Hi!
I'm about to buy an A1 and I'm also soon going to buy a NLE. I work on PC and my budget is somewhere between 500 and 1000 $ for the NLE. I've been considering Canopus Edius with a SD card to it (realtime editing).

Premiere Pro seems to be the other alternative (which would make HDV editing possible also). I have a fairly fast computer and am very used to PrPro.
But the problem seems to be the 24f mode? I don't have a deck and I need to export things to tape; for backup and for distribution.
What are your advice? Thanks.

Are you PAL? I', PAL and am happily using Sony Vegas and not having any problems whatsoever.

Yes, we have PAL here. Can you export 25f to tape and then play that tape in a Sony deck?

Are you PAL? I', PAL and am happily using Sony Vegas and not having any problems whatsoever.

Vegas is brilliant - editing HD is a breeze compared with Premiere Pro (of which I am still a huge fan). Premiere pro can do lots of things (I love the multicamera thing that allows you to work it a bit like a vision mixing gallery) but premiere pro is VERY slow when editing HD. Vegas is very fast and stable, too, which saves throwing your computer through the window.

More importantly you may find premiere pro won't let you write back to the XHA1. This is a known bug in premiere pro 2 and isn't going to be fixed except by buying CS3! I only discovered this because dumping back to tape in HD and then reexporting using the camera's HD->SD downconvert is the quickest and probably best-looking way of getting an SD version of an HD edit.

"Can you export 25f to tape and then play that tape in a Sony deck?"

Sorry, pardon my ignorance, I'm not really understanding what you are saying. I haven't run anything back onto tape as of yet. I film in HD, edit in HD then render to MPEG 2 DVD Architect Widescreen PAL SD, which I then burn to DVD using Sony DVD Architect. All the comments I am getting back are that the footage quality is AMAZINGLY detailed and sharp.

If you get Ultimate S3 from VAAST it will allow you to do up to quad cam editing in Vegas along with a whole PILE of other stuff.

I'm genuinely finding working with HD a complete and utter breeze in Vegas. My workflow has barely changed from when I was working with SD. I capture I edit I burn. Doesn't get much simpler!

Consider Avid Liquid Pro?

Consider Avid Liquid Pro?

... or not Pro. You only need Pro if you connect an external video monitor or if you input a signal other than through Firewire / IEEE-1394. There is a $/€500 price difference between the two, for exactly the same software.

BTW, Avid just added support for the Canon 24F, 35F and 30F formats in Liquid 7.2 (free upgrade if you have Liquid 7.0 or 7.1).

Don't underestimate the impact of HD on editing.

I've been suffering for months to do anything decent with HD on a PC. After about 5 years of editing with PrPro and trying out a lot of other NLE's, I was very disappointed by the shortcomings nearly every PC/XP-based solution.

Most of all, XP and surely Vista is not making your life easy. At least half of your performance is eaten up by virus scanners and other services.

The more I tried to stay with PrPro, the more I got convinced this software isn't really built to do HD. At least not the 1,5/2,0 versions in those days. An upgrade of the complete suite was costing more then the entire Final Cut Suite... And without spending additional money to the full blown intermediate codec stuff.

Maybe the only exception was Vegas, but excuse me Vegas fans... the interface is not a typical NLE interface, it didn't convince me either. If you can get used to it... fine, but? And what's the credibility of Vegas-based projects in a (semi-)pro world?

Being an IT/Windows professional, it was a huge step, but I finally switched to Mac & Final Cut Studio. THIS REALLY WORKS without any hurdles. Every HD codec is what it should be. You're editing real 'long GOP' HDV streams without any problem.

Oh yes, Edius. You know what... I asked a specialist show to compose an Edius workstation ready to do HD in full fledged mode (as possible on Mac). Raid disks, lots of memory, special cards... the solution finally turned out to be more expensive then a Mac + FCS !!!

I had to make the choice over again, I still would take the same decission. And going from PrPro to Final Cut is like changing from one car to another, in the same category. Two days in the manual, and you're halfway.

Consider Avid Liquid Pro?

Avid Liquid does NOT write back to tape, at least for the progressive formats. Here is a very recent thread on using Avid Liquid with the XHA1:
http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/thread/230478.aspx

There is a post in the thread from one of the people of who works on the code in Liquid in Germany about how to use the XHA1 and Liquid.

What is most disconcerting about the thread is that it seems not to be a cut-and-dried issue, is a little wishy-washy and is on the border of needing workarounds just to get started. The people giving technical advice on the forum don't seem to have clear answers on the subject, and that's a bit scary.

If you are considering Edius, go to the Grass valley forum and put up your plain and direct questions. You will get plain and direct answers from Grass Valley employees... unlike what you get on the Avid boards. Here is a link to the Grass Valley forums:
http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/forum/

I own and use Liquid almost daily, and while it can do a good job, it can take weeks to figure out the workarounds you need to make it work, and Liquid is very, very finicky about the computer it is running on. Unlike some of the other NLE companies, Avid doesn't put up a known list of issues and workarounds. The user must search through the user moderated forums or get lucky while experimenting.

I have heard a number of people mention positive things about Vegas for working with the new cameras, such as the XHA1 and the V1U.

I have used Edius in the past, it is a very "clean" and "neat" editor. I don't own it now because my computer won't accept the NX card.

"Oh yes, Edius. You know what... I asked a specialist show to compose an Edius workstation ready to do HD in full fledged mode (as possible on Mac). Raid disks, lots of memory, special cards... the solution finally turned out to be more expensive then a Mac + FCS !!!"

In Edius, playback, effects, color correction are realtime with no rendering, does FCP have realtime playback in full frame full HD like Edius? on my current dual zeon 3.6, it takes 2 1/2 hours to render a 1 hr. timeline so you can record back to HDV camera, how long does it take FCP to render a 1 hour timeline so you can output to HDV camera for archive.
Thanks.

"I've been suffering for months to do anything decent with HD on a PC"

I've not...hee hee! Vegas......cough....I repeat....VEGAS!

Try popping over to the Vegas forum on here and ask for opinions.

I'm happy with Vegas...I started on Avid then PP the switched to Vegas. I would rather spend my time shooting new work than spending extra time editing.

I throw my two cents in. I personally own the XH A1 and am editing nicely with Vegas.

Just another two cents ...
and given the current exchange rate, that's not much!
Personal experience: I just added a HV20 to my XH A1. Chaos with Premiere Pro 2; something awry with my Cineform (will have to reinstall that, I suppose). HDV Split threw a tantrum. Rebooted, started Vegas 7, and watched it happily ingest verything that I could throw at it.
OK, now I used to be blonde, so that may explain a lot, and I know that I'm probably still getting a lot of things wrong. But for some strange reason Vegas seems to be the only one to forgive my obtuseness.
Also in PAL country, shooting in largely 50i - 1080i.

Carl
Jo'burg

Hi,

I prefer to use Premiere Pro 2...Heres my video tutes, so you can see just how easy it is to use.
I also have XH-A1.

http://www.esnips.com/web/Premiere-Pro-2-Video-Tutes

Hi,

I prefer to use Premiere Pro 2...Heres my video tutes, so you can see just how easy it is to use.
I also have XH-A1.

http://www.esnips.com/web/Premiere-Pro-2-Video-Tutes

thanks Ivan for your tutorial, very interesting!!

Is it possible download it?

"I've been suffering for months to do anything decent with HD on a PC."

Obviously you havent been looking where the answers lay... most "issues" one would face have already been answered.. here and on many other forums..

Theres no right or wrong in any choice of NLE.. its waht works FOR YOU.. if it doesnt work for you based on what YOU have experienced, so be it, but obviously many people ARENT having issues, else we'd see almsot every PC user jumping ship to a Mac..

" After about 5 years of editin with PrPro and trying out a lot of other NLE's, I was very disappointed by the shortcomings nearly every PC/XP-based solution."

Prem Pro hasnt been around for 5 years.. and even so within those 5 years, the application and plugin architecture has evolved to a point of total integration of the OS drivers, in addition to GFX card HW drivers...many MANY users do NOT have issues with prempro.. but admittaaadly, its a much of a muchness, as there are still those that do have issues..
The thing i dont understand is WHY people continue to trudge along on an NLE which they obviously have issues with.
There are many to choose from and if one doesnt work for you try another..
like i said, there is no right or wrong

"Most of all, XP and surely Vista is not making your life easy. At least half of your performance is eaten up by virus scanners and other services."

LOL sorry, i just had to laugh at this comment.. obviously if u do nto know how to maintain your machine ANY machine, then your going to have problems.
Lets be real here, if you have an editign workstation online and connected to the WWW and u go to questionable sites or download rubbish from torrents and p2p apps, ur looking for trouble..

"The more I tried to stay with PrPro, the more I got convinced this software isn't really built to do HD. At least not the 1,5/2,0 versions in those days."

In "those" days? How do u mean? Prem Pro 2 was designed with HDV in mind, hence the reason adobe went to bed with Nvidia.. not to mention the other ballgames of RTx2 and AXIO... No offense, but if your offering information, be sure that its accurate.. not to mention the realtime Cineform encoding during capture which no other NLE offers (without having to fork out any extra cash)

" An upgrade of the complete suite was costing more then the entire Final Cut Suite... And without spending additional money to the full blown intermediate codec stuff."

PPro2 only needs a decent specced system with a verified gfx card.. its prolly as easy as building a Vegas box.. dead simple and a no brainer.. check adobes site for tech spec build requirements to get the most out of it..

Maybe the only exception was Vegas, but excuse me Vegas fans... the interface is not a typical NLE interface,

No it isnt.. the interface carries more depth than any other NLE on teh market.. without the need to trudge through menus and lock down settings...thats the beauty of it, its built like an audio tool and if youve ever used any audio app, then youll be at home wth vegas.
If u havent, consider MS excel. if u can resize a cell within excel, u can edit with Vegas. Its that simple.

it didn't convince me either. If you can get used to it... fine, but? And what's the credibility of Vegas-based projects in a (semi-)pro world?

You wont find an XDCam editor which can perform and manage its media the way Vegas does.. ANYWHERE.. even Avid cant get close to this.. and now that 64bit Vegas is announced, we should see even better performance on the output end.
Theres also teh fact that almsot every format known to man can be imported without hassle and be edited at teh drop of a hat. to get decent performance out of FCS/P u must conform the files to QT which defeats teh purpose of what were doing.. ie editing, NOT encoding
As for FCP.. FCP has been seen in a semi pro world obviously, but FCstudio... i dont think so Tim.... despite the power, FCS Is considered a childs toy in these parts.. FCP might get you some looks, but these days the NLE dont mean squat if ur content sucks

"Being an IT/Windows professional, it was a huge step, but I finally switched to Mac & Final Cut Studio. THIS REALLY WORKS without any hurdles. Every HD codec is what it should be. You're editing real 'long GOP' HDV streams without any problem."

and to get the most out of the performance, one must convert said long GOP streams to QT... for DVCproHD, the same applies.. yes ive seen 5 streams of DVCpro100 run on a G5 dual core with 4gb ram.. but converting those MXF's to QT took as much time as it took to fim the job in the first place.. totally defeats the purpose of solid state editing..
At least Vegas lets u run Raylight and edit straight off the card.. edius is even better in this regard with no need for proxies...

"Oh yes, Edius. You know what... I asked a specialist show to compose an Edius workstation ready to do HD in full fledged mode (as possible on Mac). Raid disks, lots of memory, special cards... the solution finally turned out to be more expensive then a Mac + FCS !!!"

Your specialist obvioulsy wasnt too specialised.. Edius runs full blown 1920x1080p output with no need for rendering on a standard dual core laptop with only 1gb ram and an external bus powered USB drive... ie, its scaling the HDV 1440x1080 to 1920 on the fly.. apply some CC and your still fine but admittadely, anythign more than this and its starts to choke.. even so, at least you didnt have to render out every filter just to preview the work
Specialist cards? yes NX and SP ARE specialist cards.. if u need them.. but theyre not essential for a decent workflow with HDV.
Dont get me wrong, you ahve stated your point and for YOU it might be fine, but PLEASE make sure the info you provide stands up to yoru statements as it may just be YOU that is having issues with your config, as i can guarantee that many MANY people are NOT having issues with PC based NLE's

In the end, if the NLE works for you, all the power to you
PC or mac, it doesnt matter..

Heres a rapidshare link

http://rapidshare.com/files/35564362/Premiere_Pro_2_Tutes.rar.html

I didn't mean anything offensive with what I wrote, expressed everything carefully - I thought but ofcourse, I'm not natively speaking english and my writing is not so good ;-).

You don't get me dig into further details, but obvious: a lot of Vegas/PrPro fans over here. I didn't say anything wrong about Vegas - except for the interface.

NLE's are a bit like cars: what one finds the ultimate car to drive with, looks completely rediculous to the other one. But at the end, you're probably able to drive to the same place. One slower or fancier then the other.

Though, HD-editing is maybe a little bit different?

Be happy with what you got, if it REALLY works for you... even if it runs on a mower in your garden. But if we're criticizing eachother in this way, the community is losing its purpose entirely.

"I didn't mean anything offensive with what I wrote, expressed everything carefully - I thought but ofcourse, I'm not natively speaking english and my writing is not so good ;-)."

No offense has been taken my friend, its just that your views were very concrete, which had the tendency to lead people to believe that the issues you faced would also be issues they would face.

You don't get me dig into further details, but obvious: a lot of Vegas/PrPro fans over here. I didn't say anything wrong about Vegas - except for the interface.

((See this is the point.. there is no right or wrong... whether you like or dislike the Interface or architecture, it makes no difference. The fact remains tehir different apps and it just so happened that vegas didnt do it for you, this is perfectly fine and natural (even for many other premiere users) so youre not alone, But the statements of the interface not working may not be a concern to the original poster. For them, the finctionality might be a priority whilst everythign else comes second. Being that the fact that Vegas is still pretty much the only NLE which can handle almost anything in any format in any resolution, and has been proven time and again to have the ability to handle 1080p without skipping a beat, might in fact be the posters solution to their problem. But my issue is with the fact that yes it is DIFFERENT, but its not any better or worse than any other NLE out there.
This is the differential we need to clarify when making sweeping comments about products, whether we like them or not. ))

NLE's are a bit like cars: what one finds the ultimate car to drive with, looks completely rediculous to the other one. But at the end, you're probably able to drive to the same place. One slower or fancier then the other.

((Agreed, most will get you to where you want to go.. in one way shape or form, however there are some out there which dont handle 24/25p all that well, such as Premiere. It never really could do it properly.. fair enough its been tweaked, but youll note that most people who shoot progressive will opt for another NLE anyway.
There re some NLE's out there thats stil dont support progressive properly, such as some lower forms of Avid, but thems teh breaks.
I guess my point is to not write off any ssytem unless its been tried and tested. Each respective NLE manufacturer offer demo versions, and its in this particualr users best interest to try them all out before making the investment))

Though, HD-editing is maybe a little bit different?

((it can be, it depends on what kind of HD youre refering to. HDv, XDCam, DVCproHD10000... thing is, what one NLE can do well, another may be crap at.. and vice versa... im yet to find a "perfect" NLE.. i dont think i ever will..

and yes, u will find alot of fanboys out there, but forget the hype and look at real world scenarios.
What are they doing that makes them love the system? What are they doing thats right for them? Maybe take a leaf out of their book and discover what makes THEM so excited about the system of choice.

See, if u wrote, "FCS is great becuase you can do XYZ, but to do so u must ABC" then i dont think anyone would have found fault in your post, but you went out dissing almost every PC NLE out there when you didnt really have to.
The orgiinal poster wanted to know which NLE's work well with the A1, being integration with the PC itself, capture in its various formats/codecs, editing in those codecs and formats and delivering. Now considering almost every NLE out there does this, theres not one NLE which is better than another in this regard.. some people might love Vegas UI and everythign else, but then cringe when its time to render.. others love liquid becuase it does the background rendering all the while ur working away, but then they might have issues with the way Keyframing works... See where im getting at? ))

Be happy with what you got, if it REALLY works for you... even if it runs on a mower in your garden. But if we're criticizing eachother in this way, the community is losing its purpose entirely.

((No criticism intended. I understnad the passion Editors have with their NLE's of choice.. ive been supplying them for over 7years, so ive seen it all, from diehard Premiere users with the famous words "can it do this... " through to Canopus patriots. Many have their reasons and everyones entitled, but even with this, the point i guess is to make sure that if you do want to air your experiences, that theyre not tainted by the emotional impact of the financial investment made. ))

I edit on Final Cut Pro and capture my footage to an external firewire drive(500gb Lacie). Works good for me. :)

I am using the demo of Vegas and liked it quite a bit UNTIL I rendered a project. Oh WOW what a slow process that was. I didn't do an exact timing, but I feel very confident saying that Studio Plus from Pinnacle rendered the same project in less than half the time as Vegas did. While Studio Plus is far from a professional program, I believe it uses the same background rendering technique as Liquid. As such, my next demo will be of Liquid.

Just to be clear, I really liked the Vegas interface and all the features that came with it (perhaps because I used to edit audio quite a bit). But, as they say, time is money and I just don't have that kind of time to wait for a project to render.

Urban,

I just wanted to add, you can download the canon 24f 25f and 30f presets for premiere pro, from the adobe site, should you need them.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3408