Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

FS: Quantel Pablo 4K + S3D with NEO PANEL

T

Tim Whitcomb

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
3,448
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Portland, OR
SERIOUS BUYERS ONLY-
'
PAID $325.000 on sale for $150,000

NO PM's - PLEASE INQUIRE VIA EMAIL ONLY: tfw(at)indentstudios(dot)com

Top of the Line Flagship Model - SAVE HUGE vs NEW

UPGRADES AND Q CARE AVAILABLE THRU QUANTEL

FULLY UPGRADED to V5 Software
FULLY UPGRADED PC _ 64 BIT Windows 7
FULLY UPGRADED NEO PANEL
FULL STEREO 3D TOOLSET

DYLAN STORAGE
4 Hours of 4K
12 Hours of 2K
20+ Hours of HD

EMAIL ME ABOVE FOR DETAILS AND PRICE

FEEL FREE TO COMMENT.
 
Tim, I'm sure the Mistika system is amazing and I'm sorry you are having such problems with Quantel. At this point you should also seriously look at Scratch 6. Price/Performance can't be beat. Throw together a kick ass Z800 or custom box, throw two REDROCKET's in there, along with a RAID card and the NVIDIA 6000 + SDI combo and you have a realtime 5K stereo box. AND, the customer support is fantastic! Nothing but good things to say about the Assimilate team!

Anyhow, good luck with the sale. I'm sure whichever package you decide to purchase next will be a welcome change.
 
I don´t know your specific needs, Tim, but as Mike says, Scratch 6 is a very capable package for realtime client attended R3D color work. With superior RedRocket and SDK support.
 
Tim, take a serious look at baselight. I CAN NOT stress high enough the quality of their support. We had a nagging issue with performance and they sent us a new system. On another case we had our system go nuts and instead of trying to troubleshoot over the phone they sent a bunch of parts fedex overnite AND a tech guy. They covered ALL the expenses involved.

Only drawback I can think of is their pseudo-closed hardware platform, but it also makes troubleshooting a LOT easier for them.

Best part is when they log in remotely to fix stuff and, voila, like magic everything is fine again.
 
Leandro Marini said:
"TRUTH IS WE CANT SELL THIS PIECE OF SHIT FAST ENOUGH"

Wow. Helluva sales pitch buddy.
Click to expand...

Is that an offer Leandro? :) -

Excuse our candor, but we just want people to know what they will be buying...

you know, truth in advertising... "item as described" - Quantel doesn't return emails or calls.

They are welcome to join this forum and respond to my add. I offered it to them at the same 50% discount. :P
 
HEAVY IRON PAIN

HEAVY IRON PAIN

Tim Whitcomb said:
This PABLO was the 2010 Top of the Line Flagship Model - Full 4K System with STEREO 3D that listed over $500K new. (Another slimy sales tactic, by the way, as i challenge Quantel to show me one company that EVER paid that much
for their kit... their pricing is just PLAIN OLD SCHOOL TIN SIDING SALESMAM TACTICS.)

QUANTEL IS NOW SELLING THE SAME SYSTEM WE BOUGHT FOR around $250K USD NEW (FULL UPGRADED MODEL)/QUOTE]

Feel your pain, Tim .... as we discussed the other day, the days of heavy iron hero boxes are surely doomed .... interestingly, another company that invested heavily in Quantel technology just went bankrupt .... OASIS (previously know as PLASTER CITY) are selling all their equipment and gear for $5.5million! ... includes a couple of state-of-the-art Pablo 4k systems ... maybe the heavy iron business model is no longer sustainable in the current economic climate.

Have to say, we're very happy with the price performance of our SCRATCH 6 and DaVinci Resolve 8 systems .... a little bit cheaper that a PABLO and with the right hardware configuration are surprisingly fast ..., plus great support from both companies.

Wish you all the best in getting rid of the mill stone around your neck ... let us know how you get on.

Cheers,
Neil
Click to expand...
 
I can't believe, that these days anyone would even consider a system based on a proprietary hardware. There are many choices in many price ranges with countless options. Yes, FilmLight is an amazing company with top notch product and unparalleled support. But Frank needs to mention the yearly price of that support:-) BTW, Baselight's hardware is pretty standard PC variety with couple of exceptions and their mark up is pretty reasonable.
Personally, my main grading system is a FilmMaster, that also runs on standard PC under Windows OS. Any hardware issues can be resolved by a trip to Fry's:-)
Said that, anyone contemplating getting into color grading business now owes it to themselves to explore Resolve. To my surprise, I'm starting to use Resolve with ever-increased regularity. I'm known to bitch and moan about certain aspects of the software, but at the end of the day it does the job and more. Hearing stories about lack of support on a $300k system makes me cringe. On the other hand, Blackmagic had been stellar!!! Few times, that I had a software issue, even if it's a pilot error, within hours I'd get either a simple answer in a mail, posting on user forum or a new version of software:-) Yes, a new beta version!
When was the last time, that the chief software developer or a product manager from Quantel appeared here to answer questions? The answer is never. Peter and Rohit are available pretty much all the time. I don't know about other company plans, but I think, in light of rapid changes in the industry some need to update their business model in a hurry. Many already had done so. Not Quantel...
 
Tim I love your honesty, man! Two thumbs up. I wish everyone would just speak this way. It makes things so much clearer.

I don't have $150K to blow on a Pablo from you but anytime you are in LA let me know and I'll buy you a beer for sure.

My experience with Quantel was positive - eg running a beta of Pablo at Fotokem for the Hannah Montana movie where it did seem to crash a lot but on the other hand could do things no other system at the time could. But then Quantel probably listened to Fotokem because they wanted Vince Pace to like them and wanted some publicity projects for the reel :) Sucks that they didn't listen to you.

Yeah, the whole thing does kinda remind me of the 3D CGI world back in 1997 or so. Super heavy iron SGI machines with software that cost $10,000 per CPU... and then *BAM* suddenly they got replaced by Maya / XSI / Max running on Windows NT Pentiums and the SGI boxes were just kept around to impress clients :)

Look forward to hearing about your experiences with Mistika.

Have to agree with Jake on the awesomeness of Resolve customer support from Blackmagic though! For sure check it out - for the money, why not? Blackmagic is just the total opposite of what you described with Quantel. Give 'em a try.

Next step for me is a new Mac Pro (whenever it's announced), stuffed with next-generation nVidia cards, running a combo of Resolve, Avid and Adobe Master Collection, and NukeX if I can swing it. Stuff I can (just) afford, from companies that are supportive.

But yes, keep us updated on the Mistika fun!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Neil W. Smith said:
interestingly, another company that invested heavily in Quantel technology just went bankrupt .... OASIS (previously know as PLASTER CITY) are selling all their equipment and gear for $5.5million! ... includes a couple of state-of-the-art Pablo 4k systems ... maybe the heavy iron business model is no longer sustainable in the current economic climate.

Neil
Click to expand...

I am 100% CERTAIN plaster/oasis did not go " bankrupt", the owner is very well off and instead she may have opted to go in another direction, meanwhile we here all know that plaster was built by michael and stephen and when they left, the business and the clients left with them.

now regarding quantel, they have been in business for many many years and i am certain that their bread and butter is not the guy with the one box, it is the house with the 4 or 5 systems and the need for professional on-going support because they have the business to support it. so perhaps you were not getting the type of service you come to expect for that price point, when in fact the buy in for their attention may be a bit higher. this is all speculation. i do know that there are many places in town and around the world that have tremendous success with their systems, of course michael cioni's light iron would be one of them.

personally i am in miami on a 3d feature and i bought a resolve system with a tangent wave and i like it 1000% more than working just with redcine x, although i still go to redcine-x for a lot of tasks as i am much more familiar with it and can move quickly inside of it. i quite frankly don't understand your sales pitch as i would not personally completely bash something i am selling. but it is out there now, all i am saying is, it is just a tool and it may work well for some and not so well for others, but it certainly had nothing to do wth plaster going out of business.
 
Heavy Iron

Heavy Iron

Personally in the camp moving away from heavy iron. Been on Scratch for 4 years. 100+ client attended DI's. Happy as a clam. Boxes to check out :

- Scratch 6
- Resolve
- Flame Premium

Just my 2 cents
 
Thanks for all your comments. Neil@ Hollywoood DI _ we did discuss it and I disagreed with you. HEAVY IRON will always have it's place amongst premier filmmakers. LightIron and many other premier shops knows this. People like Fincher, demand it and I think its a bit irrational to think that purchasing Heavy Iron will sink a company... Speed is speed and worth every penny.

But like Jake Blackstone said, I agree that the days
of proprietary closed systems are coming to an end. Mistika, while still needing some ergonomic work, (like its own control surface) is far superior to the Pablo in many ways and is all open - so can play with Resolve and other systems nicely. That
is why I agree with Mark P at Off Hollywood, another successful use of Heavy Iron (as Mark P well knows how superior Mistika S3D Geometry tools are).

Horses for Courses. We will also have light iron for INDIES and commercials because their budgets demand it. FLEXIBILITY is our goal and again. we are building this place to service our own content first, others second.

While a lot of you seem to have good experiences with Scratch... it completely bombed up here in Portland at a former post house called Downstream on several high profile projects and clients were very turned off (all the top commercial producers in portland)
there system just never worked right and crashed... A LOT. And thats all it takes to ruin the market and we would not want it as part of my DI Pipeline.

To us... OPERATORS make the difference anyway... not kit. Right now we are finishing 2 RED features with APPLE COLOR, whilst our NEO PANEL looks on jealous of its working Apple counterpart.

Indeed, Skilled Operators are the KEY along with SOUND COLOR MANAGEMENT throughout the pipeline, which we enjoy through Light Illusion's Light Space.

Dino is correct, in a a place like Fotokem where they have 5 Pablos in 5 DI Theaters... running Gene Pool... thats a hell of a way to churn out tons of shows... but our experience has been abysmal and the lack of communication after the sale
is beyond bad business - they really dont give a shit about small one off sales (well they will make the sale of course) but after that, they could care less about your success. thats our FIRST HAND experience.

With the exception of Danny Peters (who is a stand up guy) we cannot believe how poorly we are treated after the sale because we actually "questioned the value of Q Care"> I mean we have extensive call logs and NO RESULTS!

Telling me I have to spend $32K to upgrade my box is unacceptable... but for someone else... this is a steal of a deal if they want another Pablo.

I could care less if I sell this box really. I just wanted to share my experience and let people know how Quantel treated us... all over us until we bought the system... and then all but vanished when we started having problems.

MAKE AN OFFER. I MAY SELL IT CHEAPER. WE DONT RELY ON IT FOR REVENUE...
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
Dino is correct, in a a place like Fotokem where they have 5 Pablos in 5 DI Theaters... running Gene Pool... thats a hell of a way to churn out tons of shows...
Click to expand...

Does anyone else have anything remotely like this? That's my problem with the other systems...they don't seem tuned for these super-fast turnaround, shared environments.

Any advice on this welcome. We were looking at getting one system this fall, and then the whole enchilada in Q1 2012. (I've even emailed Tim about his Pablo...)
 
Erich Ocean said:
Does anyone else have anything remotely like this? That's my problem with the other systems...they don't seem tuned for these super-fast turnaround, shared environments.

Any advice on this welcome. We were looking at getting one system this fall, and then the whole enchilada in Q1 2012. (I've even emailed Tim about his Pablo...)
Click to expand...

Sure, lots of post houses enjoy Gene Pool linked Pablo's. Milagro, Steele VFX, Lightiron, etc etc. - but they are PROPRIETARY... www.sgomistika.com is all OPEN hardware and work on an OPEN SAN.

I have dropped my price accordingly Erich... and its a steal now (versus their NEW pricies) if you upgrade the box - but Q Care is a required purchase and our experience, was our experience. Most post houses have their own engineers, (WE do, BUT as Quantel locks you out of the software and strips Windows... you cant really fix them yourselves. you HAVE to use their engineers and its obvious they are all mostly broadcast guys. None of the support guys we talked to even know basic features on the kit. They only knew how to try and fix the PC issues we were having. AS is common with WINDOWS 64... there were too many external drive volumes attached and the registry and moreso permissions, got corrupted.

All we needed to do was wipe the system drive and reinstall all the software... but for some inexplicable reason, Quantel refused to do that... instead we spent days trying to go thru registry cleaning, and or deleting and adding users. All of which did nothing
to fix the box.

The NUMBER ONE ISSUE? We could not import any projects into the BOX!! WHY? Because it would not recognize any new drives attached. Won't consistently read MAC Drives and again... we were told. Spend $32K and another $25K on Q Care and all will be well.

But with our history, we obviously are not spending another dime with a company that over promised and under delivered. Again, they never even provided training after the sale!

My Advice Erich, is to steal this box and upgrade it and hope you have a better experience... OR seriously look at SGO MISTIKA... all open. All off the shelf hardware. All Native RAW 5K support and far superior compositing toolsets than Pablo.
and the BEST STEREO 3D TOOLSET on the planet.

Peter Jackson's Park Road post just dumped his Quantel infrastructure for 17 SGO MISTIKA systems... so what does that say?

Heavy iron is NOT dead... its just being reinvented thru OPEN infrastructure and becoming more affordable.
 
Horses for Courses

Horses for Courses

I really wanted to stay away from this thread as it contains dangerous comments, assumptions, blatantly inaccurate facts and even propaganda. I am also fully aware that by posting here I am inadvertently fueling this thread further and, therefore, accept that I may become part of the problem. But I've decided the risk is small since I've been mentioned here multiple times (both directly and indirectly) so I'll try to keep it based on facts and my experiences.

Tim and I are friends and have known each other for 3 or 4 years. I do not doubt that many of the things that happened to Tim are based in truth and it pains me to see a friend of mine in such a tight spot. And while I am sorry that Tim's experience was so painful, every coin has two sides and my experience with Quantel has been quite the opposite. No company is perfect and I am disappointed by every vendor I deal with from time to time, but I want to suggest that many of the problems Tim is experiencing, for whatever reason, are not at all typical of Quantel and it's 38 year history.

I was a small shop (I think I still am) when we implemented a single Pablo in 2007. I admit it was a challenge to optimize a system with so much depth in a market that was barely ready for it at the time. But my team noticed similarities between RED and Quantel evidenced by their mutual interest in 4K, RAW, and debayering properties which separated them from most of the (then) typical frontrunners. A lot has changed in 5 years, but my personal experiences with Quantel and Pablo's in particular have not changed. Quantel has been excellent with regard to maintaining an up-to-date system, new tools, customer service, overall performance, tech support and constant professionalism. It is because of this that I have continued to purchase more Pablo's and iQ's and use them (quite literally) all day and all night long. And my experience with what I can get out of a Pablo and what I am able to bill for the Pablo makes the Pablo an appropriate investment.

The Light Iron business model is largely based on the conviction that we best serve our target market through the union of both light and heavy tools. Like Tim said, "Horses for Courses" is the best way to look at this. Over the years, I've found great uses for Scratch, Speedgrade and Color as well as Quantel tools. Currently, we have 4 Pablo's, 3 Neo's, a Gene Pool, Clipster and 4 Resolve's to service our varying color needs. Likewise, I rely on about 30-35 Macs and a myriad of light software solutions such as Storm, REDCine-X, Resolve, Yoyo, MetaFuze, AVID, ACS and Final Cut Pro 7/FCP-X to efficiently bridge gaps in the iron.

Thankfully, there are many manufacturers, many tools and many ways to configure them. My advice for to people reading this thread and wondering which is the right tool for the job of DI is this:
1. identify the market you wish to service
2. invest in and around that market and alway's know its threshold
3. increase your investment in tandem with the market's expansive development
Here are the consequences to getting it wrong:
1. over-invest and clients are unable or unwilling to afford your services
2. under-invest and you fail to meet the demand of complex, rapid or onerous projects

Many people may not recall this but at my first post house we started doing (what we thought was) "DI" in 2005 using Silicon Images's "Final Touch HD." We used this light tool to cultivate a growing DI business as well as develop our own DI skill set. Our tool and talent investment was aligned with the demand on our business. As I recall, we finished more than a few theatrical releases with Final Touch including 2 Garfield 3D feature films which pushed us to the bleeding edge of that tool and platform. And over the years the demand on our DI department grew faster than the tool. That left us with, well...so the saying goes: "We're gonna need a bigger boat."

I want to be clear that we should all recognize that readers and contributors to this thread are different, with different needs, in different markets and in different territories. What applies to Light Iron is not necessarily or directly applicable to everyone else. But I want to finish by saying that as my businesses have developed over the years we have become very familiar with many different tools through experimentation and constant evaluation and re-evaluation. -So is one mark of good business development. We've graduated tools in accordance with our target market demand and today having multiple Quantel Pablo's on our network is the only way we can satisfy the 24-hour demand our clients and our calendar requires. Heavy iron dead? I don't think so. Those who suggest heavy iron is dead are probably not in need of it. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact I've owned/own/tested all of the tools mentioned in this thread and none of them satisfy all the things I need to get done at the speed in which I need to do them...except Pablo. And I'm excited to say that my market will continue change, as will my toolsets and my experiences with the expanding options. For that I am certain. For that we are all on the winning side of manufacturers who compete.

I am truly sorry for your situation, Tim, but I echo the opinions of other Q users that I know were shocked to read what you wrote.
m
 
Thanks Michael - I greatly appreciate and respect your opinion. I can only wish our experience was 1/10 as good as yours. Especially as you
are among those who inspired us to establish Pablo as our finishing tool. When it worked, (about 90 days) it worked great. 4 projects later, it stopped.

Very sorry for any fallout beyond Quantel. We approached them back door and cant even get a return phone call (apparently unless we pay them more $)
weeks turn into months. we got abandoned. period the end.

if nothing else, we hope people can understand why we are not to keen with the proposition of giving them more $. I Cant tell them what to do to right this problem, frankly they just dont care.

We just wanted a box that worked right when installed and the training we paid for. Just as you
or any other company would expect for that kind of investment. Q Care is a great idea... but I expected white glove world class service- we were even given a trial run of S3D and Q Care... but it was an underwhelming experience to say the least.
as detailed above. How can one not reach someone who knows basic conform features in Tech support? THAT's how bad it was and their denial of our complaints is the most repugnant.

Most likely because we are not in LA. That's all we can figure. But I also know Shane Dillon in Seattle (former Quantel and good mate) has had no issues. The operators ive met are ALL great. Its corporate, IMHO that have lost touch.

I can't even get the log in information to their discussion boards... or I would have started there. And frankly, that experience pretty much sums it up. You have to send an email to sign onto their boards!!

We are done talking to "SALES" MEN.
If nothing else, thank you for helping establish that our kit still has value, Michael :) The System has low hours and aside from not working, looks really clean too.
I will delete this thread when either Quantel decides to have a discussion or the system sells. $150,000 plus $32K UPGRADES = $187,000 virtually Brand NEW V5 PABLO.

Michael Cioni is my idol and I respect his vision greatly. At the end of the day, Light Iron rocks because they have great people who CARE and that is all that matters.

I don't like to call out a company, but enough was enough. Collection threats with a broken box they refuse to fix under warranty is as low as it gets. My posting
it is only second lowest.
 
at least thanks for sharing your issue with us. We can only be carefull right now. My experience with them , that it seemed incredibly difficult to get a quote 2 years ago. When I asked for a 4K capable storage, prices went up incredibly fast.

scratch and speedgrade seem very good, just partially the compositing is missing I guess. flame preimium seems pretty appealing to me.
 
This is a fascinating story. While I'm sympathetic to Tim, I'd say if you gave Quantel one more chance to send some people over an analyze the problem, maybe there's a compromise that will work for you. I know of a bunch of companies all over the world using Pablo every day to create billable work, so the system can work.

My observation: it seems to me that network and pipeline issues are at the core of what's creating problems for you. For that, you've got to get the IT people to integrate everything and make sure it precisely follows the manufacturer's recommended configs. Coming up with a fast, efficient pipeline is probably the single most difficult hurdle for any modern post firm, and there aren't a lot of cheap, easy solutions for a big facility.

I can tell you in the old days of Complete Post in Hollywood, there were a few occasions where certain high-profile companies (no names) delivered some very buggy products -- scanners, effects systems, and color correctors. Our corporate guys generally paid 25% upfront for the gear, then had a contract which specified that the product had to function exactly as described, or else we wouldn't pay. Sometimes it took a year or two before our engineers were satisfied enough that we paid the rest of the bill. I know of another case where a major Glendale-based post company bought a high-end online editing system that never worked properly, and they took the manufacturer to court and won.

Before it gets that bad, I'd say give Quantel the opportunity to make things right or at least assess the install and see if they can come up with a fix. Are you talking to the guys in Toronto or in London?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top