Intermediate codecs for Windows editing?

Werner Wesp · January 22nd, 2006, 06:31 PM

Athlon64 3.2 GHz with 1 Gb RAM and lots and lots of fast SATA-drives... it is enough for worry-free DV editing, but it seems to perform below any standard with m2t. (Windows XP Pro SP2, just that and vegas, no internet, nothing to bring down the performance...)

Stephen L. Noe · January 22nd, 2006, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Werner Wesp

Athlon64 3.2 GHz with 1 Gb RAM and lots and lots of fast SATA-drives... it is enough for worry-free DV editing, but it seems to perform below any standard with m2t. (Windows XP Pro SP2, just that and vegas, no internet, nothing to bring down the performance...)

What is the motherboard and what is the chipset? VIA? nVidia? Intel?

Steve Mullen · January 22nd, 2006, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Werner Wesp

Sorry to intterupt this (interesting) discussion, but no one knows any alternative to Cineform? The problkem is that I really need the speed, and m2t-files don't give me that....

Why do you need an "alternative?" CineForm is VERY RT and directly supports 24p. Adobe has just released Premiere Pro V2.

You've a got a ready to go solution!

Now if you need native TS go with Canopus EDIUS, but don't expect a lot of speed. For that you need FCP.

Guy Barwood · January 23rd, 2006, 02:48 AM

For whatever reason he is looking for an alternate option within Vegas, not another NLE. If he wanted another NLE for native HDV support Liquid is still the best option without spending a packet on NX or if 100% 24p support is needed (which the minority use in reality). His system already supports multilayer RT 720p with the number of RT FX dependant on his video card capabilities (or a $150 upgrade to the video card). Any HD NLE will do better with a bit more than 1GB too (little point going over 2GB though at the moment).

"what is the chipset? VIA? nVidia? Intel?"
Without knowing anything about the motherboard I still know upfront with an Athlon64 in it, it aint an Intel chipset ;-)

Werner Wesp · January 23rd, 2006, 03:15 AM

I don't know from the top of my head, but I'll look it up. Perhaps it also has to do with the videocard (ATI radeon - just 64 Mb, but dual screen...)

And, indeed, I'm not looking to switch NLE, and I'm even considering less (not at all, that is) to switch platform.

I recently found that VASST has an alternative (to a sony YUV intermediate codec. Don't know about the quality, but perhaps worth checking out - not so sure it does 720p...)

Guy Barwood · January 23rd, 2006, 03:20 AM

64Mb really is scraping the barrel with Liquid, certainly not enough for HDV whitch requires 128MB for 720p and 256MB for 1080i.

I doubt your video card would effect the rendering speed in Vegas though, that would be more CPU dependant. I am not sure how the RT engine of Vegas works, however without any effects a single stream of HDV should play in RT even with a 64MB card, just like it would with a media playerlike WMP.

Werner Wesp · January 23rd, 2006, 07:52 AM

Well, I have the problem that video (HD, at least) and audio goes out of sync in media player also. So could a video-card-upgrade do the trick? And - if so - any recommandations? (I would like to stick to ATI, and it needs to have 2 outs for dual monitor usage)

Graham Hickling · January 24th, 2006, 12:09 AM

Commonly used windows codecs for video intermediates prior to Cineform included Picvideo and MorganMultimedia (both lossy mgpeg), and Huffyuv (which is near-lossless). I think they all support HD resolutions.

There's also a little-known "Aware" codec that is wavelet based, like Cineform's.

Googling will get you more info on all of them.

Werner Wesp · January 25th, 2006, 08:24 AM

The mainboard is a MSI K8T Neo with a VIA K8T800 chipset... What does that tell you (I don't know what to think of that...)

Guy Barwood · January 25th, 2006, 09:54 AM

not a terrible lot, but when was the last time you updated your motherboard BIOS (check www.msi.com.tw for latest version or run their live update)?

Have you tried different players or just Windows Media Player so far? Try VLC media player.

It is very difficult to diagnose without spending an hour or so on your system.

Kevin Shaw · January 25th, 2006, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Barwood

If he wanted another NLE for native HDV support Liquid is still the best option without spending a packet on NX or if 100% 24p support is needed (which the minority use in reality).

Personally I'm not fond of Liquid and am editing HDV in Canopus Edius without the NX hardware card, which is only necessary if you want real-time HD monitoring to an HDTV display. You do need a lot of computing power to edit HDV effectively in Edius: a minimum of one dual-core or two single-core processors. The Cineform solution sounds like the best bet to me for use on single-processor computers, but my brother tried it and wasn't particularly impressed. If you're using Vegas software you might as well download the Cineform trial version and see what you think of that; if it doesn't meet your needs then consider other options.

Guy Barwood · January 25th, 2006, 05:34 PM

You should be able to edit 720p with a single 3GHz processor and get 2 RT sterams.

We had a demo of Edius with NX hardware a few months ago and while it looked nice enough, the RT capabilities weren't really that good in that it only seemed to pre-render into a RAM buffer for 'RT' playback, until the buffer emptied. That is not RT in my opinion.

Its RT slo mo was very nice though and it did seem to be able to sustain that. It was tempting but I also didn't want to have to learn a new NLE as well and Edius lacked too many features Liquid has. Then the NX card was only PCI-X as well, which is going to be a dying interface just like AGP in favor of PCI Express. Now I believe they have a PCI Express version, but my current system doesn't support PCI Express. So it is a bad time for me to be buying expensive I/O cards if I can avoid it.

Then there is the fact that at the moment, I don't actually need to edit HD anyway, so why worry about it at all. I doubt I'll go HD until JVC release their second gen HD100.

Kevin Shaw · January 25th, 2006, 06:03 PM

Guy: the Edius real-time capabilities are dependent on the amount of processing power you put behind them, and I know people who are editing four streams of HDV (converted to the Canopus HQ format) in real time on high-end dual processor systems. Unlike Liquid or most other editing programs, Edius is designed to deliver full-resolution, full frame rate editing without any rendering (e.g. background rendering), and works great so long as you don't exceed the limits of its capabilities for that. Edius NX is also the only out-of-the-box HDV editing solution I know of which delivers full quality HD monitoring output in real time -- last I checked Liquid could only produce SD component output via its expensive BOB. As you noted there is a PCI Express version of the NX card now, and that is arguably a more realistic investment for many than the PCI-X version, but it's not like the PCI-X interface is going to vanish overnight.

So Edius software-only version is fine if you don't need to monitor your HDV projects on an HDTV, and Edius NX is the best value currently available if you do need to do that. Plus once you start playing around with mixed SD and HD footage and alternating between SD and HD output, Edius has some great features for dealing with all that simply and effectively. It is still limited in some regards in terms of advanced editing features, but you can use Boris FX plugins to solve some of that, and plenty of award-winning videos have been produced with software simpler than Edius.

Guy Barwood · January 25th, 2006, 06:43 PM

Fortunately you can do more with Liquid than you are aware.

"the Edius real-time capabilities are dependent on the amount of processing power you put behind them, and I know people who are editing four streams of HDV (converted to the Canopus HQ format) in real time on high-end dual processor systems"

The Canopus rep had a high end Dual Xeon box with NX hardware and editing HD you could watch it pre-render the effects and playout the buffer, trying to re-fill by rendering it as it played, but not being able to keep up the buffer emptied and RT playback failed. This is not RT, it is pre-rendering. I am not saying all effects occur in this way but the effects they were demoing definetly were.

."Unlike Liquid or most other editing programs, Edius is designed to deliver full-resolution, full frame rate editing without any rendering (e.g. background rendering)"
You totally missunderstand the concept of background rendering (BR). BR is not about rendering for RT playback although it is great for that when effects exceed the systems capabilities, it is about preparing for output while you are still editing. With NX, you have to render everything back to HDV before you go back out to HDV tape don't you? Well BR does that in the background while you are editing, there is often no need to wait at the end of the project to 'render it out' as such, BR has already taken care of that. You can just as easily turn BR of real time effects off then only effects that are not RT such as dynamic timewarp (which Edius does not have) are rendered in the background as you continue to edit.

"Edius NX is also the only out-of-the-box HDV editing solution I know of which delivers full quality HD monitoring output in real time"

Liquid 7 can do this without any dedicated hardware. You can specify a video output (such as a DVI or VGA connection) to a full screen display, which you then connect to a broadcast monitor with either DVI or VGA and monitor HD in full quality at full framerate. This can be done with the software only Liquid, no Pro-BOB needed. Much better value than NX.

Also, the Pro BOB is not expensive. Liquid also supports the even cheaper moviebox deluxe. NX hardware is expensive.

Liquid had multiformat timelines well before Edius. Theare no limitations, mix PAL, NTSC (DVCPro 25 or 50, DV/DVCAM, MP@ML, MPG I frame, uncompressed etc), 720p, 1080i etc resolutions all in one sequence in RT.

It is interesting how people trash talk Liquid without even knowing much about it.

Kevin Shaw · January 25th, 2006, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Barwood

It is interesting how people trash talk Liquid without even knowing much about it.

I bought and used Liquid Edition for one project a couple of years ago and went back to Edius as soon as they upgraded some features I needed. For my purposes Edius works better with no need to wait for "background rendering" before I can see the results of most of my changes, and rendering back out to HDV at the end of a project is an unattended process which doesn't tie up my time. In Liquid I spent a lot of time waiting for basic things like color correction to render, which interfered with my workflow much more than having to pre-render a few complex segments in Edius. (So a lot here depends on exactly what you want to do in real time.)

As far as HD output is concerned, if you use a standard video card for that you're converting your video stream to a YUV colorspace before it goes to your HDTV, which means you're not getting accurate HD monitoring. The NX hardware is a bargain for what it does because there isn't a better alternative for professional HDV editing on the PC platform. If you don't need true HD monitoring, you can do the same thing from Edius software you described for monitoring from Liquid.

It is interesting how people trash talk Edius without even knowing much about it... :-)

January 22nd, 2006, 06:31 PM	#16
Werner Wesp Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 497	Athlon64 3.2 GHz with 1 Gb RAM and lots and lots of fast SATA-drives... it is enough for worry-free DV editing, but it seems to perform below any standard with m2t. (Windows XP Pro SP2, just that and vegas, no internet, nothing to bring down the performance...)

January 23rd, 2006, 02:48 AM	#19
Guy Barwood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 423	For whatever reason he is looking for an alternate option within Vegas, not another NLE. If he wanted another NLE for native HDV support Liquid is still the best option without spending a packet on NX or if 100% 24p support is needed (which the minority use in reality). His system already supports multilayer RT 720p with the number of RT FX dependant on his video card capabilities (or a $150 upgrade to the video card). Any HD NLE will do better with a bit more than 1GB too (little point going over 2GB though at the moment). "what is the chipset? VIA? nVidia? Intel?" Without knowing anything about the motherboard I still know upfront with an Athlon64 in it, it aint an Intel chipset ;-)

January 23rd, 2006, 03:15 AM	#20
Werner Wesp Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 497	I don't know from the top of my head, but I'll look it up. Perhaps it also has to do with the videocard (ATI radeon - just 64 Mb, but dual screen...) And, indeed, I'm not looking to switch NLE, and I'm even considering less (not at all, that is) to switch platform. I recently found that VASST has an alternative (to a sony YUV intermediate codec. Don't know about the quality, but perhaps worth checking out - not so sure it does 720p...)

January 23rd, 2006, 03:20 AM	#21
Guy Barwood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 423	64Mb really is scraping the barrel with Liquid, certainly not enough for HDV whitch requires 128MB for 720p and 256MB for 1080i. I doubt your video card would effect the rendering speed in Vegas though, that would be more CPU dependant. I am not sure how the RT engine of Vegas works, however without any effects a single stream of HDV should play in RT even with a 64MB card, just like it would with a media playerlike WMP.

January 23rd, 2006, 07:52 AM	#22
Werner Wesp Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 497	Well, I have the problem that video (HD, at least) and audio goes out of sync in media player also. So could a video-card-upgrade do the trick? And - if so - any recommandations? (I would like to stick to ATI, and it needs to have 2 outs for dual monitor usage)

January 24th, 2006, 12:09 AM	#23
Graham Hickling Trustee Join Date: May 2004 Location: Knoxville, Tennessee Posts: 1,669	Commonly used windows codecs for video intermediates prior to Cineform included Picvideo and MorganMultimedia (both lossy mgpeg), and Huffyuv (which is near-lossless). I think they all support HD resolutions. There's also a little-known "Aware" codec that is wavelet based, like Cineform's. Googling will get you more info on all of them.

January 25th, 2006, 08:24 AM	#24
Werner Wesp Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 497	The mainboard is a MSI K8T Neo with a VIA K8T800 chipset... What does that tell you (I don't know what to think of that...)

January 25th, 2006, 09:54 AM	#25
Guy Barwood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 423	not a terrible lot, but when was the last time you updated your motherboard BIOS (check www.msi.com.tw for latest version or run their live update)? Have you tried different players or just Windows Media Player so far? Try VLC media player. It is very difficult to diagnose without spending an hour or so on your system.

January 25th, 2006, 05:34 PM	#27
Guy Barwood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 423	You should be able to edit 720p with a single 3GHz processor and get 2 RT sterams. We had a demo of Edius with NX hardware a few months ago and while it looked nice enough, the RT capabilities weren't really that good in that it only seemed to pre-render into a RAM buffer for 'RT' playback, until the buffer emptied. That is not RT in my opinion. Its RT slo mo was very nice though and it did seem to be able to sustain that. It was tempting but I also didn't want to have to learn a new NLE as well and Edius lacked too many features Liquid has. Then the NX card was only PCI-X as well, which is going to be a dying interface just like AGP in favor of PCI Express. Now I believe they have a PCI Express version, but my current system doesn't support PCI Express. So it is a bad time for me to be buying expensive I/O cards if I can avoid it. Then there is the fact that at the moment, I don't actually need to edit HD anyway, so why worry about it at all. I doubt I'll go HD until JVC release their second gen HD100.

January 25th, 2006, 06:03 PM	#28
Kevin Shaw Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Sacramento, CA Posts: 2,488	Guy: the Edius real-time capabilities are dependent on the amount of processing power you put behind them, and I know people who are editing four streams of HDV (converted to the Canopus HQ format) in real time on high-end dual processor systems. Unlike Liquid or most other editing programs, Edius is designed to deliver full-resolution, full frame rate editing without any rendering (e.g. background rendering), and works great so long as you don't exceed the limits of its capabilities for that. Edius NX is also the only out-of-the-box HDV editing solution I know of which delivers full quality HD monitoring output in real time -- last I checked Liquid could only produce SD component output via its expensive BOB. As you noted there is a PCI Express version of the NX card now, and that is arguably a more realistic investment for many than the PCI-X version, but it's not like the PCI-X interface is going to vanish overnight. So Edius software-only version is fine if you don't need to monitor your HDV projects on an HDTV, and Edius NX is the best value currently available if you do need to do that. Plus once you start playing around with mixed SD and HD footage and alternating between SD and HD output, Edius has some great features for dealing with all that simply and effectively. It is still limited in some regards in terms of advanced editing features, but you can use Boris FX plugins to solve some of that, and plenty of award-winning videos have been produced with software simpler than Edius.

January 25th, 2006, 06:43 PM	#29
Guy Barwood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 423	Fortunately you can do more with Liquid than you are aware. "the Edius real-time capabilities are dependent on the amount of processing power you put behind them, and I know people who are editing four streams of HDV (converted to the Canopus HQ format) in real time on high-end dual processor systems" The Canopus rep had a high end Dual Xeon box with NX hardware and editing HD you could watch it pre-render the effects and playout the buffer, trying to re-fill by rendering it as it played, but not being able to keep up the buffer emptied and RT playback failed. This is not RT, it is pre-rendering. I am not saying all effects occur in this way but the effects they were demoing definetly were. ."Unlike Liquid or most other editing programs, Edius is designed to deliver full-resolution, full frame rate editing without any rendering (e.g. background rendering)" You totally missunderstand the concept of background rendering (BR). BR is not about rendering for RT playback although it is great for that when effects exceed the systems capabilities, it is about preparing for output while you are still editing. With NX, you have to render everything back to HDV before you go back out to HDV tape don't you? Well BR does that in the background while you are editing, there is often no need to wait at the end of the project to 'render it out' as such, BR has already taken care of that. You can just as easily turn BR of real time effects off then only effects that are not RT such as dynamic timewarp (which Edius does not have) are rendered in the background as you continue to edit. "Edius NX is also the only out-of-the-box HDV editing solution I know of which delivers full quality HD monitoring output in real time" Liquid 7 can do this without any dedicated hardware. You can specify a video output (such as a DVI or VGA connection) to a full screen display, which you then connect to a broadcast monitor with either DVI or VGA and monitor HD in full quality at full framerate. This can be done with the software only Liquid, no Pro-BOB needed. Much better value than NX. Also, the Pro BOB is not expensive. Liquid also supports the even cheaper moviebox deluxe. NX hardware is expensive. Liquid had multiformat timelines well before Edius. Theare no limitations, mix PAL, NTSC (DVCPro 25 or 50, DV/DVCAM, MP@ML, MPG I frame, uncompressed etc), 720p, 1080i etc resolutions all in one sequence in RT. It is interesting how people trash talk Liquid without even knowing much about it.