The chair of digital arts stepped down and the new people are trying to develop it. With that they need computers and they have asked if they could have our computer from Creative Arts. I’m talking about the one on the left side.
Steven Reeves doesn’t want to move the printers and wants to stay under the arts wing. DMS won’t loose a computer at all all members will still have access just as they have in the past. We will just loose one from that room and it would just be under a different committee.
I feel this is a question for everyone to answer and not just me. Please (if you care) vote. We are also discussing this in the Facebook creative arts forum. Voting ends Friday.
I’m not opposed to losing the non-printer computer and the touch screen
attached to it.
What we do want to take into consideration is the Creative Cloud
subscription that I think is somewhat in a state of neglect. There are two
flavors of CC. There’s the full-blown version and then there’s a
“Photographer’s” sub-package. Retail these run about $70 and $10 a month
retail. (DMS may qualify for a discount but I’m not sure). In any case it
would be nice to have the full package on the printing computer such that
we can print from Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and InDesign. That
being said, I would ask that we at least maintain the Photographer package
that gets us Photoshop and Lightroom. Having those is somewhat essential to
printing to the photo quality printers.
I use Photoshop on the computer attached to the flatbed scanner, to edit photographs that I scan. I haven’t printed anything on the CA printers, yet.
It would make more sense to me, with what little I know, to move the flatbed scanner and computer into Digital Media, and leave the other computer with the artist tablet in Creative Arts.
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I’m cool with the scanner going to DA but think the tablet should go, too.
I’d rather the printer computer be more like the laser cutter computer. Put
it on a standing height small kiosk type table and make it a sort of thing
that you walk up, load your file, print and then get out of the way. My
hope is that we can then consolidate all the printer/vinyl cutter devices
onto a single machine for processing jobs and keep the usage time on the
computer (and space it takes up) minimized.
We already have another computer in CA that, as I understand it, hooks into the vinyl cutter (so, CA actually has three computers, plus the artist tablet). The computer currently used for the flatbed scanner is too powerful for it to be just a kiosk; my opinion is it is the nicest computer at DMS (though, I’m impressed with the computer Science is using, too).
Reiterating here (Though I feel by now you know my mind):
Vastly, I feel ambivalent as to the location of the computer. If the Yinova monitor and the full Adobe Suite are kept together, I and people like me (Michael Smith, Josh McDonald, etc) can still work no matter where the computer is set up. If it is the kind thing to do to share our wealth with DM, and if it is little hindrance to those that are already using the computer for film-editting and animation purposes, than I say, “Go for it!”
Steve should be consulted concerning the location of the Printers and the accompanying computer.
If it is a great hindrance and a detriment than we will find another solution.
RIght, I’d like to see three become one. I’m also cool with rearranging the
computers such that the processing power is where it needs to be. The
printer computer does need to have enough muscle to work with potentially
large files (they can get upwards of hundreds of megs) and needs to be able
to open PS and such but it doesn’t need to be the Hulk or anything.
One thing I’m not clear on is whether hardware or software or both is the issue. If it’s hardware, we could easily purchase something at auction or overstock. If it’s software, we might be stuck.
As far as I have been able to tell from the board items over the last five or six months about $3000 have been spent to provide DM with a ‘high end graphics’ computer.
From partial conversations it appears that the equipment keeps going down. I think we should figure out why before we put another computer in a situation that has broken two already.
I would also say, that without any additional capabilities being added, the two computers in CA already have a lot of use by members. Seems that moving one to an area where additional use will be made is just going to make it harder for the people already using it.
Also, we recently purchased TWO creative cloud licenses, one for CA and one for DM. Both licenses require a fairly substantial machine if you work with large files. I know I have worked with 300+ megabyte digital images (not video), which is why my home machine has 64GB of ram.
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Ah, good to know! so we should be cool with having CC in both rooms
(regardless of where each of the computers sit)
Another issue with placing the computer in the DM room is that room is occasionally booked for classes/projects in a way that no one else can use it during that time.
With the machine in CA, I have seen classes being held there while people were still able to use both of the computers.
We shouldn’t move things in a way that makes it harder for people to use.
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DM won’t need the computer. They will have two working machines by the end of next week, without the CA one.
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@wandrson is correct.
I conducted the turnover to the new DM chair, and they did mention that they are starting over with completely new hardware.
DMS’s initial $1500 investment was put towards upgrading a pre-existing, six year old Dell T5500 that was upgraded. DM also had to put in an additional $300 (approximately) into this machine, and it just wouldn’t stay online.
From what I understand, the new DM committee chair and another member were able to piece a machine together that should do the job with the second $1500 investment, and will be leveraging a render server for the heavier work.
It is a good plan. Interested in seeing what and how they decide to move forward with Digital Media.
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Just a follow up - The computer will not be “high end” from a video editing and special effects perspective. It may be high end, however, from the DMS’s perspective. $1500 may be good enough for DMS use.
The computer should comfortably render 720p and 1080p footage when it comes to video editing.
Just wanted to clarify.
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What happened to the computers that are now considered broken? Could they be repurposed?
I’d like to tinker with them. In fact, I’d like for Science to set up an open source computer lab.
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Since that is the only computer that has Illustrator, it is frequently in demand. I don’t care where it physically sits, but if we move it to DM then our access to Illustrator will be curtailed (i.e., the computer will be in use in DM for non-Illustrator things). Perhaps we could consider getting Illustrator on another computer which would alleviate some of the hardware contention issues. If we can’t get another copy of Illustrator on another computer, then I say don’t move it.
Which computer has the software for the embroidery machine? It should stay in Creative Arts or the software will need to be installed onto a different one.
Does this mean the issue is moot and nothing will be moved?
Yes basically, DM will have two computers (the new one they’re building, and the old dell workstation which I assume still needs a powersupply or something).
It will probably be a good addition to most users with the additional adobe suite computer including the 2 design computers in CA. The main draw to the 'space for a lot of people is having an expensive software license available and adequate power to run the applications. We’re big enough now we shouldn’t be running on outdated laptops and old software.
Thanks Natasha for all the hard work you have done for that committee. I hope the new Digital Media Committee leadership can continue to do some amazing work.
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The old Dell desktop is gone…
The one that Adrian donated is the one that’s currently in the DM room.