SGI: Video

After reading the headline I thought I'd mention something about the pricing of our software.

All our pricing usually has two levels depending on the type of support you require, these are standard and premium.

Premium support enables you to contact us directly via email where a response will be generated within 24 hours.

Standard support enables access to read and post to the NO:magic support forum.

However, we do offer reduced pricing to students and first time customers.

Wanna see how fast your O2 can really fly? Download and Register Capture for use with SGI O2 systems at http://www.nomagic.co.uk today and take advantage of our free 14 day trial.

How much are you charging for your products? $/£/€ amounts please.

<rant>
I have made a policy for my firm not to buy from vendors who cannot be bothered to give essential basic information such a s a price to potential customers. Why is it always a major mission to get such a simple thing as a price for sgi hard- and software from official vendors? If Sun gives you the option of buying an Enterprise server for $$$ over the Net it cannot be that difficult.
</rant>

Our prices are generated upon consultation with the client because we recognise that all clients have different requirements.

nomagic wrote: Our prices are generated upon consultation with the client because we recognise that all clients have different requirements.

Sorry to be rude, but you must have meant "different pocketbooks." The software is exactly the SAME for everyone. Just like a Toyota is the SAME for everyone. SGI might have a reason for not publishing prices but with a simple app like this there can only be one reason not to. We'll leave that reason a mystery for our loyal readers to figure out

I was talking along the lines of support, updates and functionality. In the current business climate you also can't expect a software development company to have fixed prices as the clients needs will greatly dictate the overall cost.

nomagic wrote: I was talking along the lines of support, updates and functionality. In the current business climate you also can't expect a software development company to have fixed prices as the clients needs will greatly dictate the overall cost.

sorry, that's b.s. In fact I'm gonna go dump the tardist right now without even requesting an eval license. No way will I deal with a company which isn't even honest enough to give a person any kind of idea of what their 'product' costs.

Nice to know up front what kind of outfit you are right upfront, tho.

I for one am happy to see commerical packages being produced for IRIX. I also do not think it is up to me to dictate the method in which a company chooses to do (i.e. stay) in business. That being said, I do vote with my pocket book if I feel I haven't been treated fairly.

nomagic is new to our forums -- let's try to be a bit more hospitable.

hamei wrote:

nomagic wrote: Our prices are generated upon consultation with the client because we recognise that all clients have different requirements.

Sorry to be rude, but you must have meant "different pocketbooks." The software is exactly the SAME for everyone. Just like a Toyota is the SAME for everyone. SGI might have a reason for not publishing prices but with a simple app like this there can only be one reason not to. We'll leave that reason a mystery for our loyal readers to figure out

The software is NOT the same for all customers. For example, they mentioned giving discount prices to students. That's a cost tradeoff, because student licenses usually don't allow the product to be used in a commercial environment.

Beyond that, why can't a company have variant prices based around levels of support, quantity of licenses, combo software packages, combo hardware packages, etc?

Companies are around to stay in business.. and you shouldn't complain to a company for having variant prices depending on it's customers and/or customer base.

brandon wrote: Beyond that, why can't a company have variant prices based around levels of support, quantity of licenses, combo software packages, combo hardware packages, etc?

Of course they can. And they do list those prices, too. They don't have to be exact - most companies have a "list price" which everyone knows is hooey then an "educational" discount and/or other price breaks in the price book. Generally the list price is the highest. We all know and understand this.

Companies which refuse to show or tell ANY prices are out to get every last stinking penny they can from you, no matter who or what. The ONLY reason for refusing to give any sort of indication of what the price is, is when they are used car dealers. Or horse traders. Or other unethical types of white-shod shysters.

Companies are around to stay in business.. and you shouldn't complain to a company for having variant prices depending on it's customers and/or customer base.

No one is complaining about different price structures which depend on different services being provided. What I AM complaining about is a total refusal to so much as mention ANY price - based on the desire to pick every possible pocket to the max. You're right - this is the modern version of "business" - especially in software.

Sorry, you guys go get your pockets picked. I'll shut up now but you can expect an "I told you so" later. Or maybe just one big Cheshire-cat grin .... I was once young and naive as well. Have fun.

Perhaps nomagic does not yet fully understand the sgi market. It is full of entirely different types of customers. From professional studios to government agencies to eBay facilitated sgi want-to-be's (such as myself) to educational facilities. All of these potential customers have drastically different budgets and expectations. If there is a great interest in the product by the types of customers that have the means to purchase it at a high price (such as those who can actually puchase new sgi hardware). Then why offer at a lower price at all? If there is no interest at that level, then by all means lower the price, make it accessible to hobbyists, and hope to sell more licenses at a lower cost. A company cannot simply jump into a new market and throw a price out there, that would be irresponsible. Successful companies expend alot of resources gathering "business intelligence" on customer demographics, etc. That does not make them crooks. Perhaps you've heard of another product by nomagic, "MagicDraw". That is a quality piece of software and there is no reason to assume that this one is any different, or that the folks over there are dishonest - based entirely on theory. Perhaps they are a good software company who is new to the sgi market...

I think it is important to understand the reality of doing business in the SGI software marketplace. A company may have customers that number in the single digits, or possibly as many as 4 digits. In either case one has to make money or there will be no products. I have been developing SGI based software for a number of years, and would be thrilled if I ever numbered my customers with two digits. Because my software development is really customized for one or two customers, I have no qualms charging $50,000 for what might cost $19.95 in the peecee marketplace. Any yes I will charge as much as I can get. I do this so that I don't have to break down and get a job with the evil empire (I live in WA state). So I understand perfectly when a small company in the SGI software business with a new product has some pricing ambiguity when they start hearing from hobbyists. It is a difficult problem to price a product such that it can be available to hobbyists and generates revenue from commercial customers.

If one wants to object to the commercial offerings, the only real way to do this is by supporting free software. And when I say support, I mean contributions of money and/or time. In doing this for a platform with a small customer base there is the possibility to discover the commercial offerings are actually a good deal.

has anyone tried this capture software and can tell if it's remarkably better (and why?) than the standard tools? i've just got my o2 video board (thanks zafunk!) and have played around with it a little.

works really great with my VCR and game consoles when using dmrecord but i'd like to try out no:magic's tool as well. however, seems like the download link is broken.

I haven't tried it but I did download the tardist last year; hopefully it's okay to mirror it here (it's only 300k):

ftp://ftp.nekochan.net/pub/irix/Graphic ... O2.tardist

It looks like an interesting company, with an interesting product. Here are a few of my problems though..

1. This is capturing software for O2. a workstation that was discontinued two or three years ago. I don't know if this is really aimed at the high end market.

2. I do think we should give nomagic the benefit of the doubt, it seems as though the product he's told us about here works well, but so far, none of us are sure on whether or not it'll be worth it. It's described as a capture application, are there any screenshots that compare this, dmrecord and the other recording rigups out there?

3. I noticed that pricing is variable. What if I'm a hobbyist with a 2-digit-number budget, who just bought his first (possibly only) SGI, a low-end O2 for some basic home movie editing. (c-vhs camcorders are less than $300). How much will you charge for a "noncommercial version, with no support" of your software?

4. I am a small business with about 20 SGI O2+ systems. We run a custom built editing app that doesn't have a capture tool built in. 1. will your app capture over 1394 and 2. how much would it cost us to license your app for all of our systems?

(I don't mean 3 and 4 to be offensive, but it seems like if we provide a scenario, or specifically request a license, we can get a better idea of the cost of the software)

5. from what I hear, the software does not change from person to person, the executable stays the same, and everything. Support and free upgrades seems to change though. that's to be expected.

6. Do you, nomagic, take suggestions for good software ideas? It seems as though our platform is still plagued by the lack of attainable-for-hobbyists nonlinear editing apps

7. can you hint at what else may be coming, other than hardware-specific apps, and discreet plugins?

neko: great - thanks! that was what i hoped for

cory: this thread is quite old, i do not believe that the developer himself still checks in here. you might better ask him personally to get your questions answered.
sorry for reviving old threads but in that case i felt that a new one wasn't justified.

the developer is probably a single-man army who earns his money by developing discreet plugins. sgi's makret is not exactly a hobbyist one, a small company could not earn money by developing low-cost software in such a niche.
i found that his support forum is actually empty and has like three registered users, so i suspect that the product might actually be dead, which is why i asked here first.

anyway, i'll try the capture utility and will look for clear advantages over the standard stuff.

Interesting, I hadn't noticed that! and here I thought that I was participating in a semi-current discusiion... and the original post is a year earlier... wow.

did anyone ever try out NO:Magic? Any idea what the email of the software vendor is? the domain is dead for the website now.

The tardist is still sitting happily on the nekochan ftp server, where neko uploaded it over ten years ago:

ftp://ftp.nekochan.net/pub/irix/Graphics/NMcaptureO2.tardist

Thanks I downloaded the file but what about a license ?

Oh crap, readling back in this thread I see you have to request a license for the 14 day free trial from the vendor, whose website appears to have been melted down for scrap metal, and google can't seem to find any relics of them on anyone else's webpage, they must not have lasted very long. Maybe a member here still has the license and will see this post and respond, anyone? Anyone? Bueller?