DVCPRO HD & The End of My Sanity
- Thread starter TheKingBanana
- Start date
erniediaz
Well-known member
Some times in this forum I read things as people talking about football or baseball, every one defending his team with passion as if the team pay for it, some times I wonder"... apple, pc or adobe, etc. pay for talk about them?..." I think no machine is better than who is using it, so I use the gear is good for me, for my needs, my money, my time, PC? Mac? PPro? FCP? all work good enough, I've used all of them in my 35 years as a TV and Cinema producer, all of them got obsolete before I reach to know all about them, but all of them render good job and good money to me mean while.
I have HVX200 since april, and still try to understand how it works and how to get the most of it... mean while.
I hope next few months, all of we can work with this new technology as fluid as with DV (some body remembers earlies 90 when you get a panny Z or a sony VX700 or 1000, and could not edit via Firewire because there was not a way to connect it to an editor? ) I used to edit through it's SVideo port about 2 years before DPS release of DV Bay (firewire card) in 1994
Patient, friends, patient.
PS: my first camera was a Bolex Paillard Spring, 100 feet reels, in 1970 work with it about 12 years before move to video.
I have HVX200 since april, and still try to understand how it works and how to get the most of it... mean while.
I hope next few months, all of we can work with this new technology as fluid as with DV (some body remembers earlies 90 when you get a panny Z or a sony VX700 or 1000, and could not edit via Firewire because there was not a way to connect it to an editor? ) I used to edit through it's SVideo port about 2 years before DPS release of DV Bay (firewire card) in 1994
Patient, friends, patient.
PS: my first camera was a Bolex Paillard Spring, 100 feet reels, in 1970 work with it about 12 years before move to video.
Pascal Parvex
Well-known member
erdiaz said:
Yes. And it is called "guerilla marketing", or "viral marketing".
500lb Productions said:
I'm not even a true believer I've been a PC user for most of my professional life but ever since I bought a Mac and FCP my DELL worksation has been collecting dust. I see the Mac as a tool to get the job done and I can truly say that I do not miss the blue screens and the frozen screens. I'm not saying the Mac is perfect but I have experienced fewer problems since I made the switch.
DVXSanDiego
Well-known member
Still struggling with FCP
Still struggling with FCP
Digital Angel, I couldn't agree more. After spending years on Vegas, being used to just dropping anything, and I mean ANYTHING, on the timeline and just editing away with full preview, FCP leaves me frustrated. I bought a Mac and FCP with the promise of Dynamic Renderiing having taken care of their rendering problem, but it just never seems to end. Vegas is just the most intuitive, smooth, crash-free NLE in existence. I'm teaching myself FCP, but daily find myself wishing that Apple had bought Vegas years ago rather than the program that became FCP. My team just competed in the 48-Hour Film Project, and there was no way we were going to use FCP on such a brutal timeline. The result? We finished with hours to spare, and with a more professional product that 90% of entrants. I want to love FCP, as I love Macs generally, but nothing compares to Vegas. Simple but true. Anyone who has used it for more than a few days understands what I'm saying.
Still struggling with FCP
Digital Angel, I couldn't agree more. After spending years on Vegas, being used to just dropping anything, and I mean ANYTHING, on the timeline and just editing away with full preview, FCP leaves me frustrated. I bought a Mac and FCP with the promise of Dynamic Renderiing having taken care of their rendering problem, but it just never seems to end. Vegas is just the most intuitive, smooth, crash-free NLE in existence. I'm teaching myself FCP, but daily find myself wishing that Apple had bought Vegas years ago rather than the program that became FCP. My team just competed in the 48-Hour Film Project, and there was no way we were going to use FCP on such a brutal timeline. The result? We finished with hours to spare, and with a more professional product that 90% of entrants. I want to love FCP, as I love Macs generally, but nothing compares to Vegas. Simple but true. Anyone who has used it for more than a few days understands what I'm saying.
Digital Angel
Active member
*tear goes down one cheek* ... I hear yah man....
John Morgan
Member
Digital Angel, I think I love you.
When I mention Axio, everyone spurns the cost and tells me their Macs can do the same stuff. Delirious, I guess. AxioLE (I have AxioHD), as a hardware card, is very reasonable. All the other components of the cost are computer, graphics card, disk subsystem. The soon-to-be-released version 2.5 AxioUtils works exactly the same way as Barry described Edius. Native MXF is a beautiful thing. Built-in DVCProHD/DV50 codecs; Matrox Mpeg2 I-Frame; offlining capability; excellent RT effects.
As much complaining as seems to be going on at various levels, I'm surprised no one is talking about Axio and it's stellar MXF/P2 workflow. You get a hellava lot for your money! What's productivity worth to you?
Perhaps a lower cost does justify almost getting it done, but when you get sick of that, there are excellent options.
Compare Axio and it's capabilities to lower-priced NLEs, and every one of them fall short in some important area....but I guess that's OK, because you save lots of money. When time and money become equally important, again, there's options.
Wait a year for software solutions and faster computers to catch up? Fine. What did that year cost you in productivity?
John
When I mention Axio, everyone spurns the cost and tells me their Macs can do the same stuff. Delirious, I guess. AxioLE (I have AxioHD), as a hardware card, is very reasonable. All the other components of the cost are computer, graphics card, disk subsystem. The soon-to-be-released version 2.5 AxioUtils works exactly the same way as Barry described Edius. Native MXF is a beautiful thing. Built-in DVCProHD/DV50 codecs; Matrox Mpeg2 I-Frame; offlining capability; excellent RT effects.
As much complaining as seems to be going on at various levels, I'm surprised no one is talking about Axio and it's stellar MXF/P2 workflow. You get a hellava lot for your money! What's productivity worth to you?
Perhaps a lower cost does justify almost getting it done, but when you get sick of that, there are excellent options.
Compare Axio and it's capabilities to lower-priced NLEs, and every one of them fall short in some important area....but I guess that's OK, because you save lots of money. When time and money become equally important, again, there's options.
Wait a year for software solutions and faster computers to catch up? Fine. What did that year cost you in productivity?
John
Last edited:
TheKingBanana
New member
I want to thank everyone for their opinions and ideas. Just wanted to clarify, as far as Avid goes, the only reason I had problems, was their software support is pathetic. Mainly about the video card requirements-only like 5 Nvidia cards work with real-time preview and even then only with 2 year old drivers. If I am paying over 1500+ for a piece of software I expect the development team to actually support more than a handful of hardware configuations and keep up with support for newer drivers-etc.
On another note, the Aspect HD DEMO I downloaded works perfectly. My only real conmplaint is the render time to convert the MXF to the interrim AVI files. I also can't help but feeling this is a "Band-Aid" solution. At $500 it is a hard pill to swallow for only one function, but again, I DOES WORK. Although, there is the value of the extra plug-in's which makes it a little less painful. So I will have to hang in there till these companies take us (HVX USERS) seriously and support their insanely overpriced software properly.
Note to the Apple fans out there: I did like MAC's in the day so I am NOT BIASED. There used to be a real performance advantage with PowerPC and an optimised OS. This is simply not the case anymore. My custom dual core 4400 would eat any MAC for lunch and have leftovers. YAAAY, MAC got INTEL processors, whoopie. Um, 2.6GHZ is impressive? As far as cost, I build my own computers for a fraction of retail-DELL, HP, ETC are similarly over priced as Apple but still better performers. My MAIN complaint is that FCP converts files to QUICKTIME to work with the files. The support on MAC is SO specialized. You get like 1 or 2 killer apps and it's like, hey go buy a MAC to use THIS awesome app. No thanks. Oh, I bought my MOM an iMac 333 when they came out and recently I upgraded her to a dual core 2GHZ 20" iMAC. She is happy, I am not as easy to satisfy.
On another note, the Aspect HD DEMO I downloaded works perfectly. My only real conmplaint is the render time to convert the MXF to the interrim AVI files. I also can't help but feeling this is a "Band-Aid" solution. At $500 it is a hard pill to swallow for only one function, but again, I DOES WORK. Although, there is the value of the extra plug-in's which makes it a little less painful. So I will have to hang in there till these companies take us (HVX USERS) seriously and support their insanely overpriced software properly.
Note to the Apple fans out there: I did like MAC's in the day so I am NOT BIASED. There used to be a real performance advantage with PowerPC and an optimised OS. This is simply not the case anymore. My custom dual core 4400 would eat any MAC for lunch and have leftovers. YAAAY, MAC got INTEL processors, whoopie. Um, 2.6GHZ is impressive? As far as cost, I build my own computers for a fraction of retail-DELL, HP, ETC are similarly over priced as Apple but still better performers. My MAIN complaint is that FCP converts files to QUICKTIME to work with the files. The support on MAC is SO specialized. You get like 1 or 2 killer apps and it's like, hey go buy a MAC to use THIS awesome app. No thanks. Oh, I bought my MOM an iMac 333 when they came out and recently I upgraded her to a dual core 2GHZ 20" iMAC. She is happy, I am not as easy to satisfy.
Last edited:
David Newman
Well-known member
DVXSanDiego said:
Mark,
48 Hour Film in San Diego huh? We also did that using Prospect HD on Premiere Pro, and onlined the whole this in 1920x1080p24 all with time to spare (editing on a Quad Woodcrest Intel box didn't hurt.) I guess knowing your tools is what matters in a time crunch.
See our award winning movie here : www.cineform.com/48hour.
Is your film online somewhere (I was only able to go to one of the four sessions?)
DVXSanDiego
Well-known member
Hey David, yeah, I saw your work on the Cineform website. Nice job. And thank you for sharing all the behind the scenes stuff with the Silicon Imaging camera. I am green with envy, as we shot on a DVX100A. Not a bad camera, obviously, but you guys are really taking it to the next level. I spent an afternoon studying all the footage you guys have available on the website. As we're planning our next feature (a low-budget SAG contract) on HD the SI camera was intriguing to say the least. You can check out our short at http://www.daisytodd.com/media.htm - although only the Windows media file is availalbe now. You can also see a trailer for our first feature, if you're interested, at www.29thandgay-themovie.com. We shot that on DVX's as well, on a micro-budget, but had a great cast that included Kali Rocha of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer "and "Meet the Parents/Fockers" and Michael Emerson of ABC's "Lost".David Newman said:
dregenthal
Veteran
What was this thread supposed to be about? . . . with all the apple v. pc stuff I kinda got lost along the way . . . oh yeah, now I remember.
It seems like the guy said he had a hot PC and was looking for a DVCPRO/P2 solution and didn’t want to spend a ton of money (you know, like buying another computer or a bunch of third party add-ons in addition to an NLE). Barry answered that question on page two.
I liked Don Wilson’s comments, mostly because he was a lot more gracious than I could have been.
Somebody said something about Broadcast being $1500. Not! B&H has it for less than a grand – a doorbell could run a Google search and find it for less. I paid eight hundred just after NAB for 3.61 and qualified for the free upgrade to ver 4. I made my decision, back then, by using the trial download which, of course, did support DVCPRO and P2 seamlessly, as it does now in the current retail version.
I also have a registered version of Avid Xpress Pro HD, and paid for RAYLIGHT. I have no great complaint with either . . . there are some aspects of the Avid that I still prefer. I have no reason to doubt what folks are saying about CINEFORM or AXIO (or FCP for that matter) and I certainly wouldn’t presume to tell anyone where they should expend their cash . . . I will say (not that he needs my confirmation) that, given my experience with Edius Broadcast, Barry is on the button (as usual). I do wish someone would write a book or that would explain how to use it – would certainly have a dramatic effect on the learning curve.
It seems like the guy said he had a hot PC and was looking for a DVCPRO/P2 solution and didn’t want to spend a ton of money (you know, like buying another computer or a bunch of third party add-ons in addition to an NLE). Barry answered that question on page two.
I liked Don Wilson’s comments, mostly because he was a lot more gracious than I could have been.
Somebody said something about Broadcast being $1500. Not! B&H has it for less than a grand – a doorbell could run a Google search and find it for less. I paid eight hundred just after NAB for 3.61 and qualified for the free upgrade to ver 4. I made my decision, back then, by using the trial download which, of course, did support DVCPRO and P2 seamlessly, as it does now in the current retail version.
I also have a registered version of Avid Xpress Pro HD, and paid for RAYLIGHT. I have no great complaint with either . . . there are some aspects of the Avid that I still prefer. I have no reason to doubt what folks are saying about CINEFORM or AXIO (or FCP for that matter) and I certainly wouldn’t presume to tell anyone where they should expend their cash . . . I will say (not that he needs my confirmation) that, given my experience with Edius Broadcast, Barry is on the button (as usual). I do wish someone would write a book or that would explain how to use it – would certainly have a dramatic effect on the learning curve.
Pascal Parvex
Well-known member
dregenthal said:
That was me with the 1500$. I had the price in Swiss Francs in mind, this is why I got to that amount.
And it is true, you can use the advanced features without dongle with the trial, if you have the right trial for version 3. I was referring to the "old" trial, where it does not work. This post in the thread I was referring to explains it:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=482508&postcount=62
You will also find some "how to" material in this thread.
dregenthal
Veteran
Thanks Pascal. The dollar sign "$" threw me off . . . I should have realized something was different because you placed it after the number, where we put it in front. What does 1500 Swiss Francs equal in current US dollars anyhow?
Yeah, thanks for the tip link -- there are a few of them around, the software really does suffer from not having a printed ready reference. Something that should be addressed if Grass Valley wants to be taken seriously in the long term (IMHO).
Yeah, thanks for the tip link -- there are a few of them around, the software really does suffer from not having a printed ready reference. Something that should be addressed if Grass Valley wants to be taken seriously in the long term (IMHO).
John Morgan
Member
Pascal_Parvex said:Yes. And it is called "guerilla marketing", or "viral marketing".
Interesting. People might think that's me with all my pro-Axio sentiments. Nope. I'm just a schmuck at a Community College in Utah. NLE history includes Speed Razor on Intergraph StudioZ, Discreet Edit on Matrox DigiSuite LE, Premiere Pro 1 to 1.51 on Matrox RT.X100 Extreme and now Premiere Pro 2.0 on AxioHD. Axio beta team.
See a trend here? Very much into hardware acceleration....been very happy with Matrox products. Evolved from graphic design into video and have strong sentiment for Adobe products (Photoshop on PC since 2.5...Aldus Photostyler before that).
Was cutting my teeth in graphics in 1988 (CorelDraw 1.1 and Windows 2.0) and went full digital in 1991 on a PC. Yes, I had to add my own SCSI card and graphics card. First 4-color graphics card was some Targa card that only did 24-bit color at 800x resolution. Got my first NLE in 1996.
Got snobbed big time by the Mac crowd in those days. Lost my stomach for that platform and much prefer my dumb little box, which happens to be a 2-proc dual-core AMD64 Opteron 280.
They're all just tools, but we all do seem to have strong sentiments
John
Digital Angel
Active member
Man, Americans have it so easy when it comes to all this. *Living in a quility PAL world, where quility is no longer a bonus*
haha, ever since the introduction of HD, i think the world shuld now just form a world wide electronical standard, no more 25fps etc. But anyhoo.
I find it very interesting, how many different NLE's people are using with one product and one goal in mind. It would be a great project, and yes i know people say this all the time, but If we could have a competition to see, or not even competition just an exchange to find out witch is the best for what.
Perhaps you guys could join up in a shady warehouse somewhere and sit down at other peoples editing solutions, and sorta speed date with the computers. As im thinking more serious about my editing future, well as for 2 months ago i would have mabe bought an Apple. But now realising the true power of what a PC is becoming in comparason, I would go PC hands down.
Windows Vista is almost here, and the Intel Chips are out of this world.
Btw i never said what I used.. A Sager NP8890 power laptop. 2.8ghz intel chip. ATI Mobility 9600pro grafix. 2GB Ram. 5200rpm 100gb hard drive. Windows XP home.
Its a beast of a laptop and I take it on set if using the P2s, and i edit on it play games, but its showing its age with aplying effects etc. and the render times could be better. But combustion runs nice on it. Vegas is perfect for it, Premier crashes etc, nightmare. And i cant use hardware dependant NLE's cos i dnt have the PCI slots
haha, ever since the introduction of HD, i think the world shuld now just form a world wide electronical standard, no more 25fps etc. But anyhoo.
I find it very interesting, how many different NLE's people are using with one product and one goal in mind. It would be a great project, and yes i know people say this all the time, but If we could have a competition to see, or not even competition just an exchange to find out witch is the best for what.
Perhaps you guys could join up in a shady warehouse somewhere and sit down at other peoples editing solutions, and sorta speed date with the computers. As im thinking more serious about my editing future, well as for 2 months ago i would have mabe bought an Apple. But now realising the true power of what a PC is becoming in comparason, I would go PC hands down.
Windows Vista is almost here, and the Intel Chips are out of this world.
Btw i never said what I used.. A Sager NP8890 power laptop. 2.8ghz intel chip. ATI Mobility 9600pro grafix. 2GB Ram. 5200rpm 100gb hard drive. Windows XP home.
Its a beast of a laptop and I take it on set if using the P2s, and i edit on it play games, but its showing its age with aplying effects etc. and the render times could be better. But combustion runs nice on it. Vegas is perfect for it, Premier crashes etc, nightmare. And i cant use hardware dependant NLE's cos i dnt have the PCI slots
Last edited:
Pascal Parvex
Well-known member
dregenthal said:
$1.224,31 according to Babylon Translator.
But those 1500 CHF were only an estimate, you may get it for less. Maybe 899 Euros, which equals in $1.154,30dregenthal said:
I thought about doing a small tutorial about how to get your FireStore FS-100 footage into Eidus.
John Morgan said:
Interesting. Well, I bought my DVX in 2004, and then bought In-Sync Blade 2. HD editing for only $500.
But In-Sync is down the drain now. Then I sold my DVX, and got an HVX, and for my HVX, I bought Edius Broadcast. About $850 for the ability to even natively edit footage from a CineAlta is not the worst you can get. End of story. Digital Angel said:
My DVX was NTSC, and my HVX is NTSC. I also hoped for an end of the format war with HD. I know that all facilities in PAL land are set up to work with 25/50, but still, they could have implemented _compatibility_ when defining HDTV. Well, at least you are on the stronger side with an NTSC model, as PAL HD television sets play NTSC framerates, NTSC HD sets don't need to.
Last edited:
hvx_germanboy
Well-known member
Pascal_Parvex said:
I was talking about the TRIAL of edius 3, and this does work with HD, also WITHOUT dongle..thats why i wanted BANANA to download and test it..nevermind!:furious3:
LearningVideo
Well-known member
If you are interested in Vegas, Please try cineform connectHD and let me know what you think. I am very seriously thinking of trying or purchasing that product.
It seems to me that cineform might be the medium-term answer. Now Mr. Newman claims that it will continue to be the long-term answer because they keep adding new features to cineform products. This is very smart!
However, I would like to share my own experience. I am a PC guy. There is nothing you can do to entice me to buy a MAC (although I have great respect for FCP). So I decided to buy and HVX Camera. I also bought dedicated PC workstation with Vegas. Guess what? It did not work! But if cineform can be the answer, then this is a great news.
If you want to use Premiere, then you need ASPECT-HD not connectHD because the way it was explained to me that in ASPECT-HD they add special enhacements related to Premiere that allows the data to be lot faster.
It seems to me that cineform might be the medium-term answer. Now Mr. Newman claims that it will continue to be the long-term answer because they keep adding new features to cineform products. This is very smart!
However, I would like to share my own experience. I am a PC guy. There is nothing you can do to entice me to buy a MAC (although I have great respect for FCP). So I decided to buy and HVX Camera. I also bought dedicated PC workstation with Vegas. Guess what? It did not work! But if cineform can be the answer, then this is a great news.
If you want to use Premiere, then you need ASPECT-HD not connectHD because the way it was explained to me that in ASPECT-HD they add special enhacements related to Premiere that allows the data to be lot faster.
Pascal Parvex
Well-known member
hvx_germanboy said:
I did not mention it in the sentence you quoted, but I was talking about both full Versions v3 and v4 of Edius and both trial versions of Edius Broadcast v3 and v4. Or simply put: Every Edius with Broadcast in its title, if trial or not. Also see this posting with the link in it:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=640844&postcount=52
Conclusion: Yes, there is a Edius Broadcast v3 trial that works without dongle. You were right.