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).