Video Satellite LE and Satellite Link !!!!!!

[dr sound]

Read This:
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Video Satellite LE
Add high-definition video playback to your audio production workflow. Similar to Video Satellite, Video Satellite LE is a software option that enables Pro Tools|HD editors to quickly and easily open and play QuickTime or Avid video, housed on a separate Pro Tools LE Mbox® 2 Micro-based computer, in sync with their Pro Tools session. Play back QuickTime HD or SD video, or connect a supported Avid video peripheral to work with Avid SD video. And because all video playback is offloaded onto a separate but synced system, you maintain the full track count and processing power of Pro Tools|HD. Video Satellite LE is coming soon — stay tuned.

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Satellite Link
Control multiple Pro Tools|HD systems from one. Satellite Link is a powerful software option that allows you to synchronize and control up to five Pro Tools|HD systems as one, with near sample-accurate lock, from a single transport. With multi-master transport and solo-link capabilities, and support for the new Video Satellite and Video Satellite LE options, Satellite Link is the perfect solution for post-production and music environments with multiple operators and multiple Pro Tools|HD systems. Satellite Link is coming soon — stay tuned.

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This will change the way those of us in Post work !
Way to go Digi!!!!

[colinweeks]

yeah! i'm totally psyched about both of those! I've been using LTC and playing around with MTC/MMC to sync up my two rigs and haven't really been satisified with either option... this is huge!!!!

...although it says satellite link is coming soon... does that mean it won't be in v8? maybe 8.1?

[The Chinese]

Yeah, This Will ROCK!!!!!

Hehehe Who needs a Soundmaster????

Cool!!!

Todd A.

[kptkarl]

so no conversion from quicktime to avid needed? this was a huge issue when i first checked out the first video satelite system. also what hardware is supported for SDI output? DVI/VGA is no good as there will be video "tearing" anomalies that clients coming from editorial will see and comment poorly on.

[Postman]

Originally Posted by kptkarl

so no conversion from quicktime to avid needed?

True, conversion will not be required with Satellite LE. QuickTime is still the weak link, so to speak, if you are looking for perfection. It is not a tight frame-edge-aware, gen-locked solution. But, it works well as long as you realize that frames may get dropped or repeated once in a while. Overall, though, sync will be maintained as well as with any QuickTime and it can look good

Originally Posted by kptkarl

what hardware is supported for SDI output?

I believe Satellite LE will be supported with Blackmagic Decklink, one of which should get you up to 3G/SDI. You're going to need fast storage for high quality HD-SDI. I don't own a Decklink so I cannot give a more balanced reply. Satellite LE is also supposed to work with MOJO and MOJO-SDI. Those are SD only.

The other choices for HD-SDI support use MojoDX or NitrisDX with Digi's new Video Satellite (Mac or Win). I'm not sure if 3G/SDI is supported by either. I understand that Video Satellite may be included in most or all of Avid's forthcoming software, but Media Composer v3 is what you would get now. You would have to import your QuickTime into Media Composer, but before writing it off completely you should consider it! Video Satellite/Media Composer fixes a lot of things that were wrong with Video Satellite/MediaStation. SD/HD performance is excellent, including uncompressed 10bit, and Media Composer is not inhibited the way MediaStation was, you can do full video editing with effects, realtime or otherwise, whatever is available to any other Media Composer system. NitrisDX is much more expensive than MojoDX but, trust me when I tell you this, it will totally smoke anything else you put it up against. I've had the extreme fortune to play with it for a short while, under fire long enough to get a good sense of it. Performance is flawless, it can handled practically any digital or analog input/output arrangement, gen-locks to a variety of stuff, and of course looks superb. You have to import your media into an Avid Media Composer v3 project, but afterwards you can do things like apply a realtime timecode window burn effect, which takes about 5 seconds to do, and have instant window output that you can turn on and off whenever you like. When the clients change the timeline numbers (like the show now starts 10 seconds later than it did yesterday) you can make the change in seconds, without rendering anything, and the new code burn is instantly updated. You can export to QuickTime movies from that if you want. Video Satellite on Media Composer has perfect synchronization performance. By perfect, I mean within a sample or two. You can also do realtime up- and down-converts, or cross-convert between different standards, like you can work in a 720p/24 project but output to 1080p/29.97 monitor, or 1080i/59.95, this is handled in hardware at the touch of a button. I've found this helpful for a projector that could not lock to 720p/24 (it didn't like running at 24fps). I opened the video output tool and clicked to cross-convert to 1080i/29.97 and within a couple of seconds I got to work.

Sorry, I got excited. Both Video Satellite options are really, really cool. There are some features that really need to be added to satellites, I think, and some I have been assured are in the works. Whatever that means. What we have now puts playback performance and tight lockup ahead of some conveniences. If I had to pick, those are the kinds of compromises I would have chosen. And, with either Video Satellite option, there is no messing around with MIDI, MTC, or SMPTE, or offsets. They just work really well.

[dr sound]

It uses the Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme card:
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hd/

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by Postman

True, conversion will not be required with Satellite LE. QuickTime is still the weak link, so to speak, if you are looking for perfection. It is not a tight frame-edge-aware, gen-locked solution.

The Blackmagic card has a video ref in. The question is, will Satellite Link LE use that as a means of synchronizing the video to the frame edge?

I believe Satellite LE will be supported with Blackmagic Decklink, one of which should get you up to 3G/SDI. You're going to need fast storage for high quality HD-SDI.

You are going to need a RAID of some sort to work with uncompressed HD footage of any type. A single SATA drive is not going to cut it.

[Bob Brown]

Jonathan,

The short answer to your question is, yes, Video Satellite LE does play out HD QuickTime video locked to the reference signal provided to the Blackmagic card.

When working with Video Satellite LE playing back QuickTime to a Blackmagic card, the Blackmagic card should be sent a video reference signal. This will allow the Blackmagic card to play (clock) out the video frames properly aligned to video reference.

A similar workflow would be playing out SD QuickTime video through a Mojo. In this workflow, the video is also played (clocked) out locked to video reference.

Of course, when working with QuickTime in Pro Tools, you will still be at the mercy of the QuickTime engine which may or may not drop or double frames to maintain video playback.

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by Bob Brown

Of course, when working with QuickTime in Pro Tools, you will still be at the mercy of the QuickTime engine which may or may not drop or double frames to maintain video playback.

Has Digidesign asked Apple to change this? Does FCP do the same thing (drop or double frames when it feels like it)?

[DigiTechSupt]

Has Digidesign asked Apple to change this? Does FCP do the same thing (drop or double frames when it feels like it)?

Asked? Hmm - I don't know for sure, but I can't imagine that Apple aren't aware of it.

And, yes, FCP will do the same thing.