Why would you not think they (NLE providers) will support it when the time is right? This discussion is way ahead of the actual presence of the products in any quantity, JVC notwithstanding.

It's not so much whether the NLE support will be there but needed cpu power to achieve what we can currently do with standard def. Not to mention delivery format to consumers.

I can guarantee at least for a few more years that many who jump on the HDV bandwagon early on will be downconverting their footage. For those of us who do this for a living it's just another step that takes more time. Time is money. Are we going to falsely advertise that we're shooting in HD only to give the client a downconverted dvd at 480i? Then charge extra for it? Unless you guys do work for big corporate clients then you're going to put yourself out of business.

It would be much nicer if they would just release a standard def palmcorder like the sony dsr570 or panasonic sdx900 that is 16:9 native.

I wouldn't say it is just CPU power that is needed. There are some other underlying issues because of the nature of the MPEG 2 stream. Now it can be done, but the licensing is quite expensive.

A 17MB a second stream is big, but not that big, and can be done with existing hardware. The problem is the software for the NLE, and the fact that at each cut new i-Frames will be needed to be created on the fly.

Current top end CPUs can handle HD with little problem. I have a 3.5 GHz P4 and I've been rendering in HD in 3DS Max and processing in HD in Vegas and my render times are more than bearable. I really don't think CPU speed is going to be an issue. At 1280x720x60 or 1920x1080x30 we're talking roughly 5 times the amount of data per second as 720x480x30. If a render that normally takes 2 hours suddenly takes 10, well that's ok. I leave my 2 hour renders overnight anyway. Is there a hard drive space issue? No, not with 250 GB hard drives being so cheap.

Don't forget that Intel/ATI/Pinnacle demoed real-time editing of HD at the Intel Developer's Forum. Don't know the full details, but the software is coming as is the hardware.

I think anyone that has any experience with it simply knows its a pain in the A**. Its designed as a delivery system - period. I think NLE manufacturers will only support it because some desk jockey's have made ita standard so they will have to support it.

What pisses me off is that they treat consumers as a "dumb - quality doesnt matter" group. And that should not be the mentality (blah blah yeah yeah sure it costs more to created things that create quality imagers.. my butt. "if its cool or good - we'll charge you for it because we can").

/end rant :P

Daymon, I agree MPEG is a total pain to edit, completely inappropriate for post production work. NLE companies will either use a big hammer like Pinnacle intends (hardware accelerated via a PCI-express graphics card), or spend rendering time, or you get out of MPEG ASAP. The last technique is pretty much the approach of Aspect HD; RT without new hardware, and quality you can control. The choice of MPEG as an aquistion format was bad. We try to not make the situation worse by editing in it. :)

David Newman
CTO, CineForm.

> The last technique is pretty much the approach
> of Aspect HD; RT without new hardware,

This seems to be the same idea behind Apple's Pixlet codec.

Pixlet has potential, but it hasn't yet proven itself as an editing codec (based on some of the comments on this forum.) It seems it was originally intended as a high definition distribtion or maybe digital daily format. But the idea of a very high quality intermediary, or mezzanine format is not uncommon in high end workflows. My theory : shot in the best format your can afford, edit in a format that provides the highest performance and quality, and distribute is every format your market will bare.