Patron video: Avid Media Composers

New patreon sub, per your ending... I like these kind of videos, for me not every video has to be a polished product. It's totally OK to be like "this should be cool but it it is not", it's ultimately the way with a lot of these old computer things

Dan Milner

DNxcel was for hardware accelerated DNxHD (which is basically JPEG video) they had AVC-Intra acceleration in later hardware (early h.264). It's not that it was impossible for a computer to do it on its own, it's that perhaps it couldn't do 4 streams at once for a multicam edit, or it couldn't do it at 60fps all the time, every time. You gotta remember, people edited on these machines and then played programs out of an edit bay live on-air, or live to a satellite. It all had to work perfectly every time.

David Hildreth

I enjoyed the hell out of this video. I thought the camera mount worked well, and the fruit of your research was fascinating, especially considering that I thought of Avid as you did. I also had no problem with the less formal presentation style, more or less live style.

Jeffrey R. Broido

I bet Avid *planned* on making an HD comp card, but decided not to bother after they ran the numbers and found that they wouldn't get enough ROI based on how many people were likely to buy it. In fact, I found a later revision of what looks like an identical card that doesn't even have the cutout anymore. Thank you so much for the correction also - I will have to try to find the documentation and see if I can confirm what-all the card is used for. Frankly this wouldn't surprise me - after I shot the video I found myself thinking "gosh, that really is a remarkable number of chips; would they really need *all that* just for SDI I/O? even in 2005?" Let me know if you get word back!

Cathode Ray Dude

I used to install Avid gear (among other broadcast video gear) around the time of the Adrenaline and for about 5 years after. There was never a card that went into the slot on the DNxcel board, at least not that I could order or ever saw. A lack of HD composite in was one thing that really annoyed a few of my clients, though HD-SDI was pretty widespread. One correction, I am fairly certain the DNxcel board did help with real-time rendering of a subset of HD video effects, though I cannot remember which effects worked. My old mentor from back then might know, he stayed in the industry while I bailed. If I hear back from him I will let you know, been a while since I have pinged him.

I don't have too much terribly productive to add other than I absolutely love your content and it's been great to see you so less stressed post the whole job thing. As to more Patreon vids like this? I love stuff like this personally. Basically everything you deep dive, explain, or talk about keeps me glued to the screen. Thanks for the work you put into this!

Allison F.

I think that series you described would be great: “Don’t meet your heroes”. Document the thing so it’s not lost to time, try to do a demo, and then finish with how disappointed “90s-00s Gravis’” is to actually own it today.

Callan Christensen