Affordable streamers

[Noiz2]

For those who have longed for video streamers for under the multi thousand dollar price tag, Horita has come out with a box that works very nicely. We have been playing with it for a day or so and it rocks. The only issue (and I need to put it in a separate thread) is that the Sync I/O doesn't out put TC when stopped or update position with scrubbing/ nudging. This may be a setting we have wrong since this would be a very strange limitation with the Sync I/O.

If you go to Horita's site it's under new products.

[Craig F]

are you using LTC or VITC?

[Noiz2]

Were generating from PT so it's out puting both. We are using the LTC to connect to the streamer box since it has no VITC input. But PT should generate LTC at speeds other that play. It can read down to 1/30 of play but it won't even generate at 1/2 speed. How are people using things like VVTR if you can't scrub TC? I supose I could go out VITC through a Horita VITC > LTC BUT since the TC display on the SYNC doesn't up date I'm thinking that that isn't going to do the trick.

[Noiz2]

AH a correction, and maybe the answer. Rereading the manual the SYNC only reads TC at +-8% of play speed. So it probably doesn't generate at anything other than play. THe Horita box (all that I have) read at 1/30 and the VITC to LTC converter generates continuous LTC from VITC. I was assuming that a $2,000 box would have at least the functionality of $300 boxes... Just goes to show you.

So the Horita streamer box is great but you need to get something "high end" like a Midi Timepiece to be able to grab an in-point from a non playing session.
The good news is the SYNC is going for around $1,000 on ebay and one can pick up a TC box that will generate TC that matches your position for under $500 so that means "upgrading" leaves you enough for a very nice night out to celebrate ;~)

[Noiz2]

Thought I would post the latest info in my quest for streamers. A very helpful person at MOTU pointed out I may be trying to do the wrong thing, in that in generate mode the boxes are expecting you to try and lock to TC and that he didn't think that PT would up date position at less than play speed. And that what I was probably looking for was to send MMC messages to the SYNC and that would track single frame moves. This makes a certain amount of sense and while Horita's readers can read at a great variety of speeds they are not trying to lock anything. Unfortunately it doesn't look like SYNC can get MMC messages from PT so it's back to swapping the SYNC for something else. I have a few boxes that might work so we are going to try them out next week.

We also looked at Digital Performer since it generates streamers on the fly as a video overlay. Figured that switching apps for Foley and ADR and then OMFing the sessions to PT would be an OK workaround. We need to look further but DP looks like a fairly steep learning curve and that's not going to sell to the powers that be. But if you have it or want to learn it that is the cheapest and most flexible streamer set up I have seen yet. THe competitive upgrade (owning PT qualifies) is less than the Horita box.

But hint to Digi, built in streamers would be a big plus to post folks working with Foley, ADR and Music, so that's a lot of post people. You could even make it only work with MOJO and it would probably generate sales.

[mfranken]

Hi Scott,

Rather than grabbing cue locations as you record, have you looked at EdiCue to log your cues before you record your foley or ADR?

EdiCue can then generate midi files that contains PT markers, midi notes and Sysex commands to trigger hardware streamers.

To trigger the Horita ADQ-50 maybe you can use the GPI input with something like a Doepfer MCV4 to convert the midi to GPI? I haven't tried this out myself as the ADQ-50 doesn't work with PAL, but I have ordered a MCV4 to check how it works.

Alternatively if you are displaying pictures from a Mac Desktop Display we are currently developing a program that can overlay streamers, punches and ADR text over a QT movie window. This will be available for mac only and depending how the deta-testing goes, will be available in 2-3 months.


Regards,

Mark

[Craig Henighan]

"Alternatively if you are displaying pictures from a Mac Desktop Display we are currently developing a program that can overlay streamers, punches and ADR text over a QT movie window. This will be available for mac only and depending how the deta-testing goes, will be available in 2-3 months."


awesome news Mark, look forward to trying the program out when its available

-craig henighan

[FlorianE]

coming a bit late in the thread, but very affordable:

http://www.softwarestreamers.com

Cheers
Florian

[DigiTechSupt]

What about sending MTC from the SYNC I/O? Make sure that Idle TC is enabled on the SYNC which allows it to send continuous MTC pulses when the session is stopped.

Best,
Jordan Glasgow
Video Test Engineer
Digidesign

[Noiz2]

Very nice. Unfortunately we are using a video monitor and the overlay doesn't go out the FW port with the video. Though in my other studio this would I think work since we are sending out a video card...

Thanks
SK

coming a bit late in the thread, but very affordable:

http://www.softwarestreamers.com

Cheers
Florian