previewing from timeline in laptop

[deebee69]

previewing from laptop O.K. so the new laptop is here and im off and running editing dvcpro hd within edius brosdcast ver 4.01 and what I cant achieve in edius I swap out to Cineform aspect hd with adobe prem pro 2 and after effects etc.

So whilst the laptop has been bought for dumping p2 cards in the field [still await the cineporter] I was wondering what others may be thinking of useing as a add on preview monitor or will dv rack for the hvx be able to monitor from the timeline.

At the moment Im just swapping to single mode view within edius and expand the window as large as can be on a dell 24" 1900x1280 and preview the timeline
Any thoughts?

Also can the hvx 200 be hooked up some way to allow pass through to component out via 1394 host or usb2 some how to allow preview from timeline?

[bhiga]

Also can the hvx 200 be hooked up some way to allow pass through to component out via 1394 host or usb2 some how to allow preview from timeline?
This would require some kind of realtime DVCPRO HD output via FireWire, which currently doesn't exist AFAIK.. Well, that is assuming the HVX supports E-E with HD input.

Even then, however, there'd be a slight delay between what you're doing on the computer-end and what you see on the monitor, just as there is for DV, since there's some lag involved in performing the compression on the computer end and the decompression on the camera/deck end.

So, unfortunately I don't have a good answer there. You still need EDIUS hardware for true WYSIWYG video out.

Brandon

[deebee69]

Thanks DHiga
Id like to know what you and others think about the Matrox mxo unit which is available for the mac but not sure if theres a version for the pc side yet.
Could this be the answer to my previewing problems from my laptop?

[bhiga]

At a glance, MXO seems to be a DVI scan converter. Scan-converted video is never going to be a completely accurate representation of what your broadcast video will be, as there are inherent differences between computer video and broadcast video.

However, since you can't stick a video output card in a laptop yet, it's a pretty good stop-gap. You'd still have to proof things on something with a real video output, but at least you can get closer than simply relying on the computer screen.

Brandon

[jjb]

bhiga - is there a chance that you are going to unbundle HW/SW. For EDIUS Broadcast users it could be useful to expand their NLE with additional HW. What we need is WYSIWYG video out (no 64-bit PCI bus card). EDIUS NX seems to be at first a HDV solution.

[bhiga]

A multi-part answer since it's a complicated question.
1) EDIUS doesn't require specific hardware to operate. However, it does require specific hardware for realtime HD video output from the timeline. This is the EDIUS hardware boards.

2) Since there's no standard for uncompressed HD video output technology (the connection exists - HD-SDI, but there's no board-communication standard), we can't make EDIUS "generically" support HD video output - each different piece of hardware will require specific coding and support. Lucky for us, we make hardware, so the natural choice is the EDIUS hardware boards (NX, SP, HD).

3) The EDIUS hardware outputs from an uncompressed HD (except for EDIUS SD, which doesn't have HD output except with the MIP) space. They do not compress down to HDV, DV, or some other compression level before analog or SDI output. Clips are decompressed, processed, and the processed result is sent out the hardware.

4) Currently there are no hardware boards I'm aware of with hardware HDV-compatible codecs, or even hardware HD MPEG codecs, for that matter. This means nobody has reliable realtime HDV output except for HDV camcorders and decks. Computers simply aren't fast enough for realtime HDV output yet without completely dominating the CPU time.

5) Remember that HDV defines a data compression format. Be careful not to confuse HDV with HD video in general.
HD video is an analog component video signal or digital HD-SDI datastream, what you get our of your HD-DVD player, scaler or HD satellite/cable box. HDV is what you get from a HDV camcorder or deck.
HDV is compressed digital data.

6) Uncompressed HD video data is huge. It's more than 32-bit PCI has bandwidth for. 32-bit PCI has a theoretical maximum transfer around 130 MB/sec. 1080i60 is 124,416,000 bytes/sec assuming 16-bits-per-pixel. At 24-bits-per-pixel, it's 186,624,000 bytes/sec. Regardless, even if 32-bit PCI performed at max speed, it wouldn't leave any bandwidth for any of the processes to actually get and process the video data from the hard drives or anything.

So... being that there's no way for EDIUS to "talk" to generic hardware and say "Hey, output this HD video signal" - there's no real solution. HD video output from the graphics adapter is possible, but it's not a true-to-life verbatim representation of the HD video EDIUS has processed because it's gone from EDIUS, to the the display, then to the HD video signal. The display processing can involve a number of changes including scaling (or simply lack of full data transfer), colorspace conversion and framerate changes.

In an ideal world, EDIUS would support other manufacturer's output hardware, but we make our own hardware, and the definition of business is making money so...
:kali::nads:

Brandon