Open Letter to MainConcept

[basspig]

There is a memory allocation problem with the MPEG Pro HD 3.1 software at the moment. I am testing an evaluation, and when that evaluation is used, playing an unrendered title from Adobe Premiere CS3’s “Corporate” library, lower thirds (or any of the templates) Premiere memory allocation increases until the system runs out of memory (approximately 20-25 seconds of playback time) and crashes. When MPEG Pro HD 3.1 is NOT installed, this same project setting does not cause memory allocation to ramp up—the system runs without running out of memory. That is why we conclude there is a problem pointing to MPEG Pro HD3.1.

I have addressed it with your technical support, who have been slow to respond (over a week now since my last e-mail to them).

My suggestion is that, because there is an emerging market for Sony’s new XDCam EX (PMW-EX1) video camera, the company who can provide a specific CODEC-only solution will meet a great, increasing market demand.

Many professional editors who buy the XDCam EX already own Adobe Premiere and a Dolby 5.1 surround license from SurCode (we use the Dolby encoder from Sonic Scenarist here). Having to buy a Dolby license again just to edit XDCam footage (because it’s included in the MPEG Pro HD 3.1 package) seems redundant and wasteful. You could probably offer the CODEC alone for XDCam users for $99, and sell many more copies.

Second urgent request: Please design the XDCam CODEC to be GLOBAL to all Windows applications, not just Premiere. Your product breaks the workflow of Adobe Creative Suite 3, in that XDCam footage cannot be edited in Adobe AfterEffects. Much editing is done with portions of timeline exported to AfterEffects via Adobe Bridge, and special effects added, then embedded back in Premiere’s timeline. With your CODEC, we’d have to render out the portions of footage to uncompressed AVI files, open them in AE, do the effects, then render back out to uncompressed, and import to Premiere. That process uses incredible amounts of disc space, is cumbersome and slow and introduces the likelihood of recompression artifacts.

I hope that you will refer my feedback above to the developers. Please, we need just an XDCam CODEC that works in all Adobe applications, not just Premiere and no extras that we don’t need. That’s the ONLY reason we’re even considering the product.

I am optimistic that the bugs will be worked out of the MPEG Pro HD 3.1 product. I have tested three versions in the past two weeks and each is successively better than the last. Perhaps in a month the CODEC will be reliable and won’t cause Premiere to crash.

Sincerely,



Mark Weiss

[matthew77]

Mark,

You seem like you have a fair amount of work and purchase a lot of equipment.

I strongly advise you to try a Mac with FCS. All of these issues will disappear. You will save man-weeks of frustration and the machine will pay for itself very quickly.

[Tweekme]

Mark,

I can totally agree with Matthew on this one. I work on both Mac and Windows systems, and Final Cut Studio 2 is perfectly setup for use with the EX1. I edit on a daily basis with FCS, and have no issues.

Scott K.

[Jim Arthurs]

Mark, FCP and Sony Vegas are the two least painful solutions to editing with the EX1 right now. Either will do what you want without the hassles you're running into with Premiere.

If you stick with your current workflow, instead of uncompressed, I'd recommend using MotionJPG or PhotoJPG for your intermediate renders... PhotoJPG from 75% to 99% quality is 4:2:2 and looks great. Heck, I even have used this codec instead of uncompressed for key work.

CineForm is a better option yet, completely cross application and platform compatible, will play real time, etc. I don't remember all the details but I believe you had issues with it... I'd say try again... it's an A Grade intermediate codec and the folks will let you have another trial period if you talk with them...

Also, I've heard that there's a major retooling of Premiere for NAB, which is just a month away... so who knows what will happen there.

I just hate to see someone in pain. Things will improve on their own given some time for the camera to penetrate the market a bit more...

Regards,

[basspig]

Is motion JPEG even an output option with Vegas? I chose Sony YUV because any of the long GOP choices either lost quality, or caused Vegas to crash.

CineForm we've tried. The files were huge and the workflow was cumbersome. May as well work with tape.

Retooling Premiere? Hopefully by this spring Adobe will have something on the table.

Pain? You want to hear about pain? :) I got off the phone with the manager at the Sony repair facility earlier today and it's not going to be a short stay for my unit. It could be weeks before they figure out the CA problem. Engineering in Japan is working on the design for the backfocus and battery draindown problems. My only hope is that they will provide a loaner unit for the month or however long this repair is going to take. A month of rentals would totally wipe out the benefit of ownership.

[matthew77]

Pain? You want to hear about pain? :) I got off the phone with the manager at the Sony repair facility earlier today and it's not going to be a short stay for my unit. It could be weeks before they figure out the CA problem. Engineering in Japan is working on the design for the backfocus and battery draindown problems. My only hope is that they will provide a loaner unit for the month or however long this repair is going to take. A month of rentals would totally wipe out the benefit of ownership.

Before resorting to renting for a month, you might want to consider the (admittedly harsh) idea of buying another camera. You could sell your almost new camera when it comes back from Sony.

The loss from the sale would probably amount to two or three days' rental, maximum.

[matthew77]

Engineering in Japan is working on the design for the backfocus and battery draindown problems.

This must mean that there will be a recall - if only a silent one. Everyone's camera has the battery drain problem.

Definitely keep us posted on that juicy tidbit. I'll send mine in immediately.

[basspig]

Since our mid-term plan is to purchase a total of four units by end of this year, that thought did cross my mind. However, since the problem is an engineering one, I plan to hold off purchasing until the engineering fixes are out in the available stock of cameras on the market.

I also considered just requesting a refund and trying again later, maybe in 6 months. But then I just got done watching a Blu-ray disc of our latest concert shoot, and the XDCam footage made our V1U footage look like a consumer camera next to a broadcast camera. Clearly more color resolution, lack of twitter and jaggies and real resolution and detail. The HDV footage looked like the colors were smudged and the picture was stretched and interpolated up to 1920 (in fact, it was). Twitter and jaggies were all over the place, yet the footage looks "soft" next to the XDCam footage, which was totally free of all that. So it's a love-hate relationship, not too much unlike what Ferrari owners go through every time the car is in the shop.

My hope is that the camera that comes back from Sony is perfect in every respect on the three issues raised. Sony's engineer did tell me that my lens was actually better than those of several other EX1s that he currently has in the shop. So there are worse units out there than even mine.

Meanwhile, I've got my old NLE with Vegas churning out losslessly compressed Sony YUV CODEC footage from three 9-minute avg tracks from XDCam. It's been cranking since last night. 4 more hours to go on the third and final clip. Then 60 minutes to copy it over gigabit Ethernet to the big NLE. Can't play any of them in realtime--not even from the RAID 0, which has a sustained transfer of 151 MBytes/S. All editing will have to be completed with long GOP MPEG first, then files unlinked and relinked to the YUV files at render time. Very cumbersome, so we're either going to have to learn to live with Vegas and it's poor quality output scaling, and infantile titler, or wait and see what Adobe brings out this NAB, or take another stab at MainConcept if they revise it again and fix some more bugs. I don't see ourselves investing in a whole Mac system at this time. The attendant re training and other issues are considerable.

[matthew77]

I don't see ourselves investing in a whole Mac system at this time. The attendant re training and other issues are considerable.

But ALL of the issues you describe would be gone.

I don't mean to sound like a Mac head, and I understand your concerns. But the whole workflow is incredibly smooth and it seems like just about every kink has been worked out on the Mac. So many PC users have bought a Mac exclusively for FCP use and have been happy with the results. It's worth some serious consideration if you're in this business to make money (which I think you are).

If you ever find yourself in Manhattan, pop by Tekserve and give it a go (if you haven't already).

[Elton]

One other codec suggestion: SheerVideo codec.

I use it as an intermediate between my FCS 2 and Vegas systems. The files are about a 1/3 of uncompressed but truly lossless and cross-platform AND very good at RGB/YUV conversion. If you have a RAID 0 system you shouldn't have trouble playing it back in full motion.

www.bitjazz.com

[basspig]

I feel that if I were to switch to another NLE, it would likely be Edius, because it's interface and workflow are familiar from an Adobe perspective.

I don't do a lot of color grading in post, so I wish to avoid the unwieldy file sizes of intermediate CODECs. I've been down the CineForm route, and while that has very specific value in limited applications, the files are huge and the workflow is cumbersome and negates the value of tapeless acquisition.

Ultimately, it's going to have to be either a MainConcept product with the bugs fixed (and I think they are closest to providing that solution) or waiting for CS4, which will hopefully have XDCam.

Meanwhile, I can always subcontract and hire myself out as a day shooter and just hand over the cards at the end of the day and let someone else worry about the editing. Owning an EX1 puts one in high demand lately. I wish Sony would hurry up and fix mine so I can take advantage of this window of time where I am one of the few EX1 owners, before the market is flooded with them.

[marques]

basspig,
i have just bought cs3 with the intention it would be a solid investment and would serve me for at least a five year period. it is a brand new product. so i am expecting an update that would provide a native codec for the ex1., as it clearly falls into the cs3 market. i know adobe were slow with native hvx but that came out in mid cycle not at the start of the release of cs2. they have clearly known about the ex1 around a year now. if not before.

personally, i am outraged by the hint that i would now have to purchase or even wait for a new release. ie cs4. Am i the only one who thinks this appalling service from adobe if this is indeed the case.
as a matter of principle i would switch right away and wish adobe misfortune in the future.
i would love to hear Barry's opinion or one of the other moderators
does edius support psd fiiles and blue ray authoring?

[basspig]

I feel your discomfort, marques, and I do hope that Adobe will provide a mid-term update at no cost, that will bring flawless XDcam support. However, I don't believe that will actually happen, for the following:

MainConcept, AG has a product on the market the plugs into Premiere and brings this capability for $449. MainConcept produced the MPEG CODEC used in Adobe's products. There is no motivation to stop selling a $449 CODEC and for Adobe to strain a lucrative marketing relationship with their CODEC supplier. IOW, if Adobe said to MainConcept "look you have to provide for FREE the functionality you provide in your standalone MPEG Pro HD 3.1 for $449" what do you think MC would say to that?

I can see it becoming integrated into CS4 because MC will have already made their money on MPEG Pro off of XDCam owners, and Adobe will be charging a substantial upgrade fee for CS4, which would compensate the folks at MC.

Adobe's market consists of a lot of other users--XDCam users are not even a drop in the bucket--so why would they be concerned?


My take on it is that I have 8 years with Premiere and Premiere Pro and I'm thoroughly comfortable with the NLE and how it fits our workflow. While I do use the competing NLE, Vegas, for audio work, I find myself hamstrung to do the things I accomplish in CS3 easily. And then there is that integration with PhotoShop, Illustrator, AfterEffects and so on, that makes Adobe's suite a powerful, integrated tool.

Maybe someone will come up with a standalone tool that converts XDCam to some editable format, or maybe a third party may step up to the plate and provide a native CODEC. My business associate feels that Sony should provide this CODEC as part of the camera software, but I disagree on philosophical reasons. For now, since we only have the 8GB SxS card, we'll deal with running it through Vegas and outputting Sony YUV format.

Adobe is the big Goliath, eating up smaller software companies by the dozens--just look at their product lineup today--literally scores of applications. This rapid expansion rarely goes on without a negative outcome, somewhere down the road. One can only hope that they surprise us with a downloadable update that provides XDCam support. I have a hunch we are not too far off from something. The screaming is getting louder on the Adobe forums. Someone has got to be listening.

Maybe in a few months, when I get my EX1 back from repair, a CODEC solution will be available that is satisfactory and transparent and doesn't require losing the second monitor preview output. Maybe.

[marques]

I think from a strategic point it makes perfect sense to support it as soon as possible. the ex1 is the hottest product and the camera to have in premiere's market sector and by not supporting it quickly they will loose loyalty. especially considering its main competitor fc supports the ex1. and now edius has native support. its a lose, lose situation by not supporting it in cs3. come cs4 their is a strong possibility the ex1 will no longer be the new kid on the block.
come on adobe i love cs3 integration but i love my camera much more.

[basspig]

marques, to understand Adobe's side of it, you really have to look at the business angle: EX1 users are probably less than 0.02% of the market share right now for Adobe products. If that percentage of users switch to another NLE, it's insignificant in terms of dollars earned on sales. We are too small a market now to make a difference. A year from now, we could be 3% of the market, but that's not presently the case.
By the time CS4 comes out (maybe this August?), if it has built in XDCam support (maybe), then perhaps sales of XDCam units will have ramped up to significant numbers and then it will be fiscally sensible for Adobe to invest licensing $$$ in a new CODEC. They will do it when it is profitable to do so, not before. That's my impression of it, thinking as a business owner.

In the meantime, Final Cut Pro is looking nice, but the cost of a platform switch is more than just the hardware cost. It is necessary to set up the support team to maintain that platform. That's where the real cost is. There are many issues to consider which are not apparent on the surface.

[marques]

with all due respect, if companies do not see it as profitable to support the ex1. then companies like fc, green valley and sony would not support it. I am sure they don't do it for the love of the game.
you were right in your previous post that adobe is buying up smaller companies in an aggressive bid to increase market share and make cs3 more attractive. is this not contradictory to their whole philosophy.
if indeed and you are correct with your assumption that in a year from now xd cam has a three percent market share. this will be a significant loss to its main rival that adobe is so aggressively trying to compete against.
clearly the boys at adobe agree with you, being business owners.
In addition, possibly if they received enough negative criticism they would actually be more user-friendly, instead of sympathetic opinions in various boards. all three applicable products were at nab last year and their is no excuse at all.
Previously i always defended premiere against the fc activists who said fc is way better, as being pure user product loyalty. Now i really do have an inferior product.

[basspig]

marques, I do understand and share your frustration, but I was trying to look inside the thinking of Adobe management and see it purely from a pencil-pusher's perspective. It's all about "where do we allocate the resources for the largest return on investment for our shareholders". Clearly, that is not in the XDCam market--not yet, anyway. A year from now, that will probably change. But as with early adopter challenges, new owners of the EX1, who have formerly been in the prosumer market, now tempted to make that extra jump to true professional picture quality by a price that's just slightly out of reach, but worth taking a second mortgage for, will find that their "prosumer" NLE, such as Premiere, is not really designed to play in the Big League. Adobe caters to prosumer videographers. PD150 users, Canon XL1 users. Etc. High end XDCam HD was always the domain of Grass Valley and other high end NLE makers. Now we have this odd criss-cross of prosumer class users suddenly finding themselves working in a professional format, and discovering their prosumer NLEs aren't all up to the task.
It's shakedown time.