I just did a search on this and was surprised not to find an obvious thread. I am considering a Symphony system.

The reseller I am talking to says that many people are still buying older Nitris hardware due to it's 10 bit capabilities. Does the older Nitris perform better in terms of image quality? Especially when colour correction is concerned?

It feels a bit weird to be steered towards an older product so I would like to know the real differences...

Thanks

It's not a quality issue, but stream count.  The older Nitris may provide a more certain stream count.  The newer Nitris DX can utilize the new distributed processing that v3.0 offers.

Both are true 10 bit capable AFAIK. Seriously I would consider DX instead. Although there are some minor advantages with Nitris classic, it is an EOL product.

Image quality wise they are the same. Rendering is faster in DX.

Randall L Rike:

The older Nitris may provide a more certain stream count. 

it might be true only for now. DX is CPU/GPU based means that it will scale better than classic since that is dependent on the boardset.

Also, because of the rasterizer hardware, DX can process HDV and DVC Pro HD much better. Have you tried playing down DVC Pro HD with Nitris classic? It is not pretty.

I have to say, as an owner of a Symphony DX, I am very happy. If you do go that route, you won't be disappointed.

About the 10 bit though...I was under the impression that the only 10 bit res was DNxHD220x....

Is that not right?

Probably any resolutiion that ends in "x".

1:1 for SD and HD both have options for 10 bit.

On paper they do but I don't believe that they are true 10 bit. There is a thread here someplace that discusses it and, I believe, Bob Russo chimed in and said that only DNxHD 220x is true 10 bit. My memory is short on that. He may have been talking about renders  and imports not being true 10 bit. I'll see if I can find it.

I think that is about the import module of the application. Because of QT and Avid the only way to import and maintain 10 bit is using Avid codec (not sure if that covers 1:1) and Targa files. Other codecs, even if they are 10 bit, will be imported and mapped as 8 bit but placed in a 10 bit container in Avid.

 Hi Guys

Thanks for all your input. I've been searching around for all the info so I can make a decision and it occured to me that as MC users are now using the same hardware as Symphony (if they have nitris dx) - does this mean there will be an upgrade path from MC DX to Symphony DX?

Reason I ask is that maybe I can soften the blow and go for a 2 stage purchase!

Thanks

Dom Q. Silverio:

Rendering is faster in DX.

Do you know that this is certainly true?  I have done some tests and my results have come out that the classic Nitris renders almost twice as fast as the DX.

My test was not completely apples to apples, but as close as I could get:

Both version 3.0's, one running the classic hardware and the other running the DX.

Classic is on an 8400 (8 X 2.33 GHz), 3500, 4Gigs of RAM, 3GB batch file run.

DX is on an 8600 (8 X 3.0 GHz), 3700, 4 Gigs RAM, 3GB batch file run. 

The DX (faster comp.) renders a short sequence in 7 minutes. 

The Classic (slower comp.) renders the exact same sequence in 3:45 min.

I'm assuming that because of the Codec and Baseboard(s) that the extra hardware allows for the faster render times.  The Host adapter for the DX is merly a connectivity card, it doesn't perform any processing.  Whether or not the DX processes the video (other than for capture and output), I'm not sure.  But I know that I was pretty dissapointed and surprised to see the faster computer functioning so much slower. 

Have you seen tests that show the DX rendering faster than the Classic?

~Hammer

Yes this was on 220 DNxHD codec.

If I have my test project and the systems available will try to get you the numbers. If not it may have to weight as I do not have access to the DX systems.

Make sure you have the same render settings and the video card is configured the same as much as possible.

My systems where also not exactly the same.

Amazingly I have sequences in my new DX (symphony) that renders slower than an adrenaline..

I will look into this to try and find the effect that is responsible..

Michael

Michael16oz:

Amazingly I have sequences in my new DX (symphony) that renders slower than an adrenaline..

I will look into this to try and find the effect that is responsible..

Michael

 

 Any results?