Is CS5 all that and a bag of chips?

[Clint Harmon]

I film many sporting events and most shoots are done with multiple AVCHD cameras. Many times requiring multicam of 4 cameras. I am looking to in upgrading here REAL soon. Here are my thoughts:

1. Upgrade my cameras and get out of recording in AVCHD so I can multicam natively. This is expensive since I would be looking at upgrading 6 cameras...

2. Upgrade to CS5 and edit multicam in AVCHD. I have asked a few vendors and recieved vague answers. If it is possible only from the most ridiculous computer, that is still less expensive then option 1.

Anyone knowledgeable on this subject?

[Pete Bauer]

You can look back through this forum and see quite a lot more great specific info, but overall, yes, I think the vast majority of us using CS5 do think it is well worthy of all the hype.

There are some bugs -- what software doesn't have some? -- but for most people they aren't show showstoppers and it also seems that Adobe is putting more effort to fixing them than they have in the past. On a given system, CS5 is more efficient than CS4, but to do multiple streams you still are going to need some horsepower (fast processor and RAM).

Depending on how particular you are about your output quality is an artifact in red colors in AVCHD clips. I do edit AVCHD and haven't noticed it myself, but it has been considered a showstopper for others. A quick look back in the forum will bring you to a thread about that.

[Clint Harmon]

Thank you for the reply, but that is still the same answer I keep getting. Maybe I should phrase the question more speciffically.

(Hardware issues aside) Can I do a multicam of 4 AVCHD cameras in CS5?

I can do 2 in CS4 with a blackmagic card.

[Jay West]

I haven't yet tried working with 4 streams of AVCHD but my multi-cam experience with PPro CS5 may tell you something of what you want to know.

I'd say that, rather than replacing your cameras, you'd probably be best off upgrading to CS5 with the Mercury Playback Engine (MPE) and maybe using Cineform NeoScene. With NeoScene, you probably would still want to upgrade to CS5 if you can take advantage of the MPE. Alternately, you might also want to consider switching to Edius 5 as your NLE.

My multi-cam events are shot tapeless with 4 to 6 cameras, three of which shoot AVCHD and the others shoot HDV. These are events such as weddings and dance recitals, rather than the sports events that you shoot. For multi-cam editing in PPro CS5, I run a multi-cam track with four of the camera streams, three of which are AVCHD. I put the other (HDV) streams on V2 and/or V3 for use as cut-a-ways when I don't have the shot on the multi-cam track.

My main editing system uses an I7/920 CPU (run stock, not overclocked) on an ASUS P6t D (ver. 2) mobo with 12gB Ram and an nVidia/PNY GTX 260. I've added the GTX to the cards list file and enabled the hardware MPE (see the thread in this forum on how to do this.) For my media drives, I have a RAID 0 running off the mobo and an external GSpeed Raid 10 running from a PCIe RAID card. Scratch files and media cache files all go on the raids. I'm running under Win 7.

On the whole, CS5 seems to handle native AVCHD multi-cam pretty well and, for me, has been significantly faster than the pre-MPE CS4. While I have run into some issues, I've found work-arounds.

The main thing for me is working in segments which I try to keep under 20 minutes. I then assemble all the shorter sequences for a final timeline. Multi-cam segments with native AVCHD files tend to start bogging down once they get close to 20 minutes in length. (This still happens with HD avi conversions but it takes longer, usually somewhere around a 35-40 minute length.) By "bogging" down, I mean that you make an edit and get a several second pause with that spinning ring thing that Windows now uses instead of an hourglass. Working in shorter segments avoids that problem.

By the way, I'm often running color correction/matching effects on several of the video streams in this edit sequences. With six cameras, I'm trying to match two Canons with four Sonys of varying vintages and also dealing with the odd color differences that sometimes result from the differing camera angles. (And, yes, I do white balancing before the shoot). Using these effects probably adds as much or more to the load than using more AVCHD streams.

Another issue that I've run into with CS5 is intermittent (almost random) instances of bogging down while using the titling functions. Putting titles in one segment may be fine, but the next segment just bogs down unbelievably, while the one after that might be fine. It seems to be sequence specific and otherwise random except, so far, I haven't run into this when using Cineform conversions. I've tried clearing the sequence's render files, which seems to help some times but not always. Sometimes moving the footage into a different sequence avoids the problem. Sometimes, the problem goes with it.

As mentioned at the outset, you might want to have a look at Cineform's NeoScene which converts your AVCHD streams to HD avi files. There is a free trial download that you can test out. Be aware that you need lots of disk space for the conversions. Some of my conversions have yielded files as much as six times larger than the AVCHD originals.

You don't need CS5 to use NeoScene. (I know of a couple of people who are using NeoScene to edit AVCHD with CS 3 and CS4). If you are working with CS4 or 3, you can experiment with the trial version of NeoScene downloaded from Cineform's web site. NeoScene is about $100 ($US) and is basically a less expensive subset of the larger NeoHD. The only thing it does is convert AVCHD and HDV to a more readily edited high-def avi format. You might see if it works for you with your present set-up. I've found CS5 much speedier and more responsive than CS4 and am glad I upgraded.

That said, I have to say I encountered compatibility issues with the first couple of builds of the new NeoHD and the new CS5. The latest builds of Neo and CS5 seem to have cured the previous problems. I haven't really had much time to test them together, yet, but so far, I haven't had any of the titling issues and have been able to work with longer segments without bogging down.

The more expensive NeoHD product comes with Cineform's "First Light" meta-data color correction tool which I've found useful for basic color tweaking. First Light lets me tweak whole camera streams (after conversion to a Cineform HD avi file) so the angles match-up pretty well. I like doing this with First Light because it works with meta-data that follows the file rather than being an effect that slows down PPro (which is what even the MPE enabled color tools in CS5 seem to do on my system.) Some of PPro's color effects are enabled for MPE playback acceleration but I've found that means only that there may be a lesser load on the system and things can still slow down when you've got multiple corrected streams running for a multi-cam edit.

If you don't need to mess with color correction, an alternative to CS5 is Edius 5, which I've heard and read good things about. Ron Evans, in particular, has written a number of DVInfo posts about muti-cam editing AVCHD. If memory serves, Ron recommended that, when having more than two AVCHD streams in a multi-cam sequence, you probably want to convert them to the Canopus HQ avi much as you would use Cineform's NeoScene/NeoHD with Adobe CS5.

[Jay West]

Just read your last post about using CS4 and a Blackmagic card. I know nothing about that card. You should check to be sure that the card will work with CS5. (I ask because I've been using a Matrox MXO2 Mini which worked fine with CS4 but did not work with CS5 until new drivers were released a couple of days ago).

Also, I recall reading that there were some incompatabilities between past versions of Cineform products, Adobe CS4 and Blackmagic display cards. NeoScene might not work for you.

[Clint Harmon]

Originally Posted by Jay West

Just read your last post about using CS4 and a Blackmagic card. I know nothing about that card. You should check to be sure that the card will work with CS5. (I ask because I've been using a Matrox MXO2 Mini which worked fine with CS4 but did not work with CS5 until new drivers were released a couple of days ago).

Also, I recall reading that there were some incompatibilities between past versions of Cineform products, Adobe CS4 and Blackmagic display cards. NeoScene might not work for you.

Thank you for the lengthy and informative response. I have neoscene and use that nearly everytime I have to do a multicam edit of 3+ cameras. I am looking to avoid very time consuming steps. Currently I have 35 football games I have to edit. If I had to run all footage through neoscene first, I would have lost DAYS of editing time and the output avi files from neoscene are tremendous. I am already nearing capasity of my 3TB in AVCHD files.

I am however intrigued in AVID or Edius if either can perform what I am asking for.

Has no one else done a 4 cam AVCHD multicam in CS5? Am I really asking the impossible out of an editing software?

[Pete Bauer]

Can you tell us what hardware you are using? Motherboard (chipset), CPU, amount of RAM, video card? Also, do you typically do much color correction or other effects, or straight cuts? Old hardware with CS5 won't do the job, whereas a system that is fast by today's standards and a CUDA card will definitely fly. You'd be upset if we all said "yes, you can do 4 streams" and then we find out you're using a dual core laptop with 2GB of RAM; that simply will fall short. An i930 or faster with 12GB of RAM and a CUDA card for effects will do it.

[Clint Harmon]

Originally Posted by Pete Bauer

Can you tell us what hardware you are using? Motherboard (chipset), CPU, amount of RAM, video card? Also, do you typically do much color correction or other effects, or straight cuts? Old hardware with CS5 won't do the job, whereas a system that is fast by today's standards and a CUDA card will definitely fly. You'd be upset if we all said "yes, you can do 4 streams" and then we find out you're using a dual core laptop with 2GB of RAM; that simply will fall short.

I do not mean to sound rude but my hardware is not the issue... I simply wanted to know if CS5 "could" do it, and if anyone HAS...and I am not a moron thinking "hey heres cs5 I can run this on a IBM 486" Adobe has not clarified this on their website or any forum I have read.

Originally Posted by Pete Bauer

An i930 or faster with 12GB of RAM and a CUDA card for effects will do it.

This is the type of answer I was looking for. If I am going to allocate the funds to the editing suite, I would of course build a new computer with at least those specs.


Now, heres the next question...lol... What makes the Quattro series cards SO much better then the desktop graphics such as the fermi GTX 480/490? Quattro series is roughly $2000 for a slightly older model, whereas the newest hottest desktop card (GTX 490 i think) is around $500.

[Jay West]

To add to what Pete said in the light of your additional comments, it also will depend on your editing workflow for the football games.

If you edit the games by scrolling the time time, you should not have any trouble doing four streams of AVCHD under PPro CS5. I'd go with "scrolling" instead of playing. By that, I mean that you display the multi-cam window and your program monitor, and use your mouse to manually pull the cursor through your timeline in the program monitor while also watching your multi-cam windows. You pull to the points where you want to change views. This moves you through the timeline with a lighter load on the system while also moving the video in all four windows in the multi-cam monitor so you see where you want to switch views. Once you've made all your cuts, do a render. After that, your timeline should play reasonably well, at least on an I7 system. Then you can add your effects, titles, etc. I just made a quick test with about 5 minutes of four lines of AVHCD on my system and it worked.

Whether and how well this will work with your Black Magic Design card, though, I can't say.

As for your question about Avid, I happen to have MC5 (it came as a special deal as an upgrade from Liquid). But, I only recently got my copy installed. I have barely begun to figure it out. In theory, it will allow you to work with four AVCHD streams. I just tried to test it but, in the couple of minutes I tried, I wasn't able to figure out how to get it to import AVCDH streams without MC5 trying to convert everything to Quicktime files. There's something in using the Avid Media Manager utility that will avoid this but I haven't figured it out yet.

I suggest that you try posting the specific question in the Avid forum. Also, go to Avid.com and see if your current system meets the requirements for running MC5. If so, try downloading the trial version of MC5 which just became available. The trial version is supposed to be fully functional for 30 days. If the trial version works with AVCHD, you'll find out quickly if it works with one of your football games.

Also, you might want to ask the question in the Edius/GrassValley forum, as well, to find out how well Edius will work with four AVCHD streams. I recall reading something about it working with multiple AVCHD streams on an I7 system but I can't remember if it was three or four streams. There's also a 30-day trial version available for download. I can't recall if that does or does not include AVCHD capability.

While Adobe has a trial version of CS5 available, it does not work with AVCHD, so the trial version probably would not be much help for figuring out what you want to do.

As for the Quadro cards, there is some confusion about how much they really do for you. There is a long posting in this forum on using the much less expensive GTX cards (very simple to do). At one point, there were reports that the Adobe software had been written to limit non-Quadro cards to 3 streams of realtime AVCHD but that may have changed in the most recent updates according to something I read somewhere. (Sorry, the memory is failing on this.) However, if you use the scrolling method of editing outline above, that should not be a problem.

[Jay West]

I just did further testing with CS5 and 4 streams of AVCHD. I got somewhat mixed results, neither a failure nor a fully satisfactory result. It seems that a GTX260 with PPro using hardware MPE still has some limitations with playing four streams AVCHD in real time.

I took four 35 minute streams of 1920 AVCHD & synched them for multi-cam.

With muti-cam enabled, the program monitor gave real time playback in the program monitor of the designated stream. It was real time when also monitoring a Matrox enabled sequence on an external tv via my MXO2 Mini as well as on secondary computer monitor when I had a non-Matrox sequence.

BUT, it was a different story with the 4-way multi-cam monitoring window. I was unable to get all four AVCHD streams to play simultaneously in the multi-cam display window. If I clicked on the multi-cam window's play button, and was in a Matrox enabled sequence, all four windows shrank and I got only fitful playback in the program monitor. When I did this in a regular 1080i HDV sequence, the multi-cam looked normal but the images moved only fitfully when I hit the play button for that monitor.

When I cut out one of the AVCHD streams (going with a three stream multi-cam), the multi-cam monitor worked but the video was intermittently jerky in that window. It was fine in the program monitor window and on external monitors. With two HDV and two AVCHD streams, it all worked as it was supposed to in the multi-cam and program monitors. I could watch all four streams going at once in the multi-cam monitor.

You can still do the scroll-editing thing I mentioned above, but that may not be the editing workflow that you want for editing the football games. If your multi-cam workflow is to watch the video play multi-cam monitor, it seems that a GTX 260 would not be enough. A Quadro 3800 would probably suffice; they go for about $850 which is still expensive even if it is not the $2000 you were concerned about. It is probably too early to tell if one of the new GTX 490 series cards will suffice.

[Jay West]

A little more research on this.

From what I've read in the other forums the MPE only helps with playback of effects and such while CS5 is still depending on the CPU for basic decoding and playing the video. So, maybe Quadro cards might not give you real time playback in the multi-cam monitor/window when you run 4 AVCHD streams.

I also did some checking on my system (I7 on an ASUS P6t D v.2) and discovered that the ASUS AI had been disabled, probably by a recent Windows Update. (ASUS AI is a proprietary automated overclock utility; you turn it on and it decides what and how much to overclock and adjusts things to keep the computer from overcooking). When I turned AI back on, performance improved noticeably but still no real-time with the four muti-cam streams in the multi-cam window. There is real time playback from the timeline and to the external monitors, and the scroll-editing technique works, but it seems that MPE doesn't do much for that muti-cam window.

Also tried this with a quick test in Vegas 8.01. There was realtime playback of four AVCHD streams in the multi-cam windows but the video was pretty low-res.

[Jay West]

Okay, so there turns out to be a trick to running four AVCHD video tracks in multi-cam in Ppro CS5. It’s so obvious as to make me ashamed for for missing it.

If you you want to run 4 tracks of AVCHD in multi-cam, you have to use an AVCHD sequence preset. Well, duhh,,,,,
(Slapping self on the forehead)....

Here’s what I did that now works for me with my I7/920-GTX260 system. I line up my four AVCHD tracks in a sequence the same way I do for any other multi-cam sequence. Use a Matrox sequence if you've got an MXO2 Mini, but any appropriate HD sequence will do. Synch the tracks (Clip - Synchronize- Start Point.) Create a new sequence (right click-new- new item-sequence). For the new sequence, select one of Adobe’s AVCHD presets. I used the 1080i30(60i) preset. Never noticed these before, but now that I see them. . . well how obvious can it get?. Pull your first sequence from the bin window into the new sequence, click on it, and enable multi-cam. Then click on "Window” from the overhead menu, click on multi-cam, and there you are. Hit the play button in the multi-cam window and all four AVCHD streams play together like they were standard-def dv video.

So here are the trade-offs. At least for me. When the multi-cam window comes up, leave it sitting over your main editing window. I mean, leave it this way. The only messing with it is to make it full screen. Do not pull it over to a secondary monitor. If I move that multi-cam window over to my secondary monitor --- or try to enable a Matrox MXO2 Mini display to an HD-LCD external tv monitor --- things slow down, lock up, and stop working. But, if I just leave the multi-cam monitor window sitting over top of my main PPro editing/timeline window, and click on the "play" button in the multi-cam window, then all four streams play together and I multi-cam edit by using the mouse to click on the stream I want as all four streams play along.The lesson seems to be that you make the multi-cam edits first and then go back later to fine tune the edits, apply filters, dissolves, etc.

So, yes, PPro will let you multi-cam edit 4 streams of your AVCHD football games. You can do it with a I7/920, 12 gb of RAM, and a GTX 260. But, if I were buying a new computer now, I'd get an I7/930 --- they run a bit faster and a lot cooler than an I7/920 and right now that they also are less expensive --- and you should get 24 gb if you've got the budget for it and 12 gb otherwise.

It seems that you do not need to get a Quadro card but you should get a GTX card with at least 1 gb of VRAM. (I don't know if GTX 260.280/285 cards still being sold, so you are prabably best off buying one of the newer nVidia GTX 9xx chipset cards).

[Clint Harmon]

Originally Posted by Jay West

Okay, so there turns out to be a trick to running four AVCHD video tracks in multi-cam in Ppro CS5. It’s so obvious as to make me ashamed for for missing it.

If you you want to run 4 tracks of AVCHD in multi-cam, you have to use an AVCHD sequence preset. Well, duhh,,,,,
(Slapping self on the forehead)....

Here’s what I did that now works for me with my I7/920-GTX260 system. I line up my four AVCHD tracks in a sequence the same way I do for any other multi-cam sequence. Use a Matrox sequence if you've got an MXO2 Mini, but any appropriate HD sequence will do. Synch the tracks (Clip - Synchronize- Start Point.) Create a new sequence (right click-new- new item-sequence). For the new sequence, select one of Adobe’s AVCHD presets. I used the 1080i30(60i) preset. Never noticed these before, but now that I see them. . . well how obvious can it get?. Pull your first sequence from the bin window into the new sequence, click on it, and enable multi-cam. Then click on "Window” from the overhead menu, click on multi-cam, and there you are. Hit the play button in the multi-cam window and all four AVCHD streams play together like they were standard-def dv video.

So here are the trade-offs. At least for me. When the multi-cam window comes up, leave it sitting over your main editing window. I mean, leave it this way. The only messing with it is to make it full screen. Do not pull it over to a secondary monitor. If I move that multi-cam window over to my secondary monitor --- or try to enable a Matrox MXO2 Mini display to an HD-LCD external tv monitor --- things slow down, lock up, and stop working. But, if I just leave the multi-cam monitor window sitting over top of my main PPro editing/timeline window, and click on the "play" button in the multi-cam window, then all four streams play together and I multi-cam edit by using the mouse to click on the stream I want as all four streams play along.The lesson seems to be that you make the multi-cam edits first and then go back later to fine tune the edits, apply filters, dissolves, etc.

So, yes, PPro will let you multi-cam edit 4 streams of your AVCHD football games. You can do it with a I7/920, 12 gb of RAM, and a GTX 260. But, if I were buying a new computer now, I'd get an I7/930 --- they run a bit faster and a lot cooler than an I7/920 and right now that they also are less expensive --- and you should get 24 gb if you've got the budget for it and 12 gb otherwise.

It seems that you do not need to get a Quadro card but you should get a GTX card with at least 1 gb of VRAM. (I don't know if GTX 260.280/285 cards still being sold, so you are prabably best off buying one of the newer nVidia GTX 9xx chipset cards).

Jay,

In a completely hetrosexual way, I love you man. I am personally surprised that no one else has asked this question. Knowing that cs5 with the proper hardware can handle the streams makes me so happy. I was really at wits end trying to figure out what I was going to do. I will allocate funds towards new computers instead of new cameras.

[Jay West]

Thanks.

I'm guessing you are the first one to post the question because you are the first DVinfo member who got to this frontier and hit this wall.

I mean, PPro CS5 has only been out since May, and how many of us DVinfo members who use any kind of PPro were also editing AVCHD without using Cineform intermediates? How many of us reached a multi-cam editing situation where using Cineform got to be inconvenient or not feasible?

I was going to say welcome to the bleeding edge but I guess you got here, first.

[Tim Kolb]

Originally Posted by Clint Harmon

Knowing that cs5 with the proper hardware can handle the streams makes me so happy. I was really at wits end trying to figure out what I was going to do. I will allocate funds towards new computers instead of new cameras.

Sorry, i got here late.

A couple of questions left yet...

First, I can verify that yes, with fast enough harddrives and strong enough CPUs, running a four camera AVCHD 1080p30 switch will work...(multi-cam seems vastly better than CS4) it also helps to bring the playback resolution on the timeline down to half-res so the computer doesn't have to work so hard...and yes, the "trick" would be to use a sequence designed for the media...

Quadro cards... You hit one nail on the head. It isn't that Quadros are out-of-date, it's that they simply don't need top upgrade drivers every month as pro applications aren't as erratic as games are...this makes them easy to quality-test with a given set of drivers to verify proper operation. Also, there is actual tech support for Quadro cards with people who understand pro video production and what we're trying to do... I don't know if they can afford that kind of support for a 300 dollar consumer card as there's no margin in the price to pay for it...and if there IS actual in-person support, they would likely be versed in things other than professional video production...