Q for JVC: HD50 & Avid

[Jiri Bakala]

I am hoping someone from JVC can answer this, as Avid is notoriously secretive about everything.

So, here is the question: the HD50 deck is still not officially supported by Avid, eventhough they do include its template. They, however, note that the inclusion is only upon request of users and it's not supported. Are you guys (JVC) working with Avid to make this work? I find that the deck is finicky with Avid, even in SD, especially with Digital Cut and as a result I have to use my old trusty Sony DSR-11 for that.

Any ETA on when the HD50 will be included in Avid support?

[Antony Michael Wilson]

Agreed. I now have a margin of error of up to 15 frames when using the HD50 for offline into Avid via RS422/Component SD. I have to compensate for this in conforms, which is a little tedious to say the least.

What gives?

[Craig Yanagi]

Avid is in possession of the BR-HD50U, as well as the GY-HD100U and GY-HD250U for the purpose of researching interoperability with their NLE products. Where the support release is in the queue at Avid is not known to us, nor is it ever made public.

Often times it is the voice of the end users that encourages/pursuades NLE companies to implement the support of hardware devices, and we have been aware for some time that there is a large number of ProHD users that are waiting for the support release.

It is our hope that Avid hears our collective voices and implements support for HDV720 soon.

[Carl Hicks]

Originally Posted by Jiri Bakala

I am hoping someone from JVC can answer this, as Avid is notoriously secretive about everything.

So, here is the question: the HD50 deck is still not officially supported by Avid, eventhough they do include its template. They, however, note that the inclusion is only upon request of users and it's not supported. Are you guys (JVC) working with Avid to make this work? I find that the deck is finicky with Avid, even in SD, especially with Digital Cut and as a result I have to use my old trusty Sony DSR-11 for that.

Any ETA on when the HD50 will be included in Avid support?

There is no specific ETA that I'm aware of. It's a frustrating issue, I know. Our product engineers have spent a good bit of time working with Avid, as well as many other NLE companies. We want very much for Avid to complete the certification. The fact is the deck works well with just about every NLE in the market - including Avid's own Liquid NLE. I think that maybe if more ProHD / Avid owners put more pressure on Avid to step it up, it might help. So please also direct your desires and concerns to Avid.

[Steve Benner]

Yes, it is Avid's fault. From what I hear over on teh Avid boards, it looks like after the new year. This is unofficial.

[Antony Michael Wilson]

Avid told me directly that New Year is most likely for full HDV1 support. This time last year it was 'before Christmas' then it was 'wait for NAB' and then it was '2006'. Nothing was mentioned about proper BRHD50 support. Frankly, I find this situation completely ridiculous and I doubt Avid is on JVC's Christmas list!

[Jiri Bakala]

Thank you Carl and Craig. Yes, more pressure on Avid is an interesting idea in theory but in practice it feels like a total waste of time and effort. There is virtually never any answer from Avid representatives on any of these issues. As Antony pointed out, it's been all but failed promises for the last couple of years. Well, at least we know that they have the deck and camera there in Tewksbury and hopefully they will eventually make it happen....*&$%#@

[Mark Silva]

Originally Posted by Antony Michael Wilson

Agreed. I now have a margin of error of up to 15 frames when using the HD50 for offline into Avid via RS422/Component SD. I have to compensate for this in conforms, which is a little tedious to say the least.

What gives?

There is a very specific RS-422 setting you need to set the deck for so it works properly. It's in one of Tim Dashwoods posts. This was working with fcp, but Avid should work just fine with sd over component and rs-422 control. Technically that should be no different than betasp.

[Antony Michael Wilson]

Yeah, I know about this. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, spoken to lots of people at Avid and JVC. Getting footage in and out of the deck using analogue/RS422 gives +/- 1 frame accuracy. That's a lot worse than Beta SP or DigiBeta which are always spot-on in my experience. However, it's not the end of the world. The main problem I have is when I conform native HDV in any other NLE for online from an Avid offline (offline media captured via analogue/RS422) the time code is always out - usually by 16 frames. I understand that there is some explanation for TC issues with interframe compression but this situation is just plain silly. On top of this, it is incredibly hard to get the Avid to configure the deck in the first place. I have to keep re-trying and re-booting the crate and then finally it works again until the next shut down. I've been working with Avid (mostly Media Composer and Symphony) using DigiBeta, Beta SP, DVCAM, DVCPro, HDCAM for 8 years and I've never seen anything this hopeless, even on firewire-based DV decks. Add this to the UNBELIEVABLE delays in Avid's full HDV1 implementation and you have a very unhappy team here. We are heavily dependent on our Avid infrastructure and skill-base for other clients and projects, so it looks like we won't be able to use the HD100 family for our future shooting projects unless something drastic happens at Tewksbury. It's a real shame because it's a great camera.

And this is all on various reseller-supplied and supported turnkey Avid systems by the way.

[Simon Duncan]

G'day Tony,

What's your guess with AVID and HV1 support? Do you reckon they will ever come to the party on this? Is Xpress Pro Version 6 a realistic delivery for this upgrade or do you reckon they are just going to keep F**** us around?

[Antony Michael Wilson]

Hi Simon!

I spoke to the Product Manager for Avid Europe recently about this very question. Based on this conversation, I'd say full native HDV1 will come with the next major release at some point in the New Year - v.6 for AXPro; v.3 for MC but 720p/50 projects along with DVCProHD 720p/50 native support may well appear sooner, in an update. But this is just a likely scenario because I'm told that Avid have not made any decisions on this yet. To be fair to Avid, they are asking the obvious question - what is anyone in Europe going to do with 720p/25 for broadcast? There is no broadcast master format supporting this standard or 720p/50. DVCProHD does not count as nearly all broadcasters will not accept this format for master delivery. They do have a point - our 720p/25 material will end up 1080/25 PsF on HDCAM and good old 625/50 on DigiBeta. It would be nice to be able to get the footage in the Avid first, though, so we can make that decision!!

When are you coming over, Simon?

[Simon Duncan]

Thanks Tony,

I have this Paris job that will keep me busy most of December. So a visit looks unlikely until the new year. Plus I have just got word from a UK dealer that the HD200 will be available from early December. But I will be holding off until at least the new year.

[John Mitchell]

I agree on Avid and HDV1 support, but the deck is a different issue. All decks SHOULD follow the Sony RS422 protocol. JVC seem to have a great deal of difficulty doing this (they even put an incorrect drop frame setting into the first release of the GY-HD101E). Most of the deck templates within Avid are there to support specific features like number of channels of audio, vectors for rewind and fast forward, specific pre-roll times and deck timecode offsets (probably numerous other things as well like arming times for record heads etc).

If you are getting a DRIFT of 15 frames when redigitising then this is a problem with the deck not the template. If you are getting a consistent OFFSET of 15 frames then this can be compensated for manually in the timecode offset feature within the deck configuration template.

as for Avid well they need to address HDV1 at ALL framerates ASAP, but they don't seem very motivated.

[Antony Michael Wilson]

I agree that the problem must surely be the deck and its implementation of RS422. Unfortunately, the time code off-set is not quite consistent. I realise that off-sets are possible within Avid (either on ingest or via Clip>Modify on incorrectly captured clips) but with no actual off-set consistency, it's no real solution. I feel a switch to XDCAM coming on...

[Jiri Bakala]

Do people have the same problems with the deck and FCP? I am so fed up with Avid (and more so, it's preventing me from working) that I feel a switch to FCP/Decklink coming...*&^%!