Vegas Pro 8 here, works a charm with my EX1, inc 1920x1080. Gives you smart render as well. So for cuts only edits no transcoding. You can trim clips and burn them to whatever or archive them in the native XDCAM codec. I also get the essence markers on the timeline. Playback performance is only limited by the speed of your hardware. Buy an OctoFlex if you want a real screamer with 8 cores.

Well I'm going to give Vegas Pro 8 a chance on my system next week...

Allways wanted to play with Vegas and B&H has the upgrade for $99....

and they have the Vegas 6.0 for $79... needed for the upgrade to work

So thats a pretty cheap experiment to get into Vegas 8..... :-)

Concern on Axio LE
 

Yesterday I have seen an Axio LE with Premiere CS3 on a HP 9400. The system looks great with real time effects and real time slow mo (no rendering as long as you open a new project matching the video format that the footage was shot with).

However I'm slightly concerned on a technical issue. The Axio needs a PCI-X slot. Now I'm under the impression that PCI-X is an ageing system being replaced by PCI-Express. It also seems that most motherboards nowadays do not have a PCI-X slot. So what will happen if the motherboard decides to call it a day and needs to be replaced in a year's time? Will I be able to find a PCI-X motherboard? Or am I missing something?

PCI-X is the 64-bit, high speed version of the common 32-bit PCI bus. Only server motherboards and perhaps a few specialized, high-end workstations offered PCI-X slots. The last version of PCI-X could transfer up to 4.3 GigaByte/second, but those cards and motherboards were not widely adopted due to the arrival of PCI-Express.

PCI-Express is indeed the new hotness and capable of transfer rates up to 16 GigaBytes/second at the present time.

So you are correct that PCI-X is an investment in a dead technology. I would NOT buy a PCI-X card, especially if it costs around $4K. Contact Matrox to find out if they plan to release a more portable PCI-Express version of their products. If they want to stay in business, they also better add support for 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista.

I noticed that the Matrox video editing solutions force you to use only computers on an approved list. This tells me that even if you find a replacement motherboard offering PCI-X slots, the Matrox cards may not be compatible.

As we type, the PC industry is experiencing a big technology revolution. Intel is presently releasing new motherboard chipsets to support some awesome quad-core and eight-core CPUs arriving late in 2008. It's a certainty that these faster computers will NOT support PCI-X. Video production will strongly benefit from these faster computers, so you don't want to be tied to old technology.

Of course, PCI-Express also gets faster each year. In fact, there's a new PCIe 3.0 standard being finalized that boasts impressive 32 GB/s transfer rates. The good news is that all PCIe versions are backwards compatible.

Also using Avid Liquid 7.2. Edits native XDCAM files - and works flawlessly. I guess Liquid has an advantage in that it was designed as an MPEG editor from the ground up - which is why it works so well.

Craig

Could you outline your system a little more in detail? I have a Dual 2GHz G5, 2.5GB RAM, 10.4.11, FCP 6.0.2, two regular drives internal, ATI XT800XT 256, SATA card in slot 2 or 3, two striped drives out in an external box talking to the SATA card. Sony MXF driver, EX importer 2.1, both working fine.

I see the clips, can play them well in the Sony player, but as soon as I import them into 6.0.2 I get massive wait times for clips to load and stuttering motion.

Can't figure it out. The original files are on the same striped drives, and both they and the imported QT files play fine without stuttering. It's just the FCP 6.0.2 that's doing it...


What's going on?

Chris

I've seen that behavior from time to time on my MacBook Pro and have never been able to pinpoint it. Takes like 5 to 8 seconds after you hit play for the clip to start, and then its playback is tenuous.

I don't have a solution except to say that since it happens on my Intel, it's probably not a G5 thing.

Hey Eric
Maybe it's a QT 7.4 thing?

Dual 2.3GHz, PCI-X slots empty, 1.5GB RAM, AGP slot ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB VRAM, Hitachi 500MB 2nd internal hard drive, OS 10.4.11, FCP 6.0.2, QT 7.3.1
So we're talking about minimal system and XDCAM EX play without issue in FCP. No spinning beach balls. I have less RAM and less VRAM than you.

I can't remember, but I think it happened before 7.4.

Craig
I'll try to reinstall QT 7.3 and see if that helps any. I have 7.4.0 installed. You never know...

If you have Time Machine working, I've read (on the link below) that you can use that to go back to 7.3, though I honestly wouldn't know exactly what to keep or throw away.

More info on 7.3 vs. 7.4 here:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/appl...7-4-update-yet