Another opinion brought to you by the 

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

Why do you want Central Machine Room?

So, you¹ve got all this equipment piling up on the floor in front of your AVID system. You¹ve got Beta VTR¹s, Digi Beta VTR¹s, DAT¹s, CD¹s, 4 VHS machines, your new DV deck, and your even thinking about getting a second AVID, and maybe even a MAC graphics system in a separate room.  Maybe even one of those cheap Pro Tools 001 systems.  You are doing well.   So what are you going to do ð pick up that Digi Beta VTR every time you have to use in another room, and start crawling around on the floor, plugging in all those cables?   Well, you can certainly buy another one FOR FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!  Maybe carrying it around isn¹t such a bad idea, even if you do hurt your back.  You can always go to Home Depot and buy a dolly to push it around?  

Wait !  How about this idea?   Lets build a CENTRAL MACHINE ROOM!

I know, you are not a millionaire, you don¹t want to spend a fortune on equipment, and don¹t want to have one of those huge  old school´ facilities that you see going out of business every month.    But having a central machine room doesn¹t have to mean that.  It simply means that you can SHARE the equipment that you currently own between all of your rooms (even if it¹s just the AVID and a Pro Tools system).   And your  machine room´ can be nothing other than a RACK that will house all of your equipment, and the most important thing ð the thing that makes a machine room ð PATCH BAYS.  

Now, I know that none of you want patch bays.  This is 2003, and you all want ROUTERS, but you know what?   Routers are EXPENSIVE, and after you realize all the equipment that you want to put into your router, so you can share it between rooms (or even all those VTR¹s to go into your one AVID) ð you soon see that patch bays are the MOST COST EFFECTIVE WAY to put your central machine room together,  so you can share all your machines, without going broke.   That 4x4 router just ain¹t gonna cut it. 

OK, so you agree to do the central machine room (even though you have no money).   You have an old AVID, you have one of those great cheap Pro Tools M Box systems, you have a MAC graphics system, and you are getting a Final Cut Pro or AVID Xpress Pro with Mojo.   You have ONE Beta VTR, and 3 VHS machines, and you just spend 6 grand on ONE Sony DV player VTR, and you have no more money, and you want to share all this equipment, and get rid of that cable mess on the floor in every room.

First, lets buy a rack. Not one of those thousand dollar fancy racks.   A nice $200 Middle Atlantic Slim 5 series rack.  It¹s not a piece of  junk.  It holds MULTIPLE Digi-Beta VTR's with no problem, and becomes incredibly stable once you start mounting equipment in it.  And the casters that you get for this series of rack only cost about $35, and they are GREAT.  It¹s amazing to be able to spin around a rack effortlessly with 5 HEAVY Sony VTR¹s in it. 

So we have our rack, now lets buy some patch bays ð we need video patch bays, audio patch bays, and RS422 patch bays.   At this moment, the CHEAPEST video patch bay is the Canare series of video patch bays.   These video bays easily handle Serial Digital Video signals, and they are half the cost of other video bays from Trompeter, ADC, etc.

We are going to bring EVERY DAMN VIDEO SIGNAL in your place up to these video bays.  Once we do this, we will be able to send any video signal from any room  into any VTR. We will be able to dub from any VTR into any other VTR.   We will be able to send video effortlessly from one edit room to the other.  Wow, this is really easy.   One patch cord, and we can send the video signal anywhere.  AND we can use the same video patch bay for analog composite, analog component or SDI Video.  It actually works, and you NEVER have to get down on your knees ever again to plug cables into your machines.  You NEVER have to hurt your back picking up heavy Beta VTR¹s and carrying them into the next room to use them.   All of a sudden, $600 for a video patch bay is making a lot of sense.

OK, so now that we got video going, we need audio patch bays.   We are going to do the same thing ð we are going to bring EVERY audio signal in our place up to the audio patch bays.   This includes Time Code and AES/EBU digital audio.   All of a sudden, we can now send any audio signal anywhere in our little company to any room.  We can dub audio, we can send audio from the Pro Tools room right into our AVID system.  We can even take the audio, and send it into the conference room, or telephone hybrid interface, for client approval.  All these places are right on our audio patch bays.  We can do ANYTHING! And the good news is that audio patch bays cost less than half of what the cheap Canare video patch bay costs!

One more ð the RS422 patch bay. Why do we need this?   So we can assign VTR control from any editing system, or audio system, or graphics system to any VTR in our rack.  You simply move one patch cord, and Voila! ð you are controlling that Sony or Panasonic VTR.  Pretty amazing.   And to do this cheaply, we are going to use a nice cheap CAT 5 patch bay, instead of those expensive ADC 9 pin RS422 patch bays.  We are saving money everywhere, and we can do anything now.

How else can we save?  Many of these rooms require black generators to sync them up.  We can use our existing black generator (like a Sigma, or Horita) as a central machine room black generator, and use their multiple outputs to feed the individual rooms, and all the machines in the rack.   So instead of spending $300 - $400 per room, we just use the one black generator that we already own!   Boy, this pays for some of the patch bay expense.

But don¹t those racks require $300 rack kits to mount those Sony VTR¹s ?   NOPE !  I have been using Middle Atlantic heavy duty rack shelves, and they cost only about 50 bucks for the heavy ones, and about $30 for the light ones (for VHS VCR¹s, etc.).   So now everything gets mounted into the rack, and everything is available everywhere, and everything is cheap.  And if I have to use that Sony DV VTR in ANY room, now I can do it.  I don¹t have to buy another VTR, I don¹t have to move it, I don¹t have to plug it in.  It¹s all ready to go ð just pop in some patch cords into those patch bays.

BUT WHAT IF I EXPAND?  What if I buy another VTR?   That¹s easy, and the absolute beauty of having the Central Machine room.   Buy another $50 shelf, and you¹ve got another machine in your system.   No more room in that rack?   Another $200 gets you another rack.  Run out of patch bay space?   Buy another patch bay.    But it costs $600´ you say.   Well, that is a HELL of a lot cheaper than spending THOUSANDS more for a routing switcher expansion.   To go from a 16x16 to a 32x32 router is going to cost you $15,000 to $20,000, even with a cheap company.  Try doing this with a high end router like Leitch or Pesa ð FORGET ABOUT IT !!!   You will be in hock for years trying to pay that off.

So lets review ð to build a Central Machine Room, you get a rack, some shelves for the machines, some patch bays (audio, video and RS422), and mount the black generator that you own in the rack to use it as a central machine room generator, so you can lock all the rooms together.    That is it.  And now, you don¹t have to buy any more duplicate machines, never have to crawl on the floor to reconnect machines, and never have to carry machines from room to room.  You not only save money, but you make your life a lot easier.

So what¹s the catch?   Well, you have to hire someone to do all this wiring.   Someone like me.   Someone that has no life, that enjoys sitting on the floor on weekends making cables for your patch bays, while you are out enjoying life.    Hey, I¹m entitled to some money, ain¹t I?  

If you have been thinking about putting together a central machine room, or just are sick and tired of that cable mess on your floor, speak to the folks at Virtual Media about the possibility of doing a rack for your place.   You will never regret it. I always remind people that long after your AVID or FCP system is old, outdated, and useless, the racks, shelves, and patch bays will still be good, and still be fully usable for your next equipment investment.

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.