Edius 4 trial version

bhiga said:
A new trial version including Broadcast features will be available soon.
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How soon is that soon? There are few people including me that are waiting to test it with P2 video.

Malcolm Wright said:
Good to hear!
Meanwhile, do you know what I am missing in order to keyframe the filters I mentioned above?
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Some filters are keyable, others not. CC filters accept keys now and 3D PIP always did. Although I have to say the 3D PIP interface is not so user friendly.

Blur like filters don't have keyframes yet. Actually it seems not to be easy to change the non keyframable fxs to keyframeables because they must rewrite pretty long code blocks and do some major changes in EDIUS engine. So that's why I believe they still focus on other features and some time they will make all the plugins keyframeable. The question is how long the user wants to wait.
 
Thanks Steve!
I'm in a bad position to judge, not being privvy to the architecture of the program, but I can't really imagine why it would take an unreasonable amount of work to implement.
All it takes is a global frame variable which each parameter looks up to determine its value if the channel is keyframed.
I can't see why the engine needs major changes to accomodate this: if spline based keyframing is implemented on some controls now, that means the engine can accomodate it.

Sure, if there are intricacies, programming is a tough and demanding job. I really can't stress enough that this needs to be done.

Anyway, y'all have heard my rant before.
I guess it'll be interesting to see how much longer we have to wait to be able to use the trial with our HVX footage. It seems the trial was made available mid-July. Well over two months later and us p2 users still can't really properly evalute this version... how much longer yet?

M.
 
Malcolm Wright said:
Each time I am about to purchase Edius, something holds me back. At first it was the lack of a pervasive keyframing scheme. Now that that is allegedly addressed, this bungle comes along making me wonder what is going on over there with the developers. Is there a reason why this was done, and is there a reason why it has not been corrected?
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I stopped asking for reasons a long time ago... :(

There are a few places where keyframes hide in EDIUS:
  1. Blend filter, application-based.
    This is a cross-dissolve type blend of filters, so it is like putting a opacity key between two of the same clip with different filters.
  2. Transitions, progression-based.
    Progression-based keyframing just lets you move back-and-forth within the transition's application. For example, a circle wipe could open part-way, close back up, then open completely.
  3. 2D Picture-in-Picture, parameter-based.
    This is a parameter-based keyframe of 2D Picture-in-Picture key positions. You must define more than one position point (which normally would include movement, but it could "move" to the exact same position) for this to work.
    The keyframing interface is an unfortunately cryptic graph, and there is no control of progression of parameters.
  4. 3D Picture-in-Picture, parameter-based with spline control.
    Overall, the 3D Picture-in-Picture keyframing interface is what people "traditionally" think of as keyframing. Individual parameters and their progression can be controlled.
  5. Color Correction filters - Color Balance, Color Wheel, White Balance and YUV Curve, parameter-based with spine control. This is new in EDIUS version 4
    Now these filters (and only these filters, currently) have parameter-based keyframing with spline control. The interface is almost exactly like 3D Picture-in-Picture, so it should make sense to most folks.
I pulled in an SD DV clip to at least be able to play a little, and found that it could NOT play it back in real time. The trial of v3 was playing back 720p24 pretty much in realtime on this same machine, so I don't know what is going on. And because there is no broadcast functionality with this version, I can't test my HD clips.
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This is very odd. The last time I saw this, the drive was very fragmented. I had a hard time believing that was the problem, but lo-and-behold, after defragging the drive, it played back perfectly.

The Help menu that comes with this v4 trial download thinks it is version 3.5/3.6 throwing more confusion into the mix.
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This is fixed in the v4.03 trial, which will go up today or tomorrow.

Bhiga, are you in a position to talk to these people? Maybe beat some sense into them? :)
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If you go with Yoda's adage of "Do, or do not, there is no try" then I guess I don't.:( Not for lack of trying though. But perhaps we're finally in a position that we can make a change so maybe... :Drogar-Evil(DBG):

It really feels as if the developing team needs to fire some people or hire some extra consultants that can start running the show the way a package of this price should be run. To be blunt.
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If you only knew the non-PC comments that run through my head sometimes...:nads::beer:
But, like I said, we may finally be in a position where we can get some external direction, so there's still hope.
The point I keep pushing is simple: Good engineering alone does not sell a product. It needs to be usable, learnable, flexible, interoperable and reliable. We've been really good about the reliable and so-so on the others. The other factors need to be brought to the same level in order to truly go head-to-head with our competition, otherwise we'll remain stuck in "special-case" scenarios.

That said, there are a number of folks who use EDIUS day-to-day for serious production including film and TV. It's just not quite at the level where it can be a "general purpose" editor for the masses yet, though some might argue that it shouldn't ever be.

Brandon
 
My two cents. I've been using the demo broadcast 3 for a few days. It is a very easy to learn program and works very well with the hvx. I"m not sure I can justify spending a thousand bucks on it though. I think one of the reasons I learned it so quickly was because it doesn't do very much. Vegas does twice as much at half the price. Sure it's an effort getting the mxf files converted in Vegas, but it seems to me an editor using canopus would wind up needing a second NLE to finnish off some projects canopus isn't feature rich enough to complete. Mind you, this a very premature observation as I'm sure I haven't delved deep enough into the program yet.
 
Bhiga,

I just wanted to thank you for your thoughtful and honest response.

Thank you for indicating the existing keyframing functionality. I think it is reasonable for me to assume that after announcing keyframing for v4 and delivering 'this', it might be a protracted struggle to ever see the type of control I need from NLE filters in Edius. In the best case scenario, this might appear in v5, which I cannot afford to wait for.

A copy of Edius has been ordered for me by a Brisbane retailer and should be there when I arrive there at the end of the month but I will have to reneg on the purchase.

I sincerely hope that Edius will push in the right direction, and that I will be able to turn around a year from now and conclude that I was unduly pessimistic. For now, I'll have to listen to prudence and go for slightly slower performance and much greater functionality.

Best to you,
Malcolm
 
Edius is not the most robust of editors, that is true.
However, Real-time editing and native support for the HVX makes it worth the price of admission to me. Those 2 things are the most important things in an NLE to me. Then the other stuff comes second. If it is sufficient, then I say yes.
I found it to be sufficient for my early needs. I will grow with the program. Probably more accurately, I will grow with future 3rd party support for version 4.
Jason
 
To really understand the privilege of real-time is working on a studio with deadlines. No renders, efficiency.

People today misunderstand the term NLE. In old times you would buy an AVID with dissolves and some wipes. That's what an editor should do, edit no effects and help you edit faster.

EDIUS is at this point, a simple editor which is in it's first steps in a big competition arena. I've been following it since version 1.5.

My biggest question is why the playhead doesn't stop exactly where you have pressed stop. Can someone confirm that this happens in other configurations?
 
Malcolm Wright said:
I pulled in an SD DV clip to at least be able to play a little, and found that it could NOT play it back in real time. The trial of v3 was playing back 720p24 pretty much in realtime on this same machine, so I don't know what is going on. And because there is no broadcast functionality with this version, I can't test my HD clips.
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FWIW, I'm currently editing a project using the multicam feature in Edius 4 Broadcast. The project consists of three DVCProHD 720P clips, three DV25 (SD DV) clips from a MiniDV camera, and a separate PCM audio track. It plays back render-free in realtime with about 80% CPU utilization using an Intel P4D 840 3.2GHz processor, with the assets on a SATA II RAID1 array.
 
I was screwing with the 4 trial on my athlon 64 3800+ single core with a 7200 rpm 300 gig drive, and a 5400 rpm 40 gig drive. I was multicam-ing 4 streams of mini dv with no problem at all.

Jason
 
Thanks fellas: that sets the performance issue to rest. It must be my drive: it must be horribly fragmented. Its true, I haven't defragged in a while.

Despite my words to the contrary a few posts up, I am still on the fence. I'm getting to Brisbane in two days, and may just pick up the v4 copy when I get there. For all its shortcomings, I might just get it anyway.

I appreciate that studios with deadlines appreciate the real time capabilities. I will too, to a lesser degree. I'm just not in that same high-pressure environment and am more concerned with the frustration of having to switch apps, importing and exporting all the way when I want to do simple keyframing of blurs and the like.

M.
 
Hi Malcolm,

It really depends on what kind of effects you apply. The folks using it every day have spent a small bit of time setting up some presets for what they use. For example, station logo fly-in, etc.

Now, if you do more creative work and need/want to do stuff like vary the mosaic level dynamically, EDIUS can't do that right now.

I'm told that keyframeability of the other filters will follow int he future, but like you say, it may not happen until v5... so if you need it now, it's not the appropriate tool for that job.

One cool feature that I really like but always manage to fumble through showing is the split-screen color correction preview. You can split not only to before/after, but to some-other-point-on-the-timeline/after. Makes for much easier relative matching.

Brandon
 
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