[quote="Steve Meyer"][quote="Bill D"]The EVS spotbox will not do any kind of looping without an external control (lance, buf, dnf).[/quote] Actually, the SpotBox does loop internally, and very well. I do this all the time, as I don't like to have the loop control coming from the Lance (personal preference). Using the keyboard, go to VDR panel (shift-F7 or something like that). Select which channel (1 through 4) you wish to control using alt-h. Call up your clip using the keyboard (arrow to it, then hit enter) or the Lance. Hit alt-Y. Your clip is now looping. Enjoy! -Steve[/quote] Can you do this on a clip to clip basis though? Sounds like this is call up a clip and loop it and leave it. What I am talking about is within a 2 channel pair, having a transition coming out of those channels on one effect, crosstalks that need to loop for minutes at a time, and then another animation that animates on and then stays on and looping for minutes. Obviously you can dump in 10 minutes of these clips, but when you have a studio environment it is wasted storage and rendering time to do that. In a truck usually not a problem. The above you can do using machine control through switcher and K2 profile. During a live show really don't have time to do into the EVS to call up clips to loop and stuff, need everything immediately. Bill

[quote="Bill D"]The EVS spotbox will not do any kind of looping without an external control (lance, buf, dnf).[/quote] Actually, the SpotBox does loop internally, and very well. I do this all the time, as I don't like to have the loop control coming from the Lance (personal preference). Using the keyboard, go to VDR panel (shift-F7 or something like that). Select which channel (1 through 4) you wish to control using alt-h. Call up your clip using the keyboard (arrow to it, then hit enter) or the Lance. Hit alt-Y. Your clip is now looping. Enjoy! -Steve

I was at NAB checking out servers/DDR's this year. If I had to spend money on a server that does clips and talks nicely to switchers, I would take a look at the new K-2 Profiles. They accept gfx file transfer, and were working on accepting fill/key (with audio) in one file (quicktime). In this case you could gang the channels of profile internally so that you only need to control one channel, then never have to worry about lining up f/k. The PDR 200 can do this as well (obviously not the file trsfr). In either case you can keep channels and files seperate if that is your desire. Not sure what switcher you will be using, assume you will do machine control. The big thing the K2 will do that the other's will not is looping and playlists. So if you have bgds, and crosstalk boxes that loop, you make a playlist with that clip in there 50 times, etc. If you have an animation that has an active head, your playlist has the first clip that plays out and then 50 or so of the clip that does looping. When you go into the switcher clip list you cue up the playlist rather then the actual clip. The switcher doesn't know how to do loops, so when you tell it to play the K2 knows what to loop, etc based on your playlist. I used a similar setup with a GVG Turbo via amp with a Kalypso. The new K2 is similar operation to the turbo's, much easier to use then the older profiles. The K2 also talks louth so it will talk to a Sony as well. I would test it though to make sure the Sony will see the playlists as well as the clips. The EVS spotbox will not do any kind of looping without an external control (lance, buf, dnf). Also 4 channels of K2 is like 45K (external raid is a little more). EVS 4 channels is like 120K. These were NAB pricing, could be different. Not sure if the new fast forward will do clips, the old one's do not. I also don't think it is even out until the fall. If you have a profile server now, worth looking at a K2. Bob mentioned they had some K2's on wheel and jeopardy, and had some audio issues. Definitly get a demo of whatever you are looking at, etc. Bill

So, you need one more server (X-File) to be able to send to SpotBox? You can't just network or sneaker-net a file into the SpotBox? Thanks, Chad

The spotbox will accept clip networking from an X-file. You can push clips from a removable hard drive, firewire drive, USB drive or even a USB thumbdrive. The clips should be wrapped in whatever codec your spotbox is using, either mpeg-2, m-jpeg for HD, and SD also adds IMX format. So you just need your graphics department to render files in whatever resolution and field settings the spotbox is set to. Then render to those codecs, attach drive to xfile and import.