I need a cheap HD edit suite

[Miguel Lopez]

Hello.
Sorry if this questions sound like a rookie.
I am looking for a cheap edit suite that can handle HD.

I don´t have a lot of money to spend.
I´ve seen DeckLink HD for just $595 which is a great price. And it says it works at any video software (Will work well on Vegas?).
I guess i would need faster Hard Drives.
Will this kind of card give real time playback when you apply some color correction?
Is it worthy?

What any other solution do you recommend me?
Will this also work with HDV?

[Kevin Shaw]

Can you tell us a little more about what exactly you're hoping to do and what kind of camera you might be recording with? If you're looking for the most affordable way to do high-definition video production, I'd suggest getting an HDV camera and considering some of the following editing options:

Ulead Media Studio Pro 8 (shipping soon)
Sony Vegas with the Cineform ConnectHD plugin
Adobe Premiere Pro with Cineform Aspect HD
Canopus Edius Pro3
etc.

[Stephen Finton]

Mediastudio 8 is gonna be special.

http://activity.ulead.com/us/events/...w/features.htm

As of August 30th you can download a beta version!

[Miguel Lopez]

Hello. I allready have a SONY hdv fx1 and i use Vegas.
However i will need to work too with HDCAM sometimes.

So if i can edit in realtime HD footage for a reasonable price, that would help me.

However i am still not sure if the decklink allows to playback at real time HD video or it is just a conversor from HDSDi to PC files, and therefore what really gives the real time is the main processor.

If i can capture HDV an convert to whatever the files of decklink uses to perform real time, that would be great.

I am afraid of HD storage prices. WOuld cineform right now give much better prices?

[Stephen Finton]

Check out that beta of Mediastudio. When you open it, it will give you an option of what type of project settings you want. In the pull down menu on top of this option box it will say Microsoft AVI files, switch it to MPEG files and it will give you your HDV editing options. They are built in. It's only a 30 day trial, though and it is a beta so it may have some bugs still but give it a try. I don't have an HDV camera and would like to know how everything comes out.

[Eric Lagerlof]

Miguel, there are a lot of factors at play. If you restrict yourself to FX1 HDV than the software suggestions such as Media Studio Pro, Cineform Premiere or Vegas, and Edius. are fine. You can look at their home pages for their hardware requirements, and you can get setup for a reasonable price. If you are really looking at HDCAM realtime editing, than you are looking at different hardware/software solutions and specifications. And potentially, a lot more money. Check out Cineforms' Prospect software requirements and the Matrox Axio or just to give you some ideas of the higher requirements. At that point, most software/hardware vendors ask you to buy computer systems from approved integrators because of all the potential bottlenecks that can slow those sysems down. Keep on studying your options and don't forget to figure in your monitoring and output needs. And if you aren't using HDCAM often, maybe you outsource that materials conversion to HDV and stick with an HDV-only editing system.

[Steve Nunez]

MacMini $499 and comes with iMovie- and it accepts all PC keyboards, mice and monitors (and of course the Mac stuff as well.)

<< It definitely works with the FX1- it uses AIC encoding to work with HDV >>

(The more you spend the more you get- Mac wise.....you could always opt for one of the iMac models which are faster & more powerful and for extreme perf. you can go with a G5)

[Glenn Chan]

Miguel:

If you want to edit HDCAM at uncompressed quality, you will at least need a fast RAID array of ~14 drives.

It will cost between $9k and $14k. *guestimate... depends what RAID you go with.

There is a cheaper, even more ghetto way that might work and that's running 8+ drives in RAID 0.

2- Setting up your system to handle uncompressed HD is tricky. You need particular motherboards with the particular PCI slot that Blackmagic uses (PCI-X I think, not pciE). The motherboard may force you into changing everything else.

If you want the run the RAID array in the computer (cheaper), you need a beefy power supply and an expensive case to do so.

If you want to monitor HD, the cheapest solution is Vegas / secondary monitor or an old apple cinema display + HD SDI to DVI converter box.

Stuff adds up in cost.

And you better be good about troubleshooting computers, because HD territory is kind of uncharted territory.

I believe at the bare, bare minimum you need about $15k to get a minimal system (not that reliable since you have to run RAID 0, may not have true HD monitoring, the configuration may be something no one's tried, etc.).

Will this kind of card give real time playback when you apply some color correction?

I don't think any of the cheap solutions will give real-time playback for 1 stream of HD uncompressed with 1 layer of color correction.

FCP on a dual 2.5ghz won't do it, from what I remember.

I seriously doubt Vegas will do it, although you might be able to get network rendering to work which makes it not so bad. And just play the find the hot deal + install your own upgrade game with Dell to snag some inspiron 9100s for network render nodes.

Avid Nitris DS (NOT cheap) I think will do 1 layer of color correction. But anything above that, it's the same speed as FCP (dual 2.5ghz G5).

therefore what really gives the real time is the main processor.

I believe this is the case??

[Miguel Lopez]

"DeckLink cards capture and playback uncompressed media directly without proxies, or any kind of intermediate file. DeckLink cards have loads of vector code for Velocity Engine™ and SSE acceleration, so speeds are snappy and responsive. Unlike proxy based systems you are working with the real media not a substitute. "


So what? Does this card accelerate playback or not? How does exactly accelerate video if we are talking about uncompressed video?

Bye the way. Does the decklink or AJA record on standard quicktime files or some kind of strange mxf.

If i wanted to save some money, could i just ask to capture to the format that this card use and work on my pc without those fast raids using cineform?
I guess the answer is yes if those cards use simple quicktime uncompressed.

[Glenn Chan]

There might be some way to capture with compression, it'll reduce the cost of the RAID you need.

I know very little about that, so I'm probably not the best person to ask.

2- DVCPRO100 is compressed and does lossless transfers over firewire. It's not expensive to edit it.

But DVCPRO100 is not HDCAM.

3- What editing systems are you using right now?

4-

Does the decklink or AJA record on standard quicktime files or some kind of strange mxf.

AJA should do quicktime, mxf is for XDCAM I believe.

[Tim Bucklin]

There's no way to get real-time HD (HDCAM, etc) editing for $600. HDV you should be able to do very well. Connect HD from CineForm will accelerate your capture and conversion process, and the use of the CineForm intermediate will certainly speed up your work within Vegas.

For even better performance, Adobe Premiere Pro with CineForm Aspect HD can give you multiple streams of HDV with color corrections, effects, transitions, etc. from a 3.0+ GHz P4 with 1GB RAM and a 2+ disk RAID 0 media array. While this is not an uncompressed solution, it is a visually lossless codec, meaning that the visual quality of the footage coming off the camera and that of your final product will be equivalent.

If you need true HD (1920x1080 10-bit) support, Prospect HD is a viable solution. It will also integrate HDV into the same timeline, and will upconvert 1440x1080 8-bit (Sony HDV) to 1920x1080 10-bit files on capture through firewire. Prospect HD can also capture via HD-SDI with an AJA card. These systems require dual Opteron 252 processors with 2GB memory and a 2+ disk RAID 0 for ingest, while you can edit with dual Opteron 248 processors.

What kind of system are you running now?

[Ben Winter]

I have a dual Opteron 270? system with 2.75 gb of memory and a mirrored raid system. You should know that HDV editing isn't flawless, it's still a bit choppy, not nearly as smooth as I'd like it to be. It is, however, moderately stable, and you should feel confident editing on it. The only hassle is outputting to an external monitor with Cineform, you can't take it out through a Decklink card and it won't let you output thru DV while you edit or scrub through footage. The only real solution is to purchase a three-headed output graphics card like a Matrox? I believe? which lets you edit with dual monitors while retaining a component output for an HD monitor to be used for editing.

[Michael Hendrix]

Miguel, take a look at Avid Express Pro HD. Someone mentioned earlier about outsourcing your HDCAM stuff which is a great option. HDCAM decks can run you $40,000 alone if you need to record back to tape so keeping up with not only the software side but the deck is an expensive proposition.

I am a true fan of Avid's workflow. You can transcode HD footage into a lower resolution, edit and relink your finished product for output.

Just a thought.

[K. Forman]

I was trying to do the same thing as you Miguel... and I'm already into it for roughly $3,000 American. It started out by upgrading my motherboard to one that has PCI express, so I could use a Decklink. I also needed a new video card, a few drives for a Raid array, newer processor and Premiere 2. The on board Raid wouldn't handle a Raid 5, so I now have a Raid controller card- $150.

The MoBo only had one PCIExpress slot, which the video card was using, so I got the next board up- roughly have $300 in motherboards now. The new board also required new Ram, so I bought 2 gig for about $140... and discovered it was the wrong speed. Got another gig for $100 which works.

Got a Decklink HD Pro card for $700, but I can't hook up to my HD100 due to a mismatch of in and out connections, and am currently capturing via the built in 1394 port.

So far, the only decent choices I've made, were the HD100 and Premiere.