just grabbed a mac mini and ultrastudio mini recorder and scopebox3 to an hp zr2440w monitor and its a sweet little setup. nice inexpensive pretty high quality. was waiting months to see if bmd would come out with ultrascope thunderbolt, but i think they have abandoned the whole ultrascope thing...
Nice thing about scopebox is it will work with variety of input cards. Down the line you could pick up ultrastudio 3d and have dual link 2K scopes!
That's exactly the setup that i'm planning to build myself. MacMini + BMD MiniRecorder + inexpensive IPS monitor. The developers of Scopebox actually recommend the MacMini while BlackMagic's Ultrascope doesn't even seem to run on it due to lack of gpu performance. I am thinking about taking it one step further though. I wanna build the system into a portable case so i can not only use it in post but also on set as a low budget SetMonitor / ScopeSystem / DIT Station. Which MacMini model did you get, Paul? The entry model or the quad core? How smooth does it generally run - are you experiencing any performance issues?
I got the quad core i7 as I also use it to capture file based teranex conversion. At least I was using the 17" macbookpro I just sold. Gotta test that today too. Why don't you get a MacBook if you want portable? I'm still hoping for ultrascope to work on thunderbolt some day...
Thanks for the answer! Let me try to answer your question. There are several reasons i can't or don't want to use a macbook for the system. First of all i wanna build everything into a rugged case so it can endure the rough treatment it sometimes gets on set. So instead of several fragile items i'll have one solid box that i can put everywhere and move fast. I also intend to make it resistant to light rain. It would be also great to make it mountable on a c-stand. I had field monitors from a local rental company that are built into similar cases. I'll ask them for advise once i start the project. In such a case i can also fit additional updates like an external SSD (as a bootdrive or for recording uncompressed 422 1080p), several backup-drives, a shading hood for the monitor, a UPS-unit, or even a wifi-router to share a mobile internet connection.... Another reason is screen size. 17" inch is the minimum i wanna have. Apple isn't producing that notebook size anymore. Also their glossy displays really aren't ideal for monitoring on set. And since we are indy filmmakers we have to fit everything into a very slim budget. Even the i7 model of the mac mini combined with a 21" entry level IPS monitor saves me allot of money compared to a 15" MacBook Pro (which would still be too small for me). I might do a sketch of the system i have in mind with a part price list for further discussion.
Ok that makes sense. I also only have the factory 4gb ram for now but will upgrade to 16gb from newegg.
You might wanna check out "Rogue" from DIT Station. Here's the link: http://www.ditstation.com/DIT_Station/DIT_Rogue.html Btw. they also offer dual laptop based plattforms.
Thanks for the hint, Yves! Though it is way out of my budget it's a very interesting approach. They manage to cramp allot of goodies in their case - including a red rocket, raid storage, lots of I/O and of course the cup holder ;-) It also seems very solid. I'm still not pro enough to afford this but it's giving me some new ideas (folding-table-legs instead of c-stand mount - genius!).
