Anyone using Edius with HMC-150 for same day edits? at DVinfo.net

Jason Garner · July 13th, 2009, 07:39 AM

Need info on what software and hardware to buy? How much RAM, what graphic cards, etc. . .?

Jason

Mark Von Lanken · July 13th, 2009, 11:26 AM

Hi Jason,

Edius has a free transcoding utility called AVCHD2HQ. We use it to transcode for Edius. Our laptop is running XP with a 256 graphics card and two gb of RAM. If you are running Vista, go with at least 4 gb of RAM.

Are you planning on using a tower or laptop? Do you already have a SDE machine or are you shopping for one?

We did a SDE last month in Perris, CA, which is not too far from you.

Jason Garner · July 13th, 2009, 11:30 AM

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your reply. I have heard a lot of great things about you in the videographer community. Would you recommend XP over Vista then? Plan to buy a laptop for sure. I do not currently have an SDE machine. Right now I edit on a new iMAC with FCP Studio 2. Thanks so much.

Jason
Rick & Sonya

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Von Lanken

Hi Jason,

Edius has a free transcoding utility called AVCHD2HQ. We use it to transcode for Edius. Our laptop is running XP with a 256 graphics card and two gb of RAM. If you are running Vista, go with at least 4 gb of RAM.

Are you planning on using a tower or laptop? Do you already have a SDE machine or are you shopping for one?

We did a SDE last month in Perris, CA, which is not too far from you.

Mark Von Lanken · July 13th, 2009, 12:07 PM

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your kind words.

Generally speaking, I would go with XP. I know very little about Macs. I don't like to render, so I have stayed with Edius.

For a PC laptop, I would go with the fastest Quad Core you can buy. The new i7 is reported to be quicker, but it comes at a price and really produces a lot of heat.

I watched your highlight from the Mission Inn. It looked great. I have stayed there a couple of times and have shot a Love Story there as well. It's a great venue.

Jason Garner · July 13th, 2009, 12:14 PM

So tell me a little about the workflow. So I transfer the footage from the SD cards (panasonic hmc-150) and then I can just drag them into the time-line and begin editing? Do you have to render slow-mo? How do you output to show the presentation?

Jason

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Von Lanken

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your kind words.

Generally speaking, I would go with XP. I know very little about Macs. I don't like to render, so I have stayed with Edius.

For a PC laptop, I would go with the fastest Quad Core you can buy. The new i7 is reported to be quicker, but it comes at a price and really produces a lot of heat.

I watched your highlight from the Mission Inn. It looked great. I have stayed there a couple of times and have shot a Love Story there as well. It's a great venue.

Randy Johnson · July 13th, 2009, 02:28 PM

I cant see someone doing same day edits, With edius you need to convert the footage to Canopus HQ first and that will take hours depending on your laptops speed and how much footage. the workflow is either copy the card to your hard drive OR drag you cards contents over to Canopus AVCHD converter it will convert the footage to Canopus HQ then you bring those files into your timeline to edit.

Mark Von Lanken · July 13th, 2009, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason G. Young

So tell me a little about the workflow. So I transfer the footage from the SD cards (panasonic hmc-150) and then I can just drag them into the time-line and begin editing? Do you have to render slow-mo? How do you output to show the presentation?

Jason

Hi Jason,

Randy is correct in saying that the AVCHD files have to be converted to Edius HQ. A quad core will convert four files at a time. I have a quad core 2.33 with 4 gb of RAM. It takes about 8:45 to encode 8:00 of footage. The biggest draw back is the ceremony. It is faster to bring the AVCHD file of the ceremony to the timeline, set in and out points and encode just the portions of the ceremony you need for the SDE.

Once you have the files converted to Edius HQ, everything we use for SDEs is real time with no rendering. Slow-mo, B&W, Color Correction, Border Darken, Audio Filters and dissolves, etc. You may need to render 3D PiP, but we don't use those on SDEs.

To output for the presentation you have several options. You can make a SD DVD straight from the timeline. You can make a BluRay file straight from the timeline, but it takes more time than we have for a SDE. Once the edit is done in HD you can change the project setting to SD and connect a camera to the laptop via firewire and output to tape. This is the fastest way because once you change the project setting to SD, you just push the space bar and it outputs the timeline through firewire without any rendering or encoding.

The fastest way that I know to output for an HD presentation is to make an m2t file, which will take about 4-8 minutes for a 4 minutes project (depending on the speed of your system) and then transfer that file to USB thumb drive. Plug the thumb drive into a Western Digital media player and you are ready. Just plug the media player into an HD monitor or HD projector via HDMI and you are ready.

You could play the SDE straight from the timilne, and we have in extreme cases, but I don't like the risk involved, especially when going the thumb drive route is so quick and easy.

In Tulsa the reception starts right after the ceremony, so there is no down time. In some parts of the country there is a 2-3 hour break, or at least a cocktail hour. Grass Valley is working on a solution to by pass encoding to HQ, but for now, that is the workflow with Edius and AVCHD.

Barry Green · July 13th, 2009, 03:41 PM

For clarification, it's not a requirement that you convert the files first. You can certainly import the files directly onto the timeline, even from the SD card. But you probably won't get realtime playback with that workflow, unless you have a modern quad-core laptop.

PH mode on the HMC150 is designed specifically to perform better with the more cores you have.

On my system I get about 15fps playback directly from the timeline on a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz. It's not perfect, but if you needed to do a same-day edit it's certainly do-able, just with jerkier playback than you're used to. On a quad core you should get at least twice that performance.

Adam Sturman · July 13th, 2009, 06:07 PM

I might humbly suggest you look at Sony Vegas Pro 9, if it is possible.

On a quad core machine, you can get very decent real-time editing, depending on the amount of effects you have composited.

-Adam

Jason Garner · July 15th, 2009, 06:14 PM

I want to thank everyone for their help with this issue. Your input is so valuable.

Michael Dontigney · July 22nd, 2009, 08:02 AM

I would also consider a shoebox PC for SDE with Edius and a FirecoderBlu card from Grass Valley. That will greatly decrease render times for AVCHDtoHQ as well as final BluRay.

Mark Von Lanken · July 22nd, 2009, 09:51 AM

Hi Mike,

I had strongly considered the same thing, but Trisha was dead set against it. She didn't like the idea of having to connect and disconnect everything at the church and then do the same thing at the reception location. It would also mean she could not edit or encode when I'm driving from the church to the reception, which can be as long as 30 minutes.

We actually bought a Dell XPS 24 with a quad core. It's fast, but just too heavy to be portable, although we love the screen size. We are senging it back and ordered an HP laptop with a quad core. We had a couple of SDEs with the XPS 24, but it just wasn't condusive to our workflow, especially when the wedding and reception are at different locations, which is the case a majority of the time.

Barry Green · July 26th, 2009, 02:43 PM

Instead of needing something like a FirecoderBlu (which is harder to get into a laptop), how about using an nVidia CUDA-based graphics card and something like Badaboom (http://badaboomit.com/?q=node/4)?

Badaboom can export H.264 using the computer's graphics card acceleration, perhaps into AVCHD or Blu-Ray compatible formats, not 100% sure on that. But if it's a viable software solution for what you need done, perhaps it'd open up the range of laptops you could look at because you wouldn't need a slot for a firecoder card?

Ahmet Toca · July 30th, 2009, 10:06 AM

T5500 Core 2 Duo 1.66
256Mb Ati X1300
2.5GB ram
XP Pro
Toshiba

Converting videos to Canopus HQ to edit. Still tooooo slow to edit, must upgrade to Quadcore :)

Chaille Thomas · August 21st, 2009, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Garner

I want to thank everyone for their help with this issue. Your input is so valuable.

Hi Jason I have been reading the threads here for almost a month now. I have a HMC150 and I also would like to do SDE. In doing video profiles for athletes I want to be able to give them a dvd with stamped time codes of their plays in order for them to pick the plays they like. I guess the workflow would be something like SD card, to NLE ( what should I use), output to disc standard disc ( not blu-ray ). Someone help me out here.

I have been looking over my choice of gear and I know I need a quad core for smooth AVCHD editing???!!! Is this the absolute final verdict. I have narrowed my choices to the
1. hp pavillion dv7 2040 core 2 quad 2ghz 4gb ram 500gb hdd
2 asus g71 gq2 core 2 quad 2gh.... and the only duo core
3. alienware m17x core 2 duo 260 intel core 2 duo t9600

any suggestions. I will be going to pick it out sometime probably this weekend. I would like do some test shots with the camera before the seasons gets in full swing.

I have enjoyed reading these informative threads and look forward to some creative feedback.

July 13th, 2009, 07:39 AM	#1
Jason Garner New Boot Join Date: May 2007 Location: Anaheim, CA Posts: 22	Anyone using Edius with HMC-150 for same day edits? Need info on what software and hardware to buy? How much RAM, what graphic cards, etc. . .? Jason

July 13th, 2009, 11:26 AM	#2
Mark Von Lanken Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Tulsa, OK Posts: 910	Hi Jason, Edius has a free transcoding utility called AVCHD2HQ. We use it to transcode for Edius. Our laptop is running XP with a 256 graphics card and two gb of RAM. If you are running Vista, go with at least 4 gb of RAM. Are you planning on using a tower or laptop? Do you already have a SDE machine or are you shopping for one? We did a SDE last month in Perris, CA, which is not too far from you. __________________ Mark Von Lanken www.VonWeddingFilms.com

July 13th, 2009, 12:07 PM	#4
Mark Von Lanken Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Tulsa, OK Posts: 910	Hi Jason, Thanks for your kind words. Generally speaking, I would go with XP. I know very little about Macs. I don't like to render, so I have stayed with Edius. For a PC laptop, I would go with the fastest Quad Core you can buy. The new i7 is reported to be quicker, but it comes at a price and really produces a lot of heat. I watched your highlight from the Mission Inn. It looked great. I have stayed there a couple of times and have shot a Love Story there as well. It's a great venue. __________________ Mark Von Lanken www.VonWeddingFilms.com

July 22nd, 2009, 09:51 AM	#12
Mark Von Lanken Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Tulsa, OK Posts: 910	Hi Mike, I had strongly considered the same thing, but Trisha was dead set against it. She didn't like the idea of having to connect and disconnect everything at the church and then do the same thing at the reception location. It would also mean she could not edit or encode when I'm driving from the church to the reception, which can be as long as 30 minutes. We actually bought a Dell XPS 24 with a quad core. It's fast, but just too heavy to be portable, although we love the screen size. We are senging it back and ordered an HP laptop with a quad core. We had a couple of SDEs with the XPS 24, but it just wasn't condusive to our workflow, especially when the wedding and reception are at different locations, which is the case a majority of the time. __________________ Mark Von Lanken www.VonWeddingFilms.com

July 13th, 2009, 02:28 PM	#6
Randy Johnson Trustee Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Newark, Delaware Posts: 1,067	I cant see someone doing same day edits, With edius you need to convert the footage to Canopus HQ first and that will take hours depending on your laptops speed and how much footage. the workflow is either copy the card to your hard drive OR drag you cards contents over to Canopus AVCHD converter it will convert the footage to Canopus HQ then you bring those files into your timeline to edit.

July 13th, 2009, 03:41 PM	#8
Barry Green Barry Wan Kenobi Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: North Carolina Posts: 3,863	For clarification, it's not a requirement that you convert the files first. You can certainly import the files directly onto the timeline, even from the SD card. But you probably won't get realtime playback with that workflow, unless you have a modern quad-core laptop. PH mode on the HMC150 is designed specifically to perform better with the more cores you have. On my system I get about 15fps playback directly from the timeline on a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz. It's not perfect, but if you needed to do a same-day edit it's certainly do-able, just with jerkier playback than you're used to. On a quad core you should get at least twice that performance.

July 13th, 2009, 06:07 PM	#9
Adam Sturman Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Northern Virginia, USA Posts: 34	I might humbly suggest you look at Sony Vegas Pro 9, if it is possible. On a quad core machine, you can get very decent real-time editing, depending on the amount of effects you have composited. -Adam

July 15th, 2009, 06:14 PM	#10
Jason Garner New Boot Join Date: May 2007 Location: Anaheim, CA Posts: 22	I want to thank everyone for their help with this issue. Your input is so valuable.

July 22nd, 2009, 08:02 AM	#11
Michael Dontigney Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Atlanta, Ga. Posts: 103	I would also consider a shoebox PC for SDE with Edius and a FirecoderBlu card from Grass Valley. That will greatly decrease render times for AVCHDtoHQ as well as final BluRay.

July 26th, 2009, 02:43 PM	#13
Barry Green Barry Wan Kenobi Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: North Carolina Posts: 3,863	Instead of needing something like a FirecoderBlu (which is harder to get into a laptop), how about using an nVidia CUDA-based graphics card and something like Badaboom (http://badaboomit.com/?q=node/4)? Badaboom can export H.264 using the computer's graphics card acceleration, perhaps into AVCHD or Blu-Ray compatible formats, not 100% sure on that. But if it's a viable software solution for what you need done, perhaps it'd open up the range of laptops you could look at because you wouldn't need a slot for a firecoder card?

July 30th, 2009, 10:06 AM	#14
Ahmet Toca New Boot Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Malaysia Posts: 17	T5500 Core 2 Duo 1.66 256Mb Ati X1300 2.5GB ram XP Pro Toshiba Converting videos to Canopus HQ to edit. Still tooooo slow to edit, must upgrade to Quadcore :)