Another opinion brought to you by the 

Bob Zelin U N L E A S H E D Series.

The new AVID Adrenaline

Wow, AVID introduced a product in April that is taking the industry by storm, the AVID Adrenaline that runs everyone's favorite program, Media Composer.   It's cheap, it's easy, and it works!

The most amazing thing about the Adrenaline is that there is almost nothing to it.  If you run it with a PC (and you should - more on that later) - you get a simple HP workstation (the HP xw8000), plug it into the AVID Adrenaline box with one FireWire cable (that's Firewire 400, not even 800 !), and you get everything you are used to, plus multiple streams of uncompressed video.

It won't do Hardware Multicam yet, and it doesn't have real time Ultimatte like Symphony, and it's color correction capabilities are not as extensive as Symphony's, but it does everything else, and for $25,000, you just can't beat this price.

Most people are amazed when they see the actual system.  You open up the PC, and there is NOTHING inside the computer other than the motherboard and the power supply that comes as part of the computer.   Even the dual SCSI ports for your disk drives are built into this motherboard, so there is no ATTO card !  There is actually one card in there - it's the NVidia Quadro 980 XGL, which is the card that plugs into your monitors.  This is the first time that you are not at the mercy of AVID for the graphics card, and the limitations that the AVID EDC4 card had.   Check any mail order catalog company on the web - if that card breaks, it's cheap, and you don't have to call AVID for anything.

It gets better.  The HP computer comes with a 3 year warranty(1st year on-site).  Lets say your SCSI port on your motherboard dies a year from now.  You DON'T HAVE TO CALL AVID !!!!!!  (Stop cheering).   You call the 800 # at HP, and they will show up to your place for FREE to replace your defective motherboard.  How can you beat this !

When you plug in your AVID Adrenaline box to the HP computer, it plugs in with one firewire cable.  That's it - that is the installation.  You can even do it while the power is on, and not blow anything up.  The Adrenaline box is very elegant in it's design - there is one card for audio, one card for video, and one future expansion card for HD, which will be out certainly before the next NAB show.  I have never seen one of these boxes develop a hardware problem, but it's obvious to see what you do if there is a problem - have an audio problem - replace the audio card.  Have a video problem -  replace the video card.   The Adrenaline box has every combination of I/O that you can think of - composite, component, SDI, S-Video,  4 channels of analog audio, 4 channels of AES/EBU digital audio, 8 channels of ADAT audio, and Time Code in and out.  Deck control is still handled by the external RS232-RS422 adaptor, which you can get from Addenda Electronics for $89 if anything ever goes wrong.

What you are seeing in this product is what is important to everyone - it's simple, and if stuff breaks, it's either cheap to replace, or free (from the incredible warranty).  I don't remember the ABVB or Meridian series of AVID products being this reliable upon initial release.  

OK, you want to know what is WRONG with this product.   Well there is one big thing (which most of you don't have to deal with, if you have a Value Added Reseller like Virtual Media), and that is the documentation.   AVID still thinks that it's a secret about setting up this product when you first get it.  When I first received the Adrenaline, I said "what a piece of junk, I can't get anything to work correctly".   After assorted phone calls, and emails, I realized that it was ME that was doing silly simple things wrong, but AVID "kept this info hidden".    Much of the secrets are in the READ ME file that auto installs once you load in the AVID Media Composer Adrenaline software (who reads that stuff anyway?) - well, you better from now on.    I never downloaded Quicktime 6.3 for Windows - it said to do it, right there in the READ ME file.

I got a picture on the edit window computer screen that would get lighter and darker depending if I was in pause or play on the timeline.  This turned out to be a simple adjustment in the Overlay window of the NVidia Quadro 4 980XGL Control Panel, but I could find this info nowhere ! (It is now on the AVID support page on the web, but does not come with the Adrenaline product).  I could not get 3D to work in real time.  I said "what a piece of junk this is" until I was told by AVID engineering that this too was a simple menu change in the very same NVidia Quadro  4 980XGL Control Panel (switch to single monitor mode).  This too is now only found in the AVID support page on the web.    Once I learned these "secrets", the Adrenaline performed as advertised.  Like  a dream.

I just can't stress to you how pleasant Windows XP is to deal with, compared to the old horrible Windows NT 4.0.  There is a fear of any PC platform by MAC people, but Windows is easy, and stable these days, and OS-X - well - OS-X ain't OS 9.2.2.  The OS that MAC addicts love doesn't exist anymore.  I urge people who are "MAC only" to look at the Adrenaline XP solution, because your small learning curve is no different than trying to figure out the cryptic OS-X operating system.    I mention all of this, because the XP version of Adrenaline outperforms the MAC version, and I see no reason why anyone, with all of these great support advantages, would want to deal with Apple if they don't have to. 

So what else is wrong with Adrenaline?   Nothing, as long as you accept that technology marches on.   The HP computer (for PC Adrenaline) uses the new Ultra 320 SCSI bus, which in turn uses the new Ultra 320 SCSI drives that are on the market.  You can use your old reliable SCSI drives that were rated at 160mb/sec, but you will not achieve the performance, and the multiple streams of uncompressed video that you get from using U320 SCSI drives.   We have tried both AVID Generation 6 drives, as well as third party drives, and as long as they are the IBM U320 Z10 series SCSI drives, everything works as advertised.   I most recently tried a third party RAID array with a PC Adrenaline.  The RAID array was rated at the older 160mb/sec.  The system performed like a Symphony, or Meridian Media Composer - 2 streams of uncompressed.   Want the 5 streams that AVID talks about - get the new drives.

I too, have seen conflicting reports about "this doesn't work, that doesn't work"  on various user forums on the AVID Adrenaline.  However, after installing numerous Adrenaline systems at this point, I can only say that I have never seen any of these issues that have been discussed, or these people have variables in their systems that they are not posting.  The Adrenaline is super stable on the PC platform.  Like I said before - it plugs in, and it works.   It really is worth the money.  AVID could have charged more for it - but they didn't.

Keep on ranting - keep'em on their toes !

Bob Zelin in Orlando

**Any advice given, and all opinions expressed, are strictly those of Bob Zelin and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Virtual Media or any of it�s employees. Bob Zelin is an independent consultant, and a well-known member of the Avid community. He is not an employee of Virtual Media or any of it�s subsidiaries.