| "There's
just one problem . . . " Video producers are feeling squeezed by the lightning pace of change in digital video, especially in broadcast markets. With digital TV and digital versatile disk (DVD) threatening to devour capital budgets, it's difficult to justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on NT hardware, software and integration services. Especially when there's still hope that Macintosh will remain a viable, if secondary, platform for non-linear editing and animation. Many Mac users, among them Wally Swanson, an editor and certified Avid instructor with Vaughn Communications in Bloomington, will remain loyal to Apple for the foreseeable future. "I'd have to absolutely drive the existing Macs into the ground, wear them to death," he says. Others will opt to dedicate one or two PCs for DV use while keeping their Macs for CD ROM authoring, Web site creation and general graphic design. There's a problem with the piecemeal, dual-platform approach, however. Incompatible file formats complicate the process of melding graphics generated on a Mac with digital video created in NT programs. "There are work-arounds, but they're just that--work-arounds," says Greg Chastain, a desktop video specialist with AVI Systems in Eden Prairie. Combining graphics and video on one platform will save a lot of grunt work down the road. Whether you go all the way with NT, or confine it to the DV realm, you'll want to make absolutely sure that the system is configured properly. NT 4.0 doesn't know the meaning of plug-and-play, although Microsoft has promised to include it in version 5.0, slated for release in 1998. NT is picky about the hardware it's teamed with, especially when running high-end DV programs such as In:synch Speed-Razor, D-Vision and Lightwave 3-D; choosing the wrong PC clone or peripheral can cause time-wasting system freezes, or render $30,000 worth of hardware completely useless. "There are so many different versions of the IBM platform that you have to be careful when choosing your computer to make sure that you meet all the specifications for it," Chastain says. Companies such as Intergraph Computer Systems (www.intergraph.com) and TriStar Computer (www.tri-cad.com) capitalize on the confusion by selling PC workstations that have been carefully tweaked to work with specific applications and capture boards. For the more enterprising, Microsoft and major DV vendors such as Avid, Truevision (www.truevision.com) and DPS (www.dps.com) maintain lists of compatible mother boards, chip sets, SCSI controllers and other vital components on their web sites. Whether you follow their advice, or go "offlist," you'll want to make room in the budget for a systems integrator with a solid track record in DV installations.
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