Looking at Scratch? A little advice..

[laguun]

Hi Laguun,
None of things mentioned above come in a complete system that have
all the capability of systems produced by Scratch Nucoda and Speedgrade
and others.
My point is that even if the software and some of the hardware is cheap
for 2K, a complete turnkey system that can perform all traditional DI tasks
and more is not. (cheap)

hmmm... yeah. I think we both basically described the "extremes"
The borderline between NLE & DI has become blurry and a -experienced- person meanwhile -can- master an excellent movie with desktop-class systems only, that was the main point i wanted to add to your valid argumentation.

Finally, independent of what software route on goes: Another important investment also is still $$.$$$: the monitoring.

 

[mezmo]

Hi Laguun,
So lets seperate DI into the two 'extremes' and call them say, 'Mini DI' and
'Maxi DI'
Maxi DI would be all systems over and above $20K US
We know who they are.
Mini DI would be all systems below $10K US
These are systems not just software so a Mini DI system would be what
most people seem to be looking for on this forum.
At $10K a system from Assimilate would not be possible and I think many here are asking a little too much from Luki and the Scratch team on this front.
A Mini DI system or the software to run it would come from Apple, Adobe, Cineform or even a company like RED.
It may be very limited and would have trouble producing many of the
features found in Maxi DI systems given hardware, display and color management limitations.
So any work done on a Mini DI system would have to be 'Proofed' on a Maxi
DI system anyway, prior to Film Out or Digital Cinema release.
Film burn costs at about $10K per 20 min reel (burn,process & print) would
sorta make this essential.
And the problem being that a lot of the work done on a Mini DI system could be 'baked in' and unable to be fixed on a Maxi DI system if quality
issues emerged.
So any Mini DI system would need the ability to quickly reconform/reconstruct files
for the Maxi DI system prior to final grade, color management, film/digital
deliverables.
Cineform gets close to this already and with R3d, a little help from Adobe, and even a
Maxi DI developer, (hint, hint) could be the first 'elegent' Mini DI solution this year for RED.
Mezmo

 

[Mat@imageWork]

Each time I read post where "prosumers", owner of red, asking to have a real DI tools for 10K, I understand why but I just don't think it's possible to be an allrounder. If scratch came out to 10K, I don't think it will help to grade better project, and final project will suffer. Because a DI tools is even not enough I think to complete a long form project at high resolution and bit depth. This is part of workload, grading but also online (every small effort to make a project beautifull) mastering and version, sounds mixing and so on. You will need a team with specific talent, experience etc...That's why sucessfull post-house have different tools, rate and worklow. But they have one think that 10K won't allows to buy: knowledge.

 

[Juan M.P.]

Perhaps as a daily Scratch user I could say some words... Perhaps the more or one of the more discussed subjects of Scratch its the price. The fact is that Scratch costs some money that many cant afford but also is that if you want a cheap DI workflow with Scratch you CAN actually find it. I am from Argentina and i believe for people in the US and in Europe doing your post work it would be 3 or 4 times cheaper and that is quite a bit cheaper isnt it? (here we have done commercials for the US) and also in the US i bet you can get really get some newborn post house that arent that expensive.
Also as discussed before there are a lot of different ways to get arround a RED workflow for post production and in the end it sums up to the PEOPLE more than to de software.

Oh and that silly statement that Scratch its only best at working with RED ... i dont think so.. most of my colouring work done in scratch are not RED. SD HDV HDCAM Phantom 2k, R3D, etc etc etc

Im not a Scratch fan or anything i think that if the software fits your needs its the one for you and it could be any software.

There are waaayy to much complains about Scratch from people that doesent even use it..