I'm still having trouble with activation. I have to run the ACcheck program each new calendar day to reactivate the program. Probably easier to run the program than to deal with tech support wait times again.

Randall.
My activation problem was with my Serial Number not being in the data base. They sent me an email a few days later and when I then tried it responded correctly giving me an activation code and registering correctly.
For Mark. I cannot play m2t on my AMD XP2500 ( which is really a 1.8Ghz processor ) the preview screen just displays "stop playback" after a few seconds. Same problem as when capturing and I am sure now it is a problem with my processor/motherboard ( MSI KT600 board) not being able to decode fast enough. This is true whether or not I monitor through the DVRaptor RT2, just PC screen or motherboard 1394 to DHR1000 then to TV/Monitor.

Ron Evans

Edius 3.1 as software only hdv solution?
 

Mark - did understand you to say that you used Edius 3.1 with an ohci compliant firewire and managed to get hdv into a P4 system, edit in RT and then export hdv via firewire to tape?

I've used a NX, and found it impressive - editing hdv is just like editing dv on my DVREX-RT system using the fully configured NX on a Xeon system. I'm trying to determine if Edius 3.1 can work as a software only hdv solution. Can it capture, convert to HQ codec, edit with some RT using HQ, and encode to M2V which can be exported to the FX1/Z1? Any feedback is much appreciated.

Not 100% workflow with Edius...
 

Derek, alas, no...

BTW, there are clearly capture issues with Edius with re: to HDV - I thought it was my sub-par specs but visiting Edius forum at Canopus, everyone is in the same boat....

I capture via CapDVHS freeware.

I edit in Edius.

I render out a downconvert to mpeg-2 SD DVD via procoder express, etc.

I have not yet tested firewire out to cam - I'm always editing way after the fact, so to speak, and we are a digital t.v. station broadcasting mpeg-2 program streams - so now need to go back to cam...

Well, other than that, I'm happy...

I think Edius "standing alone" would need a lot of muscle behind it to perform as you're hoping - I understand now why everyone is talking these crazy specs for HDV... that being said, I think you're one of the "smarter ones" - if I recall the posts at Canopus forum correctly, Raptor dudes are having good luck with Edius while some of the other cards are more iffy....???? The forum there is the best - are you on it? If not, join it - you will benefit tremendously (not to take anything away from here - there just isn't as big a group of Edius users here, that's all! :))

Hope this helps...

Cheers!

Re: Edius 3.1 as software only hdv solution?
 

<<< I'm trying to determine if Edius 3.1 can work as a software only hdv solution. Can it capture, convert to HQ codec, edit with some RT using HQ, and encode to M2V which can be exported to the FX1/Z1? Any feedback is much appreciated. >>>

As I understand things based on comments on the Canopus forums, the NX/SP hardware doesn't directly accelerate the editing process but rather helps with things like real-time HD monitoring and upscaling and downscaling between various formats on the timeline. If that's true, you should be able to do effective software-only editing with Edius Pro 3 on a sufficiently powerful computer, provided you don't need the features described above.

But since most people interested in HDV seem to want HD monitoring, that's an important consideration. With the possible exception of Pinnacle Liquid Edition 6 Pro, no one else currently offers an out-of-the-box solution for HDV editing with HD monitoring. And there's no way Liquid Edition can rival Edius for performance on any given computer setup, since they're editing directly in the HDV format--which is very processor intensive.

LE6 HD monitoring?
 

Ummm - I tested LE6 for a week on a Dual Xeon 3.4ghx extreme system and we couldn't even get the fancy Ferrari-designed breakout box to work! Apparently it DOES NOT offer HD monitoring when it does work. It also cannot export to tape yet, or batch capture hdv footage. At present the NX is the only solution that does. As a long-time Canopus DVREX-RT user, this doesn't surprise me. Hardware solutions tend to be more stable, faster and offer a lot more than software-only solutions.

Re: LE6 HD monitoring?
 

<<< I tested LE6 for a week on a Dual Xeon 3.4ghx extreme system and we couldn't even get the fancy Ferrari-designed breakout box to work! Apparently it DOES NOT offer HD monitoring when it does work. It also cannot export to tape yet, or batch capture hdv footage. At present the NX is the only solution that does. >>>

Thanks Derek. I've heard mixed reports on whether the LE6 breakout box is capable of true HD output, but your experience seems to be the norm for that product for now. So I'd agree that Canopus is ahead of everyone else on this point, and deserves a lot of credit for offering this feature. And like I said before, even if LE6 did have real-time HD monitoring, it couldn't possibly rival Canopus for HDV editing performance because of the codec differences.

You suggested that Edius NX is capable of doing batch capture of HDV footage--is that correct? I was under the impression that no one currently offers proper batch capture of footage from the Sony FX1, and I know a lot of people who would love to hear otherwise. Can you give more details about this?

Sorry - bad syntax there - sadly Edius does not support batch capture either, but does support monitor output and export to tape. Strangely, Ulead MSP does support batch capture from reports I've read, which proves that it CAN be done, even by a minor NLE player.

Re: LE6 HD monitoring?
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Derek Serra : Ummm - I tested LE6 for a week on a Dual Xeon 3.4ghx extreme system and we couldn't even get the fancy Ferrari-designed breakout box to work! Apparently it DOES NOT offer HD monitoring when it does work. It also cannot export to tape yet, or batch capture hdv footage. At present the NX is the only solution that does. As a long-time Canopus DVREX-RT user, this doesn't surprise me. Hardware solutions tend to be more stable, faster and offer a lot more than software-only solutions. -->>>
Actually, I think it is Porsche Design Studios... ;)

There have been issues with Firewire (I remember comments on out not working yet). I would not run a Firewire connection through it anyway. Firewire -> USB -> Computer? It never made sense to me.

Plus, Pinnacle does seem to admit to the press that native firewire from the Sonys is not working yet. The 6.1 patch is supposed to fix it.

Yes, rumour has it that LE6.1 will support HDV batch capture and export to tape - I'm not sure about external monitoring though. I do know that for some reason it's difficult to get a third party video card with TV out to work with it - only the expensive pro box sort of works, if you don't have a hardware clash as others have reported.

Life is very good with Canopus and Nx....and more to come.

This weekend my brother and I loaded Edius Pro 3 onto his new Pentium 4 computer running at 3.0 GHz with a two-drive IDE RAID. We were able to use the Canopus MPEGCapture utility to record from the Sony FX1 to the Canopus HQ codec at "standard" quality setting in real time, and then easily play one layer of video with a color correction filter in real time without rendering. Two layers with a chromakey filter could play in fast-forward or reverse without rendering but not at standard play speed (go figure). Two layers with a 3D picture-in-picture filter would not play without rendering.

My conclusion is that a good single-processor PC is barely adequate for basic HDV capture and editing with Edius, which is actually more than I'd hoped for. This makes sense when you consider that a single layer of HDV contains as many pixels of information as 4.5 layers of DV, plus requires the computer to scale this information from 1440x1080 to 1920x1080 to display properly. There shouldn't be any question that a fast dual-processor computer is recommended for effective HDV editing, and even then you won't be stacking layers in real time like we can these days for DV.

I don't see much discussion on the internet from people using Pinnacle Liquid Edition to edit HDV. This doesn't surprise me, given that working with the "native" HDV format is even more processor-intensive than using intermediate editing codecs. By comparison, Canopus has a functional solution which can work in real time as described above without any special hardware support, and offers full-quality HD output in real time with the NX and SP hardware cards on properly configured computers. As I understand it, Premiere Pro with Cineform only offers a handful of filters in real time for HDV work, whereas Edius has a complete set of filters, transitions and keyers which will work in real time if you put enough horsepower behind them. By some accounts the new Apple HDV codec has obvious artifacts with even simple edits, and they haven't even incorporated this into their flagship editing program yet. That leaves Canopus in pretty good shape compared to all other shipping HDV solutions, provided you're willing to work with the Edius software which is still missing a few high-end editing features.

a few points here

1) For HDV 1080i you're going to need a ton of computer performance. This Dual Xeon or Opeteron with 2Gb of RAM. Anything less may work, but the workflow will be slow.

2) Pinnacle just releaased LE6.1 - dramatic improvement here with Sony HDV cams.

3) Avid just purchased Pinnacle. Short term impact very little. long term - who knows. I think the technology in LE6 and Xpress pro compliment eachother and a future 'merged' prodcut would be a killer app. Time will tell.

Gary
Videoguys.com

Gary,

Preimier Pro 1.5.1 with Aspect HD 3.0 works just fine on a P4 3.4. Pushing almost 4 layers of 1080i with transitions and color correction. You sell it.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ed Szarleta :

Preimier Pro 1.5.1 with Aspect HD 3.0 works just fine on a P4 3.4. Pushing almost 4 layers of 1080i with transitions and color correction. -->>>

Actually, you are not editing HDV, you are editing a proxy file. You are also not able to view the HDV signal on a broadcast monitor in Real Time.

Gary was suggesting you needed the big horsepower to edit actual HDV streams in RT, and see them on an external monitor, not the computer screen in RT.

Cineform is a great application, but for pro edit suites you need to see the output in RT on an HDTV screen - preferably a broadcast monitor.

Hope this helps

DBK

I am aware I am not editing in Long GOP format. Personally, I don't want to. And I output via component on my 6600GT to my HD 52in CRT just fine.

Ed: can you provide more information about what filters and transitions work in real time with Cineform in Premiere Pro? I've been told it's a very short list for real time purposes, and that all other effects need to be rendered to be played. Comments?

No disrespect to the board moderators but,

Funny how i started this thread but my last post got deleted. i guess we can't state opinions around here or maybe i can't say that cineform falls very short of a practical choice for editing HDV when you have to re-encode before you can edit. and i guess i can't say to buy canopus edius 3.x for only 200.00 USD more than cineform and get a great NLE with RT editing on a p4 3.2 ghz machine.

This will probably be deleted as well but at least i tried.

Joel

It is a fairly short list, but I do mostly narrative work and for me a few dissolves and color correction are the extent of my workflow. So, it is possible that AspectHD might not be for the transition heavy user. It suites my needs however. Trying to get a blog online with my experiences with Aspect. I will post when it is online.

Joel: if you don't understand why your posts are getting deleted for using the phrase "g-y a-s plugin," you need to take some sensitivity training or something. If you'd just refrain from such unnecessary language and stick to more level-headed comments about why you prefer one solution over another, that would be better for all concerned (including you).

That’s fine but that phrase just about sums up cineforms HDV solution, its just a plain rip off and doesn't make sense. Sorry if I offended anyone not trying to do that just trying to have people who responded to my post understand what i am feeling inside. that’s all.


Joel

Why don't you tell us why it's a ripoff Joel. I am sure everyone would love to hear your reasons and it might add valitdity to you claim. (although I doubt it). :)

<<<-- Originally posted by Joel Corral : ..... its just a plain rip off and doesn't make sense. ......Joel -->>>

It's not a rip off Joel. The product does everything the product advertises. I'm not sure what you expected.

It's also been updated over the past 12 months, and the price has beend dropped. Adobe liked it so much they bought part of the technology behind it, so frankly, your statements are unfounded.

Now, if you want to do what others have suggested and outline your actual complaints rather than generic phrases, perhaps you are using it wrong, or have some hardware-software issues the board can help with.

Hope this helps

DBK

Well Ed for one thing,

At 499.00 you are getting a fastidious plug-in not a actual NLE. You can purchase Canopus Edius 3.x which has NATIVE HDV REAL TIME EDITING for 200.00 USD more. You can also monitor your HDV capture and once again there is no intermediate codec to transcode to first before you can edit. (MUCH BETTER WORK FLOW) That alone is currently a PRICELESS feature. There are only 2 NLE's under $1,000.00 that offer REAL TIME NATIVE HDV EDITING SOLUTIONS; EDIUS AND LIQUID EDITION. That is why I started this thread, to discuss who is using what and who is getting the best results.

thanks,

joel

<<<-- Originally posted by Joel Corral : Well Ed for one thing,

At 499.00 you are getting a fastidious plug-in not a actual NLE. joel -->>>

OK, so you don't like buying plugins.

If you really like using Premiere Pro, the plugin gives you some significant abilities not otherwise available to you.

Also, many people don't want to edit in native MPEG2 due to the technical limitations the GOP frames offer.

Even Canopus in the hardware version of their product recommend using their HD codec instead of the native HDV codec, which they do support natively.

I'm using that system, and I like it because of the additional Real time I get, and the external monitoring.

Does this help?

DBK

<<<-- Originally posted by Darren Kelly : <<<-- Originally posted by Joel Corral : ..... its just a plain rip off and doesn't make sense. ......Joel -->>>

It's not a rip off Joel. The product does everything the product advertises. I'm not sure what you expected.

It's also been updated over the past 12 months, and the price has beend dropped. Adobe liked it so much they bought part of the technology behind it, so frankly, your statements are unfounded.

Now, if you want to do what others have suggested and outline your actual complaints rather than generic phrases, perhaps you are using it wrong, or have some hardware-software issues the board can help with.

Hope this helps

DBK -->>>

Daren,

Yes it does most of what it advertises most of the time. I have been using adobe premiere since version 5.0 but their decision to make Cineform there HDV solution is a temporally quick fix. I can expect that Adobe; in there v2.x will have a much better solution, whether it is with Cineform or there own developed software technology. Because of their 1.5.1 update was less than what I expected, I now use Eduis for all HDV editing and continue to use PPRO 1.5 for SD projects. Cineform will eventually be a practical solution for HDV, so maybe in time my views will be different on this software but for now my moneys on Canopus. Does not anyone here agree that cineform's plugin is far more inferior to Liquid Edition or Edius 3.x?


joel

Joel Corral:

<< This will probably be deleted as well but at least i tried. >>

I will not tolerate vulgarity on my message boards. Keep your vocabulary clean or I'll clean it up for you. Patently offensive and crass remarks have no place here whatsoever, no matter what the perceived justification for them may be. Please try to get into the spirit of the proceedings here. I don't think you would use that sort of language in a business presentation, so don't use it online. I want this community to reflect some degree of professional standards. Thanks,

Sorry Chris, I won't say it again. but for the record I guess it depends on who you are dealing with and your surrounding environment, I am from California and have worked in the action sports industry for about 10 years that and phrases like that are the norm.

I understand that you are excited about your new workflow Joel, but for people who already own Premiere Pro 1.5, the additional cost is only $499 as you said. So lets address the real costs involved besides the additional $200.

The learning curve for a new NLE is steep. And while if your claims are correct, Edius does not make you wait for a conversion - which is a bit annoying but not terrible - it is missing some of the other features found in Premiere Pro. And probably more important, it does not integrate with the rest of the Adobe products as well as Premiere Pro.

From what I have read, the Cineform solution is better for people with less powerful PCs. My own editing PC is only a single 3.06GHz CPU - not powerful by today's standards. Yet I get great results from the Cineform solution.

By the way, if you prefer editing M2T, Premiere Pro 1.5.1 can do the job using the MainConcept plugin for less money than Cineform. And, in fact, Premiere Pro 1.5.1 - a free upgrade, can edit HDV just fine. Slow, but it does the job. For free.

So, I am happy you are pleased with your solution. I have purchased Canopus products in the past. I own a DVStorm2 I really need to get rid of on EBay since it is useless to me now.

But namecalling is unwarranted. Everyone has different needs.

The learning curve for a new NLE is steep. And while if your claims are correct, Edius does not make you wait for a conversion - which is a bit annoying but not terrible - it is missing some of the other features found in Premiere Pro. And probably more important, it does not integrate with the rest of the Adobe products as well as Premiere Pro.

From what I have read, the Cineform solution is better for people with less powerful PCs. My own editing PC is only a single 3.06GHz CPU - not powerful by today's standards. Yet I get great results from the Cineform solution.

By the way, if you prefer editing M2T, Premiere Pro 1.5.1 can do the job using the MainConcept plugin for less money than Cineform. And, in fact, Premiere Pro 1.5.1 - a free upgrade, can edit HDV just fine. Slow, but it does the job. For free.

So, I am happy you are pleased with your solution. I have purchased Canopus products in the past. I own a DVStorm2 I really need to get rid of on EBay since it is useless to me now.

But namecalling is unwarranted. Everyone has different needs. -->>>

You know Steven,

I thought I would have a hard time learning Edius but its very simple and has a classic UI (user interface) and surprisingly it works great with adobe products.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steven Gotz : I own a DVStorm2 I really need to get rid of on EBay since it is useless to me now.



Actually, I believe Canopus has a $400 rebate for owners of DVStorm on the purchase of the Edius NX system. Visit thier web site, but the last time I checked that's how it worked.

DBK

wow an even better reason to love it. to bad i didn't own DVstorm. Great Value, I am tell you guys.

I appreciate that, Joel,

<< I am from California and have worked in the action sports industry for about 10 years that and phrases like that are the norm. >>

I find that easy to believe! It's a very broad, diverse audience here, and since this is a text-based discussion it's also very difficult to accurately convey any number of emotions without offending somebody somewhere. I've found that it's really best just to stick with the technical side of things. This way the threads are streamlined and easier to read. That's why we take serious efforts to avoid politics, religion, vulgarity, anything that would detract from a purely technical exchange. Thanks for understanding,

By the way, you can cross-grade to Edius for only $499 - which actually makes Joel's argument a bit stronger. Plus you get some other cool stuff - like a keyboard.

I believe that the trade-in period is over. Besides, my PC isn't powerful enough to handle the new hardware. It only matches the minimum speed. I won't be upgrading until at least this summer. The trip to Greece this June is taking all my serious cash.

I was not aware Edius edited in Long GOP. I own LE and a dual Xeon 3Ghz box and Long GOP editing is painfull compared to AspectHD. I can't imagine Edius being better than LE 6.1 in native HDV, but I never used it. Conversion to CFHD is a minor inconvience compared the the enhanced editing speed imo. Others might disagree.

For what it's worth, the upgrade to NX uses an intermediate codec, so I would assume Canopus themselves is siding with Cineform on recommended workflow. What do you guys think?

I think that an intermediate codec is the appropriate solution. As long as you have a video card that can help you view the output on an external monitor.

There are ways to edit the long GOP, and they work OK, but I prefer to stick with the Aspect HD solution. The additional effects and transitions that all work in realtime with my underpowered PC just solves too many problems.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steven Gotz : By the way, you can cross-grade to Edius for only $499 - which actually makes Joel's argument a bit stronger. Plus you get some other cool stuff - like a keyboard.

I believe that the trade-in period is over. Besides, my PC isn't powerful enough to handle the new hardware. It only matches the minimum speed. I won't be upgrading until at least this summer. The trip to Greece this June is taking all my serious cash. -->>>

steven why don't you download the demo from there site? give it a shot you'll be suprized at how well your machine will do.

I have AMD XP2500 and on this machine the conversion time for Canopus HQ and the Cineform intermediate file is about the same ( about 2 times realtime ) Once in this intermediate form both Premiere Pro 1.5.1 and Edius Pro3 will playback the files. My machine is not powerful enough to playback the mt2 files without picture breakup and eventually stopping. Also my machine is not able to use the capture utilities of either Edius PRo3 or Premiere 1.5.1 since they either display a preview screen or convert on capture both of which end in the program stopping!!! CapDVHS and Cineform capture will however capture from my FX1 with no problems and I can then convert in non realtime to the intermediate files. I see little difference between the programs as far as compute power is concerned ( they both think my machine is inadequate!!!!) I thought of upgrading to a more powerful processor but will wait until I can afford a dual now.

Ron Evans

yes dual is the way to go. and 2 gigs of ram won't hurt either.

A few clarifications regarding the Canopus HDV offerings:

Both the software-only and hardware-supported Edius products can edit using either the native HDV format or the Canopus HQ codec. But I don't know anyone who's using native HDV in Edius because it would make no sense to do so: that reduces performance to unworkable levels with no benefit in terms of workflow. Based on all the comments I've seen around the internet, there is no one finding any meaningful benefit to doing native HDV editing, and all the popular solutions are using some sort of intermediate codec (e.g. Cineform, Canopus HQ, Apple AIC).

As things stand today Canopus appears to easily have the most advanced HDV solutions, with a reasonable workflow and greatest variety of real-time HDV editing features. The catch is that their approach requires a little more horsepower compared to others for both the capture and editing phases, but a high-end single-processor PC is adequate for basic HDV work in Edius. If you really want to do significant HDV editing you need to plan to buy a dual-processor computer no matter what solution you're using, because it's just too much data to work well otherwise. You'll find some Mac users claiming they're doing HDV work on a single-processor G4 system, but if you press them they'll probably admit they have to render almost all of their changes to play them back. Editing HDV on one processor is like trying to haul a load of scrap iron on a bicycle: you can do it, but it's going to be slow going!