Raylight (PC Editing App) Demo now available

[Jim Exton]

Demo is up at http://www.dvfilm.com/raylight

Looks like final release is on the 15th.

Sweet.

[Les Dit]

It's just the codec, right?
Not an app.

-Les

[Jim Exton]

Yes, it is just a codec, you still need an editing application to use it.

[Steven Thomas]

Kaku,
Could you please post some 1080/24P raw MXF files?

The DVFilm Raylight Demo only allows 1080 files.

Thank you,

Steve

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I don't know what's going on in the demo, but it is completely destroying the video clips. Subtle edge enhancement is now replaced by huge blocky artifacts, etc.. I don't know if it's re-encoding because of the DVFilm watermark or what, but I'm not too inspired to buy anything based on this demo.

Performance within Vegas is less than stellar too... Better than performance within Avid with Avid's DV100 codec, but compared to DVCPROHD in Edius or FCP, the Raylight codec is a dog. Granted, this is a demo of a beta version and it is a step in the right direction. But as of now, I haven't been inspired to buy. I'll gladly pay their price because it's cheap and I can keep working with Vegas, but I also don't want to spend the next few months beta testing software as it matures while I could be working with an established, working solution (FCP). If the video is altered in any way within Raylight compared to the original captured footage, then I won't use the product.

[Steven Thomas]

Jeff you are executing the Raylight.exe file after extracting the video, right?

It defaults on the lower RED check box which is set to lowest rez mode (extremely blocky).

If you stop your video and click the top BLUE check box, it will play back in the highest unaltered mode.

Works fine for me. I know it's a workaround for PC NLE, but atleast it's something.

The demo is limited, but the full version is available this month.

Steve

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Steven,

I guess I misunderstood the little control app. You're right, after I checked the top box for full quality, the video looks like it should.

Also, I don't know if its my system or just a fluke with the couple clips I have to test with, but full quality actually runs faster than low quality within both Vegas and Windows Media Player. Heh. ????

Anyway, this is a step. At least it is a functional solution if not an elegant one.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

And now another question...

How does the Raylight codec work (or does it) for capture of DVCPRO streams from the camera? Or are PC users forced to either capture uncompressed live from the component output or live with only the capability of recording to P2 or a device like the Cineporter and then using Raylight to convert to AVI?

I was hoping to get my hands on an HVX200 today or tomorrow, but that isn't going to happen. The local shop still hasn't got a shipping confirmation or any indication that either of their two HVX's are going to arrive any time soon. I'm expecting mine sometime mid~late February it seems.

[Barry Green]

Well... now... that's a darn interesting question. I wouldn't expect raylight to change anything regarding the current can't-capture situation, because it's not a capture app. But... perhaps Marcus could be persuaded to write a capture app? I don't know if he'd have any appetite for that, but... in actuality, a capture app really wouldn't have anything to do with the codec, other than knowing the four-letter code to assign to the .AVI file to tell it which codec to use (I believe raylight uses RAYL)... so a new dedicated capture app would have to be written.

[Kaku Ito]

Originally Posted by Steven Thomas

Kaku,
Could you please post some 1080/24P raw MXF files?

The DVFilm Raylight Demo only allows 1080 files.

Thank you,

Steve

Opps, Steven, I don't read too much windows related posts, so I missed it. I will make up something with 1080/24p at my site.

[Steven Thomas]

Thanks Kaku.
Raylight will be available for purchase on 01/17/06.

It is supposed to work with 720P and 1080P HVX200 MXF files.

Thanks, Steve

[Kaku Ito]

Originally Posted by Steven Thomas

Thanks Kaku.
Raylight will be available for purchase on 01/17/06.

It is supposed to work with 720P and 1080P HVX200 MXF files.

Thanks, Steve

Some DVCPRO50 raw files are there at my site. I will add some HD formats.

[Marcus van Bavel]

RAYLIGHT went on sale today (Jan 18th).

There is also a new version of the demo, and it now supports
1280 x 720 frame size, although I would recommend 1920 x 1080
for movie work.

http://dvfilm.com/raylight

[Steven Thomas]

Althought I don't know the person's PC setup, David Jimerson over at DVXUSER mentioned that he could get Vegas to run a 720/24P at full frame rate using Raylight's best quality setting (blue). He was veiwing with Vegas window set to best.

Well, this might change things, although it sure would be nce to get 1080 to run in Vegas at full frame rate.

On the other hand, I imagine a lot of HVX users will be shooting 720 to benefit in slow/fast-mo.

Steve

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I will second that.

I can get a single stream of 720p to run in real time in full quality in Vegas and Media Player. I don't have a 30fps clip to try, but 24pn works. 60fps chokes... Looks like 24~30fps is about the max on this system when I try changing the playback rate of the 60p clip, but it's hard to tell for sure.

System specs:

AMD Athlon64 X2 dual core 4800+
2GB RAM
nVidia 7800 GTX 512MB driving a Samsung 243T @ 1920x1200
XP SP2
Vegas 6
Video drive is 4x320GB 7200rpm SATA drives in a striped (RAID 0) array.
It works, but the codec could still use some serious optimization. But way better than Avid's DV100 joke. Raylight's codec does not appear to be multithreaded. In other words, no sign of it using the second CPU core.

Raylight is an OK solution for the price and will let PC users at least do some editing with the HVX. Hopefully Raylight will continue to mature and become faster and more optimized and/or another PC solution will present itself.

I will probably buy Raylight after seeing the 720p performance of the new demo, just so I can have edit capabilities on my HP notebook (it's got a 3.2GHz P4 chip in there, may as well use it). But for serious production, I'm really starting to think me buying that G5 quad was a good idea. I should be able to set it up this weekend. 8)