002 & SMPTE

[hyphen8]

I keep seeing complaints on various threads about the lack of SMPTE in the (still as yet unseen and heard) digi 002. Call me an idiot, we'll actually don't, just call me... BUT

If you really need SMPTE couldn't you just get an external sync box like a MOTU AV or PT's own sync box? Sure, you'd have to pay extra, but if you're a post house syncing to picture, wouldn't that just be a 3 figure line item in your 6 and 7 figure budgets?

I can hear someone say that I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm sure you're right. BUT from a pure marketing standpoint, my guess is Digi felt that adding SMPTE would only serve a small portion of the intended user base. I mean, isn't it primarily for syncing to picture? How many home studio project owners are going to be cutting full-on audio AND video?

Digi's formula: Balance feature set with target buyers' price point comfort, i.e. street price of 002 under 2K. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[KamaSutra77]

Gee, I guess the notion that they can throw it if for free is what makes sense to me.

Im gonna change my sig to "maximize profits at any cost"

[Philthy]

It probably cost Digi money to take the SMPTE ruler OUT of LE... they had to hide what was already there and functioning.

You can verify this fact by opening a TDM session on an LE system. If the TDM session had SMPTE as the main counter and nudge, all of a sudden you will have SMPTE in the LE system.

It's there, Digi just turned it off to force people who need SMPTE to spend more money on Mix or HD systems.

From Digi's POV, it's clever business. For the independent composer, it's another obstacle in an already impossible career, and all the more frustrating because Digi could fix it in an instant.

There are work-arounds- my favorite is to sync up a quicktime clip with visual timecode burn-in. That way you more or less have a SMPTE ruler.

Another work-around is to use Digital Performer. The midi and SMPTE controls are totally geared towards scoring, so it's almost enough to make you ignore the (numerous) flaws.

If an Apple/Emagic product were to take a huge chunk of Digi's user base, I think you'd see Digi work a bit harder to keep users around.