Re: Farewell !

[George Greb <ggreb(at)substationk.com>]

Michel,

Sorry for the late reply. I was out of town for a little R&R and I am just now catching up with the list.  I enjoy the list and have been a lurker for a couple of years now, but i couldn't let your leaving pass without some recognition.

Thanks for the great support and hand holding when we first ventured into the world of DS.  You guys (Phillipe, Sylvain & Co.) are not only innovators, but nice folks.  The team just lost one of their best players.

Best of luck in your new adventure.

George Greb
Substation K
Kansas City



On Oct 29, 2005, at 3:51 PM, mftech(at)videotron.ca wrote:

>  
> <x-tad-bigger>Yesterday</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>,</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>was my last day in the role of Team Leader for the Avid DS Escalation Team.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>After almost 10 years, I’ve been part of this wonderful human experience called Digital Studio.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>It’s now time for me to move on with new adventures in the high-end video industry.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>It’s been an immense pleasure to deal and exchange with all the DS users on this list.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Specials thanks to my present, past team and to the DS QA/DEV team.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>In lack of better worlds and to paraphrase Luis Talavera back in 1998 .…</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>YOU ROCKS</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>!</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>As a legacy I decided to include some of the history of the good old days to comment the birth of Softimage|DS:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>-PS: the geek factor of the following text may offend some users, be warned </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>J</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>-</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Back in the 1990, lots of the post-production crowd in Montreal was laughing about the initial vision of Daniel Langlois.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>The motto from Softimage was roughly -A fully integrated editing and finishing product running on a personal PC-</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>At that time some prototype running on SGI hardware was shown to key people in the industry.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>But Digital Studio was more of a concept than a tactile product.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Personally at that time I was one of those online editors sweating over a GVG 200 switcher, Kaleidoscope 2 channels, Chyron Scribe and a GVG-151 connected to an armada of VCR.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>I was then scratching my forehead and thinking: “They’re must be a more elegant way to do all this stuff…”</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>I often share my thought with my pears, thanks to Edith G-P, Christine D. and Eric L. for their tremendous patience for listening to my mental monologue.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>After a salary argument with my director at that time I decided that I was ready for a radical change. (Many thanks to Bernard Bergeron for pushing my name to Softimage.)</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>So from the luxurious on-line room filled with clients eating St-Hubert BBQ chicken in my back (poutine not included), I then moved to a minuscule green cubicle at the Museum Just for Laugh on St-Laurent Street </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>J
>  
> </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>At that time the efforts to integrate the PLAY hardware in DS wasn’t very successful, we then switch to the Matrox Digisuite/Genie 3D/Netpower platform.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>We were very close to ship and we even get in Beta process with this configuration, but even with a computer that was the size of a mini-bar and filled with every video PCI/ISA cards available on the universe</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>the performance and stability were simply not present at the rendezvous.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Hopefully a brilliant team of program and hardware engineer based in Alabama working for a company called Intergraph had the solution in their pocket.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>A long vertical cabinet filled with Dual 233Mhz CPU (code-named Stingray) bundle with: a SDI capture card (Studio-Z) connected to 4 x 9G internal SCSI drives.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>This hardware configuration provide up 30 minutes of SD un-compress video…</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Oui Monsieur !</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>The long waited Digital Studio was finally available to the market.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>At NAB 1998 the most major breakthrough for Softimage DS was about to be introduced…</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>A new powerful CPU equipped with dual PIII400 Mhz (GT1) attached to a Fiber Channel Storage of 8 x 9G drive was introduced to NAB 1998.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>This was backed by a killer DS demo executed by Dean Lewis in the main theater.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>I was totally amazed seeing two stream of un-compress video running real-time without dropping frame with real-time chromakeyer and transitions.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Nice work from everyone from Softimage and Intergraph, a true synergy between the hardware and the software.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>In the mean time Symphony (the long awaited un-compress solution from Avid ) was introduced to NAB 1998.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>At that time Avid was using the exact same platform than Softimage DS, the same purple box:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>The trusty GT1…on the other hand the hardware and software from Avid Symphony was quite different and not as performing as well compare to Softimage|DS.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>I’ll stop my story here; the rest of the story is not as romantic:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>in short the purple guy from the south married the nice women from St-Laurent Street but they finally never get in bed and consume the wedding.:-(</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Thanks for reading my ‘approximate” english writing…</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Here’s my legato to the DS list…</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Best wishes and kudos to my present DS Team:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Sylvain Labrosse:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Literally the incarnation of elegance and effiency united in one single person!</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Philippe Antoniotti:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>The guy behind the creation of all ours DS supports tools,</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>a very dedicated and inspiring person.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Christine Durand:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Queen of Interoperability!</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>And my feminine alter-ego,</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Always present to provide me with the best managing advices.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>The past DS Team:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Dominic Mercier, Eric Losier, Daniel Faille, Pascale Nadeau, Pierre Labonté, Pierre Ayotte aka Electrik BBQ and Iseult Seguin-Aube.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Hopefully most of those people are still working on DS today.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Special thoughts to:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>(Warning!!!  Some comments are written in French -be warned-)</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Howard Chasten:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>-Be patient, someday I’ll visit Colorado.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Igor Boris:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>-Please be patient, someday I’ll visit Toronto…</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Tony Jover:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>-It was a real pleasure to have lunch with you and Patsy on St-Denis Street.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Luc Bellerive:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>-Wherever you go on the planet, you always know how to reach me </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>J
>  
> </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Drew Keller:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>-Thanks for introducing me to the RIO Karma, I don’t see how I could live without it…</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Rupert Watson:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>-It’s always fun chatting “geek stuff” with you at NAB</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Serge Verreault :</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>-One word : Maudit Malade ! Merci pour ton humour à haute teneur de sarcasme.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Pierre Guérin :</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Merci pour toutes les discussions sur les processus de la postproduction film.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Benoit Melançon :</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Merci pour toutes les discussions endiablées lors de nos lunchs du midi.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> Tony Cacciarelli<x-tad-bigger> :</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>I could witness that you’ve got balls…it takes lots of courage to demonstrate the early cuts of DS…</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Gus C.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Thanks for showing me the real differences between DS and Symphony at NAB 1999.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Sherry White:</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>It was always a pleasure talking to you and imagine you working on</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>your DS on that isolated island in Hawaii.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Sam Small: Thanks for being my first encounter with an real authentic -Avid MC Editor-</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>That’s it folks…it’s been a real pleasure working with you.</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Regards</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Michel Forbes</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Ex-Team Leader for Avid DS Escalation</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>