Cineform workstations and hardware suggestions
 

Thanks David,

Are there any SDI cards available that can transfer data from firewire of the camera to SDI in the card into the computer ? and then after Aspect HD edits the video then again transfer from SDI to another SDI of a HD machine or Digi Beta for master. Can you please guide if there are such options available. Thanks.... I am in the process of buying all in one shot , the fx1 and Aspect HD with premiere pro 1.5...since the price has gone down now. I am just concerned what will happen to the final output after edit. My aim is that output should be able to project on the theatre screen .

Thanks

It sounds like you need Prospect HD, which implements HD-SDI I/O and is 10bit not 8bit, so it is better suited (and proven) for film work. Aspect HD is fine for all your HDV work, but the HD-SDI output would be a secondary step (by exporting your timeline to another workstation that will do the HD-SDI export.)

>>Aspect HD is fine for all your HDV work, but the HD-SDI output would be a secondary step (by exporting your timeline to another workstation that will do the HD-SDI export.<<

David,

Wouldn't it be posible just to install a cheap HD-SDI I/O card like the BM in the same machine, render out to their codec assuming the PPro pixel aspect ratio thing gets solved in their next release), create a new PPro BM project, and export it out to whatever HD deck you can beg borrow or steal?

David

Yes David, that would work find. A workaround for HDSDI exports from Aspect HD projects -- I see no issue with that.

So when can we expect to see the PAR problem corrected :)

Only Adobe can answer that question without getting me in trouble. :)

Spoken like a true developer, at least in a public forum :)

I would only add that if I was a user (I'm on discreet edit for my SD productions), it couldn't be soon enough. Adobe has to understand that if they ever want to play in the professional marketplace , they can't just issue releases once a year. NLE's are complicated little beasts - much more complicated than anything else in Adobe's stable - and frequent small feature upgrades and bug fixes are essential when people's livings are at stake. I just don't know whether their corporate culture can disgest this.

Setup with Matrox card
 

Is this setup will work with the Matrox card ??
2 regular 19 inch LCD for editing and a Dell 2405fpw monitor for monitoring ???
Can these monitors can be connected and setup for this ???
Please help before I order.
I use Aspect HD + Premire Pro 1.5.1 with the Z1.
Thanks

This is support to work based on the Maxtrox docs, yet I haven't tried it.

Are you guys have any plans to try such a setup???

It works!
 

I have an APVe feeding 2 19" LCDs with a the very same Dell as a monitor and it looks great! I had bought all this stuff and had misread the ATI X800 cards info and bought that first thinking tis faster and... blah blah blah. get the matrox, download all the latest drivers and updates for your bios, install, and edit with sweet beautiful results. The only miner gripe I have is that every once in a while the video has a little jaggedness in the lower left of the frame on the Dell display. I really think the APVe is a steal myself though I haven't tried it on any video games as of yet. Let me know if you have any questions Gabor.

I am rethinking my idea with the dell monitor...I hear a lot of not so good reviews about it...I think I will rather use a 22 inch CRT computer monitor !!! But how do you connect them to the card since they do not have component input????
Gabor

Have you noticed any delay after hitting the play button from your NLE timeline for the output to the external monitor? I am wondering about Premiere specifically.

not at all
 

not any real noticable delay

Graham, are you using PP1.51 straight, or with the AspectHD plugin?

Can I use a 22 inch CRT computer monitor !!! But how do you connect them to the card since they do not have component input???? Any help here is appreciated....
As a second note can you connect an SD broadcast monitor ??? Will Premiere or aspect HD will downconver real time when you editing HDV to SD for preview ???
Anyway if my first option is a yes then I dont need the second one.
Thanks

1,200 USD notebook for NLE
 

http://www.averatec.com/notebooks/6240series.htm

HD can be replaced with 7200 RPM one.

Can be external 1600x1200 monitor added for editing FX/Z1?

I would use Vegas 6. What else would need for efficient editing?

Radek

Can't see whether it has IEEE-1394 connectivity...

You could probably get a PCMCIA Firewire card: but it's nicer if it comes built in...

BTW, watching HDV on a 15.4" screen is gonna seem mighty small even if (and possibly because of) it has a WS aspect. Be about the same viewing size as watching 16:9 on a 17" 4:3 aspect monitor.

Laptop/notebooks like this are only gonna get cheaper, but the important things to make the final purchase decision over, are whether there's truly enough high-rezz screen real-estate, enough hard disk space (that's fast enough... though this is less of a concern as it was) and enough connectivity options. Then you gotta decide whether you want battery time over performance. I'd suspect the AMD mobile chip would be about as power hungry as my P-IV laptop is, but it'd be worth knowing for sure...

Just PNY540 or any HDTV out card?
 

I'm starting into the upgrade process for a pci-express system and I am seeing a lot of cards that indicate HDTV-Out capable in the marketing. How do they differ from the PNY 540 card (other than the breakout box)?

If for instance, I would like a 256mb or 512mb model? For instance Leadtek makes a $50 256mb card with hdtv out capability or any dual DVI card with HDTV capable output?

What is approved for Aspect HD if any and what do I need to look out for?

If you MediaPlayer can output to the HD component output of the graphics card, then Aspect HD will work with it. So any card will work. The amount of RAM (256 vs 512) is not all that relevant to Aspect HD.

Sorry for the simple HD questions, but I'm from the the DV world where none of these issues came up... Now if I used a dual DVI HD resolution capable card with a scaler how would that work? When does one use a scaler normally?

How would I use a video scaler in conjunction with a video card such as this one:

Startech.com VID2DVIDTV Component/Composite/S-Video
Code: DH-VID2DVIDTV
$185.00pad

Convert between resolutions and video formats with StarTech.com s VID2DVIDTV, a Composite/ S-Video/YCbCr/RGB component to DVI scaler.
CONNECTORS- (1) DVI-D Dual Link Female
(1) S-Video Female
(4) RCA Female
FORMATS - Input : Composite, S-Video, YCbCr component or RGB
interlaced.
SIGNAL LEVELS- Input : Video @ 1V p-p, 75 ohm
Y @ 1 V p-p, 75 ohm
Color @ 0.7V p-p, 75 ohm
YCbCr
RGBH
RESOLUTION - Output PC (RGBHV): Progressive Scan
VGA 640 x 480 @ 60/72/75/85 Hz
SVGA 800 x 600 @ 60/72/75/85 Hz
XGA 1024 x 768 @ 60/70/75/85 Hz
WXGA 1280 x 768 @ 60 Hz
SXGA 1280 x 1024 @ 60/75 Hz
Output HDTV (YPbPr, RGBHV): Progressive Scan
1080i 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
720p 1280 x 720 @ 60 Hz
576p 720 x 576 @ 50 Hz
480p 720 x 480 @ 60 Hz

The card does it all, I have never worried about that stuff. We use a standard overlay surface, when you play out HD you get HD, the card will automatically scale if necessary (such as outputing a 1920 image to a 1280 display.)

Minimum Athlon 64 speed for Aspect realtime performance
 

Hi David,

What is the minimum required speed for Athlon 64 processors to run Cineform Aspect?

At the Cineform site you have listed minimum requirements for single HT Pentiums, but not for single Athlon 64 processors -- Does this mean that any Athlon 64 is capable of running Aspect and allowing realtime performance with 3 to 4 HD streams?

-Geoff Murillo

Not quite. All Alton 64 processors will work, yet the performance will very with different memory and CPU speeds. The faster units will have 3-4 HD streams. Unfortunately we don't have good data on the single proc AMD parts (we have only one at the office), as most of our workstations have the very fast dual AMD Opterons.

Laptop with external drive question
 

Quick question here. I was wondering if I hooked a LaCie Firewire 800 PCMCIA interface into my Dell 3.06ghz HT Inspiron 5150 notebook, and then connected a LaCie 1TB BiggerDisk Extreme to that via Firewire 800, if there would be much increase in editing performance? In Vegas 5 that is, with maybe a bit of colour correction used. Or would the CPU speed be more of an issue? I'll be buying a copy of Connect HD once my HC1 is back from Sony.

Glenn

Disk speed is not the biggest bottleneck with your system, for a laptop it is good to have 7200RPM drive in the system, or the data on a standard FireWire drive. For a 3.06Mhz system you are likely running a 533MHz memory bus (most systems are 800Mhz now,) which is the biggest bottleneck -- unfortunately that can't be upgraded. Memory speed is more important than CPU or disk speed. That said Connect HD will still speed up capture about 3X, plus many other features. Vegas preview is very scalable allowing significant performance on a wide range of systems.

Hi David, thanks for the reply. The internal drive is 7200rpm, but I'm looking at using an external drive anyway. Maybe the LaCie I mentioned, which I believe has at least 80mb/s sustained if connected via Firewire 800. So a faster drive like that would probably enable more tracks to be streamed, but not if the memory is still only 533mhz? I'll be monitoring at half resolution in Vegas (720x540). Not using any external monitoring.

Yes, the slower memory will limit the number of video streams that can be decoded before the drive speed will be an issue.

i'd check the speed of the firewire 800 as microsoft preaty much knocked it out with XP SP2(knock it down to s100 -should be s800) - they then did a fix but that just got it back to firewire 400.
from my test even using unibrain 1394b driver doesn't equal XP SP1 1394b speeds ...

Ah yes, I remember reading about SP2 reducing the speed. Maybe I'll just wait until I get a better computer. Actually, I saw a Boxx laptop at a media show yesterday that was quite impressive. More of a workstation with 2x drives in a Raid 0 configuration, a proper CPU (not Centrino), 1920x1200 17" display etc. Expensive, but no more than a good laptop would cost 5 years ago.

Xena LH and Aspect Question
 

Since Premiere 2.0 offers built in support for the card in both SD and HD what will Cineform do with the Aspect plugin to take advantage of that, if anything? Will it still be limited to Prospect or will you turn it on for Aspect but in 8 bit? Sure would be a shame to get all the benefits of the card using .m2t but not get it using Aspect. Given that the new Canon H1 is 8bit HD-SDI wouldn't that make a nice fit?....not to mention it will beat the heck out of using a video card for monitoring.

Currently Premiere Pro only has support for the Xena HS, not the new LH series cards, but your point is still an interesting one that are considering (certainly for timeline monitoring.) For capture and HD-SDI mastering we have the Prospect HD line.

You are right and I missed that(take a look at the LH page and it talks about Premiere 2 but sends you to the HS page) and the HS is 10 bit only(LH is 8/10)....hmmm I think Adobe needs to clean up their ad/info since it can be read that with HDV you get monitor out...which with HS is a no go. Tying into either card is good and not hard I wouldn't think but don't know about licensing...do multibridge while you are at it.

Will this card work for output to HD with Cineform?
 

Found this on the web and wanted to figure out the best economical solution to going to an external HD monitor working with Cineform....

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...027&CatId=1562

I know there's two cards in the $200-$300 range recommended by Cineform but I was curious if there were less expensive cards that would work as well. Can't help it, I'm thrifty :)

Chris Watson
Watson Videography
www.dynamovideo.com

Hard Drives for archiving.
 

What have been the experiences of using External Hard Drives for storage? Types, Mfgr., etc. Who uses a raid configuration, and what is the configuration?
How about SATA,,, Is it necessary for archive storage? Is a single drive OK? Firewire or USB 2.0? Any other methods of storage besids Tape or Ext. Hard Drives being used? Any new storage/backup possibilities in the near future?
Thanks,
Gary

i've been buying 400 gig ATA drives (seagates on sale 114 - 159) .. install then in either 2 or 4 bay external 1394a/b/USB2 cases ... both 2/4 bay allow raid 0 but i just run them as single drives ... also have several 250gig externals 1394/usb ... tried tape a few years ago -tooooo slooooooo and to hard/time consuming to look for just certain files.

I archive to 7200rpm ATA drives (not SATA) in USB 2.0 enclosures. I find that they are plenty fast enough - so much so I can play 720p/60 files at very high quality setting with no dropped frames.

I can even capture to them too at the same rates if I want to, not that I would recommend it.

Rather than go the SATA/RAID route you would most likely be better off simply archiving twice to different drives.

In terms of manufacturers, Maxtor are really hitting a bad patch at the moment so I'd avoid them like the plague.

I use six internal drives (1 10,000 rpm for the OS, 1 large disk for data, 4 SATA RAID 0 for video) and for external I've used USB but now prefer ethernet NAS (Buffalo Terastation configured as RAID 5). The internal RAID 0 has excellent performance, and it's a bit easier to access the NAS RAID 5 from all the computers on the LAN; the four drive RAID 5 is a reasonable tradeoff of speed, size, and reliability.

Best,
Christopher

Video card/output question
 

Hi,

I currently have a eVGA 7800GT connected to my Dell 24" LCD and a Dell 19" LCD.

I recently purchased a Toshiba 20" widescreen that will take HDV 1080i/720p via Component or VGA, and I'm wanting to output from Premiere Pro to that TV.

I know I need another video card, but I was wondering if that was possible to use my computer in that configuration?

Thanks,

Jim

Is my computer good enough
 

I have a sony laptop wich is a couple years old. pentium 2.4, 512 ram, ati mobility radeon 7500c video card.

My question is, will I be able to use cineform connect hd with vegas on my laptop to edit HVX200 footage? Or will it not work.

I really don't want to buy another computer if I don't have to.