[Michael Hancock] "To be perfectly clear, you're not comparing apples to apples. FCS for $1,200 is the software only. Add the cost of an 8-core Mac and hardware card that converts to ProRes on capture and the cost grows very, very quickly for Final Cut."
Actually that's the point. Studio is software only so it's very flexible and scalable, but you can't expect the same hardware acceleration / realtime as a fully bundled product. But if you really want to compare Apples to Apples by throwing in the hardware.....
Studio 2 is about $1,200, then add the cost of a new Mac Pro ($5,000), throw in the price of a Kona 3 ($3,000) and a good, fast hard drive array (say $4,000) and you're sitting at $13,200 for a full turnkey system. You can install 2 of these for less than the price of one DX and still have money for more RAM, more storage, more filters, etc.....
Or go with a MacBook Pro ($2,800), an AJA IoHD ($3,000), and a nice fast SATA array (say $4,000) and you're at $11,000 for a full turnkey system. Not sure the DX is available as a portable system for laptops.
As I said earlier, use the tool that you feel is correct be that Avid, Adobe, Quantel, Apple, whatever. If your clients are complaining the toolset is too slow then you have the wrong system.
See I prefer multiple systems to bring in multiple clients at once or having more systems to do more tasks. Create / Burn BluRay discs on one system, while editing on the second systems, while creating complex composites on the third. Or simply cutting three projects for three clients at the same time. Just gives us more flexibility than putting all the resources into one system. That works for us and I like being able to put my money into more flexibility and if I have to sacrifice a little bit of realtime performance, that's ok by me.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
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