Anyone using Edius with HMC-150 for same day edits?
 

Need info on what software and hardware to buy? How much RAM, what graphic cards, etc. . .?

Jason

Hi Jason,

Edius has a free transcoding utility called AVCHD2HQ. We use it to transcode for Edius. Our laptop is running XP with a 256 graphics card and two gb of RAM. If you are running Vista, go with at least 4 gb of RAM.


Are you planning on using a tower or laptop? Do you already have a SDE machine or are you shopping for one?

We did a SDE last month in Perris, CA, which is not too far from you.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your reply. I have heard a lot of great things about you in the videographer community. Would you recommend XP over Vista then? Plan to buy a laptop for sure. I do not currently have an SDE machine. Right now I edit on a new iMAC with FCP Studio 2. Thanks so much.

Jason
Rick & Sonya

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your kind words.

Generally speaking, I would go with XP. I know very little about Macs. I don't like to render, so I have stayed with Edius.

For a PC laptop, I would go with the fastest Quad Core you can buy. The new i7 is reported to be quicker, but it comes at a price and really produces a lot of heat.

I watched your highlight from the Mission Inn. It looked great. I have stayed there a couple of times and have shot a Love Story there as well. It's a great venue.

So tell me a little about the workflow. So I transfer the footage from the SD cards (panasonic hmc-150) and then I can just drag them into the time-line and begin editing? Do you have to render slow-mo? How do you output to show the presentation?

Jason

I cant see someone doing same day edits, With edius you need to convert the footage to Canopus HQ first and that will take hours depending on your laptops speed and how much footage. the workflow is either copy the card to your hard drive OR drag you cards contents over to Canopus AVCHD converter it will convert the footage to Canopus HQ then you bring those files into your timeline to edit.

Hi Jason,

Randy is correct in saying that the AVCHD files have to be converted to Edius HQ. A quad core will convert four files at a time. I have a quad core 2.33 with 4 gb of RAM. It takes about 8:45 to encode 8:00 of footage. The biggest draw back is the ceremony. It is faster to bring the AVCHD file of the ceremony to the timeline, set in and out points and encode just the portions of the ceremony you need for the SDE.

Once you have the files converted to Edius HQ, everything we use for SDEs is real time with no rendering. Slow-mo, B&W, Color Correction, Border Darken, Audio Filters and dissolves, etc. You may need to render 3D PiP, but we don't use those on SDEs.

To output for the presentation you have several options. You can make a SD DVD straight from the timeline. You can make a BluRay file straight from the timeline, but it takes more time than we have for a SDE. Once the edit is done in HD you can change the project setting to SD and connect a camera to the laptop via firewire and output to tape. This is the fastest way because once you change the project setting to SD, you just push the space bar and it outputs the timeline through firewire without any rendering or encoding.

The fastest way that I know to output for an HD presentation is to make an m2t file, which will take about 4-8 minutes for a 4 minutes project (depending on the speed of your system) and then transfer that file to USB thumb drive. Plug the thumb drive into a Western Digital media player and you are ready. Just plug the media player into an HD monitor or HD projector via HDMI and you are ready.

You could play the SDE straight from the timilne, and we have in extreme cases, but I don't like the risk involved, especially when going the thumb drive route is so quick and easy.

In Tulsa the reception starts right after the ceremony, so there is no down time. In some parts of the country there is a 2-3 hour break, or at least a cocktail hour. Grass Valley is working on a solution to by pass encoding to HQ, but for now, that is the workflow with Edius and AVCHD.

For clarification, it's not a requirement that you convert the files first. You can certainly import the files directly onto the timeline, even from the SD card. But you probably won't get realtime playback with that workflow, unless you have a modern quad-core laptop.

PH mode on the HMC150 is designed specifically to perform better with the more cores you have.

On my system I get about 15fps playback directly from the timeline on a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz. It's not perfect, but if you needed to do a same-day edit it's certainly do-able, just with jerkier playback than you're used to. On a quad core you should get at least twice that performance.

I might humbly suggest you look at Sony Vegas Pro 9, if it is possible.

On a quad core machine, you can get very decent real-time editing, depending on the amount of effects you have composited.

-Adam

I want to thank everyone for their help with this issue. Your input is so valuable.

I would also consider a shoebox PC for SDE with Edius and a FirecoderBlu card from Grass Valley. That will greatly decrease render times for AVCHDtoHQ as well as final BluRay.

Hi Mike,

I had strongly considered the same thing, but Trisha was dead set against it. She didn't like the idea of having to connect and disconnect everything at the church and then do the same thing at the reception location. It would also mean she could not edit or encode when I'm driving from the church to the reception, which can be as long as 30 minutes.

We actually bought a Dell XPS 24 with a quad core. It's fast, but just too heavy to be portable, although we love the screen size. We are senging it back and ordered an HP laptop with a quad core. We had a couple of SDEs with the XPS 24, but it just wasn't condusive to our workflow, especially when the wedding and reception are at different locations, which is the case a majority of the time.

Instead of needing something like a FirecoderBlu (which is harder to get into a laptop), how about using an nVidia CUDA-based graphics card and something like Badaboom (http://badaboomit.com/?q=node/4)?

Badaboom can export H.264 using the computer's graphics card acceleration, perhaps into AVCHD or Blu-Ray compatible formats, not 100% sure on that. But if it's a viable software solution for what you need done, perhaps it'd open up the range of laptops you could look at because you wouldn't need a slot for a firecoder card?

T5500 Core 2 Duo 1.66
256Mb Ati X1300
2.5GB ram
XP Pro
Toshiba

Converting videos to Canopus HQ to edit. Still tooooo slow to edit, must upgrade to Quadcore :)

SDE with AVCHD AND CHOOSING MY TOOL OF CHOICE
 

Hi Jason I have been reading the threads here for almost a month now. I have a HMC150 and I also would like to do SDE. In doing video profiles for athletes I want to be able to give them a dvd with stamped time codes of their plays in order for them to pick the plays they like. I guess the workflow would be something like SD card, to NLE ( what should I use), output to disc standard disc ( not blu-ray ). Someone help me out here.

I have been looking over my choice of gear and I know I need a quad core for smooth AVCHD editing???!!! Is this the absolute final verdict. I have narrowed my choices to the
1. hp pavillion dv7 2040 core 2 quad 2ghz 4gb ram 500gb hdd
2 asus g71 gq2 core 2 quad 2gh.... and the only duo core
3. alienware m17x core 2 duo 260 intel core 2 duo t9600

any suggestions. I will be going to pick it out sometime probably this weekend. I would like do some test shots with the camera before the seasons gets in full swing.

I have enjoyed reading these informative threads and look forward to some creative feedback.

Hi Chaille,

Probably the easiest and quickest way to output raw footge with timecode is to use a stand alone DVD burner and burn a DVD straight from the camera with timecode running.

Another way of doing a quick DVD is within Edius. You can burn a simple DVD staight from the timeline. This is what we do for SDEs. However when making the final DVD or Bluray we use Encore so we can make fancy menus and have more navigational options.

You can download a free trial version of Edius here.
About GV Desktop User Accounts

As far as laptops, we recenly puchased an HP HDX Premium with these specs.
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9100 (2.26Ghz, 12MB 6MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) - For 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M
1TB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (500GB x 2) with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M - For DDR3 Memory
18.4" diagonal High Definition HP Ultra BrightView Infinity Display (1920x1080p)
Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery


Here's the link to the base unit that you can customize.
HP Official Store — Buy an HP HDX 18t Premium series notebook PC from HP

I compared the HP with Dell, Alien Ware and Sager. I own four Dells (two towers and two laptops) so I shopped Dell first, but the HP offered the best bang for the buck. When I made my purchase, HP had a $250 off coupon and I found a matching coupon at Dell Coupons, Best Buy Coupons, Discount Cheap Laptops, Computer Sale so it dropped the price from $2700 to $2200. Watch Tech Bargains. I have seen a 30% off coupon on HP laptops there, which would have dropped the price to about $1900, of course that coupon came out after I made my purchase. :-(

Here is another thing to consider when shopping specs. For Edius, a Quad core laptop is the way to go. Don't get a Core 2 Duo, even if it has a faster clock speed than a Quad Core. I also highly suggest getting DDR3 RAM. I bought a Dell XPS 24 in July. Same specs as the HP laptop I recenly bought, but it had DDR2 RAM. It was noticably slower. We returned the Dell XPS 24 and bought the HP laptop.

Hi Barry,

I finally got around to checking out Badaboom. I was hoping it would convert AVCHD to M2T, but it does not, so I am still stuck with converting AVCHD to Edius HQ before I can edit, even on my fast Quad Core laptop.

What Badaboom does really well is convert to Mp4. I have not tested it for Bluray yet, but converting a file to Mp4 for the web looks fantastic.

Mr Mark,

Thats funny! That was what I have been puzzled about today. I noticed that alot of the duo 2's were clocking faster than the quads. I guess from experience you knew that would be my next question, espically if I was paying attention. That saved alot of time for me!! I
will be looking in the direction of the specs you suggested.
As we say in Louisiana..... a la' Bon Temps Roule! Let the good times roll!!

Hope to talk to you again
Chaille

I bought this Sony Vaio FW46GJ (1600$)
Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-bit
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T9600 (2.80 GHz)
4 GB DDR2 SDRAM
400 GB (Serial ATA, 5400 rpm)
Blu-ray Disc™ Combo Drive
1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4650 Graphics
16.4" wide (Full HD: 1920 x 1080) TFT colour display
HDMI In/Out Connector

So far so good, only thing scares me this vaio series makes problem easily and costs extremely high to fix..

Still have to convert canopus hq to easier editing.

It's too early for any type of official announcement, but I don't think we will be talking about transcoding AVCHD in Edius much longer. That's all I can say for now.

You already don't "have" to transcode, EDIUS supports it natively, just not necessarily at full frame rates.

But if you're hinting that EDIUS might be embracing CUDA for realtime playback like CS4 does, that would be fantastic!

...
 

30min Avchd footage 200mb when convert to Canopus HQ became 29GB!!!

How am I going to edit those footages, any idea? pls? What should I do?

Just load into the Edius bin/timeline and start editing. HQ decompresses AVCHD from GOP to frame by frame format; that is why the file size is so much bigger. So far my AVCHD2HQ conversions work out at c7x to 10x size of the original. You should be able to achieve fluid timeline response and frame accurate editing now.

GV have said on their site that an Edius upgrade will be announced at IBC. I assume that this will be another 5.* release. It is said to include burning Blu-ray from the timeline.

You can burn a Blu-ray from the timeline now in Edius. It is AVC encoded only though.

The Edius crowd is waiting for Edius 6 which will hopefully add full alpha support and also the AVCHD boost would be nice as well.

But I agree this will probably not be V6 as it has been stated that an entire code re-write is needed to add full alpha support.

If I try to edit without converting file, it's being impossible to catch frames, cause it's really slow...

Also at the end I'll send this footage to news agencies which will be used in broadcasting. So I want to convert Avchd to a SD quility format, but how?

10x in advance...

I think David was referring to the AVCHD clips being converted to CanopusHQ in the bin before being put on the timeline.

Or you could convert them before placing them in Edius using the AVCtoHQ converter utility.

Does this help? I don't know if I answered your question.

Ahmet, it sounds as though you are new to Edius. If so, it is worth checking out this Grass Valley/Edius on-line training site:
EDIUS Training

Although it describes how to use Edius v4, most of the essentials carry over to Edius v5. The section called Basics describes project settings.

After reading this and a few other threads I ended up coughing p blood..er money and purchased an i7 920 (1366), 6 GB ram, nvidea 9500 GT 1GB and a 1TB HD (for now). MB is overclockable as well. I really hope editing native avccam PH will go smothly with this setup.

I was an AVID editor, but it seems avid has problems with avc and I have heard edius 5 handles codecs really well. Is this true?

Any other AVID editors using Edius? Wondering how different the interface is and any other quirks. I can't really play with it till I get the new setup in a week or so.

Yeap I was new to Edius. Now I see no sense of converting footage to Canopus HQ to edit, which takes to much time and place too. Just convert it to mpeg which is enough for broadcasting or for burning on dvd.

Sad there is no proxy editing on Edius like premier.

EDIUS Neo2 AVCHD Booster should be out in the next few weeks. The demo is available for download from Grass Valley's site.

To rehash a 6 month old thread...


How are you guys finding Edius 5.5 on laptops now that it boosts avchd?

Hi Denny,

Edius 5.5 edits in real time without transcoding the AVCHD files on my quad core laptop. Just transfer the files from the card, bring them into the bin window and they are ready to edit. It's a huge time saver for Same Day Edits. Life is good...so much better than a year ago when we were transcoding AVCHD files.

What speed quad core Mark?

Curious what the min power needs to be.

Glad to hear you don't need an i7 laptop to do SDE!

Hi Denny,

My laptop is a quad core 2.26 ghz with 4 gb of DDR3 ram. It's almost a year old so those specs may be out of touch with today's systems, I don't know. I haven't kept up with the trends in laptops. When we were shopping for a laptop there was just one or two i7's on the market and they were sky high, so we went with the quad core and have been very happy with it.

I tried loading AVCHD footage on my Home Vista laptop, an HP dv9700 core duo 2.0gHz. With Edius 5.5, I was shocked that I could still play without any stutter! When I tried scrubbing fast, it felt "sticky" but I was able to edit nevertheless. Edius 5.5 is amazing. Footage and project was 1440x1080 60i. Haven't tried 1920x1080, will try very soon.

Ok, I just tried 1920x1080 60i with the same laptop above, and it plays back 5 seconds, then the buffer runs out. If I pre-fill the buffer (126 frames) it will play about 15 seconds. Scrubbing was choppy as expected.

It looks like editing is still possible with a duo core laptop if you're shooting 1280x720 or 1440x1080, but 1920x1080 will choke it.

Just to keep the discussion going on. Are you guys using Integrated Graphics? Does Edius take any advantage of mid range graphic cards? Any using any quad cores from the AMD Family?

When i finally buy my HMC40, I will buy a PC in order to edit the content since my current PC is beyond updating. Athlon Xp 1800+ @ 1.6ghz less than a gig of regular DDR =)

Aaaanyway, I'm planning to hook myself up with:
AMD x6 1055t
8GB of DDR3 1333 Ram
Radeon 5770 1GB Ram (or a Nvidia GTX 260 with 896 GB RAM)

That would be the main components of a rig i plan to build myself. It was either that or a lower end i5 which i don't want as I would prefer an i7 CPU but there are too expensive.

Thanks for the replies.