Why don't we like Edius?

[David Andrews]

Try here:
http://www.ediustips.com/

This site has much useful advice on changes in v4 and tips useful to a Premiere user.

[Marko Urbic]

Thanks very much!

[Johnathan Griffin]

this is off the subject, but your AMD X2 chip isn't 4.6ghz, it's 2.4ghz. Their naming system doesnt coincide with the speed of the chip.

Originally Posted by Lars Siden

Bold title :-)

I just downloaded the 30 day trial of Edius pro 3. After watching some of the tutorial videos I made a short project. And except the cheesy GUI, I must say that I'm impressed. Colorcorrection filter and Blur is realtime on my 4.6ghz AMD X2, and smooth! Neither Vegas or PPro is this "fluid".

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Marko Urbic

How good does Edius handle slowmotion and does it have speedchange (not sure how you call it) like Vegas?

Edius does slow-motion pretty well in both SD and HD, and version 4 has a "time remap" function with keyframing like Vegas.

[Richard Hunter]

Just to add to what Kevin says.

With the Vegas velocity envelope, you can set the speed to what you like at any point in the clip. You can even stop the action or go backwards. It's a bit tricky to set exact hit points for particular speeds, but anything can be done with sufficient patience.

From what I have read on the Edius forum (I don't have V4 yet), time remap is quite a bit different. The clip duration always stays constant, so that if you slow down one section of the clip, another section will speed up to compensate. It's probably an interesting effect but not always what you are looking for when ramping clip speed.

Edius slo-mo is pretty good, but sometimes you need to work at it to get the best results, i.e. to avoid flicker and judder. Vegas just seems to get it right without much effort. The penalty in Vegas of course is always that long render time after the editing is done. Edius's realtime power still amazes me, and I've been using it since V1.

Richard

[Peter Jefferson]

Just reading Richards post, and i totally agree with what hes written.. but thought i'd add afew more details .. :)

"You can even stop the action or go backwards. It's a bit tricky to set exact hit points for particular speeds, but anything can be done with sufficient patience."

There is this factor, however with vegas, u can always tweak the video track's size to suit.. (yes u can even go down deeper than the video frame within the timeline... were talking one frame of video strewn across your screen if u want to go that deep into it... obviously u may not need this, but the option is there... then there is the "add point" which when zoomed in can be tweaked by clicking and dragging up and down, OR by "set to" where u can type in precise velosity point rampings.. this is done ON THE TIMELINE and can be looped .. ie loop the video and continue tweaking and watch and tweak teh slowmo as u see fit... velocity envelopes do not change the duration of the clip.
With Vegas, theres also the CNTRL DRAG method.. where u hold down cntrl and drag the clip to however long you want it to slow down to.. this will stretch the clip (audio included.) In the audio track, you will see a percentile mark, showing the percentage at which the clip is running... Velocity envelopes dont affect audio whatsoever.. only video.. dragging affects the whole clip as a whole..
then there is the geeky "i know how fast i want this to run" slow mo.. right click on the clip and set the playback rate to whatever number u want... this, like the Velo envelope, wont affect teh duration of the clip.
All these can be done in realtime... and previewed in realtime.. more then likely also rendered in realtime if you have HT PC)

"From what I have read on the Edius forum (I don't have V4 yet), time remap is quite a bit different. The clip duration always stays constant, so that if you slow down one section of the clip, another section will speed up to compensate. It's probably an interesting effect but not always what you are looking for when ramping clip speed."

((This is how Liquid 6/7 works... time remapping has its uses, however in most cases, u must allocate whether u want the clip duration to be affected by the ramping (ie strecthed), or whether u want the duration of the clip to remain unaffected.. i dont knwo how edius 4 manages this element, but i know Liquid gives u an option.. it also allows u to interpolate or blend... independantly to the projects settings... ))

"Edius slo-mo is pretty good, but sometimes you need to work at it to get the best results, i.e. to avoid flicker and judder. Vegas just seems to get it right without much effort. "

((this is due to the interpolation engine within vegas. It really is quite powerful... couple that with the supersampling modes, and the results you get will be the best within this line/range of NLE's. Work with progressive scan, and you WILL FREAK when u see the results.. ))

"The penalty in Vegas of course is always that long render time after the editing is done. Edius's realtime power still amazes me, and I've been using it since V1."

((Edius is indeed fast and powerful and the downside to this however, is the fact that your using canopus codec'd fiiles... and the output again is canopus..
Now dont get me wrong, canopus codecs are prolly some of the cleanest ive ever seen, however their utlisation in other applications just doesnt cut it for multi program editing..
Some programs just wont accept a file created in Edius, because of the proprietary codec... I dont know much about 4... but more than likely, canopus have stuck to their guns in this regard.. so if u intend on using canopus with other applications be aware you may have some issues...

as for vegas rendering, i usually crank out at faster than realtime when im hammering 4 to 5 filters in a chain with track motions and a 1.85.1 or 16:9 overlay (ie i insert black bars) so the argument about rendering realy isnt all that much of an issue anymore unless ur doing multiple HD composites using filters.. or if your using Targa sequences, uncompressed video or QT..
Then its weakness starts to show.. Edius however CAN handle about 4 streams of HD without much fuss.. it also handles DVCProHD pretty well too... V7 is also promising to improve performance... that remains to be seen however

in the end however, i would strongly recomend you test as much as u can... then decide which NLE works for you

[Richard Hunter]

Hi Peter. What sort of PC hardware are you using to get this level of rendering performance? Mine is a couple of years old, it's a P4 3.2GHz, and the rendering time is nowhere near what you are getting.

My stuff is all DV based, and most of it involves 4 layers of Vegas generated text media on top of the single video track. I don't use many transitions on the video, but I usually have some colour correction or curves going on. The text events have linear wipe transitions quite frequently. Render time for all this lot is around 40 minutes for a 5 minute timeline. If I had an efficient way to create the text in Edius (my text layout and formatting needs are quite specific and the quick titler doesn't match it well) then I could play back the timeline in realtime and render in realtime or less.

If I could get realtime renders in Vegas by means of a PC upgrade I would be very very happy, so please let me know your setup details. Thanks.

Richard

[Peter Jefferson]

well im only running a lowly 3.0 with 1g corsair ram, however all my files are independant (master source drive anda "render to" drive I also havea raid setup for those HDV projects which need faster acecss..
but it seems your biggest issue here is the fact that your runnign 4 titile tracks...
I get simialr results with slideshows...
I throw down a QT backreoung from digital juice or i create uncompressed backgrounds using Particle Illusion, then i have my photos sually 2 tracks (both running cookie cutters and filters) then tehres the 1.85.1 overlay (for 16:0 source) or teh 16:9 overlay for 4:3 source
Bout 4 to 5 tracks..
this takes about 20 odd minutes

is there a way u can create the titles and export them as uncompressd avi with transparency? or maybe cineform? <it works with SD stuff> then overlay that one video file with yoru titles (instead of 4 layers of realtime generated media)
This would speed up the final render, but its a little fiddler during the edit stage..
I guess it depends on ur system.. but no doubt any system running realtime generated media will bog down when ur looking at 4 tracks..
even if you render out using one video track, then reimport that new render, add your next title track.. render... then add ur next one.. your output should still be faster as each layer shoudlnt take more than realtime to embed with then original stream <one video track, one title track>.. this way, your project shouldnt take mroe than 20 minutes to render either way... and if u render to cineform, it will retian its integrity..mostly... uncompressed is ideal, but it does take up alot of storage and time.. but not 40 minutes...

As were talking about edius in this thread.. edius has a function for this called "render and replace" where u can render out a section and replace it on the timeline automatically.. closest thing vegas as to that is render to new track.. but this is far more accurate as to how Edius render replace works..

[Richard Hunter]

Hi Peter. I suppose I could try prerendering just the titles and see how long it takes. Can't split them and render them separately because they are all linked and synchronised, but I could do the whole lot together if it improves the overall render time.

Wouldn't really affect the editing stage because I can just work as at present and then render with the video track muted. Thanks for the advice.

Richard

[John Richard]

Originally Posted by Marko Urbic

So the question is- How good does Edius handle slowmotion and does it have speedchange (not sure how you call it) like Vegas?

Any tips welcome...

Edius 4.0 now has a special slo-mo ramping effect feature. Download the available demo of 4.0 and try it out.
Also, if you shoot your weddings with mulitiple cameras, the nedw 4.0 version has a pretty slick multi-camera editing feature now.

[Mark Donnell]

I'm considering switching from Vegas to Edius Broadcast when I get a Panasonic HVX-200 because the latter has better support for P2 and DVCPRO-HD. I have lots of archived DV captured by Vegas as .avi files. Will Edius accept these directly or is some conversion needed, or will I need to recapture from the source tapes ?

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Mark Donnell

I'm considering switching from Vegas to Edius Broadcast when I get a Panasonic HVX-200 because the latter has better support for P2 and DVCPRO-HD. I have lots of archived DV captured by Vegas as .avi files. Will Edius accept these directly or is some conversion needed, or will I need to recapture from the source tapes ?

Mark: you'll probably need to convert your Vegas DV files to Canopus DV format using Procoder Express. No need to recapture, just launch the program and tell it which file(s) to convert.

[Richard Hunter]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

Mark: you'll probably need to convert your Vegas DV files to Canopus DV format using Procoder Express. No need to recapture, just launch the program and tell it which file(s) to convert.

Hi Kevin. I don't know about Edius Broadcast, but with Edius Pro you don't need to convert the Vegas-captured files, they will play in realtime same as Canopus DV files. Going the other way is not so good though, Vegas always wants to recompress Canopus DV files when displaying on an external monitor.

Richard

[Paul Wags]

I wish to addd my personal thoughts on Edius.

We have been shooting underwater with the FX1 and then using Cineforms Aspect HD, 3 or 4 + for Premiere Pro 1.5 & 2 versions.

Had a demo copy of Edius 3 from a while back that we installed just last week to try out with the underwater material.

Well after much testing on the same clips we have now dumped Premiere Pro and Aspect HD as the Canopus HQ codec gives us better results on the dirty underwater footage tests. Not only that but our 3 GIG pc can just keep up in converting to the Canopus HQ codec in realtime so no waiting for the conversion like with Aspect HD.

Once we then start editing in Edius 3, we were blown away by how powerfull it's realtime capacity is editing the 1440/1080. It's just like normal DV, and that slow mo and colour correction is very good.

From lots and lots of underwater dirty test we also found the Aspect HD m2t encoder is not as good as Main Concpt Pro m2t encoder , but Main Concept Pro encoder has a problem on the fades, causing tiny flickers/jumps.

Edius 3 m2t encoding is very good and beats both of the others. Now I must add that using bright uptop material Aspect HD is fine but it really shows in dirty underwater footage.

The realtime effects and stuff you can do on a normal 3 GIG PC with 1440/1080 material is simply amazing due to that beatuifull Canopus HQ codec.

With Title Motion and Heroglyph it's even better and we should have our NVIDIA Quadro FX 560 card any day for twin screens and realtime TV output.

It's a strange program at first to use but give it some time as Im hooked now.

Paul Wags
www.hdvunderwater.com

[Chris Hurd]

Thanks Paul -- perhaps I should fire up a popularity poll and let everyone vote whether or not to have an Edius board here. There are plenty of other Canopus resources out on the net, but if y'all want one here, who am I to refuse.