From an operational viewpoint (and I admit that I'm not totally familiar with just how your TD's operate for the type of shows that you contract for), having 8 channels of Transform Engine on a Zodiak is nice, but to use them, you have to tie up 8 keyers, too. A full-blown DVEous MX in SD mode can give you 8 channels that come into the switcher as just 1 keyed source (leaving the rest of the Zodiak's keyers for other things). But I agree with Rick: there are some capital investments that you need to BUY and rent out with the truck (like cameras, switchers & audio consoles). But an external DVE is argueably not one of them - there are a lot of rental companies out there who can supply you with just what you need when you need it - you just tack on the "X" percent of the rental cost to your bill. If I were a client, I wouldn't want to be paying for a dual twin DVEous when I either didn't need all (or any) of it, and I wouldn't want to be stuck with a single twin when my show required more power. From what I understand, the entertainment trucks (who have to cater to many different clients) don't put just one type of VTR or DDR in their trucks - they have "slots" for machines & they rent what they need depending on the requirements of this week's client. To me, that makes a lot of sense; unless you have just 1 or 2 clients who have the exact same needs.

Thanks, that's what I was thinking. I always include the FF/Lance, and the switcher has the bigger stills/DDR option on it as well. I'll certainly think about the Twin, but at the moment I have to get through Chyronville with something still left in my wallet! The LEX is history and the HyperX starts at $75K... kinda hard to justify in this "world" of gigs. At least we found a company to write the tally software for the Zandar boxes, so now we can install the 37" LCD's! Pete

It's nice to have the 8 transform engines but what some trucking companies don't realize is some clients still bring their own DVE disks for their "own" effects which can not easily be duplicated on a transform engine. For instance; I just worked with FSN Pittsburgh last evening - they do not pay additional for a Fast Forward and/or extra Digicart as they are in serious budget cuts (that is another story). They showed up with a Dveous disk with 3 effects on it. One of them (their Replay), would be more difficult to duplicate on a transform engine as I stated. The other was more straight forward. The replay effect required all 4 channes of the Dveous and also included light sources and a supermatte. So to answer your question it maybe necessary for some clients if they choose not to use the Fast Forward! Be that as it may, there is one company here in Florida that has a Zodiak, FF (2CH)/Lance and just a "single channel" Dveous and they are getting by fine on it. I'm sure you too could get alway with it based on the shows your doing. If it should be required for any reason, you can always rent the board to make it a FULL twin. There are always tricks your TD can do, they just has to be resourceful under those circumstances. In my opinion based on the shows you said your doing you should be fine with the single channel, but I'm sure all TD's would like to have a full TWIN whenever possible. Good luck with your upgrade. Rick.