Hello everybody,
is it possible to do real time hdv editing with lumiere hdv and final cut pro hd with a Powerbook G4 dual 1.5ghz with 1Gb ram or I do need a G5 ?? I beleive you can do real time editing on a pc with adobe premiere pro and aspect hd so is the same possible for mac users ???
Gabor

What resolution and do you hope to use the internal drive?

well tha laptops have 1280x720 resolution and yes i do would like to use internal drives...if not i dont mind to use firewire drives if they works better....
at pc editing there are some laptops with 3.4ghz pentium iv with 2gb ram and 2 internal drives with raid0...with aspect hd I am sure they would work nicely but what about at mac???

If you are going to edit in a low resolution, off-line resolution, then the PowerBooks would be fine. However, for RT effects etc. you will need stripped drives and at present the PowerBooks are limited to one internal drive. A FireWire RAID would be and option, but there goes the portability. If you have an immediate need for this type of editing I would suggest you stay with the PC laptops for a year or so. I don't expect G5 PowerBooks for another.

Gabor,

You mentioned you have a Powerbook dual G4? Did you mean single?

Also, the question you need to ask yourself is how do you look at your footage while you edit it?

HD native editing makes sense, only if you see your edits in HD on a/HD monitor b/Cinema Display c/Laptop LCD (but you compromise ease of use, since it takes over your screen).

I tell you, on a laptop...I prefer to watch my edits real-time on an NTSC monitor in widescreen. For this, I would do offline DV anamorphic and keep all the realtime benefits. Going online at 720p from there is just a few clicks with Lumiere HD.
Take a look at the QuickTimes:
http://lumierehd.com/workflow.php
#6 - Online to HDV 720p

Keep in mind that unless you have a way to monitor your edits in HD resolution, you're looking at less than DV resolution anyway in your browser and canvas.

Finally, we did test DVCPRO HD on a G4 500Mhz 500 MB RAM Powerbook and it played fine, 2 layers.

I hope this helps.

Frederic, I watched the 3 clips you have posted on your site and they're great! Can't wait to see more...

Murph

Bottom line, on a mac laptop, editing with Lumiere, you will be offline. So, you won't need an external drive.

On a PC laptop, you can edit real-time with AspectHD, but you'll probably need a firewire drive - not a complete RAID setup, by the way.

So, if you want to edit on a Mac, you can - offline.
Otherwise, you'll need a PC, AspectHD, and a 1394 drive.

And Frederic,

Why lug around an HD display on the road (I just can't see any other reason to use a laptop for editing) when you can preview in Premiere/FCP/Vegas? The preview window is small, but I don't see what use having another display would be, except to possibly check color - in which case an LCD is useless anyway. And if you do want to check color, you shouldn't be previewing in an offline codec regardless.

Converting from HDV to DVCPRO, just to edit RT on a mac sounds like a hassle too. But DVCPRO real time on a G4? Sounds cool. When you say 2 layers, is that transitions too? External drive?

Will,

I beg to differ.

90% of HD productions in Hollywood are cut offline. 100% of film productions are cut offline. Offline editing is a very common and efficient workflow for editing.

My motto is the following: Whatever solution you choose, make sure you don't compromise ease of use. Don't kill the creative process just because you want to be bleeding edge.

Honestly, any computer monitor isn't the ideal to do color correction. In our workflow, we recommend to color correct only once the timeline is back online at full 720p resolution. So I agree with you, don't color correct with an offline codec or at least don't make final color correction decisions.

Converting from HDV to DVCPRO to edit in HD RT is a fantastic solution! With 2 cinema displays it is a revolutionary solution. No extra hardware and real-time HD. We do consider DVCPRO HD an offline codec of HDV in our workflow however. Keep in mind that going back online with our solution is only a few clicks because of the poject preparation we do using the XML Interchange Format.

You see, no offense...seriously, but this is a hard workflow to sell to non professional editors who edit on Premier because they have never been exposed to the professional editing environment. Does Premier have an offline/online Media Manager type feature?

Just my humble opinion :)

2 layers without transitions internal drive.

Frederic,

Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that offline isn't widely used. I just wanted to suggest to Gabor that a monitor might not be that useful offline. Or practical to bring on a trip for that matter.

Also, I ddn't mean to knock DVCPRO as an offline codec, rather, I just wanted to point out that it would be less practical to use on a laptop (for travel).

It also seems a bit presumptuous to suggest that everyone editing in Premiere is a non-professional. For the record, Premiere Pro is a different program from all previous iterations of Premiere, and is, in fact, quite capable for a professional working on a tight budget - especially with HDV.

Will,

I agree with you regarding taking a monitor on the road, it isn't very convenient. DVCPRO HD is indeed a more appropriate codec if you have an HD capable monitor.

As far as Premier Pro, I must admit that I don't know the software. I used a very early version of Premier on my 1st documentary, many years ago.

Will,
for the PC real time editing why do I need a 1394 hard drive ?? I have found a laptop with 2 internal 7200 rpm hard drives in Raid 0 or Raid 1 setup.I beleive that would be sufficient amount of speed !!

Frederic,
Yes I meant single G4 dual was a mistake...sorry...

And I heard that Premiere Pro is really a great editing software much better than the previous versions and really matching final cut pro performance.
Gabor

Christopher,

I am glad you find the training movies usefull.

We've updated the page with 3 more movies:

http://lumierehd.com/workflow.php

Gabor,

If you found a laptop with 2 internal 7200rpm hard drives, then no, you don't need 1394 anything. I've never seen anything but HUGE laptops with that kind of hardware, but it sounds pretty sweet. Keep in mind, though, that an external drive may provide some extra portability (and something to accidentally leave at the hotel).

And for anyone who hasn't seen the new Premiere, I encourage you to check it out. Adobe dropped Mac support for Premiere (too much FCP competition) and rewrote it from scratch for WinXP exclusively. This unfortunately means no backward compatibility for ANY older premiere plug-ins, hardware, etc. (hence the new name, Premiere Pro). The big changes are in the video and audio pipelines. Video is all RT and exstensible; audio is all RT and uses routing (similar ProTools) and has DX and VST plug-in support. PPro also adds support for offline formats (with hooks for developers).

PPro doesn't match the full-box functionality of FCP, but it's still cheaper and has quite a bit of functionality from 3rd partys. So, I'd recommend trying both FCP and PPro before you make a decision.

Frederic,

I just noticed a "Version_11" folder on your "Footage" drive...can I try it???? :)

Murph

Soon...very soon.

With a G4 laptop 2 firewire hard drive connected to it on a firewire (800) in RAID you should be able to get pretty fast data transfer ,no??
So you can edit offline with Mac but to do final color correction in 720p than you need to render right ?
Gabor

I'm saying no, definitely DON'T try firewire RAID. It's not meant to be. RAID should be dedicated drives only, and Firewire wasn't mean't to handle RAID anyway. The PCI (or PCI-X) or IDE bus is much better suited to handle RAID.

So, to build on that point - here's an example. Let's say you RAID the external drives with the laptop. Then you move to your next shoot, and plug Drive 1 into where you previously had Drive 0. I'm not sure how robust Macs are in dealing with this stuff, but I'd say if you ever did that, you'd be screwed.

And I'll guarantee you won't get the performance you expect. To do this, you'll need SCSI RAID.

But if you are going to edit offline, ask Frederic, but I'm pretty sure ONE internal drive would be sufficient. He could probably advise you to an offline format.

A Firewire drive might be useful for extra storage, however, but I would recommend against ANY external RAID unless you plan to use SCSI.

In an offline workflow and on a laptop, you can edit using DV and store your source HDV footage on any drive (external if needed).

Medea has this G-RAID storage connected to a laptop via firewire 800 and they say you can edit 4 streams of HDV and 3 stream of DVCPRO HD on a laptop...??!!
Is that a good solution ?
Gabor

The G-RAID system is controlled externally with hardware. So, it's like having an external RAID box with a built-in controller. In my opinion, that would be great for editing.

You see, the way these systems are setup, the RAID is transparent to the firewire interface - it's all controlled INSIDE that box. That is a lot different from connecting two firewire drives and letting your PC or MAC control the RAID with software.

Exactly...it says you got 75MB/sec transfer rate for HDV or any other editing needs.With my Pentium IV 3.06 GHZ laptop it will be great editing solution for the road.

So how much would the configuration you guys are now talking about cost, including the Pentium 4 laptop? What do you think the total would come to?

Well the G-RAID with 320GB is i think $399 plus a good Pentium IV 3.06 GHZ laptop with 1GB memory is around $2000...
I`ll say for $2500 !
Gabor

i'm looking into the G-Raid 320 GB for video editing on a G4 tower and a powerbook in the future (as posted in my other thread).

The G-Raid is a RAID 0 configuration, right? meaning the 320 GB model actually has two 320 GB drives and keeps one as a backup in case of the other one failing?

If this is the case, can you also set it up in a RAID (1, i think) config to instead have a single 640 GB volume? I suspect this would be similar to the way the LaCie Big Disk is set up?

someone please let me know if what i'm thinking is correct, or fill me in with accurate info. it seems everyone else here already has a better understanding of RAID systems than me :)

thanks

I've been looking at the G-Raid and I'm pretty sure that the 320 GB is two 160 GBs in a striped array. I don't think you can mirror them for protection. Still, that's alot of storage at a 79mbs sustained rate for the price. Barring some bad reviews or learning I can't do what I need with it, I'll probably be adding it to my system.

I actually bought the 160GB G-RAID but i had no chance to hook it up to my laptop and actually try it....but i think in the 160GB version there is 2piece of 80 GB hard drive and i can choose raid-0 or raid-1.If choose Raid-1 than i will get the full 160 Gb of space but if you choose raid-0 you wont get the speed....it is just a thought.

Slightly backwards guys.

Raid 0 is striped meaning the data is shared across both drives for speed and you get all the space.

2 x 80GB drives = 160GB for example.

Raid 1 is mirrored where a duplicate copy of the data is written to both drives in case one goes bad.

2 x 80GB drives = 80 GB

Use Raid 0 for speed. If you want data security go all the way to Raid 5 where you will still get the speed you need plus the backup.

<<<-- Originally posted by Mike Gannon : I've been looking at the G-Raid and I'm pretty sure that the 320 GB is two 160 GBs in a striped array. I don't think you can mirror them for protection. Still, that's alot of storage at a 79mbs sustained rate for the price. Barring some bad reviews or learning I can't do what I need with it, I'll probably be adding it to my system. -->>>

The 320GB is (2) 160GB drives in a striped (RAID 0) array, which still gives you 320GB capacity. RAID 0 still retains the combined capacity of both drives.

Mirrored would defeat the purpose, as you would no longer get the 79MB/s transfer rate (assuming you have FW800).

I wonder what the AVG sustained write speed is though? Usually when a vendor supplies their "maximum sustained data rate" number it is for reading (which is obviously more important for real-time video work anyway), so I am curious what the write statistic is. I would imagine around half of the read speed.

By the way, if you purchase (2) FW800 cards and (2) 7200RPM firewire drives of equal size, and put them in a software RAID 0 array, you would likely get better performance than the G-RAID. Just a thought.

Ben

After reading some of the above posts I just realised that some of the information I supplied in my last post might have been redundant.

Doh.

Ben

You guys might want to check this out:

http://www.barefeats.com/fire46.html

It shows that the G-Raid and LaCie big disk extreme are roughly equivalent in "out of the box" performance.

It also shows two single firewire drives on separate firewire channels will also give you better performance than either "out of the box".

However, the more interesting thing to me is near the bottom of the test. Apparently you get consistent performance with the G-Raid throughout the entire capacity of the disk, which makes it unique among the other two.

I assume that, like most other shops, your drives are almost always half full, so in that case the G-Raid looks very attractive. A video drive that maintains its speed as it nears capacity is very good news, at least for us. I think the G-raid will be our next firewire drive for sure, especially given the reasonable price.