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.

FluidFilm Progressive
 

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

Exporting Avid project for Web Video
 

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

Videoguy goes to Avid Summer Camp
 

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.

Outputing XL2 material to Avid Nitris!
 

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