Intermediate codecs for Windows editing?

Guy Barwood · January 25th, 2006, 11:29 PM

"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."

So what you are saying is you are commenting on Liquid from a version a few years old? How would Edius stack up if I reviewed it only from a version a few years old? All Edius up until the latest have been feature bare and unreliable from what I have heard from other Edius users.

"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"

You still don't understand do you. Liquid RT effects work like any other programs real RT effect, they work in RT without any pre-rendering to RAM or HDD. This has NOTHING to do with background rendering.

"and rendering back out to HDV at the end of a project is an unattended process which doesn't tie up my time."

Yes it does, it ties up your system for many hours meaning you can not edit on that system during that time. You have to plan these exports around when you need to use your system. You simply can't continue to edit while your system renders no matter how much you want or need to.

"In Liquid I spent a lot of time waiting for basic things like color correction to render"
Colour Correction has been RT for some time now, including some of the CX colour corrector (arguably the best colour corrector of any NLE).

The only non RT FX in Liquid now are dynamic timewarps (linear are RT) and some complex CX colour corrections. The classic FX are still there and need rendering, but thats because the quality you get from these effects, with their subpixel (and I believe 12 or 16 bit processing) rendering is beyond any effect you get in any other NLE in this market segment. You certainly arn't forced to use them, they are just there for those who want absolute quality over speed.

"you're converting your video stream to a YUV colorspace before it goes to your HDTV"
Clearly the process of displaying HD video over DVI connections is not an issue, its how pretty much all HDTVs work now and the only way formats like BluRay and HD-DVD will work using HDMI. Connect the HD TV output of your video card like I have and your outputing via analogue component, just like NX does. I don't see the difference.

"It is interesting how people trash talk Edius without even knowing much about it... :-)"
;-) but I never trashed Edius, just defended Liquid.

Peter Ferling · January 26th, 2006, 12:06 PM

Interesting conversation. I didn't think about Liquid in my future plans to upgrade to HD. I'm wiping the slate clean and will factor the liquid software in my decision. One thing though (at the risk of going off topic), I understand Avid now owns this software, and if so, any hint towards it's future?

Nevermind. I found some info.

Kevin Shaw · January 26th, 2006, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Barwood

So what you are saying is you are commenting on Liquid from a version a few years old? How would Edius stack up if I reviewed it only from a version a few years old?

Fair enough. My experience with Liquid was sufficiently dissappointing to disregard all further comments about its real time abilities as potentially misleading, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to check out the latest version. So can you do a two layer PIP with HDV in Liquid without having to do any rendering or wait for background rendering to view the results? How powerful a system would you say is required to do this particular task effectively? (We could discuss lots of other examples, but this seems like a particularly useful one.)

Guy Barwood · January 26th, 2006, 05:41 PM

The smartest thing is to consider all options. You may not like Liquid and you may go with Edius or Premiere with PulgIn etc, BUT, at least you have made an informed decision and evaluated all your options.

Avid have publicly announced their continued support for Liquid with version 8 development being hinted at by Avid. To stop support for Liquid would be a pretty stupid thing for Avid. They still have to support Studio which adopted the core processing engine of Liquid with version 10 so there is a huge overlap in support of those two products, then there are the higher end broadcast brother Chrome HD which are the same software as Liquid but with higher end hardware I/O options. This also makes upgrading to a full SDI HD NLE very simple if you are editing with Liquid (no learning a new NLE).

So Studio development helps Liquid, and Liquid development helps Chrome HD. Its a win win arrangement in a product line that goes from mums and dads up to broadcast studios. No other product has that.

Guy Barwood · January 26th, 2006, 05:52 PM

"So can you do a two layer PIP with HDV in Liquid without having to do any rendering or wait for background rendering to view the results? How powerful a system would you say is required to do this particular task effectively?"

It depends on if you are editing 720p or 1080i. 720p requires much less processing power which makes the HD100 even more attractive.

720p: My tests showed I can edit two video streams of 720p with a single 3GHz Pentium IV and a 128MB Video card (NVidia 5900). I could do full real time dissolves and picture in pictures which was about all I tested before I upgraded my system to dual Xeon. You can also add quite a number of graphics/titles layer with effects (such as fades in/out, roll in/out etc) without any problems. It has been a while but I think I get 4 layers of 720p video with my Dual Xeon.

1080i: This requires a dual processor system (3+ Ghz) although you MIGHT just get away with a 3.6GHz PIV for dual stream (not tested though). With my Dual Xeon 3GHz I currently get 3 streams of Video + effects and titles etc like in 720p. No dropped frames. For 1080i you do need a 256MB graphics card (to buffer and process the larger frames) and while PCI Express is recommended I have it running fine on an AGP 8x system.

Kevin Shaw · January 26th, 2006, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Barwood

With my Dual Xeon 3GHz I currently get 3 streams of Video + effects and titles etc like in 720p. No dropped frames.

That sounds about right and suggests that dual processors running at higher clock rates would be helpful for working with 1080i footage, consistent with what we're seeing in Edius. With a dual-core processor running at 3 GHz I can do a two-layer PIP at 1080i from a single hard drive, depending on how the computer's feeling. People with dual 3.4+ GHz Xeons and better hard drive setups are reporting more comfortable results, as high as 3-4 layers of 1080i in real time (no dropped frames).

P.S. Sounds like the Canopus sales team needs to put together a better demo, demonstrating their strengths rather than their weaknesses...

Kyle Edwards · January 29th, 2006, 02:06 AM

You could look into Pic Video's Wavelet 2000, Lossless JPEG and MJPEG-3. They preform pretty well.

Jeff Baker · January 29th, 2006, 04:17 PM

Just to chime on vegas performance. I also get slow playback on cineform codec material (stuttering and low rez playback) compared to Premiere 1.5.1.
Now since I only have Aspect HD I think that it may only help my premiere performance but not Vegas.
Is this true?
I am editing on a dual core amd system right now.

What about Avids new HDV support - how does it work? Not the liquid app.

January 26th, 2006, 12:06 PM	#32
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	Interesting conversation. I didn't think about Liquid in my future plans to upgrade to HD. I'm wiping the slate clean and will factor the liquid software in my decision. One thing though (at the risk of going off topic), I understand Avid now owns this software, and if so, any hint towards it's future? Nevermind. I found some info. Last edited by Peter Ferling; January 26th, 2006 at 12:10 PM. Reason: Nevermind. I found some info.

January 29th, 2006, 04:17 PM	#38
Jeff Baker Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Location: Northampton, MA Posts: 184	Just to chime on vegas performance. I also get slow playback on cineform codec material (stuttering and low rez playback) compared to Premiere 1.5.1. Now since I only have Aspect HD I think that it may only help my premiere performance but not Vegas. Is this true? I am editing on a dual core amd system right now. What about Avids new HDV support - how does it work? Not the liquid app. __________________ Canon C100, 5D3

January 25th, 2006, 11:29 PM	#31
Guy Barwood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 423	"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." So what you are saying is you are commenting on Liquid from a version a few years old? How would Edius stack up if I reviewed it only from a version a few years old? All Edius up until the latest have been feature bare and unreliable from what I have heard from other Edius users. "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" You still don't understand do you. Liquid RT effects work like any other programs real RT effect, they work in RT without any pre-rendering to RAM or HDD. This has NOTHING to do with background rendering. "and rendering back out to HDV at the end of a project is an unattended process which doesn't tie up my time." Yes it does, it ties up your system for many hours meaning you can not edit on that system during that time. You have to plan these exports around when you need to use your system. You simply can't continue to edit while your system renders no matter how much you want or need to. "In Liquid I spent a lot of time waiting for basic things like color correction to render" Colour Correction has been RT for some time now, including some of the CX colour corrector (arguably the best colour corrector of any NLE). The only non RT FX in Liquid now are dynamic timewarps (linear are RT) and some complex CX colour corrections. The classic FX are still there and need rendering, but thats because the quality you get from these effects, with their subpixel (and I believe 12 or 16 bit processing) rendering is beyond any effect you get in any other NLE in this market segment. You certainly arn't forced to use them, they are just there for those who want absolute quality over speed. "you're converting your video stream to a YUV colorspace before it goes to your HDTV" Clearly the process of displaying HD video over DVI connections is not an issue, its how pretty much all HDTVs work now and the only way formats like BluRay and HD-DVD will work using HDMI. Connect the HD TV output of your video card like I have and your outputing via analogue component, just like NX does. I don't see the difference. "It is interesting how people trash talk Edius without even knowing much about it... :-)" ;-) but I never trashed Edius, just defended Liquid.

January 26th, 2006, 05:41 PM	#34
Guy Barwood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 423	The smartest thing is to consider all options. You may not like Liquid and you may go with Edius or Premiere with PulgIn etc, BUT, at least you have made an informed decision and evaluated all your options. Avid have publicly announced their continued support for Liquid with version 8 development being hinted at by Avid. To stop support for Liquid would be a pretty stupid thing for Avid. They still have to support Studio which adopted the core processing engine of Liquid with version 10 so there is a huge overlap in support of those two products, then there are the higher end broadcast brother Chrome HD which are the same software as Liquid but with higher end hardware I/O options. This also makes upgrading to a full SDI HD NLE very simple if you are editing with Liquid (no learning a new NLE). So Studio development helps Liquid, and Liquid development helps Chrome HD. Its a win win arrangement in a product line that goes from mums and dads up to broadcast studios. No other product has that.

January 26th, 2006, 05:52 PM	#35
Guy Barwood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 423	"So can you do a two layer PIP with HDV in Liquid without having to do any rendering or wait for background rendering to view the results? How powerful a system would you say is required to do this particular task effectively?" It depends on if you are editing 720p or 1080i. 720p requires much less processing power which makes the HD100 even more attractive. 720p: My tests showed I can edit two video streams of 720p with a single 3GHz Pentium IV and a 128MB Video card (NVidia 5900). I could do full real time dissolves and picture in pictures which was about all I tested before I upgraded my system to dual Xeon. You can also add quite a number of graphics/titles layer with effects (such as fades in/out, roll in/out etc) without any problems. It has been a while but I think I get 4 layers of 720p video with my Dual Xeon. 1080i: This requires a dual processor system (3+ Ghz) although you MIGHT just get away with a 3.6GHz PIV for dual stream (not tested though). With my Dual Xeon 3GHz I currently get 3 streams of Video + effects and titles etc like in 720p. No dropped frames. For 1080i you do need a 256MB graphics card (to buffer and process the larger frames) and while PCI Express is recommended I have it running fine on an AGP 8x system.

January 29th, 2006, 02:06 AM	#37
Kyle Edwards Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: LI, NY Posts: 274	You could look into Pic Video's Wavelet 2000, Lossless JPEG and MJPEG-3. They preform pretty well.