About Media 100

In the winter of 1995, my friend Rolf May, owner of Positive Image Labs, demo'd his Media 100 system to me. He was using it to create an industrial video for one of his clients, but my interest was in the speed of operation, and the speed of the effects. Everything, including Rolf, worked in real-time, which is the only speed that would be acceptable in my industry.

In the summer of 1996, with the help of John Molinari, Andy Netburn, and Eric Janzsten of Data Translation/Media 100, I became the first video operator on the east coast to switch from videotape to a non-linear system. To everyone who saw it, it was clearly a better way to work. Two of my competitors went digital a year later, also with Media 100's, some took alot longer and went with less capable technology. Now everyone who does video assist does it digitally, or he doesn't do it that often.

I am now using the Media 100 RFE, or Remote Field Editor, which is a small expansion chassis that connects to a powerbook. That's it. Tie it into my regular assist setup, and you have instant access to anything recorded, instant effects preview of variable speed in foward and reverse, (great for photosonics!), instant green screen previews, instant editorial, and all sorts of multimedia tools to help preview anything you might want to do in post. The only place I won't take it is the beach(combo 8 only), since sand gets in everything, but other that that, it goes anywhere you need video playback.

Note: Media 100 has discontinued this product, so I built one myself.

See my article in Shoot Magazine: Page 1 - Page 2