors, such as through a dealer or straight from Adobbe and Sonic Foundry. Then make a decision from that. You can't make a decision based on what people tellyou. You need to see it in action for yourself.

Dave T2

The important thing is that real time preview is sufficient for making edit decisions. On the odd occasions where you need to see finished quality straightaway, either Render to Ram or Selective Prerender will confirm the quality of the finished output.

How you get your boss to understand this I don't know, but you could try taking him through the process a few times - setting up a loop to see the passage being worked on, and watching real time as you make any changes or adjustments. As HappyFriar says, not many hardware assisted systems have unqualified realtime like this.

If your boss is unable to realise that final output quality is fine, and as riredale said, hardware rendering with its inherent limitations is making way for s/w (at least until HD takes over!).

Good luck - I'm glad I work for myself!

peter

When I say "My Boss" I mean "The Owner Of The Company". So there is NOONE above him. When he spends money, he is spending his own money.

So even with a card like the Bad @$$ Radeon w/ 256megs of Ram on it with a Hardware Breakout box will still only make a real time system do so few a layers? I just don't understand this. The guys upstairs boast real time with like 8 layers and he sees this all the time when they do our editing. They told him they use Avid and BORIS RED. I don't know if it's Composer, Symphony, Xpress, or what other equipment they have, but giving credit where credit is due, it looks damn good! They are at www.Vision2Media.com <-- Don't use them, come to us. We are just 1 floor down in the same building. (kidding) I now see that they have the entire video that they did for us posted on their site under current projects. OUCH!

Do you guys feel that if I spent a little under $10,000 on an editing system (VEGAS) that I could hook it up to where it would be able to play 4-5 layers real time at least at the GOOD setting? Mind you this would be mostly Pan/Cropped & Track Motioned Stills, with GreenScreen/Talking Head Talent, Motion Backgrounds with Cookie Cutters, and Text on Top that I could at least view it at GOOD QUALITY? I try to use the preview to Ram, but with layers like this it will only render so much. (1Gig DDR)

Basically, I know VEGAS will do the job and I know with my abilities I can do the job and have proved it to him using my system... but now that he's forking out the cash and building his own studio, it's a different story.
--Did I mention that he used to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers, drives a Ferrari, 1 of only 150 Porsche's made, a Navigator, V12 Mercedes, and a Ford Focus for his 23 yr old Gfriend. He is 43 by the way. Has one of the biggest houses on the Pacific Cost Highway (HWY 1) overlooking the ocean. Flashes his Rolex in your face every chance he gets and boasts buying the 3 carat rock on his little chickies finger. In case ididn't mention it before, the Gfriend is the OnScreen Talent that we use whenever we need a talking head. Go figure.-- I tell you all of this so that you understand; He is the flashiest guy I have ever seen in my life. He has a cool personality but if it's his, it has to be the best.

I feel that they guys upstairs are telling him that what he wants to build is impossible with VEGAS so that he has to keep coming back to them. I want nothing more than to prove them wrong, get approval to build this editing bay with VEGAS, and go from there. I've shown him time and time again Music Videos with crazy effects, Shorts, Commercials, and Web Content that I have done on VEGAS. He Loves the stuff but then when I tell him it was done on VEGAS his reply is, "We can't show clients this grainy preview. They will not understand."

I have ran into the problem of editing, rendering so that he can see the output, him wanting to make a change, then me having to re-render. He hates waiting 5 minutes for a 30 second preview. I have to admit... so do I, but I'm used to it. He is not.

What would be the 'pimpest' setup going now?
p4, Dual 3.06 Xeon, 4GigsDDR?
I've just got to win this battle for VEGAS. My days of editing with Premiere, MediaStudioPro, & Avid sucked. I have to find a way to bring in VEGAS.

I've thought... if we do go with another system... maybe I should just load VEGAS on it and do the projects in VEGAS anyway. But I need to keep my job. Freelancing is not fun. I like this whole Staff Position thingy. Steady checks never hurt nobody. Peter, I may be filling out an application after this one.

It would be nice for SoFo to have a comparison chart or something like that. If you guys know where one is, forwarde the location to me, PLEASE!

Thanks soooo much for all the info and help.
Lamont

This is something SoFo should have available to everyone - the tools/doco/tables of comparison etc to asist users who really wnat to uyse to sell it to thier employers or clients. Minimal effort for what could be a great return.

Thanks for the further explanation Lamont - I see you're between a rock and a hard place.

Maybe the solution is to let him have his way with a hardware based system, but also have Vegas installed, so you can use it when the need to impress clients (or bosses) with realtime finished quality is not present.

And, you never know, future features for Vegas may include some form of hardware assistance. (and Boris Red for Vegas is almost here.)

From what you added he sounds way too into material things and looks down his nose at everything that doesn't "cost" enough finding less expensive thing inferior regardless if they are or not. I doubt he'll let you have Vegas for that reason. If he does he constantly find reasons to be critical of it. Sounds like Fraiser on that TV show. ;-)

Tell you boss that he is a pompus prick.

He wants a Pinto to run like a Rolls.

Not to say that Vegas is a Pinto (by far not).....but he is a pompus prick.

Let him spend his money on hardware solutions. Heck, that what pompus pricks do with their money. Shelve Vegas use at work and only use it when you are at your home or your studio or when you are the boss and can understand the simplistic issue at hand when looking at a software solution.

I'm glad I don't work for a pompus prick and am just a prick.

I'm glad that you all are concentrating on the boss instead of the problem. I already know words will not convince him. It's been tried. The Demo thing sounds like a really good idea. Now the question that I would really like answered is:

What would be the 'pimpest' setup going now?
p4, Dual 3.06 Xeon, 4GigsDDR?
Do you think this would give me the closest thing to Real Time - Good Resolution preview? (352 x 240) I ask this because if/when we go with whatever package he decides to go with ( I hate that I mentioned I could edit on the others and do not want to decline as I am finally getting paid to do what I Love doing) i want it to have enough power so that when I put VEGAS on it also, I may be able to show him then the benefits and his GOOD previews.

Are any of you in Southern California and in need of a Production/Post job? You'll get to work with... well you already know the story. <-- Believe it or not, I am serious. We are holding interviews 8/12 -8/16 in Aliso Viejo, Orange County, CA.

In Denial,
Lamont

The guy sounds like an ass**le.

He is not interested in the most cost-effective solution. What he wants is the most mind-blowing, real-time, cost-be-damned system he can find, because he wants to imply to clients that he can buy anything he wants.

Hmmmm....

I know! I know! Tell him that there are literally hundreds of viable NLE setups he can get, but what really counts is the talent of the operator, and that if he doesn't let YOU get the system YOU want, you'll quit!

Oh, wait a minute, that might put you in a tight spot.

I work for a one owner company as well, and you might as well face it, it's his money. If he sees a system doing what he wants it to do, that is what he will get. People of that ilk don't always concern themselves with issues that we as editors do. Believe me, I see this all of the time.

The question you have to ask yourself is, can you work with what he gets and show him it is the editor, and not the tools that make the project. As an editor, you can adapt to whatever equipment he gives you. Once you gain that respect, then your equipment decisions will carry more weight the next time.

Dave T2

Lamont -

I can't answer what the "pimpiest" system around is - there are many more around here that have more experience/knowledge in that area.

However, like Peter said above, get the Avid/whatever system your boss hears is the system to get, but for few hundred more, get Vegas as well. It seems that when you are spending $10k, another 3%-5% is nothing. But I don't know your boss, either (I can guess, as I used to live in southern OC, and know the type...)

good luck

Frenchy

It sounds like the boss has so far lived a charmed life and is into selfish big time. Made his money in pro sports, thus feels superior to us mere mortals that actually work for a living and everything you said suggests he views things as just something else to put in his trophy case. His house, car, watch, maybe even his EMPLOYEES? Wife? Everything is on display. Look what I got. Hope he pays you a lot. Somehow I doubt it because that type of owner rarely does because everything is about him.

It is very simple. He is the boss. Ultimately you do what he wants. He pays you, he calls the shots. He says jump. You say how high. Several times I have worked with people that didn't know what the hell they were doing, but they were the client, ie. the boss. Spend his money and hope there is some left to pay you and be done with it. By the way. She probably not only sucks him hard, but she sucks on camera as well. Get another girl. She is pretty, but can't read worth a crap. Other than that, the video is good. My 1 cent. It's not worth two.

Why not find out the system configuration / demo techniques Douglas Spotted Eagle and Michael Bryant used in the NLE shoot-out against Avid and Pinnacle products that completed this spring?

http://www.dvline.com/cfwebstore/tour/intro.htm

By all accounts, Vegas blew everyone else away. Do a search on this forum for "NLE Shootout" to find (admittedly biased) participant reaction.

From what what said so far it seems the "boss" is obsessed with "real time" previewing and doesn't really understand what the term means or in the limitations REGARDLESS what product you using.

Like they say, "Birds of a feather flock together." That's why I like fellow editors. Especially the new wave of VEGAS editors. I agree with all that is said and have gone to my supervisor, not my boss, to explain the dilema. He agrees that although we may have to purchase whatever our boss wants us to get, for whatever reason(s) he has, that we can still install and use VEGAS. He said after we output our final product and get his OK on it, then we will tell him that it was done in VEGAS. He also read this post. He is wondering if you guys know our boss because you have described him to a T.

So per you guys experience, no matter what we go with in the $10k range, he will not have his Full Resolution Real Time preview if using say 4-5 layers? (Even if it does have a hardware component.) The only way to get True Real Time Full Resolution would be to drop like $25K or $50k on an AVID Symphony or Composer, right? Even then he may not get his desired preview. My supervisor does not want to spend more than $15k because it comes out of our depts. budget.

Thanks for all info guys. I wish I had a way of repaying you for your very valuable thoughts & ideas.
Lamont

Great pimpin systems at boxx.

Vegas will not take advantage of dual processor machines. But with a dual proc machine, you can have 2 instances of Vegas open at one time. One can be doing a RAM preview while you work on something else. That way the you are busy 100% of the time - no waiting.

I suggest the new 3.06 Xeons with the 1mb l2 cache.

Also, for all the picture in picture stuff you're doing, look into getting a good RAID (redundant array of independant disks). The I/O can be a bottleneck when you are trying to play more than one video source simultaneously. Remember, a hard drive head can only be in one place at one time. It can also only read or write at one time. The good news is, you can buy a pile of good HDs for real cheap.

Hope this helps.

Matt Reason
www.theigloo.com

So per you guys experience, no matter what we go with in the $10k range, he will not have his Full Resolution Real Time preview if using say 4-5 layers? (Even if it does have a hardware component.)
----------------------------------
Nope, the Video Toaster from Newtek will do that. Dual Xeon Toaster system with SCSI drives can be had for $10K. BTW, that's five plus uncompressed video streams. It will also do DV in realtime, just not firewire DV output.
It's no Vegas, but the TED NLE software has gotten much better in version 3. And it background renders when needed. Plus you get the aura paint program and a lite version of LW3D. No DVD support though.

Craig H.

Hardware assisted RT is great if your boss wants to shell out the bucks. For about $20,000.00 you can get a turnkey DPS Velocity Q system (IEEE-1394, SDI, RS-422) that’ll do just fine. It’s a great system if that’s what you need. We have a Velocity (not a Q unfortunately), which we use for SP and SX work. For DV, DVCAM editing we use Vegas.

First of all, be circumspect when you talk about other people in this business. It's best to be known as a positive person with judicious opinions.

Yeah, Yeah...

As far as systems go it seems like Dual P4s will get you something. You probably don't need more than a gig of Ram but what the hell, 2 gigs may help if you have an awful lot of other software running. As far as Video cards go, it seems like Vegas will work with anything but a dual-head card is recommended. Don't bother using the s-video output of a graphics card. Use something like an ADVC100 to convert the signal on the 1394 bus to composite. This usually looks better and also can perform better.

The other suggestions are pretty much to the point. You've got a lot of disk access going on. It could be that Raid would help but you should be looking at a high quality SCSI array. SCSI can also help a little with render times because the CPU overhead is less than with IDE or 1394 disks (which are IDE anyway).

Convincing others to look at Vegas and make a business decision can be hard. Vegas excels in the DV25 sphere and can be used as a primary NLE (if you work in DV25) or as a supplement. It's a great addition if you do a lot of work for the web. However, it isn't an 844 (which does an absolutley amazing number of editing and compositing tasks in real time and in 10 bit color to boot)

I think you're going to have to go for a more flashy system. I think your boss will appreciate being able to spend a lot of money and tell people about it. I'd recommend the 844 for that because it'll cost plenty and it really is impressive. Also get Vegas though. It's inexpensive and a great workhorse for any project using DV25. It's invaluable for web work too.

Rob Mack