Premiere Pro 2 and DVCPRO-HD support
 

Well, Adobe says on their web site that they support it with an add on card. But they make no mention of what that card is. And I wonder if the mythical card really supports native DVCPRO-HD at all.

Does anyone know more details?

Thing is on FCP you get DVCPro HD support thru firewire and as an import format in SOFTWARE, why on earth would you need a hardware card to support it?

Perhaps they mean the AXIO card from Matrox, which looks good, but it's not cheap.

I remember seeing a video on Adobe's website about a card from AJA: http://www.aja.com/products_kona.html#k2
The Kona specs mention about hardware accelerated DVCPRO-HD.
The video didn't mention this card explicitly, but it sounds like this might be the one. Yeah, I checked on Adobe's third party section, and no hardware capture cards were listed for PP2. I won't be satisfied until a firewire option becomes available.

Alrighty, there's the video from Adobe:
http://www.adobe.com/products/premie...ere_movie.html

Adobe is approaching HD in a very laid back manner with their OpenHD approach. In other words, they're doing what they do best, allowing third-party vendors to provide solutions. DVCPRO[HD] is supported via 3rd party solutions and one of those is the Matrox AXIO - $7K+ just for the AXIO hardware/software bundle.

AJA does support accelerated DVCPROHD and other Quicktime supported codecs with their Kona cards, but the Xena cards (PC versions of these cards) while similar in hardware, are limited by the available codecs on the PC. It's not clear if they will offer any accelerated DVCPROHD features as there are currently no editors (mainly Premiere) that work with these cards and also offer DVCPROHD. At least not that I'm aware of. AJA does not provide any video codecs of their own with the cards.

Now, codecs aside, even if you have an NLE that supports DVCPROHD, you would still need software or a NLE that can read the Op-Atom MXF file format that the HVX200 uses to record data on P2 cards and devices like the Cineporter that connect to the P2 interface. The Firestore intercepts DVCPRO streams from the firewire port, so it's not clear if it records in MXF like the P2 interface and retains the associated metadata or if it records to AVI or QT. The HVX does output RAW DVCPRO streams from the firewire port, so you would be able to capture into a DVCPRO supporting NLE, even if you can't open the MXF files directly from the P2 cards.

Currently, the only MXF compliant solutions on the PC that support DVCPRO are:

AVID Xpress Pro HD (buggy, and their DV100 codec runs at 4~6 FPS)

Canopus Edius Broadcast (awesome MXF support that preserves metadata and great performance, even with HD. However, its not yet a widely supported NLE if you're planning on picking up editing work and it is still rather immature in terms of features). It may work for a lot of people - definitely one to consider for a $1K PC solution.

Matrox AXIO w/ Premiere - A nice NLE on the level of Avid's MC Adrenaline for most tasks. Figure $7500 + the cost of a compatible computer to put it in.

DPS/Leitch VelocityHD - Another excellent solution for MXF support. It's more geared toward networks and broadcast use, but a lot more mature than Edius. Steep price - $9K + cost of a certified computer system.

DV Film's Raylight - A DVCPRO codec with an in-line translator that can read MXF files and create a reference AVI. It allows most any PC NLE to load and work with HVX video data, but it is not yet optimized very well and still in the early stages of development. Performance is poor, but is at least usable and should get better. Only $195 and may be a great temporary solution until other PC NLE's get on the ball and offer native support.

Or the most logical solution for anyone wanting to start working ASAP and not have to deal with beta software and not being able to work with multiple streams of video.... BUY A MAC!!!!! I'm a PC guy and that's what I'm doing. No, I'm not going to do the "switch" I'm just incorporating a new G5 quad into my workflow. It will be my video / dvd creation station with Final Cut Studio and Photoshop. I may add Shake in the near future too. It will also run Lightwave (the 3D software I primarily use) and will also serve as 4x2.5GHz G5 cores for render nodes on my Lightwave render farm. Yes it is a pricey solution compared to waiting it out in PC land, but I stand to gain a lot out of all that I just listed and I can offer HD and DVCPRO services with a fair degree of confidence as soon as my HVX arrives.

VelocityHD currently only supports DVCPRO50 MXF files. Those files do, however, work as advertised on my VelocityHD system, and quite nicely. Simply drag the MXF to the timeline and you get realtime playback without any conversion step. Right now support is solid for either interlaced or progressive 30fps clips, or 24fps with 3:2.

VelocityHD does support 23.976p timelines, but at the moment will not detect and remove pull-down from the 24p clips. I'm sure they will address this soon.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

Interesting. They list DVCPROHD as a supported format on their web site... I was under the impression that it's now supported in v9..? Or is it just the MXF file transport that is limited to DVCPRO50?

No, currently just DVCPRO50, P2 or otherwise.

They do have 720p Varicam support, but digitized from HD-SDI only, and "support" means proper attention to flagged frames for the various framerates in the "over 60" stream, not native codec on-the-timeline support for DVCPROHD. Here's a link, if something elsewhere specifically says DVCPROHD, it's wrong.

http://www.leitch.com/custserv/products.nsf/$All/7519D6EADE704AC885256E670061039D

Native support of DVCPROHD is a developmental priority, as is general shoring up of all P2 features.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

Workable?
 

Thank you for a very nice summary; your impressive post leads me to suggest (at some risk of ire for "cross posting") the following (which assumes one is accepting the limitations of AVID you noted)

HVX200 on order
AVID Express Pro 5.2.1
Pro Tools HD 7.0
After Effects
Black Magic’s Decklink HD card and HD link card

It appears that Windows XP/DVX200 users might be able to:

Edit in AVID
Export to AE
Do AE things AND monitor output using AE's support of the Decklink hardware.

Comments welcome!

P2 in Liquid or Premiere?
 

Is it possible to capture/import P2 files yet in the latest versions of Avid Liquid or Adobe Premiere, and if so what's the process required for getting P2 video onto the timeline?

Hi Kevin,

For Liquid 7 all you need to do is select "Xrecieve from P2" and then you'll be linked to the content on the P2 card and ready to edit, no transfer required or transcode. Liquid reads MXF native. The caveate is that Liquid supports DVCPro25 and DVCPro50, not DVCProHD. So if you're working in SD DVCPro50, then Liquid is a great solution. If you're working in DVCProHD then P2 is not available in Liquid 7. Maybe Liquid 8? I don't know..

Liquid and P2 seem to get along very, very well. Unless you only want SD like Stephen said. If you like Liquid, head on over to http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/47033/ShowPost.aspx and add your request for DVCproHD support. Hopefully with enough requests Avid will add the feature.

Thanks guys, appreciate the information. Anyone know anything about the status of P2 import in Premiere?

Pretty sure there's no support yet, but you can use www.dvfilm.com/raylight to import/convert the files into .AVI's that Premiere Pro can edit.

I don't know if it's still this way or not, but last time I looked at Liquid, it had no support for 24p either.