SGI non-linear editing ... was[rescue] WTB: SS20 Ram, External SCSI CD

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 02:24:45PM +0100, Rob Fielding wrote:
> Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 01:13:46AM -0500, Andrew Giedraitis wrote:
> > 
> >>MY intergraph GT1 is 45 lbs with 2 thin drives
> >>of course my indigo IRIS and R10000 are very dense also
> >>But I believe the heavier machines are built better
> >>even the wintel SGI 320 is afairly dense unit (and an excellent video
> >>editing computer)
> >>what unix SGI's are best for video?
> 
> The O2 would be the best insofar as that's what it was designed for. It has the ICE processor for built in compression too.
> The Octane takes a couple of video options, however they get very expensive - and remember that if you don't get compression you'll have to fork out 
> for some fast big disks, which could cost about as much as the compression option ;>

In this day and age, large amounts of fast disk space just aren't that hard
to do.  You just need two channels of UltraWide SCSI, or one channel of
Ultra2Wide SCSI or faster.  A stack of Ultra2Wide 36gig drives too bad,
especially not compared to what Octane video compression cards cost.
 
> I don't know about the Onyx/Onyx2 and O3000 etc etc however I'll bet
> they take similar options as the Octane2 - that means HDTV and that
> means BIGGER BUCKS ;)

The Onyx doesn't have HDTV I/O.  It has the Sirius, which is big bucks.
I believe the Onyx2 has a SDI I/O option in addition to the HDSDI
option, but I'm not sure what it is, or if it is still easily
available.  At this point, I expect that SGI would likely recommend
Octanes of some sort for SDI work.

> > There are options for the Indy and I2, but those cards tend to cost so
> > much as to make an O2 with AV option look like a much better deal,
> > especially since it's quality would be higher.
> 
> Mapleson (http://futuretech.mirror.vuurwerk.net/i2info.html) raves
> about his Indigo2 R10k Extreme + video options but last I saw Cosmo
> options for the  Indy were about 300 USD and you can pick up a faster
> O2 which has SCSI2 and 100MBit ethernet and more expansion for around
> that...

For somethings an I2 R10k Max Impact + video options may be nicer than
an O2.  I can probably think of a few possibilities.  I'm stretched to
think of many realistic times when an extreme with video options would
be nicer.  Unless you have the parts already, or luck into it, don't
bother trying to do this on an I2 or Indy.  The possible exception is if
you decide to go with a DDR that can talk UltraSCSI rather than digitize
directly on the SGI.