Editing computer for HVX200

Jim Arthurs said:
Bottom line, are these companies selling hardware or software?
Click to expand...
Both. As well as hair dryers, televisions, hard disks, raw steel, all sorts of things. There are different divisions that do different things. I've gotten in as deep into this as I think someone can, to the point where I gave up on waiting for them and started negotiating to produce my own DV100 codec, and let's just say that it's not gonna happen.

There are reasons, and they don't make sense to a lot of people (including me), but they make apparently make perfect sense to those that are making the decision. The codec is proprietary intellectual property that is available to be licensed if companies want to comply with the licensing procedures. But it will not be given away for free, by them.

Which is funny, because Avid gives it away for free, and Matrox gives away DV50 for free. So I cannot offer you a satisfactory explanation, all I can do is confirm that I've been told it isn't gonna happen. And yes, I've explained at length to anyone who would listen (and several who wouldn't) at trade shows and through e-mails and all over the place. They are well aware of all the issues. And it's still not gonna happen, for reasons internal to them.

If you want to push hardware, and intend to hawk an "IT" model for the future, at least make it EASY for those willing to buy into your scheme and offer your codec to developers on both platforms...
Click to expand...
I agree, you agree, everyone here agrees. Except that in a massive corporate structure like Panasonic's, there are reasons that don't gibe with our sensibilities, and -- well, it's pretty much irrelevant, as it's not gonna happen. Some companies, like Canopus, are going through the proper channels and licensing the codec. That's the way it's done, and that's the way it will continue to be done. Giving it away for free is not the way they're going to do it. I guess it could be within Canopus' right to now give away theirs, if they so chose, but I don't expect them to.
 
Flintstone said:
I was wondering which looks better overall, Apple's or Avid's? I know this is subjective, but there has to be one that shines a bit brighter then the other?
Click to expand...
Which is better, a truck or a motorcycle?

Which is better, a fork or a spoon?

Depends. Depends depends depends. The Avid codec, to my eyes, definitely looks sharper. And noisier. I ran the OneRiverMedia codec test picture through both, and there were definitely areas where one codec was quite superior to the other, but then you'd look at a different section and see that the other codec was obviously doing a better job.

The only area where I noticed a clear superiority was in color fidelity, the Avid was definitely truer than the Apple. But, that was based on Apple FCP 4.5; it's my understanding that they updated the codec for FCP5, so that test would probably need to be run again -- perhaps the color shift has been fixed in FCP5.
 
Flintstone said:
I know this is subjective, but there has to be one that shines a bit brighter then the other?
Click to expand...

Okay, here's my take on this... with DV, codecs from different companies fall into one of two camps; Codecs designed to look best for final presentation, and codecs optimized for multi-generational duplication. Yes, the raw data is the same, but the conversion to RGB is up to the company/person writing the codec. In the ideal world, each company that writes a DV codec should develop BOTH versions and label them as such.

DV codecs you see with, say, stair-steppy reds, are better suited for preserving the integrity of color as they are copied while those that look "pleasing" to the eye with smooth blurred colors don't copy as well.

This is the reason that some people prefer to digitize the analog out of DV cameras, as the camera is doing the smoothing via hardware and the end result is more natural looking (another reason that some folks like to do their keying from the S-video out instead of a file copied via firewire.)

Now with DVCPRO 50/100 I don't have a clue. Maybe the same latitude for coding is in effect. I've heard that it's 4 DV codecs working together, or some such.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
Barry_Green said:
That's the way it's done, and that's the way it will continue to be done. Giving it away for free is not the way they're going to do it. I guess it could be within Canopus' right to now give away theirs, if they so chose, but I don't expect them to.
Click to expand...

I appreciate your explanation and your attempts at resolution. An obviously obtuse and complicated problem.

One thing... I don't expect anyone to give anything away for free... I WOULD expect Panasonic to offer their own intellectual property for sale via a codec you purchase (like you would with Main Concept) if the sale of that intellectual property benefited their bottom line. That to me would make more financial sense than licensing out codec development to others like Avid and Apple as then they would not only control the quality of the codec but the total revenue as well...

This is all just intellectual discussion today, but the moment we have camera in hand there will be real world problems and choices to make about NLE's... We shouldn't have to be concerned about this at all in the glory of Panasonic's marketing of the "IT" world, yet here we are.

Regards,

Jim A.
 
yeah.. why charge an arm and a leg to a few large companies when you could sell the codec for cheap to thousands of users for the same or more bottom dollar. which would make your end users even happier and more brand loyal, and others more likely to buy. ..im sure theres reasons but there, but id like to at least hear why.. perhaps nobody ever thought of it before.. or had a real reason.. til the HVX...
 
To get back to the editing machine...

I agree you should decide first what editing software you are going to use.

If you are a hand's on person, I would most definetely build my own system. If you are someone who doesn't want to deal with all that then buy one from the likes of Dell, Alienware etc.

One of the advantages of buying from a Dell is the warranty. If something breaks you call them and they replace it/fix it for you.

The main reason to build a machine yourself is that it gives you total control. If something doesn't work, you'll know how to replace it or in some cases, fix it yourself. You save a ton of money building a machine, and you have total control of what parts you want. You'll also be able to upgrade these parts as you see fit as time goes by.

Not sure what your experience is in building machines, but here are some resources to look at. You should look at the forums, as they will give you info on what components are the best value. Do a search for video editing systems and see what other people have been putting together. these are some sites I looked at before I built my own PC. You have some time before December so do your research and see if building a machine yourself is optimal for you.

http://www.sharkeyextreme.com
http://www.arstechnica.com
http://www.anandtech.com
http://www.amdzone.com (if you go AMD)
http://www.hardOCP.com
 
about the codecs:
are they hardware or software dealers? both. after all they wrote and own that DVCPro codec. if everyone would give away codecs so Pana would, too. but if they lose a few camerasales by not giving away a codec they maybe win a few others, because SONY also does not give theirs away for free. So i guess they sell it (expensive) and see the big picture rather than the small users.
also: if they give us the codec, but the software (like Liquid) does not support it anyway, then we might complain for something we got for free. Now AVID has to buy it for Liquid and we complain to AVID for not being able to edit DVCProHD........catch the drift: they force the software vendors to buy it. they sell their cams anyway. so they can charge twice.....
 
stokestack said:
2. Canopus (as part of their hardware system)
Click to expand...

you don't need any hardware with edius to run the pana codec, i have the dvcpro 50 codec and use it on my laptop in real time, that means realtime output via firewire to an hd1200 with slowmo and color correction zero rendering ever...

with that said canopus is a nickle and dime company, that codec cost me $1,000...and if you want to edit p2 files you will need the p2 options which costs extra and takes up one usb port, and of cousre if you want to edit 24p or 30p or any other frame rate besides 29.97 you need the varicam option which costs more money and requires another usb port

the only thing the hardware cards do for edius is for hdv they compress and decompress which speeds things up and hd they spit out and suck in a signal and they also resize the video if you do hd to sd or hd to sd conversions, thats it, they don't help with any effects or rendering
 
Okay, here's my current system specs, the basic configuration most go by:

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Socket 939
2gb Corsair XMS3200 DDRSDRAM (2x 1gb sticks)
nVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra AGP
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum eX
Sony Dual Layer burner and Memorex 52x CD-R/RW/DVD combo
2x 74gb Western Digital 8mb Cache 10,000RPM Raptor HDD's for programs
2x 250gb Western Digital 8mb Cache SATA HDD's for storage and games
MSI AV8 Socket 939 Motherboard

Only things I'd change now, for video purposes, are:

Go with AMD Athlon 64X2 processor or fastest dual Opteron dual core-based solution

Get a newer motherboard with PCI Express and SLI for dual Quadros. ASUS makes some pretty darn good boards but they are kind of lacking in dual Opteron boards. I'd suggest one of Tyan's newer dual Opteron motherboards if you want to go Opteron.

Get bigger 16mb cache hard drives and ditch the Raptors, not worth it, I'd recommend 400gb+ Western Digital 16mb cache hard drives, four of them in a non-RAID for convenience and if that extra 14 seconds means all that much to you for rendering, get five of them and put four in RAID array(s) for storage and one for the main O/S and programs. Western Digital, though kind of pricey, have never failed me. Maxtor is more along the lines of 60-40 odds of whether it will last you a long time, I would buy their top stuff just to be sure, but then you might as well go with Western Digital instead. Don't skimp on the hard drives, everything else can be upgraded but your hard drives are the things holding all of your data and can carry on over to a new system if need be.

Realize that $4,000 won't get you much to start out with. Opterons are probably going to be out of the picture, with an extra $1,000 you'd be in business. Best bet right now is to go with an Athlon 64X2 solution. But I'll lay out the basic specs for you to the best of my knowledge ATM:

Opteron Solution:
2x AMD Opteron Dual Cores ($1,200 a piece)
4gb DDR400 SDRAM (about $600 since it may have to be ECC DDRSDRAM)
Audio solution, for this example we'll use a basic Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS, now X-fi ($100-$200)
Geforce 6600 PCI Express, for the future video acceleration chip alone, ($200 or less depending on brand)
or
Quadro-based videocard ($300-500+ depending on model)
4x WD 16mb Cache SATA HDD's ($270 x 4)
DVD burner ($100-200)
Case and power supply (about $150-300 if you get a standard ATX motherboard)
Tyan dual Opteron-dual core motherboard ($300-$1,200 on its own depending on model)

All of this comes out, with a few decreases for midway pricing, to be about $5,500 with tax and, depending on actual pricing, could break $6,000.

For AMD Athlon 64X2:

AMD Athlon 64X2 4800+ ($875-$900)
2gb PC3200 DDRSDRAM (about $200)
Same video card options (we'll use a single 6600 for this example, $200)
ASUS motherboard with SLI PCI-Express ($150-300)
Creative X-fi solution ($100-$200)
Same HDD's ($279 x 4)
Same DVD burner ($100-$200)
ATX case and power supply ($200-300, would need a bigger power supply for SLI and 4 HDD's, so maybe add an extra $100)

Factor in $150-200 for Windows XP PRO depending on whether you get the OEM or Retail package (OEM costs slightly less, but I'd stick to retail just to be safe).

Total for this one comes out to be about $3,500, some added for safety net, could be more like $3,400.

I wouldn't think about getting a hardware accelerator card just yet, this is kind of expensive obviously. Stick with PCI-Express though. I talked to one of the Kona guys and he said that they were coming up with a PCI-Express version of the Kona cards in the future, so the PCI-X version would be kind of a step backwards if you're looking ahead. Also, if you need this system now, I'd go with the Athlon 64X2 for the price but if you can wait, AMD is moving to a new socket next year and maybe could move to a smaller processor core system too, thus paving the way for a single processor quad-core in the near future. PM me if you have any other questions or need buying advice.
 
I've got a dual Xeon 3.0 with the VelocityHD boardset, absolutely state of the art 18 months ago... two streams of full raster HD with effects and doesn't even tax the CPU's. Having said that, it's overkill for the material coming from the HVX.

Here's my recommendation for a low budget alternative. You can spend as much or as little as you want on a PC. Building them yourself is fun, if you're remotely mechanically inclined and have been around computers before.

1.) Figure out what software you want to edit with... Vegas, Premiere, Avid, etc. Realize that only Avid is ready for P2 right now... this may change around NAB.

2.) No offense to AMD, they're great chips, but you'll be just fine with a cheap Pentium D, dual core. I just built 3 render boxes with these chips and they will be more than adequate. Use an IDE drive for your system drive. For media, RAID up two or three SATA drives with the motherboard's on-board SATA RAID controller.

3.) Put in two gigs of RAM and whatever PCI-e graphics card you want, or the software recommends.

4.) IDE DVD Burner/player.

5.) use existing monitor or buy new Dell 24".

Minus monitor and NLE software, you'll be way under $2000.00 for this system, my render nodes have all of the above except a graphics card, burner and the SATA RAID and they cost under $900.00 each. In 3D rendering, they are absolutely the equal of the dual Xeons and their multimedia performance with WM9 and QT7 with the on-board graphics chips absolutely dominates the dual Xeon.

Put saved money into monitors, sound reinforcement, etc.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
Barry_Green said:
The Avid codec is different from Apple's, and delivers different results (Apple's seems to exhibit a slight color shift, and an overall softer but less noisy image; Avid's seems sharper/crisper but with more mosquito noise). But you could almost certainly use the Avid codec to decode an Apple-encoded .mov, I would think.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comparison info.

QuickTime suffers from a lot of gamma problems and possibly some poor YUV/RGB conversion, which may explain the shift you're seeing. QuickTime always tries to "help" you, thinking that it knows the gamma characteristics of your system because it knows which platform it's running on. The result is a chorus of gripes from professional customers about changes to their footage as it makes round-trips through QuickTime-based software. The H.264 codec has been attacked frequently. The DV codec has come under investigation for color shifts too.

The reason the Avid codecs won't read the Apple DVCPro footage is that they were written before Apple's, and therefore do not use the same codec-type tags in the files. QuickTime will not recognize the Avid codec as a valid decompressor for a DVCPro QT file written by FCP, because their codec-type tags do not match.

Avid also says that their DVCPro files contain "extra" information, but I don't recall what it is.

Any discussion over who gives away what and who doesn't should consider the differences between the markets on the Apple and Windows platforms. On one side you have a company that makes not only the OS, but also the dominant editing software and media-storage format. No comparable entity exists on the Windows side, leaving it up to, say, a camera vendor to ensure that its hardware is usable with the various software setups people are using in the marketplace.

Codecs are installed at the system level; with one swoop, you can make a camera accessible to almost every piece of editing software out there. Epson does not sell you a printer and then try to sell you the driver for it. Panasonic shouldn't try that either.
 
Jim, the advice i got was to buy a pre-approved system from Dell or HP, specifically for Avid HD, since it is a little picky with compatibility. Especially when Avid designs its upgrades they cross check it with their approved systems (so you don't run into unforseen problems like you might with a home built unit). Considering that, would you still advise to build your own? I don't mind speniding a bit more, if it saves me the $ later on.

Cheers.
Jim Arthurs said:
I've got a dual Xeon 3.0 with the VelocityHD boardset, absolutely state of the art 18 months ago... two streams of full raster HD with effects and doesn't even tax the CPU's. Having said that, it's overkill for the material coming from the HVX.

Here's my recommendation for a low budget alternative. You can spend as much or as little as you want on a PC. Building them yourself is fun, if you're remotely mechanically inclined and have been around computers before.

1.) Figure out what software you want to edit with... Vegas, Premiere, Avid, etc. Realize that only Avid is ready for P2 right now... this may change around NAB.

2.) No offense to AMD, they're great chips, but you'll be just fine with a cheap Pentium D, dual core. I just built 3 render boxes with these chips and they will be more than adequate. Use an IDE drive for your system drive. For media, RAID up two or three SATA drives with the motherboard's on-board SATA RAID controller.

3.) Put in two gigs of RAM and whatever PCI-e graphics card you want, or the software recommends.

4.) IDE DVD Burner/player.

5.) use existing monitor or buy new Dell 24".

Minus monitor and NLE software, you'll be way under $2000.00 for this system, my render nodes have all of the above except a graphics card, burner and the SATA RAID and they cost under $900.00 each. In 3D rendering, they are absolutely the equal of the dual Xeons and their multimedia performance with WM9 and QT7 with the on-board graphics chips absolutely dominates the dual Xeon.

Put saved money into monitors, sound reinforcement, etc.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
Click to expand...
 
D_and_G said:
Jim, the advice i got was to buy a pre-approved system from Dell or HP, specifically for Avid HD, since it is a little picky with compatibility.
Click to expand...

I took a look at the recommended specs for Avid Xpress HD this evening and I don't see anything that raised a warning flag... they tend to recommend dual Xeons, and later models with faster bus speeds, but this seems to be centered around doing external storage with LANshare. A pentium D based system should work just fine. The recommended video cards are a notch or two above the bottom of the barrel, but that's about it. I remember reading somewhere that some of their effects such as advanced titling make use of OpenGL and later model video cards.

There's no question the value of having a comfort level with your system, and buying something on their approved list will eliminate one level of the "blame game" when trouble shooting. Having said that, I personally wouldn't hesitate to build my own system if I went Avid. And Avid is on my consideration list if I don't like what I see in regards to P2 support from Sony Vegas come NAB...

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
Neil Rowe said:
yeah.. why charge an arm and a leg to a few large companies when you could sell the codec for cheap to thousands of users for the same or more bottom dollar. which would make your end users even happier and more brand loyal, and others more likely to buy. ..im sure theres reasons but there, but id like to at least hear why.. perhaps nobody ever thought of it before.. or had a real reason.. til the HVX...
Click to expand...
One word - support! It's a lot easier to support a few large companies, who have the lion share of the NLE market and supposedly know what they are doing, than it is to support thousands of individual users which most don't have a clue of what they're doing.

Just like Beta, if Panasonic doesn't get the DVCProHD codec out there much quicker than it is the void will be filled by a competitor [VHS]. Not necessarily a better product just one that can ship and create a standard that can be adopted quickly.
 
Jim Arthurs said:
I took a look at the recommended specs for Avid Xpress HD this evening and I don't see anything that raised a warning flag... they tend to recommend dual Xeons, and later models with faster bus speeds, but this seems to be centered around doing external storage with LANshare. A pentium D based system should work just fine. The recommended video cards are a notch or two above the bottom of the barrel, but that's about it. I remember reading somewhere that some of their effects such as advanced titling make use of OpenGL and later model video cards.
Click to expand...
The trouble with Avid is that the margin for error of what is "approved" is extremely narrow and if your system wasn't built by an authorized re-seller or EXACTLY to spec they won't support it period.

I recently purchased the full Avid Express ProHD with all the bells and whistles to edit HDV natively, what they failed to mention [and I did ask] was that there is no way to monitor an HD output. There solution was to purchase a Mojo card for an additional $1600+ which would allow me to downconvert to an SD monitor or for around $25K I could get an Adrenalan.

The Nvidia FX540 PCIe graphics card provides an HD component out but Avid would not support it. I know I'm synical but I can only imagine that they won't support that card because they want me to purchase a Mojo - ain't gonna happen. There were also some issues with the SATA HBA I was using so I trashed most of it and just use XSI.

If you want to build a computer that is only used for editing and you don't need a lot of openGL performance then I guess an Avid might work, but I use a lot of different applications on the same compter and Avid is way too much of a pain in the ass about which driver got installed first and the order in which you fire up you peripherals etc.

Just a heads up... :laugh:
 
I built my own PC and run Avid - no problems whatsoever. It's on dual AMD as well. But I agree, an Avid computer should primarily be for Avid and Avid only. Meaning no extraneous, unnecessary software. If you build your own, try to keep it dedicated for editing only.

I am going to be buying a laptop soon, probably the approved Alienware on Avid's list and even then you have to be careful about superfluous apps. Alienware has a program called AlienGUIse, which allows you to customize Windows XP's skin/appearance. Thing is, Avid recently discovered that this app is incompatible with Xpress Pro. The lesson here again is if it's not required by Avid don't install it (this applies to hardware too).
 
Oz said:
I built my own PC and run Avid - no problems whatsoever. It's on dual AMD as well. But I agree, an Avid computer should primarily be for Avid and Avid only. Meaning no extraneous, unnecessary software. If you build your own, try to keep it dedicated for editing only.
Click to expand...
:thumbup:
 
AVID is made to be part of a team: filmer, editor (or more than one), soundengineer, grafx artist etc.
other tools (Liquid, FCP, Vegas, Premiere etc) are able to be run as a one-man show. Avid can also, but it is not made for it.

problem is: right now we would all have to choose between AVID or FCP.....and both are not my favourite choices.....:(
they will all charge us for that codec.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top