hi,

I have several dumb questions...and here it goes...

1) What's the difference between raptor rt and storm rt (besides being able to do real-time preview of more tracks and analog input..)?

2) How does an editing card work (i.e. what does the hardware and software do)?

3) I am thinking of getting vegas... it's supposed to be real time...can it replace premiere and raptor rt?

Thanks a lot....

Cheers

Hi Lawrence,

"What's the difference between raptor rt and storm rt (besides being able to do real-time preview of more tracks and analog input..)?"

The proprietary software that comes with Raptor is a little less fancy than Storm Edit, which comes with the DV Storm. And as you might suspect, the analog jacks make a big difference in your setup. With the Raptor you always have to have your DV camera or a DV deck hooked into the setup to be able to preview your work on an NTSC monitor.

"How does an editing card work (i.e. what does the hardware and software do)?"

The hardware on an editing board supplements the horsepower of the computer's central processor when it comes to specialized image processing tasks, such as color correction, chroma keying, blurring, picture-in-picture, and so forth.

"I am thinking of getting vegas... it's supposed to be real time...can it replace premiere and raptor rt?"

While the gulf between what software-based "real time" products and hardware-based real time products can do will continue to diminish as CPUs get faster and faster, currently the Storm is still able to do a lot more without rendering. Canopus made a plugin for Premiere 6 but it's doubtful that one will ever come for Vegas since Canopus is introducing their own NLE Software product, Edius, which, judging from screenshots and such, should be able to do just about anything Premiere and Vegas are capable of.

One thing that's nice with the Canopus real time cards is you can color correct the whole length of an hour-long clip and not wait a single second for rendering. I don't know if this is possible for software-only NLEs yet. Also I doubt Vegas would be able to do a real time picture-in-picture.

A few years ago people were predicting that by this time you'd be able to do everything you could do with a real time card with just an OHCI firewire card and a computer with a fast processor. That era hasn't arrived yet, but it is an eventuality.

beside the storm bay, realtime MPEG2, unique editing software...
Both DVRaptorRT2 and DVStorm2 are same.

Just a note about Edius. At first glance, it seems to compete directly with Premiere, Vegas, and Edition with its list price of $599. But there is a catch -- it REQUIRES a DVStorm or DVRex board.

I need some comparisons from actual users of these products.
We are looking into purchasing either one of these systems.
We were told that the Canopus product uses a proprietary codec which affects the quality of the video. If that is the case, we would rather go for the Matrox, even though it allows a lower number of real-time streams.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tony

It is true that Canopus uses a proprietary DV codec, and it's true that this codec affects the quality of the video. However it affects the quality of the video in a very *postive* way. The Canopus DV codec is (in the opinion of many) the cleanest and best DV codec currently in existence. Avid liked it so much, they used the Canopus DV Raptor card in their own systems a few years ago. You can't go wrong with Canopus, and I have no doubt that many Canopus users will chime in on this one and agree with me. Hope this helps,

Never used the Canopus product.

I edit several hours per day on a Matrox RT-X100 and I'm very happy with it.

The Matrox Real Time effects and transitions work without a glitch and they look very nice.

The MPEG-2 Real Time export is a blessing. No more long encoding hours.

It only works with Premiere. Currently I use version 6.5.
Have installed also Premiere Pro and works ok with the RT-X100.

The breakout box, althoug not as slick as the Canopus one, does the job and, to me, it is easier to use because you won't have a tangle of cables running out of the front of your computer. Its easier to place the breakout box next to your equipment rack than to bring all the cables to your computer. If you only use Firewire that's not such an issue.

Best regards,
Arnaldo

Hi all,

Just wanted to share my experiences with the Canopus DVStorm2.

My first impressions:

1. Canopus site is very difficult to navigate. You can't clearly tell which drivers and updates that are new.

2. No complete setup-process, you have to manually run 3 or 4 different setups - in the correct order

3. If you install some component afterwards, chances are that you break something else becaue the setup programs doesn't check to see if they overwrite newer files.

Premiere Pro:

1. Almost no RT performance at all
2. Very specific hardware demands, you have to have THAT motherboard and THAT soundcard etc etc
3. The so called "Certified plugin" is just wishful thinking. Matrox RX.100 is certified by Adobe, Storm2 isn't.
4. After browsing the forum at canopus I noticed that they have struggled with the same problems since september 2003, and they are still not solved.
5. Capture only works 50% of the times in PPro and when it works, you don't have any devicecontrol.
6. Many of the filters and transitions aren't 100% working in PPro

Canopus:

Mailed them asking for help more than a week ago, still haven't received any reply at all.

They don't give ANY information regarding current status of the drivers

They don't give any hints of WHAT you should be able to do in RT in PPro.

When you read the material on their site, the bottom line always is "Buy EDIUS 2".

The good:
Stormencoder - The hardware MPEG module, worked like a charm. Got about 80% RT performance ( main cpu at 20% ). Produced great looking MPEGS
TVOut:
Good TV-out from AE6 and PPro and Photoshop

Conclusion:
Inmature product
Bad drivers that haven't been fixed for a long time
Very high demands on the existing hardware

Hopefully someone here has a good experience with their Storm :-)

Best regards,

Lars Siden

Sweden

I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. I usually hear
that Canopus was better than Pinnacle, especially on driver
support. Guess they have fallen down the pit as well.

For what it's worth, I've really been impressed with how the Matrox RTX/100 is supported via their web site. Also very pleased with the performance of PPro and the RTX.

Hope you find something that works.

i keep thinking about ditching my canopus raptor rt2 and getting the matrox rtx-100

i have had canopus products for years now and they have the same issues they have always had.

their site sucks and you have to stay on hold for 25-40 minutes to get a a tech support person.

i actually solved a few of my problems by reading some tech support documents on the matrox site!

i wasn't even going to get canopus the last time around but a client gave me a shrink wrapped raptor rt2 card and i couldn't exactly exchange it.

matthew

Clearly, Matthew, you never used the Canopus forums. They make up for a lot of the slow support problems and I've yet to see a problem that doesn't get cleared up by the crew. Otherwise, Canopus would be in a lot of hot water. Except for Premiere, of course.

The Web site, however, seems just fine to me. I can get anything I want that is reasonable to get on a Web site. Since I stay plugged into the forums, I know what is new and old and I never load software until others have tried it for a while.

Most of us Canopus users use Canopus products because, if you use OK hardware, they run and run and run. I've had my DVRex for 6 years now and it hasn't run out of gas yet. Canopus still supports it with software upgrades so it stays current. No other NLE system can say that AFAIK. And the quality is second to none as is the Real time capability.

Understand that I don't use Premiere as my work doesn't need all the bells and whistles and the problem reports on it and any Canopus product would make me avoid it in any case. RexEdit and now Edius are fast and high-quality with just enough bells and whistles to make me happy.

i HAVE posted to the forums and read every message i could find when i had a problem.

it seems to me to be one of those forums where people only post problems and never reply to help out other people.

i've had canopus stuff since the original raptor.

recently i found out that there capture utility flat out doesn't work with the dvx-100a and i called their support and they didn't even want to write up a note.

the premiere capture works just fine.

they just seem like a company who isn't focused.

matthew

i have to agree with the negative comments towards canopus...canopus is based out of japan, almost all the applications except for imaginate are written in japan

in my eyes the US office is nothing more then distribution center with tech support...and have a hard time getting through users frustrations to Japan, or maybe the mother ship is just not listening...

canopus ruled the roost until fcp, avid, edition and matrox joined canopus on the software side of the software vs hardware debate...

today canopus has shifted focus to edius a new nle, which i like...it is however missing quite a few things... the ppro drivers are buggy and a new date for working drivers is non-existant...canopus software does not talk to each other, imaginate does not work with edius and edius has trouble reading some files from procoder (although i'm told that will change with 2.0 shipping next week)

canopus has very outdated filter system, that is keyframe less, i always found it cumbersome to use in premiere...the cc tools are probably the worst of the bunch with no secondary color correction and a painful i/o that is not refined...

basically canopus loss any kind of market leadership and in my eyes stained that insignia of quality with recent releases...


on the other hand the grass is not always greener, matrox has it's share of issues, as it is still very much a picky piece of hardware, i do however like what they have done with intergration with ppro, and all the extras you get...

one thing that matrox understands that canopus does not is i/o, matrox has a simplfied i/o for filterd and dialog boxes...old pros may not recognize this but newbies are a bit thrown off by look canopus gives you...

matrox also gives you alpha support for filters, transitions n such...some folks (corp video types) consider that a staple, canopus has yet to see value in this, and gives very little alpha support...


my advice at this point is stay simple, ppro is much improved, avid pro is great, edition (once learned) is limitless, and even the demo of edius 2 i used is great...so today you pretty much only need a fast pc a 1394 card....

at nab we will see the dawn of the hd editing cards, maybe even sonys vegas hardware card....

Let's see how DVStorm2 rates at http://www.videoguys.com....

Oops, it didn't make their Top 10 list. :-((

<<<-- Originally posted by Frank Granovski : Let's see how DVStorm2 rates at http://www.videoguys.com....

Oops, it didn't make their Top 10 list. :-(( -->>>

i have a hard time trusting the 'public' opinions of those that sell the products they are talking about...

i will say that gary knows his stuff, and in this case he is probably right...

I was just curious about the rating there, since I'm not aware of any other sites that rate NLE software with a Top 10 each year. If you know of other sites that do this, please post their links so I can do a little reading. Thanks.

<<<-- Originally posted by Frank Granovski : I was just curious about the rating there, since I'm not aware of any other sites that rate NLE software with a Top 10 each year. If you know of other sites that do this, please post their links so I can do a little reading. Thanks. -->>>

frank are you still running win 3.1? it may be tough to get you that list...

its hard to compare nles on a whole because it depends what your needs are, just like cams, if you need a shoulder mount an mx5000 just won't do...

on the windows side there was a comparison done by media mag you can check it out here:
http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?CategoryID=39&ArticleID=8066

I'm still running WIN 3.11 on the computer I do most of my stuff on, including connecting here. (I own a few computers.) Also, I've got a new one comming soon, which my buddy is building between his 2 jobs. My NLE needs? None at the moment, but I can always play and learn. Thanks for the link.

Yes, I like WIN 3.11 a lot, and DOS even better for my games; and I do have WIN 98 on one of my 'puters, but that's not that new either. :-))

Also, Frank's kitchen sink has a hand pump, and his car runs on steam power.

As for Lars's complaint, it's true that hardware compatibilities do tend to be finicky with Canopus setups, and it's a pity that he hasn't been able to get satisfactory help from the company or from the tremendous user base Canopus has built.

And while I've been a Canopus devotee since the DV Rex, I largely agree with Robert's assessment. Canopus's golden era was 1997-2000. SD DV editing just doesn't demand proprietary hardware support anymore. The faster Canopus brings out a stable, versatile, desktop-based HD editing platform, the quicker they will restore their reputation as the company to beat for DV editing.

<<<-- Originally posted by Frank Granovski : Let's see how DVStorm2 rates at http://www.videoguys.com....

Oops, it didn't make their Top 10 list. :-(( -->>>

Videoguys and Canopus had a falling-out a few years ago. Until then they were a major promoter of Canopus products.

They cannot be trusted to be neutral on this as they basically are not allowed to sell much of the product line. I do not know what the issues were.

As for whether they know their stuff or not, I bought into their hype about 6 years ago. Had to give away the product they sold me as their vaunted support was nowhere to be found after the first go-around. All of a sudden, Gary was always busy.

<<<-- Originally posted by Matthew de Jongh : i HAVE posted to the forums and read every message i could find when i had a problem.

it seems to me to be one of those forums where people only post problems and never reply to help out other people.

snip

matthew -->>>

Sorry it seems that way to you, Matthew. I have had a completely opposite experience. Even to the point of being invited to bring my computer system into Canopus in San Jose where they spent hours solving the problem. Which wasn't theirs, by the way, it was a bad design on a SCSI controller on a motherboard. They GAVE me a PCI SCSI controller to solve the problem.

And every time I've asked for help on the forum, I've received it. From Moderators, members, and Canopus employees. A brief run through the forums wouldn't leave the impression that there is no help available. It's the main reason the forums exist. Any forum for that matter.

However, as you know, there are problems that cannot be fixed. Bad computer components, bad choice of components, and as we know, a bad set of drivers from Canopus for PPro.

Still, it remains the most stable and long-lived editing system out there for me. I grew up on RexEdit (does 95+ % of everything I need to do in an NLE) and have now moved on to Edius and it's improvements. I haven't lost more than 5 days of editing to problems caused by Canopus products in the past 6 years.

I tried FAST, Pinnacle & Matrox before I found Canopus. They all had major hardware and software problems and absolutely no support.

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Mann Z. : i have to agree with the negative comments towards canopus...canopus is based out of japan, almost all the applications except for imaginate are written in japan

in my eyes the US office is nothing more then distribution center with tech support...and have a hard time getting through users frustrations to Japan, or maybe the mother ship is just not listening...

---------------------------------
Absolutely correct. Has been from the first with them. It is very typical of Japanese companies. Engineering-driven, no marketing to speak of.
----------------------------------

canopus ruled the roost until fcp, avid, edition and matrox joined canopus on the software side of the software vs hardware debate...

today canopus has shifted focus to edius a new nle, which i like...it is however missing quite a few things... the ppro drivers are buggy and a new date for working drivers is non-existant

-----------------------
Woa. PPro drivers are not a part of Edius just because they were released about the same time. Don't tar Edius with the PPro debacle.
-------------------------

...canopus software does not talk to each other, imaginate does not work with edius and edius has trouble reading some files from procoder (although i'm told that will change with 2.0 shipping next week)

-----------------------
Don't we hope!

I agree with everything else you say from here on so to save space I won't repeat it.

'today canopus has shifted focus to edius a new nle, which i like...it is however missing quite a few things... the ppro drivers are buggy and a new date for working drivers is non-existant"

your right poorly written, just to reconfirm..
edius GOOD
ppro drivers BAD

Hi,

I'm fairly close to the issue and can state with clarity that although Canopus has issues with PremPro, they're being fixed.

A new driver release should happen very soon.

It seems fair to also point out that while the PremPro drivers are troublesome for many, there are many of users who use them without a hitch.

For those of you who don't know Mike Gunter, let me assure you that he is a Canopus expert and an Insider. While Canopus doesn't tell its Insiders everything, he knows a lot about what is coming. Mostly or all under non-disclosure. But as you heard, a new Premiere driver is coming.


BTW, an observation from an OLD computer hand (built my first one in 1977) and spent 30 years in high-tech work in Silicon Valley, about making bits work from multiple suppliers.

Canopus is very careful about what components they approve for use with their systems (Avid and the other high-end manufacturers are even more restrictive) for very good reasons:

1. There are no standard computers in the IBM PC compatible world because there is no standard.

Only completely vertically integrated manufacturers like Apple can claim to build a standard computer. But then you have to buy exactly what they offer.

2. Although every component may be designed to a common standard, the rules are often misinterpreted and even when the interpretation is right-on, one component may be designed at one end of the specs, another at the other end. So they may not play well together. Motherboard manufacturers qualify specific models of memory chips, etc., just to get around this problem.

3. Companies love to make their product just a little bit special. So we users find that from time-to-time their products don't play nice with others. Compaq and HP were probably the main computer supplier culprits for a long time.

4. When you mix in a motherboard, processor, memory, display card, I/O and all the other bits into one computer, it is no wonder they sometimes have problems. All of a sudden you are a Systems Integrator and get to solve integration problems. Or you pay someone else to do this.

5. Add in video editing, one of the more difficult tasks for the personal computer and one that demands more resources than any other application.

6. Even when one company certifies another company's products, problems can occur because of 1-5 above.

It is not surprising that those who run Premiere find their systems not as reliable as those of us who run native Canopus software. It is not surprising that there are those who run Premiere with Canopus drivers with no problems.

The only way to build an editing computer with some assurance that it will work when you get done is to:

1. Select the editing program/sub-system with which you want to work.
2. Select a computer or computer components that are known to work with the editing program.
3. Build the computer and/or set it up exactly as recommended by the supplier of your editing program/sub-system.

In almost all cases you will end up with a reliable editing system that works for you instead of crashing.

I'm on my 4th computer in which I've run the Canopus DVRex M1 (at first) now with the RT card. Except for the first computer* every one has been built with components certified by Canopus to be compatible with their editing products. I rarely have any problems with my editing systems (I now have 2). They just work.

DVRexRT with Edius 1.52 on both systems.

*for which the System Integrator decided to pick a motherboard with an integrated SCSI controller vice a PCI-based controller (same basic motherboard as the one recommended by Canopus) but, as we discovered, different.

Can anyone help me with a little bit of info about your Canopus DV Strom 2 editing card running with Premiere Pro 1.5.
When using PAL project setting, is it set to Upper Field First or Lower Field First?
Can you still use Premiere Pro FX in realtime? (i.e. Premiere Pro Color Correction Filter).

Thanks in advance.

no..
u cant use any prem effects without the storm falling over..
also in most cases depending on ur config, storm fx is killed off with 1.5...

if using s storm 2 i woudl recomend sticking with prem6.5, as it not only gives u all teh features of teh stor, but it also allows u to use DVCapture and capture from 3 decks at once.

I have heard of afew people being able to use storm fx with pro, but im yet to actually see it (i deal with these systems everyday and from the 30 odd storm configs ive seen, im yet to see storm fx and dv capture with PremPro installed...

Thank for replying Peter. I was interested with canopus article at
http://www.canopus.us/US/pdf/ENGLISH_STORMPRO_PREMPRO_VA060404G_print.pdf

There it said on page 12. Preview of Native Adobe Premiere Pro Effects. Is DVStrom2 and DVStrom2Pro+ any different?

Thanks.

Hi Desmond,

I've been using Premiere Pro 1.5 with a DVStorm2 for a couple of years now.

I've found that you can't use any of the native PPro effects/transitions etc ... and achieve real time playback. Any sections using the native PPro effects/transitions have to be rendered. The same goes for PPro titles or Photoshop stills.

This has only been a minor inconvenience over the years as the built-in Canopus effects/transitions have been more than adequate for the work that I do - mostly weddings, music videos, live concerts, tv commercials etc ....

The hardest I've ever made the DVStorm2 work is as follows:

11 camera concert shoot
1 video track per camera in PPro
File size approx 20Gb for each camera

all up the DVStorm2 was processing over 200Gb of video data in real time - amazing!!

I read page 12 of that document and I agree that is says that PPro + DVStorm2 should be able to handle real time playback of native PPro effects etc .... I'd be interested to know why I've never been able to get it working.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your comments Matthew. Could it be because of the card model? DVStrom2 and DVStrom2Pro+ Perhaps the "Pro+" here, is the one that does realtime PPro native FX. I'm just guessing.

One other thing Matthew. If you set your project to DV PAL setting, does it use Upper Field or Lower Field?

Thanks again.

Desmond,

Just checked and my project settings are lower field first.

Did you checked your project setting under PAL or NTSC?
Dang. I should really just get Canopus instead. I got Matrox RT.X100 and don't know why Matrox use Upper Field First for DV PAL setting, and Lower Field for DV NTSC. As far as I know all DVs are Lower Field First. Quite annoying.

Thanks Matt.

hey des, i would suggest you flip ur settings to lower field or even better progressive....
the RTx100 is a good card... at this point in time prolly offering more than the Storm2 with PPro1.5

Hello forum!

Does somebody know if this would work together:

Canopus DVStorm 2 Pro + Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 + DELL Precision 390

I am moving to Avid Mojo + Avid Xpress Pro next year, but i would like to change my computer before that and
DELL Precision 390 is one of Qualified PC Workstations for using with Mojo+Xpress Pro (by Avid).

And now i am wondering if i can use the old videocard (Canopus DVStorm 2 Pro) with this computer to survive this year.

Canopus Regional Sales Office here have no idea about that, Canopus Support Center is not responding on my questions,
and my computer will die in the near future.

Please help,

thanks

There is absolutely no Canopus Storm board plug-in support for Premiere 2.0.

You would be left with the choice of either editing in OCHI mode with AP2.0 with no board acceleration and use of certain video cards for limited output to an NTSC monitor or,

Changing to use Canopus Edius as your NLE and then your Storm board would funtion.

And this is all for DV25 .... the Storm board does not work with HDV.

Also be aware that their Edius NLE will not work when installing other hardware boards such as Blackmagic. I don't have any specifics as to it's functionality with Avid hardware as you are planning.

Everything John mentioned is true.....the last version of Premiere Pro that the DVstorm worked with is 1.5, and many users reported a lot of compatibility problems with various chipsets and motherboards.

Canopus hosts a great forum on their website...all of your questions can be answered there :

http://forum.canopus.com/

Thanks John, thanks Wade

I will finish this on Canopus forum.