While many reviews of software plug-ins oftentimes focus on listing a bunch of the effects found in the package (which are all found on the manufacturer’s website anyway), I want to focus on the underlying technology improvements found in version 7 of BCC. Graphic software manufacturers are moving away from coding their applications to run on the CPU (central processing unit) in favor of having them run on the GPU (graphics processing unit) of your video card. OpenGL is an industry standard for defining 2D and 3D images and it works well on all graphics cards from both NVIDIA and ATI. In particular, OpenGL excels in rendering a large number of polygons and supports 3D cameras, lights, textures, and bump features. So it’s best suited for 3D extrusions as well as composites and geometric image distortions like those found in 3D text, lens flares, and particle systems.
These are the exact types of filters and effects found in BCC 7. In fact, each BCC effect found in version 7 has been re-engineered for the new and faster 64-bit operating systems and includes optimization for OpenGL acceleration. It is this new underlying technology acceleration that I believe is the biggest selling point for BCC 7 for both new and existing users. The results are noticeable and very much appreciated by anyone using effects as part of their everyday workflow. If you’re interested in learning more about OpenGL accelerated effects and graphics in Boris FX products, you can download the white paper at www.borisfx.com/download_files/OpenGLAcceleratedEffects.pdf.

There are also a lot of nice little touches throughout the plug-in set that any working motion graphics designer will really appreciate. These include the ability to Generate 3D extruded shapes from imported AE spline path mask shapes, full support for the camera and lighting system in After Effects, spline-based still and video morph technology, and filters such as Smooth Tone, DV Fixer, and Pixel Fixer that help “repair” digital artifacts that are becoming all too common. There are also complimentary 3D particle effects (to those already found in AE), including Particle Array 3D and Pin Art 3D, and automated optical image stabilization that works without the use of point trackers. When you add in video noise reduction that uses video clip spatial and temporal information and more than 3,500 presets across all of the filters, you have quite a complete and powerful package!

The complaint from some users of previous versions has been the slow rendering of effects and the overall value of the package. With re-written code for 64-bit operating systems and optimized OpenGL acceleration, Boris has certainly improved its overall speed of the product. (You can see speed gains at www.borisfx.com/Adobe/bccae/upgrade_reasons.php#gains.) At $995 retail for more than 200 filters you’re paying less than $5 per filter in the BCC 7 package and upgrades are only $295 from any older version of BCC. While you can certainly find more specialized packages of plug-ins that add even more advanced customization parameters (at a much higher price), I believe Boris Continuum Complete 7 AE gives you the most effects for the best value available in today’s market.—Rod Harlan

Company: Boris FX
Price: $995 (Upgrade: $295)
Web: www.borisfx.com
Rating: 4.5
Hot: 64-bit; OpenGL optimization
Not: Complicated activation process

The DroboPro (big brother to the popular Drobo storage system) has eight drive bays that can hold 3.5″ SATA drives. Currently, 2 TB is the limit of a single drive (although 3TB is right around the corner), so a DroboPro can hold 16 TB total. Data Robotics uses a proprietary storage technology called BeyondRAID that allows you to mix-and-match storage capacities of different sizes and easily expand your overall storage size in the future. Buy only the amount of storage space that you need now and add more when you need it. The DroboPro also offers dual disk redundancy so that if up to two drives fail at the same time, DroboPro can recover all your data and put it back on the new drives as soon as you insert them into the unit.

DroboPro has dual smart fans that optimize speed based on cooling requirements to minimize noise, an optional rack mount kit, and a triple interface featuring iSCSI, FireWire 800, and USB 2. iSCSI uses a Gigabit Ethernet connection and a software “initiator” to create a high-speed connection between your computer and DroboPro. Because iSCSI only requires a standard Ethernet cable, it’s a cheaper option than many high-end RAID set-ups that require fiber connections, switches, special adapter cards and cables, etc. I tested the iSCSI vs. USB 2 and found it to be about 2.5 times faster when transferring larger files.

The only disappointment is that DroboPro isn’t capable of directly working on a network. You can hook it up to one computer and then use your operating system’s built-in, file-sharing facilities to make it available to others, but this means your computer always needs to be on to share files and you’ll have slower performance because of the overhead associated with networking protocols.—Rod Harlan

Company: Data Robotics, Inc.
Price: $1,499
Web: www.drobo.com
Rating: 4

Hot: Easily expandable storage with dual redundancy
Not: No direct networking support