Even a Directshow version would be useful. Easier than the command line they released. Maybe in due time, maybe not.

Hey guys, just reviewing some of my past notes and conversations with the folks at Avid. At last NAB they announced P2 support. That means you can you pop the P2 solid-state media into a reader, or the PCMCIA slot on a laptop or desktop machine and the media is LIVE and ready to go! No Didigitizing/ capture required.

Avid Xpress Pro HD fully supports DVCPRO HD now. I checked the Avid DNxHD speca and it has full support for:

DVCPRO HD 1080i/60
DVCPRO HD 1080i/50
DVCPRO HD 720p/60

I'm sure the Avid folks are already working with Panasonic to add support for the full gamut of formats this amazing new camcorder can deliver in. So if this the camcorder you are drooling over, then XPress pro HD is the NLE you should be looking at as well.

http://www.videoguys.com/XpressProHD.html

Gary

The Xpress Pro HD 5.1 update adds support for 720p/23.976 as well as 1080p/24.

Just got the an email from Avid with more info.

Announcing Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.1

Expanding on the vast array of video and film editing capabilities found in the affordable, portable Avid Xpress® Pro HD product, Avid is pleased to announce Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.1 for Windows XP. Version 5.1 is available today as a free software-only download for all registered Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.0 customers and will be offered as a paid upgrade kit for Avid Xpress Pro and Avid Xpress DV customers.

Key New Features

Enhancements in Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.1 include:

* An industry first! Live capture of normal pulldown (2:3:2:3) over IEEE-1394. Another Avid breakthrough for native “24-frame” editing. For NTSC 23.976 projects, you can now capture DV25 23.976p and DV50 23.976p material with normal pulldown through a 1394 connection then edit the material and output it as 24p NTSC with 2:3 pulldown (output only is also available as part of Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.0).

* Expanded HD project format support with the addition of 720p/23.976 for use with Panasonic Varicam (capture and output) and 1080p/24 (edit and playback only) for film projects requiring true 24.000fps. There are four new Avid DNxHD™ resolutions for these new formats. See “Newly Supported HD Format” and “New Avid DNxHD Resolutions” below for details.

* Tapeless workflow from acquisition into post with support for:

o Panasonic P2* (DV25 only). Edit directly from P2 cards, or quickly transfer media files to hard disk allowing users to re-deploy P2 cards. P2 cards can use a PC card slot (PCMCIA) in the system or a device like the 5-card Panasonic AJ-PCD10 drive.

o Sony XDCAM (DVCAM (DV25) capture only, no IMX or MPEG4 offline proxy). Customers can efficiently capture media into their edit system via direct import from DVD-ROM and edit native DV25 high-res media.

* Remote Play and Capture: Use Avid Xpress Pro HD like a videotape recorder (VTR) by remotely controlling the capture tool via an external serial connection. Similar to VTR emulation without offspeed support.

* Color Correction Split Screen: The split screen can now be displayed in the Client monitor as well as in the Edit monitor. With this feature, you can accurately compare corrected and uncorrected versions of a segment on a properly calibrated broadcast monitor.

Avid looks to be way out in front here. For more info http://www.videoguys.com/XpressProHD.html

Gary

I know that people are using Avid Xpress Pro HD V.5.1.2 w/ HDV using some conversion software. I downloaded a program, CAPDVHS , but it does not see the camera.
The down convert in the camera (via firewire) does not look very good to me, so does anyone have a suggestion? Right now I am exporting using the analog outs through the Avid MOJO, and it is OK, but I am not getting the best results.

Thank you in advance,
George

If you capture the files in an external program and rename the .m2t files to .mpg you can load them into Sorenson Squeeze and convert them into a format that Avid understands for import. Of course that does mean recompressing, which will have an impact on picture quality.

Hopefully it won't be too long before Avid finally release their native HDV support.

George,

I'm not cutting with 5.12 right now, as I'm in the middle of a large documentary project. But if you go to www.avid.com and ask in the forums there, some really nice people will insult you, and then tell you more than you need to know about anything you ask.

(Trust me.)

Richard, I read the forums on Avid all the time, but the solutions there don't seem to work for me. I may just wait until Avid releases the native HDV patch. It seems that most of the methods to get HDV into the Avid compromise the image quality.

The insults have sadly become part of the forum... gripe and reply.

Thank you,
George

Yeah, I'm afraid you''ll have to wait until "mid 05" whatever that means. Sorry, good luck.

I was just wondering, the Avid Xpress Pro HD supports sony HDCAM's like the Sony HDW-730s well?? Or is it meant for HDV and compresed HD video only??

Hi there!

I was wondering if anybody out there uses AVID (any form) to edit their wedding videos with?
I'm about to buy a new system to run Avid Xpress DV, which i plan to edit many wedding videos with. Once I've edited them, i then plan on outputting the finished film onto DVD for clients to view on their domestic players.

If anybody has any advice about using Avid for this purpose i'd be very grateful to hear your advice.
Also, if anybody has any tips or general advice to give me based on my situation, again i'd be extremely grateful.

Finally, if anybody considered getting Avid but chose not to, then please tell me why you decided against it, and what editing software you chose to use instead?
What is the preferred editor of choice for the fellow wedding videographers out there? Why did you decide on that one?

Thanks for reading and (hopefully) replying, i am very grateful.
Regards,
Alan

Alan,

I answered your DVD question in another post. As I stated, I cut on Avid Xpress Pro. But I don't do weddings. I cut documentaries, shorts and films. I tend towards long form editing. For this Avid excells.

I think you'll find a lot of the event photographers are cutting on Vegas and Premiere. Both of these programs will do an excellent job, and are a little less expensive than Avid. Avid MIGHT be overkill for you.

I won't address the merits of each NLE, they all can 'cut weddings'. Some have stronger suits in some areas than others. Bottom line advice we pretty much give everyone who asks 'which one is best' is to download and try each version. Avid has "Avid XpressDV FREE" which you can download off their site for free and try it out. Vegas and Premiere I'm pretty sure have demo versions available.

The user interface on each of these is very different. People claim each one is 'more intuitive' than the other. People also claim it was difficult to unlearn one and move to another. BUt that's a personality trait, not a NLE function.

So you can try before you buy! Good luck.

I can edit a wedding in the best accurate way in two days.I have an Ibm Intellistation Z-Pro dual xeon 3.06 with Pinnacle Liquid Edition and FilmFX plug-in.With this software I can edit a dvd directly from timeline with chapters,really simple and easy.

Ciao from Italy.
Maurizio.

Hi Alan,
I use premiere pro with photoshop and after effects. All I really do is Wedding videography and I find that this system really suits my needs. Avid is really for professional documentaries,films, and such. You could probably save a whole lot of money by going either Adobe or Sony, both have tons of third party plugins available. Also the learning curve is very easy on both NLE systems. If you plan on doing stuff for your television station then you have to go either AVid or Final Cut. So look at your target audience and budget and decide.

If your wanting to deliver broadcast, i would suggest avid, if yoru wanting to deliver domestic (as you are) id suggest something different.

Purely software based, i would recommend Vegas 6, as its media management system is totally kick ass. This is good for retaining stock footage/title sets etc etc
Vegas also has the most powerful audio tools which will be essential to anything you produce

Pinnacle also works well, but if uve never used it, its learning curve and tedious workflow might piss u off

Premiere is also good, not my personal taste as i cant stand the boggy menu system but its got some good Hardware "realtime" support

and edius, well its good, but ill put that in the pinnacle bin, being that when u can get it to work, it works really well.. but gettin to that point can aggravate you.

if youve never edited before, Vegas is the way to go, but in the end, the only way to really find out what works is to download teh demos and see what works for you

cheers
p

I've use Avid, Premiere, Vegas (a little) and Pinnacle. Premiere I've used the most though. I prefer that one over the rest just because of my time with it. I know where stuff is at.

But looking to get one with no experience with any, Avid is going to require some time to get to know. I've heard that the learning curve with it is much steaper than the others meantioned. I didn't think it was hard, but it is a different system.

The good thing about Premiere is that things are laid out similar to Photoshop and After Effects. That's a plus if you use Photoshop and After Effects, which I do. So things kinda go hand in hand.

Vegas I loved, but I chose to stay with Premiere. Vegas had an easy to manuever layout.

I've got issues with Pinnacle. It goes back to support for one of their products the DC1000/2000, in which they just dropped off the face of the earth. For that I'm afraid to touch something else that they release. Makes me wonder when the day will come that they'll drop Liquid off and go with something else. I've used Liquid some, but I didn't really care for it personally.

The good thing about all these systems - minus Pinnacle - is that you can buy books from your local book store on them to train with. Avid didn't used to have books. Used to be you had to go for training, and that's probably still true with some of their higher end products, but there's plenty of books on Xpress Pro. Tons for Premiere and Vegas too.

You have to set up some criteria that you want your system to do - price, performance, features, etc. Maybe Avid requires you to upgrade your computer, where Premiere doesn't. Maybe Vegas doesn't support your camera, where Avid does. Maybe Premiere doesn't have a plug in that you want, where Vegas does......and so on and so on.

Any of those three will get the job done perfectly. After it's all said and done and you're viewing your final cut on DVD on your big screen TV, you won't know which editing system was used. They all do the same thing. The tools are just laid out alittle bit differently.

Court

DMN Review - New version of highly scalable editing software nails it!

(6/15/05) Avid Xpress Pro HD ($1695 software only, $295 for students) is a new version of Avid’s lowest-cost line of editing software. Adding to its mile-high feature set are improvements such as DVCProHD support, along with real time HD multicamera editing. You get a lot for your money with this package, but there’s one important thing missing from its extensive list of features that Avid says we’ll seeing by the end of this year—native HDV editing—although it will be provided free to all Avid Xpress Pro HD customers. Let’s take a close-up look.

For our testing, we used the basic software-only version of Avid Xpress Pro HD, which doesn’t include the Avid Mojo hardware box, a $1695 option that’s also available bundled with Avid Xpress Pro software for a total of $2595 after rebate. Of course, when equipping yourself for this task of multistream editing, and especially anything having to do with high definition, you’d be much better off with a really fast machine with a RAID -0 array moving data around quickly. But in our testing, even without those fast disks or the Mojo hardware, the performance of the software was still sprightly and useful. The scalability of this software serves as a great performance enhancer—the beauty of this software-driven system Avid has developed lies in that fact that better the host computer and drives, the better your performance will be.

follow this link for full review http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=33029-0

As always, we've got some great deals going on Avid Xpress Pro HD ;-)

Gary
Videoguys.com

Avid bought Pinnacle, so expect Liquid to "Dissappear"

I used premiere for years, and now use Final Cut. Avid is a bit expensive, and has a higher learning curve, in that the interface is a bit older, and some things arn't as "conventional" as all the other NLE's. Most of the other programs, you can bounce back and forth with minimal fuss, but if you go to the Avid, things are slightly different.

On the Avid side, many people are AVID editors, swear by it, and will touch nothing else. AVID is the only name in professional movie editing (Final Cut making some in roads now), but for starting a new wedding business, AVID is probably not the best chioce.

Hi there everybody.

I just received my new copy of Avid Xpress DV 4.6 yesterday, and now that i've installed & registered it, i'm having trouble actually getting it to work!

I have used Avid before at college for 3 years, so i have a basic-to-good understanding of how to capture/edit/digital-cut with it, but i've never had to set-up and configure my own system so i need some help.

Can anybody out there give me any guide or help for what i need to do in order to start capturing?
I'm trying to capture from my Panasonic AG-DVC60 Camcorder, via firewire cable, into my new workstation's firewire port.

I have been able to capture before from it with "Cyberlink PowerDirector", which was able to control the camera just fine. Avid however is unable to recognise the camera at the moment, so i haven't been able to begin to edit yet.

I'd really appreciate any help that anyone can give me, i'm struggling at the moment!
Many thanks for reading this post, i hope you can help.
Regards,
Alan

Alan,

Under 'configure deck settings' you can choose 'generic dv device' as a start, if you can't find your specific cam.

Introducing the Avid Xpress DV 4 AV $499.95!

This complete package lets you capture & edit all your videos — even that old VHS/8mm footage from years ago — and share them with your family & friends on tape, DVD or via the web - the choice is yours!! Now you can get all the tools you need to produce high-quality movies at an affordable price!

Avid Xpress DV is the perfect way to explore the exciting world of digital video and make an investment in your future with a product that has minimal requirements and cross-platform compatibility sure to run on your current WindowsXP or Mac OS X machine! Avid Xpress DV is also completely upgradeable & compatible with every level of Avid’s Academy Award® winning broadcast technology!

The ADS PYRO A/V Link media converter gives you the freedom to use footage from any video source with Avid Xpress DV. Just connect the A/V Link to your PC or Mac’s FireWire port and begin capturing high-quality audio and video. You may also use the A/V Link to output your final masterpiece to any camcorder or VCR for a tape to share with your friends or family.

For more info check out our XDV4AV page http://www.videoguys.com/XDV4AV.html

Gary

How much extra for a Mojo unit with this bundle?

Mojo does not work with Xpress DV, it requires Xpress Pro or Pro HD.

We are offering a very good deal on an XPress Pro/ProHD & Mojo bundle. It comes to $1995 after $400 mail in rebate. you can find more info here http://www.videoguys.com/XpressProHD.html

Gary

im trying to compress some footage to put on the web and i want to deinterlace it, but i have no clue how to do that. any help would be great!

what are you using to compress it?

Gary,

Maybe you can help me. What's the difference between Sonic REELDVD LE and REEL DVD ? Is the prive on ReelDVD $199 for LE or Full version?

im trying to learn avid, so i was trying to use the sorenson 3 codec... i guess anything for that matter.

ReelDVD le is a cut down version of the full application. You get the same interface and features as the full version, with these 3 exceptions:

1. ReelDVD le gives you 3 subtitle tracks (the full version can have 32)
2. ReelDVD le gives you 3 audio tracks (the full version can have 8).
3. ReelDVDle does not include Dolby AC-3 encoding

Gary

OK, So the REELDVD for 199.95 is the LE version on your webpage? It's not very clear if it's the FULL or LE version.

Is there an upgrade from LE to Full?

How does the ADS unit compare quality-wise to something from Canopus? This price is insanely good, regardless of quality. For $50, that thing's got to be better than the "All-In-Wonder" analog inputs alot of home users are using for analog ingest.

Sonic lowered the retail on ReelDVD from $499.95 to $199.95 earlier this year. That is what the upgrade price used to be from le to the full version.

We still have a couple of ReelDVDle in stock and I just lowered the price on ReelDVDleto $149.95


Gary

Thanks Gary, for the quick response.

I'm using ReelDVD LE right now. Finally getting the hang of it, and liking it quite a bit. Don't need the added features of the full version just yet, but might in a month or so.

Apply the FluidFilm Progressive effect from the effects palette. The project must be an interlaced based project in order to have access to this effect. Render time is painful. If the sequence is more than 8 mins. its not a bad idea to add edits every 4-5 mins. on the video track you apply the effect so as not to lose your renders if you make changes somewhere in the sequence.

thanks for your help

We want to be able to offer a web video service as part of our company services and also create web video for our website. Can anyone suggest best codec for this? We don't have sorenson or pro coder (should have but don't for some reason) and can't afford to buy either. Has anyone got an old version they don't use or know where we could get a cheaper version?

Matt,

If you have Avid, you have Sorenson. Unless you have a student version. Is this the case?

TMpgenc is a good one if you are looking for a seperate transcoder.

Encoders are all over the place now. I usually export a QT Ref file and then use either Sorenson or Canopus ProCoder 2. Occasionally I resort to CleanerXL but it has gone down hill ever since Discrete bought it. The interface truely sucks these days. And 5 used to be so easy to work with.

From any of those you can choose your format. I did a lot with Linux boxes and streeaming a while back. I favor either QT or Real Media for streaming. Most folks can't stand the real player as it is too nosey. There is an enterprise version of the player that doesn't ask questions, use pop-ups, etc. but you have to google for it. They made it for businesses whose IT folks refused to install anything with pop-ups and asked for user input or target markets users. Supposedly enterprise doesn't do that.

Anyway, QT with Sorenson is a good bet but the file sizes will be significant sizes. Windows media is an option but not everyone can play those. Never use cutting edge formats. Most folks won't have the codecs and will not bother to download them.

Good luck.

Sean McHenry

This past Tuesday (07/19/05) I attended a special Avid dealer training session called Avid Summer Camp. During the training session Avid demonstrated two very long awaited and important new features for Xpress Pro coming in the next two releases:

Tiger in the tank!

That’s right – we saw it first hand - Avid Xpress Pro running on the new Mac OS! I know this is a very important milestone and while many will complain that it took too long, I think you’ll see it was worth the wait. Avid didn’t just make Xpress Pro run on Tiger – they are tapping into some of the core performance capabilities of Tiger. Want even more good news – how about a target release date of August 18th!

HDV and more!

We also had the chance to see Xpress Pro HD with HDV running. I’ve said this before in previous articles and posts – when you combine native HDV support with Avid DNxHD CODEC, wonderful things happen. Avid was demonstrating a timeline made up of mixed HD and SD content, DV, uncompressed SD, HDV at 720p and 1080i and additional HD footage using DNxHD compressed files. Xpress Pro HD ate it up and spit it out – on a laptop! That’s right, real-time editing of mixed resolution HD footage from the timeline. Avid is calling this feature “Open Timeline” - I call it nothing short of amazing! But that wasn’t all. They ran this same mixed resolution footage in multicam! That’s right, you’ll be able mix and cut between your old reliable DV cams and your new HDV cams in realtime. The best news – Avid hopes to have HDV support for Xpress Pro HD by early fall.

Putting it all together.

Of course the question came up of when Xpress Pro HD would be available for Mac. The goal we were told was before year-end. At that time Avid hopes to get back to having both PC & Mac with the same features and versions in the box. Avid has always been committed to this strategy. Tiger is a significant OS upgrade and it has taken major efforts by Avid to make Xpress Pro the best performing and most powerful video editing available for Tiger. Avid was the first NLE to run on Macs, and they are and have always been committed to the Mac platform. While the Tiger release took extra time, the future for Avid on Mac looks very bright indeed. Over the next two years Apple will be switching over from the PowerPC CPU to Intel based chips. While this may make some devout Mac lovers nervous, Mac based video editors have absolutely nothing to worry about – Avid has years of expertise on both platforms! In fact, it was no surprise at all to Avid engineers that Apple would switch to Intel, they’ve been telling them all along that it was better for video editing!!

You can check out my complete article here http://www.videoguys.com/avidsummer2005.html

Gary

check out the free windows media encoder, you can download it from the microsoft website... wmv has the best combination of audio/video quality and player penetration of any of the formats out there.

your goal is to find an encoder that allows for two-pass video encoding at the minimum, and preferably variable bit rate capability for both video and audio, if possible... check to see if those are still possible options on the free wmv encoder.

if you are going to offer your web encoding services to people, you'll probably find that they want more than just the wmv format, so you could be forced to look at procoder or possibly sorenson squeeze.

Hello there, thanks you for your time. I was wondering if you could help me with a post production question.

I have recenty finished a feature film project with Canon's XL2 camera. I am ready to take the standard 24P footage (not advanced) to the AVID.

Could I use a regular MiniDV deck to do this task?, or do I have to use the XL2 as a source deck?
Will a regular deck play this footage correctly, without damaging the tape?
Sorry about the silly question.

Since my footage was captured at 24P but then (As I understand it) translated to 29.97, could a regular, modern DV deck be able to output this footage into the AVID Nitris that I will be using?

Your prompt response will be greatly appreciated.!

Jose

Any DV deck can play back that material. It's okay to use your camera as a deck.

Thanks Chris,

And now a final silly question.

I know I decided to capture at 24p standard because I know my final prouct will stay in TV and DVD land, I will not transfer to film at any point.

Even though I shot at 24P, I should stay with a 30fps timeline all the way, right?
Or do I have to ask the Avid to recognize that this is 24p footage, extract these frames or something like that. Just like when using 24p advanced.

What I am getting at is, I just want to make sure that I am getting the full quality of what I originally intended, 24p to be viewed through a DVD or with a regular TV.

Once I have the footage loaded, I should just treat it like regular 30 fps footage or should I tell the system this is 24P?

Jose

Any DV deck can play back that material. It's okay to use your camera as a deck.

Sadly Chris, I have to report that I recently attempted to playback some material recorded by the XL-2 using my Pana 953 camera. The audio was all but non-existent and would fade in and out. Played back by either 2 of my XL-2 cameras, there was no problem with the audio. There has been some speculation about thinner track pitch on the XL-2 recording heads. I don't know what the problem is exactly.

But, we both know that it should theoretically possible to playback those XL-2 tapes on any mini-dv deck.

=gb=

Wow, really? I had no idea! Well, thanks for the update, Greg. There's usually some form of consensus around here against using an expensive primary camera such as an XL2 as a playback deck, but in my opinion, as long as it's not used in that capacity *too* much, then there's nothing wrong with that practice.

I noticed in the news that the stockholders for Avid are mad about the purchase of Pinnacle. I guess I would be too if I was expecting a juicy dividend for the year and the company instead used the captial to buy another company.

Anyway, their stock is very depressed right now, and it seems artifically low because of the Pinnacle purchase. I'm seriously considering buying some as I can't see Avid losing market share, especially after buying a low-end A/V toolset like the Pinnacle line. Am I missing something, is Avid on a gradual and continuous decline as a company? Or is Avid still an industry mainstay and this is just an anomoly based on the stockholder displeasure with loosing their precious dividend in favor of gaining marketshare for long-term growth?

Any insights?

Patrick,
Whether or not Avid represents a viable investment is a topic outside the realm of DVInfo. It's best to research the topic through financial sites and through investment-oriented resources.

I can say, however, that Morningstar gives them a 5-star (out of 5) rating and gives them a fair market valuation of $56, quite a bit above their current $43 price. If you subscribe to Morningstar you can access the full analyst report.

Ken,

I also subscribe to a couple of investment tools/newsletters. I was really wanting to get a sense from people who use Avid tools about whether they thought Avid was loosing its "industry standard" position.

I think the stock is quite under-valued, but whether they regain value lost during the Pinnacle buyout depends on the viability of their product line. And since Avid is the name-brand and the product, I thought I'd ask folks who use it if they thought the company was on the way out or on the way up.

As an insider, yes. Lot's of users think they went the wrong way. They should have sided a long time ago with Matrox. Matrox is going to whip some booty with Axio. Full HD uncompressed with (real) realtime effects like color correction, etc. I was in on the early demos. The company I worked for a few months back sells Avid, FCP and now - Axio. It should take the midlle ground by storm. The folks that were looking at Adrenaline are going to miss out if they don't at least look at the Axio.

In short, yes, the Pinnacle move was not favorable from the inside of their outside sales folks. Pinnacle was buggy, lower end and on the way out frankly. The DV 500 was a mess from the begining it seemed.

Anyway, I wish them all luck as they bed down for the future.

Sean McHenry (Still an Avid editor)

Matrox always looks good on paper and in controlled demos. They've been promising to kick butt for several years now. Buggy software and poor support has been their bane.
Maybe they got it right this time. but I'm skeptical.

I don't think Avid has been very price friendly either compared to others. The FCP Studio package is, from what I hear, a much better deal too. Vegas and Adobe are doing mighty fine themselves even in the higher end. I think Avid's problem is both support and pricing. Plus, what did Avid have to gain by buying Pinnacle? I don't know anyone who uses Pinnacle other than the usual hobbyist and the computer guys that buy the big expensive videocards and recieve it for free (mostly ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder sales). Dumb move in my opinion.