EPIC, SCRATCH Play, Microsoft, The Diamond Bros.

[Lucas Wilson]

Hi all,

http://blog.surface.com/b/surface/archive/2013/09/04/assimilate-launches-scratch-play.aspx

Check 'er out. Josh and Jason Diamond on EPIC and SCRATCH Play + Surface Pro.

Lucas

 

[Subhadip Sen]

The ability to play and manipulate R3D files natively on a portable tablet is indeed exciting. The next step would be to stream footage straight off the camera wirelessly without offloading.

The thing is, the underlying hardware for the Surface Pro was never intended for a tablet - indeed, this is laptop hardware somehow crammed into a tablet form factor. While an amazing achievement, the net result was sub-par battery life and somewhat heavy for a tablet. Haswell is the first Core CPU designed for such devices, and this class of devices are about to get a whole lot better. Look at the Sony Vaio Tap 11 for example to see where the next Surface Pro 2 will take us. All the performance, but with a much greater battery life (50% more) in an even more compact chassis.

Also, I am particularly impressed with how usable Scratch Play is on a touchscreen.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Hi Subhadip,

You make some good points... battery life and weight are a bit of an issue. But the ability to essentially have a powerful laptop in that kind of a form factor outweighs the downsides for me.

I can run the entire Adobe Creative Cloud suite, SCRATCH Play, etc. on a Surface Pro. I can run... none of those on an iPad. The first time I loaded up SCRATCH Play on a Surface Pro and was able to run EPIC R3Ds fullscreen, disconnect the keyboard and hand it to someone - that was a pretty cool moment.

My iPad has turned into an entertainment device - Netflix, Hulu, NY Times Crossword, etc. and my Surface Pro has turned into my professional device. And it's just v1.

Lucas

 

[Jason Diamond]

My iPad has turned into an entertainment device - Netflix, Hulu, NY Times Crossword, etc. and my Surface Pro has turned into my professional device. And it's just v1.

I'm kind of starting to agree. It's interesting times for sure. SCRATCH Play is def a step in the right direction for tools we all need with such a wide gamut of devices that it can take advantage of.