Differences between Avid Xpress Pro HD and Avid Liquid 7

C

Carlos_E._Martinez

Well-known member
Can anyone tell me which are the differences between these two editing systems?

The info I can find around is rather vague. I know that the Liquid was based on the Pinnacle, but I can't see what are the cons and pros on each.


Carlos
 
That's a big question. Here are the highlights:

Liquid is based on Pinnacle, and has more in common with Pinnacle's interface than with Avid's. If you have any experience editing on Avids, Liquid is not going to be a similar experience from an interface standpoint.

Xpress Pro is really designed to be an editor only. In this day of every piece of software being able to do everything, I find it refreashing that Xpress Pro is an NLE first and foremost. It's not an audio editing app, it's not an effects app, it won't create a DVD for you. It will edit.

Liquid, on the other hand is made to do everything for you. You can edit, do audio, FX, and spit out a DVD right from Liquid. That's great if you work in an area that needs those features.

Different tools for different purposes.

Hope that helps.
 
Big questions get big answers ;).

My concerns have to do with HDV editing and, later-on, exporting the job, uncompressed, to be finished on a better setup and/or transferred to film.

I am not still sure what I will be able to do with the captured HDV images without re-compression being involved. That is I do not want to go back to HDV, but go up to HD later on.

Apparently Avid seems to deal with HDV differently than other programs, like Premiere or Vegas, that need converting the HDV onto intra-frame files. Is that so?

Are we Avid Xpress HD users in a worst place now?
 
Both programs will do native HDV editing without transcoding. Xpress Pro 5.6 uses DNxHD for render files if you add effects, but it can also 'fix up' HDV files to minimise the recompression required if you do a cuts-only edit... it will try to only recompress the section at the cut.

In your case you'd edit HDV then export as an uncompressed HD file or a low-compression DNxHD file. The former shouldn't require any recompression at all.

Personally I use Xpress Pro HD and absolutely hate Edition because the previous Pinnacle versions I used were bug-ridden piles of crap. But some people seem to feel the other way, and maybe Avid have fixed some of the bugs, so you'd probably need to try both if you want a proper comparison.
 
If you plan on using the JVC HD100 HDV then DO NOT plan on using Xpress Pro. The situation with Avid's support of HDV 1 has been rediculous. In fact, if you plan to do ANY HDV 24 Frame Editing, stay away from Xpress Pro.
 
KingsReign said:
If you plan on using the JVC HD100 HDV then DO NOT plan on using Xpress Pro. The situation with Avid's support of HDV 1 has been rediculous. In fact, if you plan to do ANY HDV 24 Frame Editing, stay away from Xpress Pro.
Click to expand...


Well, my HDV camera (when it arrives) should be a Sony Z1, not a JVC HD100.

What were the problems between Avid and HDV?

Who's handling HDV 24frame well?

Note: it has to be a PC compatible program. No Mac programs for me.
 
My Z1 works fine at 50Hz, no idea about 60Hz. Avid are taking forever to support the JVC's 720p/25 format, I don't know about 720p/24.

Note that the Z1's '24 fps' mode is a naff electronic frame-merging that introduces some ugly artifacts; you're almost certainly better off shooting 50Hz interlaced and then deinterlacnig and slowing by 4%.
 
HDV 24 can be editied by Canopus, Liquid and Premiere on Windows. HDV 1 refers to 720P HDV from the JVC only, not 1080i which is HDV 2. Xpress Pro should handle the Z1 fine.

The problems, well, you simply can't import or capture from the HD100 in 720/24P and support for it has been promised for well over a year and the situation has become ridiculous. Avid has been saying, "cooming soon" now forever, and there is still no known beta or expected delivery at all. The JVC customers are quite upset about it. Even FCP, which has been another year of promising from Apple, finally delivered at NAB '06. Still holding out from Avid.

The other problems encounter printing back to tape among other things.

Since I use a firestore, I get the .m2t file and can just Batch Transcode in MPEG STREAMCLIP into DNxHD, which Avid handles great obviously.
 
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I have been using Liquid since is was Pinnacle liquid edition 5.0 and been to numerous meeting and nkow this application well. Avid saw the potential in this application which is why they bought it, to compete with FCP and Vegas. AL7 which is what its now called, is native HDV. At this time doesnt have the 24p pulldown however I shoot DVX100B in 16:9, letterbox and 4:3 at 24p all the time and my stuff looks great. Regarding the HDV stuff, we just editing a clients footage from the new Sony HDV camera and used the new Sony m15u HDV deck and it looks fantastic.

We also changed the timeline to 4:3 and made the footage fit x and y and kept aspect and BAM instantaneously was now 16:9 on a 4:3 timeline and looked great.

The next release we are hoping for HD and P2 support as well as 24p for starters and much much more.

Avid Liquid 7 is by far the most versitile of the $1000 price range NLE's with the 2 above acceptions.

Avid Express have the HD and 24p support however you have to wait to do things while it renders, not really any FX if that's a convern. All have a hoky BOB however Avid Liquid Chrome for $15k gives you the same GUI as Liquid however you get SDI and all the cool ins and outs as well as some hardware acceleration but still no 24p.

Hope that helps.

We are putting together a local LA liquid user group and I'm looking for users that would be interested, email me if you are at

joe@sinivision.com
 
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