What kind of hardware is recommended to edit HD on?

That's kind of a broad question.

Let's narrow things down a bit.


What type of HD footage do you plan on editing, from which camera?

Your computer specs?

Which NLE? FCP? Avid? Edius? Other?



Help us help you. :)
 
DC said:
That's kind of a broad question.

Let's narrow things down a bit.


What type of HD footage do you plan on editing, from which camera?

Your computer specs?

Which NLE? FCP? Avid? Edius? Other?



Help us help you. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. I appreciate it. :)

I'd like to go with 1080p from a HVX200.

My DP has the camera but he just asked if I had what I needed to edit HD footage so I came over to ask you guys. I haven't purchased a program for use yet though since I'm not sure if my computer can handle it. I'm planning on shooting a short next month with him but I want to make sure everything is ready and good to go for when the time comes.

Windows XP Media Center.
768 MB Ram
x86 Genuineintel ~2600 Mhz
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS
 
I am using a P4 3.06HT and in 720p it works just like SD in Edius. 1080p needs a bit more, but a modern Core 2 Duo will handle it no problem.
 
EDIUS Broadcast will give you the best performance on that system. But that system isn't really up to the minimum specs.
 
So my computer isn't even up to par then? Is there a resource I check out to find places that will let me use their computers for editing and what not?
 
Get a Mac with Final Cut Pro, this is what most people use. You can edit 1080 in real-time. I you really want to stay with the PC, get Avid.
 
I would recommend not getting Avid if you want to work with 1080/24p. EDIUS does much better with it, Avid doesn't yet have proper 1080/24p support.
 
Barry_Green said:
I would recommend not getting Avid if you want to work with 1080/24p. EDIUS does much better with it, Avid doesn't yet have proper 1080/24p support.
Click to expand...

I'd have to agree with that, I have both Avid and FCpro.

If you are on a Mac, FcPro is a no-brainer.

if you are on PC, you CANNOT beat Edius.
 
Barry_Green said:
Avid doesn't yet have proper 1080/24p support.
Click to expand...
Adrenaline and Nitris based Avid systems DO handle 1080/24p more than properly. MC-soft handles the files as well, but software-only or Mojo-based systems have no HD I/O (other than FireWire), so cannot capture/playout in HD, but you can edit files that were captured on Adrenaline or Nitris systems.
 
Aw hell.

I edit my DVX footage at home on Xpress Pro, and am hoping to buy an HVX soon, and upgrade to Avid HD.

Sorry if I missed the first class on this, but what are the problems with Avid HD?
And, if it handles 1080 badly, does it do just as poorly with 720?

And, keeping with the original post at the top of this list:

PC, Xpress Pro
Dual Xeons 3.06
1 gig RAM

Should I change horses and go with Edius?
 
The formats that XPressPro supports, it supports well. But there are some formats that it doesn't support, like 1080/24p on a 24p timeline. They'll let you edit it as 60i on a 60i timeline, but that's far from optimal.

http://24p.com/HVX200_1.htm

So XPress Pro appears to handle 720pN just fine. But if you're recording to the P2 cards, you can't do standard-def DV or DVCPRO50 in 24p, or DVCPRO-HD 1080 in 24p.

You also can't edit 720/24p from the FireStore as 24p in Avid. That's just... nutty. It forces you to edit as 60p with pulldown.

Those are egregious oversights, ones that I certainly expect them to correct in the next release but I have no "inside info"... I just can't believe that they wouldn't want to offer proper support, so I'm ASSuming that they will correct it.

So if you like Avid and want to use Avid, it does have some support, just make sure that it does what you want.

EDIUS has 100% support for everything the HVX does. But it's EDIUS, not Avid. So download the trial, play with it, and see what you think. But no editor has better P2 support and integration than EDIUS. The only one that can best it is Premiere Pro with Matrox Axio, but that's a $4,000 prospect. EDIUS Broadcast (and it *must* be "Broadcast") is under $1000 and is software-only.
 
Barry, I think you've just saved me a world of trouble. I'm looking to buy an HVX, FS-100, and an Avid upgrade, but.........you can't edit 720/24p from the firestore.
Great, just great.

I have Edius on a laptop here at work (network O&O news station), so I'm getting my feet wet with it, but now it seems that I may have to redo my whole home edit suite.

Seriously, I consider myself lucky to have stumbled on this thread, because I tell you, no one is advertising these shortcomings when I'm asking Avid about software upgrades! Thank you very much to everyone that contributes to this forum. Barry, you are Yoda.

BW
 
Barry_Green said:
So XPress Pro appears to handle 720pN just fine.

You also can't edit 720/24p from the FireStore as 24p in Avid. That's just... nutty. It forces you to edit as 60p with pulldown.
Click to expand...

Avid Xpress Pro v. 5.6.6 supports two types of DVCPRO HD resolutions:

DVCPRO HD resolution in 720p/23.976, 720p/59.94, 1080i/59.94, and 1080i/50 project formats

So, to be clear... if I am getting this correctly...

Unless you are doing a film out or something similar where you need to edit in and deliver native 24p, Avid Xpress Pro will work well with 720pN. Which is the way you would want to edit anyway for anything hitting a TV and not film.

This also is only relevant (as of this post) to Xpress Pro/Composer Software versions, NOT Adrenaline, and Nitris Avid systems. We will see if Avid expands its support at NAB...
 
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Also, can we clear up exactly what Avid supports as far as grabbing footage from a Firestore? This is the first thing that grabbed me out of Barry's response, since I'll be relying on that for most of my recording.
 
You can, indeed, edit 720p/24p from a Firestore (or P2, for that matter) with Xpress Pro. You simply copy or consolidate the files into a 720p/59.94p project. After all, 720p/24p is 24 frames recorded with 2:3 pulldown to a 60p stream. You can even export those files as QT Refs and reimport into an Avid 720p/23.976p project and get "native" 24p... though some files have to be tweaked a frame or two and re-exported as the cadence can be off.

Now, that said, there is at present no way to use those 24p "over 60" files more easily in a true 24p sequence, as Avid doesn't provide for pulldown removal on imported files. This is because Avid's biggest strength--the ability to work natively with the MXF files from the HVX just by copying them to your media drive--is also it's biggest weakness. Hopefully, in a forthcoming release, Avid will implement some sort of pulldown removal capability as is in FCP.

With the v3 firmware upgrade to the Firestore, you can record to 24pN files and use those in an Avid 720p/23.976 project. This works... sort of. There's some bugs with the latest firmware that Focus and Avid are aware of, that apparently is being addressed. At any rate, you can work with both 24p and 24pN footage with Avid.
 
cbrougham's comment also sums up my experience with P2 720p in Avid Xpress Pro HD -- it works, sort of. Starting with importing P2 video into Edius vs. Avid, you see the contrast:
With Edius, you just point the P2 selector to the files copied from the P2 card, or to the P2 card itself and designate the clips you want to edit. With Avid, you create a very particular file structure, then copy your audio and video files manually into a folder (which, if I'm current with 5.5, you cannot rename to something more descriptive than a numeral), then start Avid's media tool and use the tool to "find" the files, then copy them to your bin. Sometimes you then have to delete Avid's media index files so it will refresh and recognize the A1 audio track. Yes, Avid Xpress Pro HD works with 720p via P2. Is it easy or intuitive? Hahahaha. No. My Avid workflow is more like work-ooze.
 
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