The Battle between Edius & Liquid continues.....

It seems like my previous post on Edius & Liquid had rekindled the debate on which is a better software ( which I absolutely have no intention on that ).

For those who are interested to read about other users perspective, please go to :

http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/thread/48198.aspx

The War between Canopus Edius & Avid Liquid

Since I'm both the Liquid & Edius man & use both software, there are many questions being posted to me regarding the comparison of both products.

So which is better or which software or hardware should I buy?

Based on my own researches & testings, the following post is the finding that I had make. I will have to make it clear that I'm not a programmer or a hardware giz, so the result is purely based on what I see & get. The conclusion is solely based on my own opinion with the main intention of doing an unbiased review on the 2 products.

Please feel free to email me if any of you have any particular addon or feedback to share.

Comparison of the Canopus Edius NX Hardware with Avid Liquid Pro

• Output to an External Monitor

The EDIUS NX for HDV provides realtime HD video output. This realtime HD output is

true uncompressed full resolution, full frame rate output. In the case of a 1440 x 1080i

project, the EDIUS hardware is responsible for performing the line scaling from the processed 1440 x 1080i frame to the standard 1920 x 1080i HD frame and sending this video out through the component output of the boards. EDIUS hardware is necessary to perform the same kind line scaling that a HDV camcorder or deck would perform This feature sets the EDIUS solutions apart from L6 claims to perform realtime HDV editing.

Liquid provides cost effective way of viewing HD by offering a full screen preview on the computer screen or HDTV displays through the VGA or DVI output. However, this may lead to several issues :

1. The original component output is in YUV format, which has different dynamic range compared to RGB, with different color representation range. Also many HDTV displays have different gamma characteristics for the YUV input, so input from RGB results in a difference in video quality.

2. In many HDTV displays, RGB and YUV signals have different relationships between the synchronization signal and the video monitoring area. Even if an editor has confirmed the safe area on the HDTV display, when the editing result is written back to the tape and monitored from camera's component output, it may be displayed in a

shifted position.

3. This method does not guarantee synchronization between the audio output from the audio circuit and the video played back from the graphic circuit because there is no way to check the audio and video together from the editing software.

4. The graphics board's RGB output does not have accurate calibration and is not intended for professional video output. It will be difficult to perform accurate color correction by relying on the RGB monitor output from the graphics board.

5. 1080i is an interlaced video signal, however the PC graphics card outputs progressive frames. This causes video clips with dynamic motion to be displayed differently on an RGB monitor from the original HDTV video.

Liquid’s graceful degradation feature allows users to increase the real time playback of the timeline. However, depending on the projects & workflow, there are editors who still prefer the edited video and audio on the monitor to be exactly the same as the video clip which the camera plays back directly from the tape to the HDTV, any dropping of frames or lowering of the video quality is still considered as undesirable. Rhema Broadcasting Group ( RBG ) in Auckland are strong followers of Canopus products. They are believers of Canopus way of defining real time editing, which give users a guarantee of best video quality & no drop frame playback as long as it is within the real time parameter of the hardware as oppose to Liquid’s graceful degradation.

Editing HDV Real-time

Unlike Liquid’s unique Smart Edit technology, Canopus had admitted that editing the native MPEG-2 Transport Stream is complicated, difficult, and impractical. Hence Canopus came out with its own high definition codec. It uses more gentle compression than HDV. It needs less processing power as well, so users can play more simultaneous video streams and have more real-time effects. The main pitfall is the system must be pretty powerful in order to handle the real time conversion of HDV to the HQ codec while capturing.

Basically, The Canopus claimed that their HQ codec is better than HDV and even Sony & DVCPRO-HD codecs. The HQ codec maintains a 4:2:2 color space which is important for keying and compositing , compared to HDV's 4:2:0 sub-sampling. Since the HQ codec is not limited by a specified data rate, the HQ codec uses a variable datarate which can fluctuate according to the need of the video beyond the simple variation provided by a restricted datarate determined by a tape speed. Users can choose to capture HDV in standard or fine mode & customised the quality & file size.

In Canopus’s whitepaper for HQ codec, there is numerous claims that the codec will generate a result that is better the original HDV quality. As the entire process involved a lot of different stages like uncompressing MPEG-2 to another codec, then decompressing this for effects, and finally re-encoding the video to HDV, MPEG-2 (or another format), there is a need of more tests to verify this claims.

Personally, Canopus’s claims had a lot in common with the Cineform Aspect HD’s claims on their website. The company's Aspect HD plug-in for Premiere employs an intermediate codec it calls CFHD, which is based on Wavelet compression. To increase editing performance, the algorithms within the company's Carlsbad software processing engine take advantage of video that's stored in a format that allows more efficient retrieval from hard drives and whose compression format allows for very efficient video effects processing by exploiting Intel SSE2 instructions.

The Aspect HD bundle includes an HDV I/O application for i.LINK transfer. It converts each capture clip from MPEG-2 to CFHD after capture via i.LINK. The new version, now shipping, uses an on-the-fly conversion process. If the system is Pentium 4 2.8GHz or faster, data is converted directly into a file that occupies 33GB ( compare to native HDV at 9 GB per hr ) of space per hour of video. If, however, you have a less powerful Pentium 4, the capture goes into an intelligent buffer that is emptied as fast as the conversion occurs.

Because timecode is not sent from the camcorder while MPEG-2 is captured, like capturing through Edius NX, users cannot set in/out points for capture using the i.LINK HDV I/O application. This prevents batch capture and re-capture. Moreover, video and audio are not presented on your RGB monitor during capture. You can capture multiple shots into a single clip, but whenever a loss of valid data is encountered, capture continues into a new clip.

CineForm emphasizes that CFHD was designed to be a very high-quality intermediate codec operating in a 4:2:2 color space. Quality is high for two reasons. First, because low data rate (19Mbps) HD MPEG-2 is decoded and then recompressed with a high data rate (80Mbps) codec, quality is claimed not to be lost during the capture/conversion process. (SD 480p60 is not yet supported.) Second, because video is only lightly compressed (typically 6:1), during editing it behaves more like uncompressed than compressed video.

For comparing purposes,Canopus NX is installed on a dual Xeon 3.06 system with the Canopus Certified Tyan MOB, 1 GB of RAM, ATI X300-256 RAM, a raid array of 4 x 200 GB HDD. The followings are the test results:

• 5 min of HDV footage captured at MPEG-2 Transport Stream takes up 960MB
• 5 min of HDV footage captured at MPEG-2 Program Stream takes up 948MB
• 5 min of HDV footage captured at standard HQ codec at Q4 & size 30 takes up 2.83GB, almost 3 times the size of the native HDV stream.
• Even though Canopus claims that editing in native HDV is possible in Edius NX. During the test, I can only playback 1 stream of native HDV on the timeline. The response is extremely slow when trying to scrub on the timeline, it takes a couple of seconds before the video can be refreshed & previewed on the monitor. The system actually crashed more than 3 times when I was trying to edit both the native HDV transport & program streams. Trying to perform frame accurate scrubbing on the timeline or even editing with native HDV is definitely not a pleasant experience on the NX system.
• However, on the same system, I can actually applied 12 filters, in the respective order of :
• 1-color balance,
• 2-blur,
• 3-mosaic,
• 4-old movie,
• 5-pencil sketch,
• 6-raster wipe,
• 7-tunnel vision,
• 8-soft focus,
• 9-mirror,
• 10-strobe,
• 11-emboss,
• 12-anti flicker

on a standard HQ codec clip with real time video out on an external monitor & real time output through firewire without dropping a single frame or any compromise in video quality.

• With 1 HQ clip as video background, playing back another HQ clip as 3D PIP ( picture in picture ) is real time. Rendering is only required when more than 4 filters are applied onto the background clip or a 2^Nd 3D PIP is added onto the timeline.
• All transitions available in Edius are real time except for those found in Xplode. NX is still able to playback in real time when a real time transition is applied across 2 HQ clips that already had 5 different sets of filters applied on each of them.
• Chroma keying of 1 layer of HQ clip over another HQ clip is real time.
• I can achieve 18 3D PIPs of DV clips in real time without dropping of a single frame. Based on other research articles on the web, there are users who can achieve up to 20 layers of PIPs when using DV clips.
• When dealing with uncompressed clips, I can achieve RT playback with 1 3D PIP or any RT transition across 2 uncompressed clips.

Overall, as long as users are sticking with the HQ codec, the real time playback of NX is fanstatic. Once the users understand the system’s limit & conform to the RT parameters, NX is able to give great assurance & stability to the users. The biggest debate here is which school of thoughts do the users belong to? Liquid’s graceful degradation will give users more & scalable RT capabilities but compromise on the playback quality unless all the effects ( yellow slices ) had been rendered. Canopus’s NX will assure users with full quality playback as long as they are editing within the system’s RT capability.

Generally speaking, users who tend to output the timeline to external devices like VHS or set top DVD recorders preferred the certainty in NX. The idea of having a yellow slice on the Liquid’s timeline which means that there is an uncertainty of the quality of playback ( possibilty of a drop frame ) unless it is rendered still strike fear with these users.

I fullly understand that we can easily overcome this issue by turning the background rendering on all the time but users will normally compare the different systems to see which suits their workflow better. For users who stick to Canopus solutions, the general remarks are “ Why should I render when I don’t even need to do it with Storm or NX”. I am taking this opportunity to raise the feedbacks that I gathered from endusers when I was doing the Liquid roadshows for Pinnacle in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam & especially India. The wedding market in these countries were huge, most of the videgraphers were not too concerned with creativity but just straight cuts, transitions & Hollywood FX. In order to cut down the rendering time, the video output is connected straight to a VHS or DVD recorder whereby the video can be recorded as the timeline is being played. Any dropping of frames during this capturing process will means that they will have to redo it again & precious time is being wasted. In this case, Liquid’s graceful degradation & background rendering do not have too much positive appeal to this group of users. Hence if Liquid can give this users an assurance in playback quality by default & the option to turn on graceful degradation if they need more RT preview, I am very confident that Liquid will swing even more users over fom this old school.

The biggest advantage of Edius NX over Liquid Pro will be the EDIUS Hardware which outputs analog component video and audio in HD master quality from a dedicated output circuit. It guarantees realtime, full frame output for realtime playback, and does not drop frames or lower the quality. Audio and video synchronization is complete and guaranteed. The same quality as a broadcast quality HD signal is maintained in the signal level, SN ratio, synchronizing signal level and position, and quality deterioration by horizontal interpolation is prevented. The monitored signal during editing will be of equivalent quality to the content that is written back to the tape and played back from the original playback system.

HDV 1080i (Sony HDV camera format) records in MPEG format with 1440x1080 resolution video to the tape. To accurate edit the video shot, it is necessary to edit in 1440x1080 resolution and monitor in 1920x1080, horizontally stretched through the component output since HDTV displays are designed to receive a 1920x1080i signal. HDTV defines its input signal as an analog signal with its horizontal and vertical display position and size in its resolution. To monitor a high-quality video, a multitap digital filter is required for horizontal interpolation processing. EDIUS Hardware processes it in realtime on the board, matching its display timing with the HDTV requirements.

Another advantage of EDIUS Pro over Liquid will be the pre-process of clips to match the project settings being used in realtime without making any changes to the original clip. So while the SD clip will remain an SD clip on the disk, during playback in an HDV project, there is processing power being used to convert that to the HDV project setting on-the-fly.This pre-processing also comes into play if there is an effect, title, or transition that needs to be applied.

Nelson Ng
Pinnacle Liquid trainer for TVNZ News & Current Affair department
Adobe Premiere certified trainer
Pinnacle Liquid certified trainer
Ex-Lecturer for Singapore Institute of Technology Education
Ex-Producer for Singapore Television Broadcasting Corporation
Product Manager for Avid, Pinnacle, Canopus, Matrox, Ulead, Steinberg & Sony products.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Edius Neo

Q1. Where does EDIUS Neo fit into the EDIUS family?
A1. EDIUS Neo is intended to be an entry-level version of the software, omitting the more advanced
editing functions and format support found in the higher level versions. It is important to
remember that the raw realtime editing experience has in no way been compromised or reduced,
as this is a significant factor in attracting users to upgrade to EDIUS Pro. EDIUS Neo is priced
to appeal to the education market, and also open up opportunities for bundling with camera
manufacturers and other OEM vendors.

Q2. So what exactly is the difference between EDIUS Neo software and EDIUS Pro?
A2. A detailed comparison table can be found on page 15 of this Reviewer’s Guide, but the main
differences between EDIUS Neo and EDIUS Pro are the absence of “external” utilities, such as
ProCoder Express for EDIUS, Xplode for EDIUS and TitleMotion Pro for EDIUS; no User Profile
support; simplified Project Settings menus; no audio channel mapping; no advanced tools such as
Multicam and Time Remap; and no support for EDIUS editing hardware, including older boardsets
like the DVStorm series.
One advantage to EDIUS Neo’s freedom from hardware and external utilities, is that it makes the
software 100% compliant with Windows Vista operating systems.

Q3. Does EDIUS Neo require a dongle to function, like the other EDIUS software applications?
A3. No. Since EDIUS Neo is largely aimed at multi-seat environments, such as school campuses, the
requirement for a USB security dongle has been removed.

Q4. Can EDIUS Neo be upgraded to EDIUS Pro?
A4. Yes. There is an upgrade path for users who want to expand their editing feature set at any time.
However, they will need to be aware EDIUS Pro is currently not supported under Windows Vista,
and that EDIUS Pro uses a dongle to function.

Q5. Can EDIUS Neo be upgraded to EDIUS Broadcast software, or any other EDIUS
hardware+software package, such as EDIUS NX Express?
A5. There are currently no upgrade paths to any EDIUS packages other than EDIUS Pro NLE software.

Oct 07 Interview by NZVN during the launch of the Sony XDCAM EX camcorder

Now both A2Z Technologies and Imaging Technology are the places to go for your Edius editing product but also showing another potential solution were Imaging Technology who have Avid Liquid.

Ed: Now Nelson, I understand Liquid’s not quite there yet – it’s great for everything we’ve been doing up until now, but ….?

Nelson: According to the Avid engineers at the present moment, Avid Liquid is supporting only the fixed 25Mb/s rate for the Sony EX but they’re definitely working on the drivers to make this new format fully compatible with Liquid. In the latest news I’ve got, Avid has said that they’ve had a very long meeting in France on the future of Liquid 8 and they’re very excited about it, but they refused to tell me anything about it. They told me it’s “Top Secret”, “Confidential” but it’s going to be exciting.

Ed: But at the moment, if you need a solution for the Sony camera?

Nelson: Well there may be a full solution by the time the EX camera actually arrives but currently, users can consider upgrading to Liquid Chrome XE which offer SDI input from the Sony EX camera.

Ed: So what’s the decision at the moment – what do they do?

Nelson: Hang on tight with Liquid 7.

Ed: Or they could always buy …?

Nelson: Well – Edius!

Ed: And for either, come and talk to?

Nelson: Imaging Technology and the “Liquid and Edius Man” Nelson.

Ed: Another really exciting thing about the show is that you’re showing a Intel MacPro running Windows XP and what else?

Nelson: We have Liquid 7, we have Canopus Edius and they’re both running at the same time – literally. We have both the software running, with Liquid running in the foreground and Edius running in the background and I can minimise any one of them and swap to any editing applications I want.

Ed: And it’s as stable as anything?

Nelson: Rock solid. I absolutely love it.

Ed: So Apple has a future with Liquid and Edius?

Nelson: Yes, at Imaging Technology we make this dream come true for Apple users.

News about Avid Liquid Moving to Pinnacle Div

---

The following is a quote from Avid support:

"There has been a new development with regards to the Liquid Family of products. Avid is transitioning the management of the Avid Liquid product line to Pinnacle Systems, the company’s consumer division. This change affects all current Avid Liquid products: Avid Liquid software, Avid Liquid Pro and Avid Liquid Chrome Xe.

There are a number of reasons that Avid believes that we can better serve the needs of Avid Liquid users and maximise the potential of Avid Liquid through the Pinnacle division.Avid Liquid’s product development has always been handled by Pinnacle, with the development team that created the original Liquid software residing in Germany. It makes more business sense to have all aspects of the product line (marketing, sales and development) within one division. The product development of Avid Liquid will benefit greatly from this change. With a renewed focus of the development team at Pinnacle, Pinnacle can take optimal advantage of the development of the consumer product line and leverage the recent innovations for future versions of Avid Liquid.

Also, when Pinnacle Studio users are ready to migrate to a more powerful and professional editing solution, Avid Liquid is the ideal choice for them. With Avid Liquid’s availability within the Pinnacle channel, Avid can take maximum advantage of this sales potential."

Introducing Canopus EDIUS Neo - A Low Cost, High Power Editing software

Grass Valley EDIUS Neo is is based on EDIUS version 4.5, and will ship internationally from September 2007. Priced at NZ$349+gst, it is the most comprehensive & professional editing software available in this price range.

I would personally recommend Neo as the ultimate upgrade for existing Pinnacle & Ulead users who have exhausted their learning curve & are looking for a more professional & stable editing software especially for HDV & AVCHD editing. Canopus has also made the entire transition process easier by offering a very easy to read user manual & a comprehensive online training video at www.canopus.com. For those of you who are new to Edius, you will have a good idea of all it's functionalities & features after viewing the online videos.

KEY FEATURES
· Edit DV, HDV and other video formats in realtime
· Mixed format HD/SD editing, including DV, HDV, AVCHD, MPEG-2, Windows Media and QuickTime video
· New graphical user interface with unlimited video, audio, title and graphics tracks
· Realtime editing/conversion of different HD/SD aspect ratios (16:9 and 4:3)
· Realtime editing/conversion of different frame rates, such as 60i, 50i and 24p
· Realtime editing and conversion of different resolutions, such as 1440x1080, 1280x720 and 720x480
· Realtime HD/SD effects, keyers, transitions and titles
· Realtime, render-free DV output directly from the timeline (for DV projects)
· Nested timeline sequences · High-speed HDV timeline export, built for Dual Core CPU technology
· Segment encoding (smart rendering) export for MPEG and HDV
· Direct-to-DVD timeline export with menu
· QuickTitler built in for realtime roll/crawl titling
· Converts AVCHD clips to Canopus HQ format for realtime playback Edit DV, HDV and Other Video Formats In Realtime EDIUS Neo offers native editing in various formats including HDV, DV, Windows Media and QuickTime, and provides seamless realtime workflow, supporting mixing of all formats in the same timeline

EDIUS Neo features realtime, multi-track, mixed format HD/SD editing, compositing, chromakeying, titling and DVD output capabilities. Exceptional Mixed-Format Editing Featuring unrivaled realtime video transcoding technology, EDIUS Neo performs conversion between different HD and SD resolutions, aspect ratios and frame rates — all in realtime. Edit 1080i on a 4:3 standard definition timeline, use NTSC together with PAL or combine them all into a 720/24p project without wasting a single moment on conversion or rendering. EDIUS Neo also features realtime playback and DV output of all effects, keyers, transitions and titles, and can export projects to any format or medium required including DVD-Video.

Unsurpassed Image Quality and Performance
EDIUS Neo features the revolutionary Canopus HQ Codec. Designed with Scalable Technology, this innovative codec offers the highest image quality and performance available today in any HD editing platform. The Canopus HQ Codec not only provides superior Luma and Chroma sampling of HD video, but also features an adjustable bit-rate for increased video quality when capturing and encoding on high-performance systems.

No Special Hardware Required
EDIUS Neo does not require any special hardware to work – it can run on a laptop as well as a workstation system, and can input/output video from any Generic OHCI hardware.

For more info, please contact Nelson at +64 95257888 or email nelson@imatech.co.nz

CANOPUS EDIUS for Editing

The story that’s been around for a while now is that the only editing programmes to last will begin with an “A”. Well, have I got news for you – it’s time to add an “E” for EDIUS by Grass Valley. I went to a demo of EDIUS by Mark Lampard from Grass Valley and in attendance were Chon Chai from Imaging Technology, a distributor of Grass Valley desktop products.

Ed: Mark, what’s the difference between a dealer and a distributor of Grass Valley products?

Mark: Imaging Technology is our New Zealand Distributor of Desktop Products which is the former Canopus channel and they look after many of the smaller resellers. On the other hand, A2Z Technologies is our ProAV Dealer for Grass Valley Professional products which also includes our Indigo AV mixer, the Turbo Intelligent Digital Disk Recorder and other Canopus products.

Ed: Where do people get EDIUS?

Mark: Both Imaging Technology or A2Z Technology, or resellers in different parts of the country can offer the EDIUS product in its various forms. A list of New Zealand resellers is available on the Canopus web site

Ed: That’s good news. Now you’ve just given us a demonstration of the EDIUS 4.5 product and I must say I’m impressed. It’s the first time I’ve seen a full demonstration of it and it seemed to have most everything there that I would want for my production work and I’m certainly interested in it for the future. What do you think makes the difference between the EDIUS product and all the others out there?

Mark: Our major point of difference is the flexibility of what EDIUS can do with regard to many, or should I say all current video formats you may want to edit on the same timeline. These days you may be asked to edit supplied material or shoot different formats that will go into the same project. For example, you can feel comfortable knowing that any HDV camera that you shoot with in any mode, you’ll be able to use on the EDIUS product. As well as that, you have many options to output to DVD through to MPEG. Using the Procoder Express product, you can also output to web formats and if you buy our Procoder 3 product, you can output Blu-Ray compliant HD MPEG files as well.

Ed: So that’s it, they’re all there, they’re all on the timeline and you just demonstrated that you can drag a whole range of clips shot in all sorts of definitions – NTSC or PAL – onto the timeline and they play back instantly. Tell me, if you do mix standard def and high def on the timeline and it’s a high def timeline, what happens to that standard def footage?

Mark: It gets up-converted by the EDIUS engine and, as you saw, the quality isn’t high definition but more like a soft 16 x 9 widescreen. So, if you need to use standard def 4 x 3 mixed with high def, we think that the quality of that up-conversion is good enough for you to use in production.

Ed: But bringing all those different formats in onto that timeline, is EDIUS sort of mucking around with those and converting it to something that it can use?

Mark: No, definitely not. It’s actually playing all of those clips in their native format. There’s no transcoding required to bring the files into the project. What’s in the bin in EDIUS is actually the native format file and then when you bring them onto the timeline, they’re still in their native format. So all the processing is done on the fly. There’s no waiting before you can play them on the timeline – it’s all done instantly.

Ed: And then once you’re happy with what you’ve got, you have a range of formats that you can export that timeline as?

Mark: That’s right.

Ed: Another thing that does interest me – and a lot of people, of course, are getting into HDV without perhaps knowing the full limitations of editing in HDV – the EDIUS product is pretty smart with this. You have an option, and what’s that option?

Mark: We can either edit natively or we can transcode to our Canopus HQ codec and that’s done at the time of capture. What that codec is able to do is to maintain the quality of the picture throughout the editing process. It also gives you a lot of extra performance when you’re editing, because you’re not editing in a long GOP scenario – you’re not decoding GOPs, finding cut points and so on. So you get better performance through your editing process, and you maintain your quality throughout that whole process as well. In the end you’ll end up with a far better result to master.

Ed: So you could still shoot in HDV, but master in something of a high resolution?

Mark: Yes that’s right … in the end all we want is for your effects (and anything else you’ve applied to your edit) to have the production quality of your original maintained in the highest possible quality it was captured in.

Ed: So you, as someone who’s involved more in the editing side of it, and doesn’t really have a vested interest in HDV – what are the perils of editing especially complicated sequences with native HDV footage?

Mark: The HDV format has a lower colour space of 4:2:0 which for colour information is lower than other formats like DVCPRO-HD and some other broadcast formats. Every time you go through a render process, every filter you add, you degrade the quality of that material. So, in the end, if you edit solely in MPEG-2 transport streams, you will end up with a lower quality product at the end than what you started with.

Ed: Is it because you’re fixed at a 25 Mbps bit rate and that includes across dissolves where you’re actually mixing two 25 Megabit bit streams?

Mark: No, it’s a fact that because MPEG is a long GOP, in order to create an effect on it, you’ve got to decode it, put the effect on … if you need to render that, then you’re rendering out another file. If you’re rendering that out to an MPEG-2 file and you add another effect on top, you’re continually creating these new MPEG files and that is where the loss occurs.

Ed: Just a little bit more on the higher resolution codec. EDIUS has “HQ”; Avid call theirs “DNX” and Apple have “Pro Res 4:2:2”. Is Canopus HQ just a different flavour of the same sort of thing?

Mark: No, our HQ Codec is a proprietary Grass Valley Canopus codec. It’s an 8 bit codec and there are plans to upgrade that over some time. Basically it’s meant as an intermediary codec for a lot of different things. A lot of formats you bring in off tape like HD-CAM for instance have no native format within an editing world. You have to bring it into another codec instead of using it uncompressed. We maintain, once again, the quality of the original footage of that format. I guess the theory is the same – you need a format in between, something that isn’t as high a bit rate as uncompressed HD, but isn’t going to lose quality all the time.

Ed: And the good thing with the Canopus HQ codec is that it’s variable?

Mark: Yes, it’s a constant quality codec, so you set a quantisation level and then it does its best to maintain that quality by keeping the lowest possible bit rate. So the quality stays high and the bit rate goes as low as it possibly can.

Ed: Now by the time this interview comes out, EDIUS will be at version 4.5 and I understand you’ve got some special deals for that?

Mark: We’ve had a cross-grade offer for a while now, but that runs until the end of August and we also have a number of different offers for our hardware products, such as the EDIUS NX Express and EDIUS SP and SDI series. So have a look on our website – www.canopus.com for more details on all current offers and any future offers as well.

Ed: So you’re still keeping the Canopus name in there?

Mark: The Grass Valley branding is getting much stronger, however the name Canopus has a very strong identity especially in Australia, and also here with the popularity of our ADVC Converter products. It won’t go away overnight, but the Grass Valley brand will become much more associated with EDIUS and all Canopus products since they are all now part of our Grass Valley Professional Video & Desktop Video Editing Solutions. Brand names can be an emotional issue for many but Thomson with the Grass Valley brand is a market leader in many respects and that can only mean good things for the end-user.

Ed: But for somebody new, for them to throw away their product that might begin with an “A” and go to something that begins with an “E”, what can you offer them there?

Mark: I guess the knowledge that we move with the times, we support the Japanese camera recording formats sooner with our close Japanese ties, and we support innovative technologies and non-tape based media before anyone else. We have full support for P2, XDCAM-HD and for our Infinity camcorder with an open IT workflow, JPEG2000, DV and MPEG recording options.

Ed: Now, not everyone who should’ve came tonight, so how are they going to see and experience the awesomeness of EDIUS 4.5?

Mark: I’m sure our fine distributor, dealer and resellers around the country will be able to give them an introduction. I know that Imaging Technology and A2Z both have systems available for people to come in and have a look at and have a play. That’s probably the easiest way and the best way for people in Auckland to get their hands on it. We will replace V4 which is currently available on our Web with a trial version of 4.5 as soon as we possibly can. So keep a look out for it.

Ed: So they can come in and get a disc and load it on their own computer and try it out for a trial period?

Mark: That’s right or if they’ve got Broadband and can’t get to a dealer, they can download it off the website as well.

Ed: That’s the thing, you have the dealer support here, but also what did impress me in the demonstration is the “Help” file in EDIUS. It actually does look helpful. The pdf’s on it take you through the setting that you’re looking for and give you a step-by-step process that helps you understand where things are, where the right button is and what that does. Good marks for that!

Mark: Thanks. We’re forever trying to improve our own Help files. I guess it wasn’t that long ago when we were very critical – even ourselves – of the Help file and how useful it actually was for people. That feedback’s gone back to Japan and some effort has been put in over the last couple of versions to improve that. Version 4 was quite good, but it seems that, once again, they’ve outdone themselves and spent some extra time on 4.5.

Ed: One point that I would like to stress is that people should understand EDIUS is now a Thomson Grass Valley product and that should count for something?

Mark: Like I mentioned earlier, if you think about what other products Grass Valley make – especially things like the K2 server, the Turbo and the Indigo … we’re providing workflows for all different types of markets, and especially in the broadcast side where there is keen interest in our server products. EDIUS slots in there right away and that means editing news and programs for network television. As of version 4.5 we have the new GXF support, VMF support and that’s all to do with our K2 Server and that means productivity.

Ed: So EDIUS is a product not just for the corporate producer or the wedding producer, but there’s a lot of major broadcasters overseas who are deeply involved?

Mark: Absolutely. Some of our biggest customers include the likes of Al Jazeera English channel and WNBC in the US. We’ve had a great reception from some of the Australian broadcasters, especially those that have our News products, so we believe EDIUS has a great future for all your editing needs.

Ed: Well, we’ll look forward to that.

For your demo of EDIUS, contact

Imaging Technology on 09-5257888.

Latest update on Version 7.2

Hi everyone,
I just come back from a 5 weeks holiday but I have not neglected the blog. So here is the latest update from Avid on version 7.2.

Avid Liquid™ 7.2

Version 7.2 Fixes

Audio:

Ø Resolved an issue with SmartSound clips repeating samples on each clip edit

Ø Audio time warps now play back in sync when there is another audio track below

Ø Adjusting the pan and volume via mouse control now functions properly

Capture/Print to Tape:

Ø Vertical Lines no longer occurred in captured SD SDI footage in Avid Liquid Chrome HD

Ø HDV scene detection during capture is now functioning correctly

Ø In the following 720 60P format, stripe tape no longer fails with the error message “Command can not be executed at specified position on tape" This has been resolved

Ø Panasonic P2 files can now be recorded to tape successfully

Ø With the ProBOB, capturing DVCPRO25.AVI with i.Link no longer has reversed fields at output. This has been resolved

DVD:

Ø Resolved an issue where compiling a DVD would hang at the “Compiling VOB Files” status (around 60% complete)

Ø DVD Export: Resolved an issue with default settings for media size. You can now modify the image size on machines without a DVD burner

Ø DVD Export: You can now allow 18/15 maximum GOP sizes for NTSC/PAL to avoid re-encoding of 18/15 GOPs

Ø Resolved an issue with the navigation in the DVD menu, where it jumped to the wrong chapter in the VOB files. This is now resolved

Ø DVD burners are now recognized on a clean Windows XP operating system install on an HP XW8200 workstation

Effects:

Ø Applying the following combination of time warp + sequence container + cross fade would result in a black inlay. This is now resolved

Ø Opening the BAS-Clapper transition in Hollywood FX no longer causes an abnormal exit to the desktop. This has been resolved

Import/Export:

Ø SmartSound clips now export in MPEG-2 with audio

Ø Exported MPEG-2 clips that are then imported no longer display the “file or compression is not supported “error

Ø Previously, when exporting Avid Liquid codecs in Adobe After Effects 7, a slight pixel shift occurred. This has been resolved

Ø When in Adobe After Effects 7, the Avid 2VUY HD QT codec now exports at the correct frame rate

Ø Previously, DVD Export would fail with an "Export Failure (render error)" when audio settings were set to Dolby Digital and Matrix Surround. This has been resolved.

Ø DivX import and export’s aspect ratio is now correct for 16x9

Ø The ALE link path is now remembered correctly after another import when using FireStore drives

Ø Addressed an issue with silent audio in the clip/source viewer with MPEG1 imported clips in Liquid Chrome Xe

Ø Resolved an issue where XReceive of XDCam clips were not importing consistently

Ø Re-encodes are no longer needed when you export IBP extended resolution media. This is resolved

Ø Resolved an issue where certain AVI files (type 1, for example) could not be imported correctly

Ø Exports to PlayStation portable devices now correctly export as 16x9 instead of 4x3.

Ø XDCAM DVCAM proxy clips are no longer overwritten by additional XReceive/imports.

Ø Resolved an issue with copied clips being unable to verify via the “verify imported media” feature. This now works correctly

Ø IBP-Codecs now support SD Extended Resolutions

Ø Resolved verify media issues – including an issue with the dialog window as well as the verify media/copy option

Ø XReceive of Panasonic P2 clips now supports reel names that use 20 digits of creation/update time in XML. Previously this was 10 digits

Ø Resolved an issue with the MPEG output settings for HD/HDV 1080

Ø Imported animations that were copied into projects now have the correct file path in the project backup

Ø XReceive XDCAM Studio files no longer abnormally exit to the desktop.

Ø Liquid Chrome XSend to Avid Media Stream Server no longer produces eight .wav files

Ø Clip Xsend no longer creates black clips. This has been resolved

Ø Importing BSI files no longer causes an abnormal exit to the desktop. This has been resolved

Ø XSend to Avid Media Stream Server now correctly includes the audio files

Ø An XReceive on more than 12 clips no longer causes a system crash

Ø XSend to Adobe After Effects 7.0 is now functioning correctly

Installation:

Ø Reinstalling Liquid no longer removes HollyWood FX from Liquid

Ø The Spanish version of Liquid installations no longer enumerate all effects on the first start

Ø Installation on a clean system no longer adds a wrong path to the render/capture directory

Ø Resolved an issue with installing Hollywood FX; no longer requires a C:/ directory path

Playback/Timeline/Trim/Scrub/Editing Functions:

Ø Resolved an issue with new slices for trimmed video clip

Ø Avid Liquid 7.2 can now import projects from the latest version of Studio

Ø Audio scrub in trim editor now works correctly with ProBOB output

Ø Audio key frames can now be set properly at the start/end of clips using the “add key frame” button

Ø Resolved a performance issue in HDV when fusing green slices

Ø Resolved the following error “Bad Slice Count”; when building sequences

Ø Resolved the following issue - with a ProBOB connected, the video output monitor was 8 frames behind the inlay after shuttling had stopped in the timeline

Ø HD1080/60i MPEG-2 is no longer field reversed in a NTSC SD timeline. This has been resolved

Ø Setting Mark In during play no longer causes Liquid to lock up. This has been resolved

Render/Consolidate:

Ø Resolved issue with the SmartSound render folder changing to the c:/ directory

Ø Resolved a problem where Liquid would become sluggish while rendering in HDV

Ø A color shift no longer occurs in the rendered result of 1080/59.94 HD media with over-layed titles

Ø Selecting Consolidate Sequence via the right click menu now works correctly

Ø Applying a RT FX 3D CPU effects will no longer render pixilated. This has been resolved

Ø Applying a DMC filter now renders correctly when there is more than one keyframe applied

Ø Improved the process for converting projects from Liquid v7.1 to Liquid v7.2

Ø SmartSound clips, when placed underneath a track with an IPB clip, now renders and plays back correctly

Ø HD render times are now improved with sequences that contain multiple color correction clips

Ø A fuse of a 16:9 sequence now correctly shows clip properties as 16:9 rather than 4:3

Ø With “export separate audio streams” selected in the export settings, fused sequences no longer generate eight .wav files. This has been resolved

Ø Inlay (playback) no longer freezes after 1-2 seconds when used with unique render/fuse codecs

Settings:

Ø Selecting manage project->save a copy now correctly prompts for duplicate folder names

Ø Changes to motion detection settings no longer creates unwanted edit changes.

Ø Removed second head restrictions for older catalyst ATI drivers

UI:

Ø Resolved an issue in the Spanish version of Liquid; where a Mixer tab was missing from the keyboard settings