If you use a Macintosh just to write letters or play Myst, US$9,000 might sound like a lot of money to spend on some peripheral. But this is no squishy Ethernet card or blinky net modem; this is a Media 100 video-editing system. Attaching one to your Quadra 840AV or PowerMac 8100 allows you to capture, edit, and output true BetaCam video - the highest quality video signal out there, period.
Besides the component video, Media 100 allows stereo (16-bit balanced audio). In other words, this is a full-blown nonlinear audio/video editing and composition system, on a Mac, and straight to broadcast, no waiting. If you are able to detect video that has been processed through it, you should be frisked for a personal metering device - there's no apparent loss in video quality. Go ahead, look hard at it - not a dropped frame, not a jitter, not a blocky background in sight.
People wet-nursing new QuickTime edit "suites" have become keenly aware of how neat this trick really is. You can credit Data Translation's very efficient home-brewed video Codec's (Compression/ Decompression) algorithms for its quality edge and deft handling of the audio/video data pipeline.
Not only does the Media 100 kick performance butt, it looks dead serious. Check out the external breakout box that connects between the Mac and your audio/video equipment - it's as heavy as a cinder block and probably harder to damage. And of course, it's rack-mountable, giving it that sexy lab look. The gray sheetmetal rack mount also features a pair of three-pronged balanced audio in/outputs that firmly state your pro audio intentions before you even power up the Mac. A couple of other inputs allow less endowed videomakers to use their prosumer and otherwise lame S-Video and composite video camcorders (as if!).
So if the quality, speed, and design still don't impress you (not to mention that Data Translation is situated in the same town as Frito-Lay Inc., the makers of SmartFood Popcorn), you might just talk to any sweating video-studio president, who, less than two years ago, spent $100,000 for a standard-issue Avid Media Composer that has less quality, control, and speed than the Media 100. And you thought Hyundais had bad resale value.
Media 100: US$8,995. Data Translation: +1 (508) 460 1600 ext. 100, fax +1 (508) 481 8627.
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