liquid 7 question at DVinfo.net

Mike Pearce · February 2nd, 2008, 06:03 PM

Im looking into getting liquid 7.2 since it appears to handle the 24f from the canon cameras? Is that correct(just want to make sure) or did i misread it.

Also, ive only seen 7 for sale and then a download patch to 7.2. Is that the best route to go or have they packaged 7.2 now?

Jack Walker · February 4th, 2008, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Pearce

Im looking into getting liquid 7.2 since it appears to handle the 24f from the canon cameras? Is that correct(just want to make sure) or did i misread it.

Also, ive only seen 7 for sale and then a download patch to 7.2. Is that the best route to go or have they packaged 7.2 now?

I have Liquid 7.2.

There is a workaround/special instructions for working with 24f. Look for it in this post:
http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/thread/167924.aspx
Search for 24f to find it.

This post also includes upgrade instructions for the downloadable 7.2 upgrade.

I can't tell you whether a new package would contain 7.2 or not, but I doubt it. You would just have to download the full install upgrade off the website.

The documentation on the web for Liquid is rather a mess. The Liquid forum was moved over to the Pinnacle boards, but all the installation instructions are located in the post I reference above on the Avid boards. Can't tell you why they don't include this on the new active Pinnacle boards. The Avid Liquid boards have been archived.

Also be aware that Avid has announced there will be no future developments of Liquid. There is a new product that is supposed to come out in a couple of years to replace it that is aimed at the "Videographer," whatever that exactly means. Apparently the new product will be something between the consumer Pinnacle Studio and the pro Avid line. Avid has made statements that the new product will be only 8 bit, not more.

Liquid works great for 1080i HDV, 720p HDV, DV and it also handles 24f. However, the weakest link is getting video in and out of Liquid in a high quality format to use in After Effects.

Liquid experts have found a lot of "workaround" to get things done, but nothing is straight forward like in Edius.

Liquid also has only a 601 color correction filter, since the color corrector was made before HDV.

The Pinnacle Liquid forums are a good place to get answers for some questions about using Liquid. However, a lot of the experienced users seem to have moved on.

Avid has promised a fix for some of the problems in 7.2, but there have been promises in the past that were never kept.

Avid works great if it does exactly what you need now and don't need to worry about future formats or development. Also, it helps if you plan to do all your effects and other processing within Liquid.

Note: Liquid 7 does not remove the pull down from 24p formats imbedded in a stream, such as produced with the Sony V1 or the Canon HV20/HV30. You first need to remove the pulldown with another app (such as Procoder or other). There are threads around for how to do this on these boards.

Thomas Smet · February 4th, 2008, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Walker

Avid has made statements that the new product will be only 8 bit, not more.

This is not a big deal if somebody plans on editing 24F footage from a camera. People freak out about the 8 bit vs. 10 bit issue but really it isn't an issue from camera source footage. Most camera formats including DVCPROHD and HDCAM are 8 bit recorded material. Unless you plan on live capturing uncompressed HD material or working with HDCAM SR you will hardly ever see 10 bit footage. 8 bit is not a bad thing and we will all continue to live in a 8 bit world for a very long time yet.

Quote:

Liquid works great for 1080i HDV, 720p HDV, DV and it also handles 24f. However, the weakest link is getting video in and out of Liquid in a high quality format to use in After Effects.

Liquid experts have found a lot of "workaround" to get things done, but nothing is straight forward like in Edius.

This is not true at all. I and many other editors use After Effects and Liquid every single day. Liquid may not work with all AVI codecs but there are plenty of options to swapping material between the two programs. For After Effects work I have never ever used anything less then uncompressed which works very well between Liquid and After Effects. It is as simple as exporting a uncompressed AVI and moving it back and forth. If it was any easier it would edit for me.

Mike Pearce · February 5th, 2008, 08:26 AM

Thanks for the replies.

Jack Walker · February 7th, 2008, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

This is not true at all. I and many other editors use After Effects and Liquid every single day. Liquid may not work with all AVI codecs but there are plenty of options to swapping material between the two programs. For After Effects work I have never ever used anything less then uncompressed which works very well between Liquid and After Effects. It is as simple as exporting a uncompressed AVI and moving it back and forth. If it was any easier it would edit for me.

The uncompressed Liquid codec may or may not work in my experience. I spent a week trying to get it to be readable by Canopus products. Ended up losing a $7000 job trying to use Liquid.

But if there are "plenty of options" for moving video in and out of Liquid, what are some of the others, some that are comparable to the Canopus HQ codec, for example.

But for serious work in HDV, there are other issues with Liquid due to its age. The color corrector, which I mention above, is outdated. Read the last post by Stephen L. Noe (one of the Liquid experts) in this thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...=HD+colorspace

As I said above, Liquid is outstanding within a pre-defined context, doing what it is able to do. But for many jobs, its lack of compatability with hardware, lack of compatibility with high end codecs, and generally dated components, and lack of support for modern formats (such as imbedded video on the XDCAM or HV20), Liquid is not the go-to app.

Furthermore, the fact that there will be no more development, even though an new, undefined, prosumer app may be put out in 1 or 2 years by Avid to fill the "videographer" niche, suggests that one shouldn't turn to Liquid now unless Liquid has every feature and suits every now you have and don't need anything added.

For DV I think Liquid is unsurpassed, as long as you do any encoding mpeg outside of Liquid.

Currently for the do-it-yourself high end editor Edius and Premier look pretty good. The soon-to-be released feature film, "Bull," shot by Tim Dashwood on the JVC HD100 was edited on Premier.

Don't get me wrong... Liquid is purring along successfully in many studios around the world. I just don't think it's the up-to-date go-to app for someone just getting into the game.

Thomas Smet · February 7th, 2008, 04:00 PM

I am one of the moderators on the Liquid Forum and I was a teacher at Liquid Immersion last year.

I would never use the Liquid uncompressed 2vuy codec although it can be done.

After Effects will in fact load the 2vuy files and it will export them as well. For export you have to use a file export instead of doing a normal render of the sequence. It is crude but it does work. The 2vuy codec for reading and writing the files is a quicktime codec. This works in After Effects but not so well in other programs.

The main format that works the best no matter what program you use is RGB AVI "none" uncompressed. This isn't the Liquid vuy or 2vuy format by a regular standard Windows AVI file with no codec used at all. This format works perfectly in Liquid and After Effects. This is alos the codec that allows you to render After Effects projects with alpha channels to load into Liquid. RGB AVI is a native RT grey slice format in Liquid and there is even a codec setting for it in Liquid so it can be used for your entire production workflow from start to finish. Sure it is large in size but it works perfectly and pretty much any program under the sun can write "none" compressed AVI files.

Then there are image sequences if you don't want to use AVI. These are just as universal but they are better for rendering from 3D applications. You can either use a raw image sequence such as TGA or use a slightly compressed jpeg sequence to keep the file size down. This format will get converted to your sequence codec in Liquid when you bring them in.

mjpeg AVI files. Liquid comes with the PicVideo mjpeg codec. This isn't the best mjpeg codec out there and it can be a little slow for HD footage but it gets the job done and should work between any program that supports AVI files.

DV AVI files of course

m2v files. These are a little tricky. After Effects does have the great Main Concept mpeg2 encoder which means you can export up to 300 mbits/s I frame only 4:2:2 m2v files which are pretty close to uncompressed. Liquid is a native m2v editor and can import, render and fuse m2v files. This is a great option to get material from After Effects to Liquid but not so much the other way around. After Effects will load m2v files but it acts kind of funny with the framerate and will sometimes use the frames out of order. I have been working hard on finding a way to get After Effects to work well with m2v files but so far no luck.

I usually work with either RGB or m2v files. RGB is huge but it has no limitations at all. m2v is great and has super quality at a decent file size but it doesn't play well with most 3rd party programs. If I am rendering a lot of stuff from 3D Studio Max I either keep all of that material as 32 bit TGA files or I convert the TGA files to a RGB AVI to make them easier to deal with.

Jack Walker · February 7th, 2008, 04:52 PM

The key words in all that post for me are:
"isn't the best"
"big"
"These are a little tricky"
... and so forth.

Then, in your previous post you say, "I have never ever used anything less then uncompressed which works very well between Liquid and After Effects.:

Then in this post you say, "I would never use the Liquid uncompressed..."

The bottom line is that all the things you say are my point. Using Edius and Canopus HQ, for example, is much more efficient and has the side benefits that no nonsense is required to export into AfterEffects... and so forth.

I believe there is a codec called Sheer that is also excellent, but it also cannot be used in Liquid.

And there are the issues of 601/709 color conversion.

I agree that if you've got Liquid and are experienced with it, there are workarounds... or detailed workflows, that can be used.

Also, for DV and straight HDV editing of the basic mpeg, Liquid is great.

But for someone working toward high end projects and looking to easily use the new formats and to use the modern smaller size non-lossy codecs, there are other editors to get into.

Thomas Smet · February 7th, 2008, 05:19 PM

I'm also not sure what hardware problems you are talking about. Liquid is pretty stable on most Intel based systems today. About the only thing that Liquid is having issues with right now is the video card. This is because Liquid uses so much from the gpu unlike most other NLE's. If you took away tapping into the gpu Liquid could work with any video card out there but then it would be as slow as every other NLE. The only other system that uses the gpu a lot is FCP but look how many video card choices Apple users have. If Pinnacle could force it's users to by certain systems that only used certain video cards then Liquid wouldn't have any of those problems right now. Sadly this isn't the case. There is nothing wrong with a ATI 1900XTX card it is just that it is getting harder to find them. Blame ATI not Liquid. Directx 10 cards have really changed how things work and it isn't as easy to fix Liquid to work with them as it is for other NLE's. I know for a fact that Pinnacle is working hard on fixing this issue and many people have reported some of the newer video cards working very well.

XDCAM, XDCAM HD and XDCAM HD from the EX1 work perfectly with Liquid. I have used them and they are a joy to work with in Liquid and do not require buying Cineform in order to use. Liquid also works very well with DVCPRO HD 1080i material for import. In terms of native tape support Liquid is doing pretty good. Whatever formats it cannot work with there is always uncompressed. Storage is cheap. Exactly how does the HV20 not work with Liquid? It works perfectly fine except for the 24p mode. Even then it still works perfectly as a 60i HDV project. Not very many other NLE's offer native support for the 24p mode from the HV20. About the only product that does is Cineform. That is because Cineform already converts the video during capture into a new format so the pulldown extraction is just added in. Liquid works very well with 24p from the JVC HD cameras as well as the pro Canon HDV 24F cameras. the 24p HQ mode from the EX1 works very well in Liquid as well and that pretty much is the newest camera format in the industry right now so I would say Liquid has the formats pretty much covered until we move to a mpeg4 world. Even then I would never want to deal with native mpeg4 material and I would much rather just capture it a uncompressed and have a smooth editing experience.

There are many Liquid pros who are still working with the older Silver systems that are many years old and haven't been updated in a long time. This just goes to show you how advnaced Liquid really is. It doesn't hold your hand but it gives you the raw tools you need to edit with. I can see my Liquid Chrome system being able to get any work I could imagine finished for at least another 5 years yet with the way it is today.

Jack Walker · February 7th, 2008, 05:44 PM

Hardware I'm talking about? Blackmagic boards, for example. What 3rd party boards work with Liquid?

Yes, I'm talking about 24p. Here's a thread from another forum I found that details the limits of Liquid on that front:
http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/thread/113732.aspx

Three that work with the embedded 24p are Edius, Priemiere (with Neo) and Vegas.

Does Liquid work well with the AVCHD format?

But like I've been saying, just as those users who are still using a years and years old Liquid system, if Liquid does what you want right now, and that's all that you want, Liquid is great. But it's worth investigating first, since there are some things it doesn't do or doesn't do easily or well.

Thomas Smet · February 7th, 2008, 06:16 PM

The AJA Xena LHE is the board that is used with Liquid Chrome Xe. This is a great board and allows any thing that playback in Liquid in RT which is a lot to playout to a HD deck or HDTV. The board has SDI and component I/O.

You say highend pros don't use Liquid but Liquid came from a broadcast background and many of it's highend users still use Silver, Blue, Chrome HD and now Chrome Xe. Uncompressed is much higher end then even Cineform. Cineform is the poor mans uncompressed. It is a great codec but it isn't better then uncompressed it is just smaller. It is better in terms that you get high quality at a small file size but if you don't mind eating up the drive space then uncompressed is better. Most of the Liquid users I know work in the broadcast industry and came from a background with Liquid when it competed against Avid.

The above methods I listed are not work arounds either. Fusing a RGB Avi to import into After Effects is not a work around. I just don't see how this is so hard. I do it every day and it takes seconds to do. When I said I don't use uncompressed much anymore I was talking about the 2vuy codec. I tend to use mostly the RGB raw uncompressed format since it has no restrictions at all. It is larger but that doesn't bother me that much.

About the only thing that is better by working with the Canopus HQ codec or Cineform is the file sizes are smaller compared to RGB AVI. They all import, export and work the same. They are just different file sizes.

I am aware of that thread you posted since I also wrote in it a few times. Like I said before Liquid works perfectly with 24p from the JVC HDV cameras, the Canon 24F HDV cameras and the SONY EX1 HQ mode. It does have limits with some of the other 24p cameras such as the DV cameras. How many people really shoot 24p however? I myself have used it for a very long time but I know a lot of people that will never touch it. For those people I doubt they will miss the lack of 24p support. If you must have 24p support with Liquid either use a camera it supports or move to another NLE that does support it. The fact is that most people in the world will never shoot 24p so Liquid would be fine for those people.

Who really cares about AVCHD support? Anybody would have to be insane to edit that type of footage. I would much rather capture it as uncompressed or mjpeg and deal with it that way. So yes in a way Liquid would support editing from the camera in that way. Not all cameras have to have native support for a certain camera. The only NLE that has native HDCAM support is the SONY Xpri. That doesn't mean pros are not using FCP or Avid to edit HDCAM or HDCAM SR material. They work with it as uncompressed.

Pretty much anything you could do in Edius or Vegas I could do in Liquid. There are also a lot of things Liquid can do that those NLE's cannot do so it goes both ways. There is no such thing as a perfect NLE and they all have plus's and minus's. Liquid combined with After Effects, a 3D program, Photoshop and a little imagination have no limits at all.

One of the classes I taught at Liquid Immersion was using free software to enhance Liquid productions. This class taught Liquid users how to use Gimp, Blender and Inkscape to fill most of the gaps left open in Liquid itself. There is no such thing as a NLE holding somebody back.

Jack Walker · February 18th, 2008, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

I am aware of that thread you posted since I also wrote in it a few times.

I just caught this. No, I didn't post that thread. But the issue is 24p from the HV20/30, which Liquid doesn't support.

Since we are working now in 24p, using both the XH-A1, andi since this is an extended project, we need to use footage from cameras on the same 24p timeline. Unless I'm missing something, it's necessary to reverse telecine the HV20 footage, which is a trick since the extra frames are unflagged. However, I have found it's easily done with Procoder, so that's not currently an issue.

I still haven't figured out how to get a raw cut of HDV material out of Liquid and into AfterEffects to color grade, add effects, add transitions, etc. in a high bit mode.

The RGB method you mention hasn't worked for me to get it into AfterEffects in the right ratio, but it's probably a setting I'm missing. But at this point a 16x19 stream comes in as 4:3 and the AfterEffects drop down box doesn't offer a setting of 16x9. (The RGB export from Liquid does import into Premiere in the proper aspect ratio.)

But I need to find a way to cut the native rough cut made in Liquid into AfterEffects without any transcoding.

Another possibility might be to export the individual edits one at a time from Liquid using the Sheer Video codec and reassembling in AfterEffects. However, I don't know if I can use the Sheer Video codec to export from Liquid. I will see if it will install in Liquid later today.

I may just start assembling in Premiere, since it seems like this would eliminate all the issues presented by Liquid. It's just that I have used Liquid so much for DV that it's convenient for rough cutting.

Thomas Smet · February 19th, 2008, 02:03 AM

This is because the fuse option will fuse out what your sequence is set for. If it is a normal HDV sequence then it will be 1440x1080. For whatever reason the aspect ratio flag doesn't get exported from Liquid. It isn't that the video you fuse from Liquid is the wrong shape, it just doesn't have the flag set that tells it to display as 16x9. In AE just interpret the imported footage to work with the HDV aspect ratio and you are set to go. This is actually a good way to work since it keeps all your material at 1440x1080. You could send to AE as 1920x1080 but then when you bring back to Liquid your HDV project means it will scale back down to 1440x1080. This scaling up and scaling back down again can soften your video a little bit. This is why we work in a 1440x1080 HDV project in Liquid and not a 1920x1080 project.

If you do want to fuse out a 1920x1080 video that is upscaled from your 1440x1080 source then just change your sequence settings in Liquid. Change from 1440x1080 to 1920x1080. Your HDV footage will still look correct since it has a 16x9 flag. You will however have to render all your effects over again since the render and fuse are based on the sequence settings.

It is much better to just import the 1440x1080 4x3 AVI into AE and to tell it to use the HDV aspect ratio. This is a very quick setting and you can choose to use either a 1440x1080 project with a HDV aspect ratio in AE or a 1920x1080 project. If you do plan on going back to your HDV project in Liquid it will be better to keep your AE project as 1440x1080. From AE you can render a RGB "none" compressed AVI and import this into Liquid. In Liquid you will also have to tell it in the clip properties to use a HDV aspect ratio. This file will now work in your HDV project in RT. If you exported from AE as 1920x1080 and brought that into a HDV project the clip would be a yellow slice clip which will not be as RT as a grey slice clip.

It should also be noted that AE has a great mpeg2 renderer which allows you to encode from AE into a m2v file that is similar or better then a HDV clip. This is compressed of course but uncompressed HD needs some very fast hard drives and chances are even a grey slice RGB HD clip wouldn't play in RT unless you have a massive raid-0. I find 50 mbit/s to be pretty darn good for 15 frame IPB encoding of 1920x1080 material. You can even encode I frame only at up to 300 mbits/s with 4:2:2 which is pretty darn close to uncompressed. The only bad part about this m2v workflow is that AE doesn't load these m2v files very well. This isn't a Liquid problem but a AE problem. It will load m2v files but the framerate gets messed up.

Claude Mangold · February 25th, 2008, 12:43 PM

I own a Liquid Silver (bought as FAST 601 many years ago) . All broadcast breakouts etc. I also have FC 5 .

I only do feature and docu film work . What I love is the storyboarding feature on the desktop which the Silver systems (and I suppose Chrome) have. For rough cuts, for discussing matters with the film editor, etc.

All colour work, as well as FX etc, is done outside my workshop, as is all audio.

Now I need to update to take in 720p fully, so which system do you guys suggest? Chrome or FCP 6? I need to get new hardware anyway.

My work goes to 35mm mostly, and to TV masters and DVD.

Jack Walker · February 25th, 2008, 01:19 PM

I believe Thomas uses Chrome and the AJA board. I expect he will post here in short order and highly recommend that option:

Liquid Chrome Xe:
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...+Chrome+Xe.htm

AJA Xena-LHe:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._SD_Video.html

The current Liquid software has the storyboarding feature you like. This would seem a natural upgrade, but it also needs to be considered that this is the last version of the software. It is unlikely the new product to take the Liquid niche would meet your requirements--it is said to be for the "videographer" and as such would probably not meet all the needs of a professional broadcast environment or a feature film workflow. However, Liquid as it is with the Xena board may meet all your needs and work well into the future. Others will have to offer pros and cons.

I can't answer questions about FCP, but there is a lot of info available from people using it.

If you want to be on a PC, I think Edius is worth looking at. They have the hardware and the codec support and the format support, and the latest version of the software is very good.

Whether you are editing feature films shot on film or video may affect your choices. It is not clear if you only do offline edits that someone else uses to edit the actual footage, etc. I'm not sure if Liquid is going to output the format(s) that is most useful to others doing online, color grading, sound, etc.

Thomas Smet · February 25th, 2008, 03:09 PM

Yes it is true it is the last version of the software. With that said however it is pretty solid. Since you already use silver you know how old that system is and how well it still works for you. A Chrome Xe system as it stands right now will last you many years to come. You seem to be from the same school of thought as myself where we don't try to everything inside of a NLE. I use the best tools for the job. Some people use the DVD authoring in Liquid but I would never use it. The same is true for a lot of the effects work I do. I usually use After Effects, Combustion, Photoshop and 3D Studio Max in most of my productions. Liquid Chrome combined with those tools really makes a great platform to work with. You really can't beat the price either. Since you are already used to the Liquid workflow you should really check out Chrome Xe. The software is exactly the same as regular Liquid but Chrome adds the drives for the AJA LHE board. Everything that plays back in Liquid will play out of the AJA board as SD or HD. Liquid isn't really dead either. It is just changing into a new product. Sort of like when Premiere went to Premiere Pro. The whole program was re-written from the ground up to fix some of the older outdated code. This is what is happeniing with Liquid right now. Instead of making us wait until the new program is finished Pinnacle decided to tell us up front what they are doing. Some will say the new program is going to chnage a lot of things but really nobody knows for sure yet.

Even with the cost invested into Chrome Xe I really do feel it is worth it right now. Here you have a system that used to compete against Avid Media Composer Adrenalin and is at a fraction of the cost. If you can get 3 or 4 years out of it it will be well worth it.

February 2nd, 2008, 06:03 PM	#1
Mike Pearce New Boot Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: VA USA Posts: 9	liquid 7 question Im looking into getting liquid 7.2 since it appears to handle the 24f from the canon cameras? Is that correct(just want to make sure) or did i misread it. Also, ive only seen 7 for sale and then a download patch to 7.2. Is that the best route to go or have they packaged 7.2 now?

February 25th, 2008, 12:43 PM	#13
Claude Mangold Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Berlin and Geneva Posts: 259	Upgrade: Liquid vs. FCP in HDV and HD I own a Liquid Silver (bought as FAST 601 many years ago) . All broadcast breakouts etc. I also have FC 5 . I only do feature and docu film work . What I love is the storyboarding feature on the desktop which the Silver systems (and I suppose Chrome) have. For rough cuts, for discussing matters with the film editor, etc. All colour work, as well as FX etc, is done outside my workshop, as is all audio. Now I need to update to take in 720p fully, so which system do you guys suggest? Chrome or FCP 6? I need to get new hardware anyway. My work goes to 35mm mostly, and to TV masters and DVD.

February 5th, 2008, 08:26 AM	#4
Mike Pearce New Boot Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: VA USA Posts: 9	Thanks for the replies.

February 7th, 2008, 04:00 PM	#6
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	I am one of the moderators on the Liquid Forum and I was a teacher at Liquid Immersion last year. I would never use the Liquid uncompressed 2vuy codec although it can be done. After Effects will in fact load the 2vuy files and it will export them as well. For export you have to use a file export instead of doing a normal render of the sequence. It is crude but it does work. The 2vuy codec for reading and writing the files is a quicktime codec. This works in After Effects but not so well in other programs. The main format that works the best no matter what program you use is RGB AVI "none" uncompressed. This isn't the Liquid vuy or 2vuy format by a regular standard Windows AVI file with no codec used at all. This format works perfectly in Liquid and After Effects. This is alos the codec that allows you to render After Effects projects with alpha channels to load into Liquid. RGB AVI is a native RT grey slice format in Liquid and there is even a codec setting for it in Liquid so it can be used for your entire production workflow from start to finish. Sure it is large in size but it works perfectly and pretty much any program under the sun can write "none" compressed AVI files. Then there are image sequences if you don't want to use AVI. These are just as universal but they are better for rendering from 3D applications. You can either use a raw image sequence such as TGA or use a slightly compressed jpeg sequence to keep the file size down. This format will get converted to your sequence codec in Liquid when you bring them in. mjpeg AVI files. Liquid comes with the PicVideo mjpeg codec. This isn't the best mjpeg codec out there and it can be a little slow for HD footage but it gets the job done and should work between any program that supports AVI files. DV AVI files of course m2v files. These are a little tricky. After Effects does have the great Main Concept mpeg2 encoder which means you can export up to 300 mbits/s I frame only 4:2:2 m2v files which are pretty close to uncompressed. Liquid is a native m2v editor and can import, render and fuse m2v files. This is a great option to get material from After Effects to Liquid but not so much the other way around. After Effects will load m2v files but it acts kind of funny with the framerate and will sometimes use the frames out of order. I have been working hard on finding a way to get After Effects to work well with m2v files but so far no luck. I usually work with either RGB or m2v files. RGB is huge but it has no limitations at all. m2v is great and has super quality at a decent file size but it doesn't play well with most 3rd party programs. If I am rendering a lot of stuff from 3D Studio Max I either keep all of that material as 32 bit TGA files or I convert the TGA files to a RGB AVI to make them easier to deal with.

February 7th, 2008, 04:52 PM	#7
Jack Walker Trustee Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Burbank Posts: 1,811	The key words in all that post for me are: "isn't the best" "big" "These are a little tricky" ... and so forth. Then, in your previous post you say, "I have never ever used anything less then uncompressed which works very well between Liquid and After Effects.: Then in this post you say, "I would never use the Liquid uncompressed..." The bottom line is that all the things you say are my point. Using Edius and Canopus HQ, for example, is much more efficient and has the side benefits that no nonsense is required to export into AfterEffects... and so forth. I believe there is a codec called Sheer that is also excellent, but it also cannot be used in Liquid. And there are the issues of 601/709 color conversion. I agree that if you've got Liquid and are experienced with it, there are workarounds... or detailed workflows, that can be used. Also, for DV and straight HDV editing of the basic mpeg, Liquid is great. But for someone working toward high end projects and looking to easily use the new formats and to use the modern smaller size non-lossy codecs, there are other editors to get into.

February 7th, 2008, 05:19 PM	#8
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	I'm also not sure what hardware problems you are talking about. Liquid is pretty stable on most Intel based systems today. About the only thing that Liquid is having issues with right now is the video card. This is because Liquid uses so much from the gpu unlike most other NLE's. If you took away tapping into the gpu Liquid could work with any video card out there but then it would be as slow as every other NLE. The only other system that uses the gpu a lot is FCP but look how many video card choices Apple users have. If Pinnacle could force it's users to by certain systems that only used certain video cards then Liquid wouldn't have any of those problems right now. Sadly this isn't the case. There is nothing wrong with a ATI 1900XTX card it is just that it is getting harder to find them. Blame ATI not Liquid. Directx 10 cards have really changed how things work and it isn't as easy to fix Liquid to work with them as it is for other NLE's. I know for a fact that Pinnacle is working hard on fixing this issue and many people have reported some of the newer video cards working very well. XDCAM, XDCAM HD and XDCAM HD from the EX1 work perfectly with Liquid. I have used them and they are a joy to work with in Liquid and do not require buying Cineform in order to use. Liquid also works very well with DVCPRO HD 1080i material for import. In terms of native tape support Liquid is doing pretty good. Whatever formats it cannot work with there is always uncompressed. Storage is cheap. Exactly how does the HV20 not work with Liquid? It works perfectly fine except for the 24p mode. Even then it still works perfectly as a 60i HDV project. Not very many other NLE's offer native support for the 24p mode from the HV20. About the only product that does is Cineform. That is because Cineform already converts the video during capture into a new format so the pulldown extraction is just added in. Liquid works very well with 24p from the JVC HD cameras as well as the pro Canon HDV 24F cameras. the 24p HQ mode from the EX1 works very well in Liquid as well and that pretty much is the newest camera format in the industry right now so I would say Liquid has the formats pretty much covered until we move to a mpeg4 world. Even then I would never want to deal with native mpeg4 material and I would much rather just capture it a uncompressed and have a smooth editing experience. There are many Liquid pros who are still working with the older Silver systems that are many years old and haven't been updated in a long time. This just goes to show you how advnaced Liquid really is. It doesn't hold your hand but it gives you the raw tools you need to edit with. I can see my Liquid Chrome system being able to get any work I could imagine finished for at least another 5 years yet with the way it is today.

February 7th, 2008, 05:44 PM	#9
Jack Walker Trustee Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Burbank Posts: 1,811	Hardware I'm talking about? Blackmagic boards, for example. What 3rd party boards work with Liquid? Yes, I'm talking about 24p. Here's a thread from another forum I found that details the limits of Liquid on that front: http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/thread/113732.aspx Three that work with the embedded 24p are Edius, Priemiere (with Neo) and Vegas. Does Liquid work well with the AVCHD format? But like I've been saying, just as those users who are still using a years and years old Liquid system, if Liquid does what you want right now, and that's all that you want, Liquid is great. But it's worth investigating first, since there are some things it doesn't do or doesn't do easily or well.

February 7th, 2008, 06:16 PM	#10
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	The AJA Xena LHE is the board that is used with Liquid Chrome Xe. This is a great board and allows any thing that playback in Liquid in RT which is a lot to playout to a HD deck or HDTV. The board has SDI and component I/O. You say highend pros don't use Liquid but Liquid came from a broadcast background and many of it's highend users still use Silver, Blue, Chrome HD and now Chrome Xe. Uncompressed is much higher end then even Cineform. Cineform is the poor mans uncompressed. It is a great codec but it isn't better then uncompressed it is just smaller. It is better in terms that you get high quality at a small file size but if you don't mind eating up the drive space then uncompressed is better. Most of the Liquid users I know work in the broadcast industry and came from a background with Liquid when it competed against Avid. The above methods I listed are not work arounds either. Fusing a RGB Avi to import into After Effects is not a work around. I just don't see how this is so hard. I do it every day and it takes seconds to do. When I said I don't use uncompressed much anymore I was talking about the 2vuy codec. I tend to use mostly the RGB raw uncompressed format since it has no restrictions at all. It is larger but that doesn't bother me that much. About the only thing that is better by working with the Canopus HQ codec or Cineform is the file sizes are smaller compared to RGB AVI. They all import, export and work the same. They are just different file sizes. I am aware of that thread you posted since I also wrote in it a few times. Like I said before Liquid works perfectly with 24p from the JVC HDV cameras, the Canon 24F HDV cameras and the SONY EX1 HQ mode. It does have limits with some of the other 24p cameras such as the DV cameras. How many people really shoot 24p however? I myself have used it for a very long time but I know a lot of people that will never touch it. For those people I doubt they will miss the lack of 24p support. If you must have 24p support with Liquid either use a camera it supports or move to another NLE that does support it. The fact is that most people in the world will never shoot 24p so Liquid would be fine for those people. Who really cares about AVCHD support? Anybody would have to be insane to edit that type of footage. I would much rather capture it as uncompressed or mjpeg and deal with it that way. So yes in a way Liquid would support editing from the camera in that way. Not all cameras have to have native support for a certain camera. The only NLE that has native HDCAM support is the SONY Xpri. That doesn't mean pros are not using FCP or Avid to edit HDCAM or HDCAM SR material. They work with it as uncompressed. Pretty much anything you could do in Edius or Vegas I could do in Liquid. There are also a lot of things Liquid can do that those NLE's cannot do so it goes both ways. There is no such thing as a perfect NLE and they all have plus's and minus's. Liquid combined with After Effects, a 3D program, Photoshop and a little imagination have no limits at all. One of the classes I taught at Liquid Immersion was using free software to enhance Liquid productions. This class taught Liquid users how to use Gimp, Blender and Inkscape to fill most of the gaps left open in Liquid itself. There is no such thing as a NLE holding somebody back.

February 19th, 2008, 02:03 AM	#12
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	This is because the fuse option will fuse out what your sequence is set for. If it is a normal HDV sequence then it will be 1440x1080. For whatever reason the aspect ratio flag doesn't get exported from Liquid. It isn't that the video you fuse from Liquid is the wrong shape, it just doesn't have the flag set that tells it to display as 16x9. In AE just interpret the imported footage to work with the HDV aspect ratio and you are set to go. This is actually a good way to work since it keeps all your material at 1440x1080. You could send to AE as 1920x1080 but then when you bring back to Liquid your HDV project means it will scale back down to 1440x1080. This scaling up and scaling back down again can soften your video a little bit. This is why we work in a 1440x1080 HDV project in Liquid and not a 1920x1080 project. If you do want to fuse out a 1920x1080 video that is upscaled from your 1440x1080 source then just change your sequence settings in Liquid. Change from 1440x1080 to 1920x1080. Your HDV footage will still look correct since it has a 16x9 flag. You will however have to render all your effects over again since the render and fuse are based on the sequence settings. It is much better to just import the 1440x1080 4x3 AVI into AE and to tell it to use the HDV aspect ratio. This is a very quick setting and you can choose to use either a 1440x1080 project with a HDV aspect ratio in AE or a 1920x1080 project. If you do plan on going back to your HDV project in Liquid it will be better to keep your AE project as 1440x1080. From AE you can render a RGB "none" compressed AVI and import this into Liquid. In Liquid you will also have to tell it in the clip properties to use a HDV aspect ratio. This file will now work in your HDV project in RT. If you exported from AE as 1920x1080 and brought that into a HDV project the clip would be a yellow slice clip which will not be as RT as a grey slice clip. It should also be noted that AE has a great mpeg2 renderer which allows you to encode from AE into a m2v file that is similar or better then a HDV clip. This is compressed of course but uncompressed HD needs some very fast hard drives and chances are even a grey slice RGB HD clip wouldn't play in RT unless you have a massive raid-0. I find 50 mbit/s to be pretty darn good for 15 frame IPB encoding of 1920x1080 material. You can even encode I frame only at up to 300 mbits/s with 4:2:2 which is pretty darn close to uncompressed. The only bad part about this m2v workflow is that AE doesn't load these m2v files very well. This isn't a Liquid problem but a AE problem. It will load m2v files but the framerate gets messed up.

February 25th, 2008, 01:19 PM	#14
Jack Walker Trustee Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Burbank Posts: 1,811	I believe Thomas uses Chrome and the AJA board. I expect he will post here in short order and highly recommend that option: Liquid Chrome Xe: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...+Chrome+Xe.htm AJA Xena-LHe: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._SD_Video.html The current Liquid software has the storyboarding feature you like. This would seem a natural upgrade, but it also needs to be considered that this is the last version of the software. It is unlikely the new product to take the Liquid niche would meet your requirements--it is said to be for the "videographer" and as such would probably not meet all the needs of a professional broadcast environment or a feature film workflow. However, Liquid as it is with the Xena board may meet all your needs and work well into the future. Others will have to offer pros and cons. I can't answer questions about FCP, but there is a lot of info available from people using it. If you want to be on a PC, I think Edius is worth looking at. They have the hardware and the codec support and the format support, and the latest version of the software is very good. Whether you are editing feature films shot on film or video may affect your choices. It is not clear if you only do offline edits that someone else uses to edit the actual footage, etc. I'm not sure if Liquid is going to output the format(s) that is most useful to others doing online, color grading, sound, etc.

February 25th, 2008, 03:09 PM	#15
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	Yes it is true it is the last version of the software. With that said however it is pretty solid. Since you already use silver you know how old that system is and how well it still works for you. A Chrome Xe system as it stands right now will last you many years to come. You seem to be from the same school of thought as myself where we don't try to everything inside of a NLE. I use the best tools for the job. Some people use the DVD authoring in Liquid but I would never use it. The same is true for a lot of the effects work I do. I usually use After Effects, Combustion, Photoshop and 3D Studio Max in most of my productions. Liquid Chrome combined with those tools really makes a great platform to work with. You really can't beat the price either. Since you are already used to the Liquid workflow you should really check out Chrome Xe. The software is exactly the same as regular Liquid but Chrome adds the drives for the AJA LHE board. Everything that plays back in Liquid will play out of the AJA board as SD or HD. Liquid isn't really dead either. It is just changing into a new product. Sort of like when Premiere went to Premiere Pro. The whole program was re-written from the ground up to fix some of the older outdated code. This is what is happeniing with Liquid right now. Instead of making us wait until the new program is finished Pinnacle decided to tell us up front what they are doing. Some will say the new program is going to chnage a lot of things but really nobody knows for sure yet. Even with the cost invested into Chrome Xe I really do feel it is worth it right now. Here you have a system that used to compete against Avid Media Composer Adrenalin and is at a fraction of the cost. If you can get 3 or 4 years out of it it will be well worth it.