Edius - My new NLE! (maybe...)

L

lirany

Active member
I know some of you are already super-familiar with Edius, but I wasn't until this week.

Up until now I was working with Premiere CS4.
I was using premiere since it was Premiere 6 and I was very used to it.

When Premiere CS4 4.1 was out I was astound that it can play Full HD AVCHD files without problems.
I thought to myself that from now on I'll be editing AVCHD directly from my HMC151.
So I edited some films with it and figured from the very first moment that it just won't work!!!

The fact that it can play AVCHD in realtime has nothing to do with the fact that it's still very hard to edit with it natively.
Once you put an effect/transition/anything for that matter you will face insane frame drops.

Without a proper hardware acceleration CS4 makes AVCHD editing slow and painful.

So one thing is clear: If you're like me and you have Core 2 Duo or a Quad Core YOU HAVE TO TRANSCODE! Or you will be simply wasting your time.

So, what do I transcode to?!?!

1. Free DVCPROHD transcoder, really degrades the quality of the video, takes a lot of space, but is ultra fast to edit with.
2. XDCAM EX - I found it to be quite a good solution, you can transcode to it using several tools (Mainconcept Reference, Procoder etc.) and it is very fast and easy to edit with, it takes a bit more space than AVCHD.
3. NO LOSSLESS CODECS IN PREMIERE!!!

Sure there's CineForm, but I never had good experience with it...

I used the DVCPRO or XDCAM workflow for a while but even then, I felt like premiere was holding me back, rendering every little thing I do was taking too long, I was uncomfortable with the time I spent editing even the shortest films.

OK, so than I figured I should give other NLEs a try. (Using different codecs of course, AVCHD can only playback realtime in Premiere on my computer).

First was Vegas, if you're coming from premiere, like me, you will feel like it's just too different, and it performs a bit faster but also feels much less powerful, and simply weird.
Maybe I should give vegas another go, but I have to say it doesn't appear to be what I'm looking for, and if that's the alternative than I'll just stick with premiere.

I gave AVID Media composer a try but it didn't like my computer, and so video output was not great at all, also, it seems you have to learn quite a lot before you can edit freely in AVID.
Avid uses a great codec called DNxHD that I have tested before, I wish I had a proper AVID ready computer, but since I don't...

Then came Edius.
I have tried Edius before but never gave it a real shot.
Now that I know that I can't edit AVCHD natively it changes things.
I converted some files with the AVCHD to Canopus HQ with the bundeled converter.
First thing I noticed was that Canopus HQ was delivering the same quality like the original AVCHD, I don't see any differences at all (maybe it's not true, but on my monitors, there aren't any differences).
It's bitrate is a bit more than DVCPROHD.

So I arranged a workspace, learned a few basic things and started editing a small video.

Premiere Users: Can you imagine inserting effects, transitions, time remapping, multiple videos on the same frame with different opacities, titles etc. on a FULL HD project and don't have to render at all?
NO!!!

This is what Edius is for, after using premiere for so long, I forgot that there might be out there some RT solutions that doesn't require extra hardware!

Edius will do all that and more, I used it for some time now editing a few videos, and I found that almost nothing was missing from premiere!
It took some time to get familiarized with all the functions, but it was very similar to Premiere.
And While Vegas and Edius are RT oriented the rendering in Edius is as great as premiere and even better.

Also I found the video preview looking better in Edius than in premiere.
Premiere for some reason uses VMR engine to output the video although some Nvidia users experience awful VMR in Windows 7/vista (as I am).

But one more thing was missing, the indie filmmaker most precious tool "Magic bullet looks".
Not anymore!

All I had to install was "EDIUS After Effects Filter Plug-in Bridge" and I got every AE effect I wanted inside Edius. (Tested magic bullet and it works superb, although not RT on FULL HD).

I think I like Edius...
 
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I love Edius for speed and ease, throw any format at it. I also use Avid.

Doesn't it drop the resolution from 1440 to 1280 when converting it to dvcpro?

I have always used the free Edius AVCHD converter, (I let it run before I goto bed), it converts to AVI, then I throw the avi on the timeline with P2 footage, EX cam, misc formats. Dunno if this is the 'best' way to go about it but it worls well for me.

All I do is select all the avchd files then right click on the converter and it's all automated, great when you have hundreds of avchd clips.
 
Lirany,

Which version of Edius are you referring to? I need to buy and NLE and was already leaning towards Edius.
 
Wait until you output to Blu-ray or DVD using the mpeg exporter, look under performance under your task manager, you will see all of your cores peg out 100% rendering to blu-ray, very sweet, the software will use all of your processing power and not wasting.
 
I might have read something about an avchd booster for Edius? Dunno, could be wrong, there might be a thread for it here on dvxuser.

Could be worth looking into.
 
Neo2 (the slimmed down version of EDIUS) recently added what they call an "AVCHD Booster" which allows you to edit multiple layers of AVCHD in realtime with no transcoding. The demo is available for download from Grass Valley's website. It's my understanding that you can't have Neo2 and the full version of EDIUS installed at the same time though. This technology will likely turn up in EDIUS 6 late next year.
 
Video preview (on a computer monitor, without an external HD monitor) looks really good in Edius compared to several other editors I have used includng Avid.

I hope Edius 6 will be 10 bit but I doubt it, we will probably have to wait longer.
 
Xian Messerschmidt said:
Neo2 (the slimmed down version of EDIUS) recently added what they call an "AVCHD Booster" which allows you to edit multiple layers of AVCHD in realtime with no transcoding. The demo is available for download from Grass Valley's website. It's my understanding that you can't have Neo2 and the full version of EDIUS installed at the same time though. This technology will likely turn up in EDIUS 6 late next year.
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Your assumptions are correct. You cannot have both on the same computer unless you have a dual boot. The ability to edit (and I mean real editing, not the render if you do anything of Premiere) up to 3 streams natively with AVCHD is in the Neo Booster ($49) to upgrade from Neo 2. Word is that this (or better) is planned to be in the next major version of Edius.

We have Edius, FCP, Avid Media Composer, and Premiere and we do at least 90% of our editing on Edius. We are hoping that Edius 6 will make us 100% Edius. Soooooo much faster.
 
ChipG said:
Video preview (on a computer monitor, without an external HD monitor) looks really good in Edius compared to several other editors I have used includng Avid.

I hope Edius 6 will be 10 bit but I doubt it, we will probably have to wait longer.
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I will be shocked if Edius 6 is not 10 bit.
 
EDIUS is a very powerful editor. I've not used NEO, nor EDIUS 5... I used it until v4.5x

I understand 5 is a good bit more robust than 4.x was, which was the main complaint about it. But, as far as raw, pure horsepower... I don't really know of anything that can beat it.

And, yes. Canopus HQ is a good codec to use for editing if you have to transcode your footy first.

later,
Jason
 
Doesn't it drop the resolution from 1440 to 1280 when converting it to dvcpro?
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It is. DVCPROHD Is not Full raster so it's becoming 1440x1080.

I have always used the free Edius AVCHD converter, (I let it run before I goto bed), it converts to AVI...
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The AVCHD to Canopus HQ is great although not as fast on Core2Duo as Mainconcept's trancoder or FFmpeg.



Neo2 (the slimmed down version of EDIUS) recently added what they call an "AVCHD Booster" which allows you to edit multiple layers of AVCHD in realtime with no transcoding. The demo is available for download from Grass Valley's website. It's my understanding that you can't have Neo2 and the full version of EDIUS installed at the same time though. This technology will likely turn up in EDIUS 6 late next year.
Click to expand...

According to the specs it seems like the only CPUs to benefit from this is the Core i7, I'm interested to hear how it performs on a single video with effects and transition on a Core 2 Duo /Quad core, Maybe I'll test it later this week.

Lirany,

Which version of Edius are you referring to? I need to buy and NLE and was already leaning towards Edius.
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5.10, give it a try with the trial.
 
lirany said:
The AVCHD to Canopus HQ is great although not as fast on Core2Duo as Mainconcept's trancoder or FFmpeg.
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Really? I always found it to be the opposite; on my Core2 Duo, the EDIUS converter would run about 30% faster than the MainConcept. On yours it's actually slower? That's odd.
 
Jason Ramsey said:
EDIUS is a very powerful editor. I've not used NEO, nor EDIUS 5... I used it until v4.5x

I understand 5 is a good bit more robust than 4.x was, which was the main complaint about it. But, as far as raw, pure horsepower... I don't really know of anything that can beat it.

And, yes. Canopus HQ is a good codec to use for editing if you have to transcode your footy first.

later,
Jason
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I upgraded to 5.


I shot a video (charachter content) for a network exec to approve for an upcoming tv show, had 30 minutes (on a Sunday) to do an edit, did it sitting in the hatch back of his car.

Insert P2 card in my laptop and start cutting asap, no rendering, fast, fast, fast... Uploaded it via the McDonalds wifi next door all while still sitting in the hatchback and had it done in 25ish minutes.

Awesome fast field editing program for cutting footage! Real editing power you need in the field for a fast effecient production.

Here is a pic of my office that day. I think I also have one somewhere of a tornado next to me (like right next to me) while I'm cutting footage in the field with Edius.
 
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Really? I always found it to be the opposite; on my Core2 Duo, the EDIUS converter would run about 30% faster than the MainConcept. On yours it's actually slower? That's odd.
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Well, that's what I saw on my initial tests, but I could be wrong, I was transcoding to Canopus HQ (Fine) from a 1920x1080/25p AVCHD
 
Edius 4x is absolute rubbish on AVCHD, I haven't used the 5x series so I can't comment but I have 4.5 and it won't even playback raw AVCHD. I edit natively now in Vegas Pro 9c and its rock solid with my Quad core Q8400. I do have a friend with Sony EX1's and he edit natively on Eduis 5 with his footage. He recently bought an HMC as well and say's he struggles with native AVCHD so he's transcodong to the HQ codec.

The canopus HQ codec is a great intermediate format to edit in,,, the differences are very slight in look I've noticed. The color takes a slight hit in chroma level and also you end up with quite large file sizes. I use the HQ codec from time to time when I need to edit from one large file rather than lots of little clips that the HMC produces.
 
4 doesn't really support AVCHD at all, does it? 5 works fine, but not realtime. But it's not bad at all, definitely better than Vegas for AVCHD playback.
 
pjsssss said:
Yes it does. I am running it right now. Version 5.12. I don't think anything below v.5.00 will work.
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I'm hearing Avid runs 30% faster on Windows 7, does Edius run faster on 7 vs. Vista?

I'm on Edius 5 but i think it's free for me to upgrade to the latest version, a Windows 7 install is right around the corner for me.
 
Barry_Green said:
4 doesn't really support AVCHD at all, does it? 5 works fine, but not realtime. But it's not bad at all, definitely better than Vegas for AVCHD playback.
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Eduis 4 is definately lame.

If you have the Canopus Storm card things will surely be made easier,, Eduis 5 should be able to play back realtime full frame AVCHD but can it??

I know with with Vegas I get full frame for frame playback but it only plays back in full quality in a small window. If you use the "view on on external screen" function, you get proxy quality playback, but at the end of the day, once its rendered out, all NLE's produce the same results so playback in realtime full quality is not going to bother me all that greatly.
 
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