FYI: Video Demo of Film workflow and Liquid 7.x

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Ram Ganesh

since this video seems to be offline/deleted from saltar's server - I uploaded my copy to Google Video (with stephan's copyright intact - let me know if u dont want it there)

http://snipurl.com/Liquid24ptutorial

This is fine and I wish I could append the first post with the new location of the mini tutorial.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

I have no choice to be public about reliability because I need to solicit feedback. In general I find Liquid 7.1 hangs-up very often. Thankfully not when editing, but when I switch Sequences while a background render is running.

Once again I urge anyone who is interested in cutting 24p HDV for film to attend Liquid Immersion. I will personally show you as well as demonstrate how to edit on a Liquid system without any hangups.

Heavy hitters like Lew Schatzer (cuts for PBS), Paul Mitton (cuts for E!) and Tim Koranda will be instructing as well as many other highly regarded users of Liquid. I myself will be instructing as well as having plenty of conversation about ProHD.

[Jack Walker]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Once again I urge anyone who is interested in cutting 24p HDV for film to attend Liquid Immersion. I will personally show you as well as demonstrate how to edit on a Liquid system without any hangups.

Heavy hitters like Lew Schatzer (cuts for PBS), Paul Mitton (cuts for E!) and Tim Koranda will be instructing as well as many other highly regarded users of Liquid. I myself will be instructing as well as having plenty of conversation about ProHD.

But one of the main points is that Avid has made it clear that 24p is _not_ officially supported. Similarly, Avid has been silent as to when and _if_ 24p will be officially supported. Avid has made commitments about other products, but stays silent about Liquid. Unless you know different, or Avid says different, it makes some sense that as soon as Avid gets things straight in the fall with its other products, it will pull the plug on its unofficial, undocumented support of 24p for the JVC camera. But in or out, it's a guess, since Avid won't say.

Avid seems to still be in spin cycle with Liquid. As one of the dealers stated in another post, the Splash disk is not in the box because there is _so much_ unsold product lying around that went out before the Splash promotion. The "one-time" $200 off promo has become the "never-ending discount." June saw the Avid blowout of everything Pinnacle. (I've been getting what seems like hourly emails reminding that tomorrow is the last day. Whoa! I'd hate to miss out on Studio 10, the prequel to Avid Liquid 7.0.)

I don't see dealers coming on forums frantically pushing other NLEs, but there are several dealers on several forums doing this for Liquid. The stockpiles must be high.

You mention the Liquid heavyhitters. My questions is, are these people cutting in their big studios on the PC and inputting with the pro breakout box? Or are we mixing animals and oranges here. Reminds a bit of when Walter Murch cut Cold Mountain on Final Cut. He didn't order Final Cut with his $200 off coupon mail order and install it on his G4 in the bedroom. He had the whole Apple team rewriting the program for him as he worked... and the setup he used... well.

If you have to go to Liquid Immersion to learn how to get Liquid to work... and if Avid won't commit to HDPro 24p support... well.

When Liquid Pro costs less than a set of basic Tiffen filters for the HD100, or less than half the cost of one little LitePanel, and when Liquid can be made to work very well, Liquid's got a place and can be great for many people, even as an interim editor... but it's also fair and ethical to point out that Liquid is not of the class of an Adobe application out of the box as a modern software product.

[Stephen L. Noe]

I invite you specifically....

[Joel Aaron]

Originally Posted by Jack Walker

I don't see dealers coming on forums frantically pushing other NLEs, but there are several dealers on several forums doing this for Liquid. The stockpiles must be high.

Or they might be better marketers. Perhaps they've got a good product, want to get the word out and make it better by getting feedback from the frontlines.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Jack Walker

But one of the main points is that Avid has made it clear that 24p is _not_ officially supported. But in or out, it's a guess, since Avid won't say.

Of course, Avid might be not claiming support for 24p and 24F because it will decide at the last minute not to support either. But, it's more probable that until they have both working and tested they are not going to confirm support. And, right now 7.1 is not working 100% with 24p and perhaps not at all with 24F. So, they are quite correct in not making any claims.

However, once they get 7.1 working, probably with another SP or an upgrade to 7.2 -- you are correct that Avid will need to make pure business decision on Liquid's future. In the past they pulled the plug on VideooShop, Media Suite, and Avid Edit. They certainly could sell 7.x as long as they can -- and then drop it. Perhaps, once the Smart GOP engine is ported to Xpro.

But, they could also decide to invest in a V8. One option would be to remove all the funtions not relevant to DV/HDV. The whole X-send and even RS-422 stuff could go as far as I'm concerned. Also, remove the Classic stuff. The fewer functions, the less QC effort needed. QC could then be focused on DV/HDV and DVD output. With support for Bluray.

There's a marketing rule -- there is never room for more than three products in a market. Apple FCP, Avid Composer, and Adobe Premiere are three. Canopus has a chance because everyone considers that they produce very high quality products -- and reputation matters.

Which raises the question -- might Avid, after they get Liquid up to Avid's standards, simply lower the price of Composer and then drop Xpro?

IMHO, it's really impossible to predict what the next year will bring.

[Jack Walker]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

But, they could also decide to invest in a V8. One option would be to remove all the funtions not relevant to DV/HDV. The whole X-send and even RS-422 stuff could go as far as I'm concerned. Also, remove the Classic stuff. The fewer functions, the less QC effort needed. QC could then be focused on DV/HDV and DVD output. With support for Bluray.

I have expounded this view (or variations) the past year.

I think Liquid needs to decide exactly what it is, then do that superbly, and all the junk and old coding needs to be torn out. However, it seems Avid has taken the opposite approach, piling in more Hollywood effects, more codecs that don't have a workflow, old Magic Bullet presets, a bitmap titler, and so forth. The people who are attracted by the "free goodies" also need a foolproof app, easy for first-timers and amateurs out of the box, and Liquid isn't that.

Probably no one knows for sure what the right move is. With the HDV cameras the DV world and the high-end world, the video world and the film world are truly meeting. There is a middle professional road that is looking for the new and perfect, affordable for the alone and lonely as well as the young family man and the creative retiree, super-NLE.

Stephen, thank you for the invitation (though I must say, there is slight threatening undertow there), but it is impossible for me this year. When I get the HD100 class camera, which I definitely am, I will be editing on Liquid, and I trust it will work... and I hope SP2 for 7 is out. (about a month to 6 weeks from now?)

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

I wish I could append the first post with the new location of the mini tutorial.

All you have to do is ask.

I've edited the original post with the Google location, as well as Paolo's H264 version which I've made available on the DV Info media server (hope that's okay; always happy to help host good clips like this).

The revised locations now in the original post are:

Click here for streaming WMV best viewed full screen 1280x1024.

Click here for QT Mov (H264) For Macs in the house.
download first, and rename the extension from .movx to .mov

Hope this helps,

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Jack Walker

Stephen, thank you for the invitation (though I must say, there is slight threatening undertow there), but it is impossible for me this year. When I get the HD100 class camera, which I definitely am, I will be editing on Liquid, and I trust it will work... and I hope SP2 for 7 is out. (about a month to 6 weeks from now?)

No undertones amigo, only a specific offer to people who are already cutting on Liquid and are interested in expanding the tool to include Film and SD delivery.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to cut ProHD and then deliver BetaSP through the component on the pro box to a deck as well as DigiBeta. I'm talking long form timelines, without a hiccup.

[Tom Chaney]

Hi Stephen,

Great stuff. You're going to force me to switch! Especially if I don't get my FCP update soon.

Tom

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

All you have to do is ask.

I've edited the original post with the Google location, as well as Paolo's H264 version which I've made available on the DV Info media server (hope that's okay; always happy to help host good clips like this).

The revised locations now in the original post are:

Click here for streaming WMV best viewed full screen 1280x1024.

Click here for QT Mov (H264) For Macs in the house.
download first, and rename the extension from .movx to .mov

Hope this helps,

It does help, Chris. Thanks for the assist.

[Brian Luce]

Hi Stephen,

Liquid doesn't seem to get a lot of attention relative to the other players (final cut etc). What is it about liquid you like? does is have any unique features?
great video btw....

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

No undertones amigo, only a specific offer to people who are already cutting on Liquid and are interested in expanding the tool to include Film and SD delivery.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to cut ProHD and then deliver BetaSP through the component on the pro box to a deck as well as DigiBeta. I'm talking long form timelines, without a hiccup.

I think you might want to recast that "without a hiccup" statement. There is a major CONFIRMED bug in Liquid that prevents an HDV sequence from being put in an SD DV sequence and resized. There is a workaround -- I've worked out -- but it shouldn't be necessary.

Your choice of uncompressed output as the example of SD delivery nicely avoids the bug. But, I doubt DigiBeta is a very common output for an HDV editor. How about showing how one can export 24p via FireWire to a DVCPRO HD deck? Or, via HD-SDI to HDCAM or DVCPRO HD.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

I think you might want to recast that "without a hiccup" statement. There is a major CONFIRMED bug in Liquid that prevents an HDV sequence from being put in an SD DV sequence and resized. There is a workaround -- I've worked out -- but it shouldn't be necessary.

Your choice of uncompressed output as the example of SD delivery nicely avoids the bug. But, I doubt DigiBeta is a very common output for an HDV editor. How about showing how one can export 24p via FireWire to a DVCPRO HD deck? Or, via HD-SDI to HDCAM or DVCPRO HD.

You'd need ChromeHD for that. Chrome's BOB will output to all those decks via HD-SDI or component.

I know all the tricks after 5 years on the product (thus, no hiccups) but what is this bug you speak of and how are you resizing? Explain your attempt and I'll try to see if I get the same results. You're probably figuring out there are at least 5 ways to resize HDV to SD in Liquid.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Brian Luce

Hi Stephen,

Liquid doesn't seem to get a lot of attention relative to the other players (final cut etc). What is it about liquid you like? does is have any unique features?
great video btw....

What I like most about it is that it is it's own environment. There is virtually no generation loss to your video if you keep it inside of the Liquid environement. You can layer effect after effect on clips and at the very most your end delivered product would be second or third generation. HD preview to HDTV with a client watching your edits playout in full glory is an incredible time saver and very impressive without render. In other words it's FAST and flexible.

Learning the intricacies of the program took a long time. The operation manual alone is over 1000 pages, but once it's learned then WOW. The sky opens up because you have contol over everything. Try cutting 9 or 10 cameras in 5.1 surround, mastering in Wavelab using Steinber VST's and color correcting using secondary colors and then adding FX that can utilize any one of 10 different scaling/rotation algorithms. You can't get in any other NLE without purchasing thousands of dollars worth of plugins and helper apps.

That's what I like about it. You can keep it simple with cuts, fades, wipes and simple edits and then output OR you can get down to the nitty gritty to the deepest technical part of editing, all in one application.