help with capturing/realtime-editing card please

[video_editor]

Hi, newbie here so please ignore my ignorance!

I had a good look at this website before starting a new topic. So, now that I know a few things, here are my questions.

I am going to upgrade my PC to dual AMD X2 4400+, 2GB RAM.

I also have firewire connection and I can capture video footage from my SONY camcorder to my PC.

I want to be able to capture the video (from my Sony camcorder), edit it in real time and export it back to sony miniDV or distribute it on DVD.

Here are my questions:
Do I have to buy a NLE capture card or will my PC be able to handle all the above without the card, but with the appropriate editing software (such as Premiere)?

If I have to buy a capturing/editing card, can you suggest me one with the best value for money (up to $400)? Is Pinnacle DV500 DVD a good choice or can I buy a better one with the same price?

Many thanks for any help

[harley2ride]

Check out www.videoguys.com. They have some good articles and reviews on NLE real time editing stuff.

[edDV]

You seem to have all you need on your current machine if you can capture-transfer DV over IEEE-1394.

What are your NLE goals? Normal consumer NLE will capture-transfer DV at 1x and then edit non-realtime. Previews will be possibe after non-realtime audio/video rendering. Then you can output the timeline realtime or send it to an encoder.

If you want a realtime editing platform, you will need a high performance RAID or external server and realtime PCI hardware.

"(up to $400)"

Doesn't come close for true realtime. Read up on videoguys site and then better describe what you need to do. True realtime is on the upper range of what Videoguys offer.

Don't spend all that money on Dual AMD and 2GB memory. It won't help with realtime editing if that is your goal. Additional CPU will help for effects rendering or software encoding but will not add to realtime capability.

[video_editor]

because I make experimental videos I use many cuts during
the editing and the cuts have to be synchronised with
the music/sound.

But so far, my PC cannot handle real-time editing. First I have to
do all the editing, render the final video and then run it
on a video player to see if the scenes and cuts are synchronised
with the music. If they aren't, I have to go back to Premiere,
change the scenes, render it again and so on.

Not being able to play and preview my editing is extremely time consuming.

From what I know so far, the cheapest solution for me seemed to be
the Pinnacle DV500 DVD, since it encodes the video using MPEG-2 encoder, which allows me to edit and preview my edit in real time, in full frame (PAL 720 x 576).

After reading some articles in videoguys.com, I got more confused since
they claim that all that matters these days for real-time editing is the software and not the hardware. So, NLE applications such as 'Sony Vegas 6' or even better 'Liquid Edition 6', take advantage of the CPU power and
the graphics card power and allow you to edit and preview the video footage in real time. So no edit card is required.

So, do you think that with one of the above NLE software applications, a fast CPU, a very good graphics card, and a fire wire connection, I will be able to do real-time editing, without any editing card?

many thanks for any help

[video_editor]

I forgot to mention the pc details (already bought I am afraid):

AMD X2 4400+
2x1 Gb of Corsair ram
150 Gb 10,000rpm Raptor hard disk
NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT
MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 SLi motherboard

Thanks again for any help!

[harley2ride]

If you are doing a lot of editing, I would not go with a card that captures directly to mpeg2. You want something that will capture to avi or dv-avi. That would be more in line with using an ADS Pyro AV/Link, or the Canopus ADVC 100 or 110. Both of these units lock the audio to the video during capture, and both can handle macrovision. There may be some other PCI type cards which will work as well.

[edDV]

I forgot to mention the pc details (already bought I am afraid):

AMD X2 4400+
2x1 Gb of Corsair ram
150 Gb 10,000rpm Raptor hard disk
NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT
MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 SLi motherboard

Thanks again for any help!

What are you capturing? If you fully decompress your input video to your project format (DV format works best for Premiere) then all cuts editing is real time. Transitions are on the fly rendered for "realtime" preview at lower resolution but the timeline will need full rendering before video export.

Which Premiere version are you using? Up to Version 6.5, native processing was 24/32 bit RGBA, 720x576. Premiere Pro can opreate natively in RGBA or YUVA color space in a wider choice of bit depth. If you convert your captures to one of the supported project formats, then cut editing will be realtime with realtime output and preview.

Same concept goes for all the other prosumer editing products when working in software mode. Cuts editing is realtime and transitions/effects are partially rendered to allow user timing of the edit points.

True pros use external servers feeding multiple input SDI (SMPTE 259M serial digital YUV) hardware cards in the computer. The video path is then hardware. A simple A/B mix requires 3 synchronized SDI streams to the server A, B and record. A server supplied Key on top requires an additional YUV forground and A (alpha) key from the server.

[video_editor]

many thanks for your comments!

I use Premiere 5.1 to capture the video from my SONY camcorder, via IEEE 1394 connection. Premiere captures and stores the video as uncompressed avi's.
The capture settings are the following:

capture format - video for windows (only alternative is 'QickTime capture')
Video Format - 720x576
Compression - no compressor (there isn't an alternative anyway)

The problem is that although the footage is captured and stored by Premiere 5.1, Premiere cannot open these uncompressed
avi's (it says that the format is unknown).

So I have to use the 'ulead videostudio 5.0 DV' application that
came with my SONY camcorder, convert the videos into tga sequences
and then import these sequences inti Premiere for editing.

What I want to be able to do, is to capture uncompressed (or high
quality compressed) DV footage from my camcorder, edit it in real-time,
wthout converting it, preview it in real-time and then export it
back to miniDV or DVD.

So far, I think the 'Canopus DVStorm2' and 'Canopus Edius NX' are the
hardware closer to my needs (altough they are quite expensive).

With your comments above, I realised that If I buy the Canopus ADVC 110, when I capture the footage in full frame DV quality, I can then edit it
and preview it in real-time in Premiere Pro (which comes with the ADVC 110). If I understand correctly, ADVC 110 is only for capturing and converting my DV footage. But Premiere Pro will be able to take the ADVC 110 footage and edit it in real-time, without the help of any additional editing cards.

many thanks in advance for any further comments!

[guns1inger]

DV is not uncompressed, it is compressed at approx 5:1 as it is recorded by the camera. What you transfer is however identical to the file on the tape, so in that respect no further encoding is done when transfering. If you are filming with a DV camera then the ADVC isn't really adding much, as it's primary function is to convert analogue to DV. With Premiere Pro you should be transfering in full frame DV and be able to preview in real-time. Vegas can also do this quite happily.

As trabsfering the video in the first place is essentially a sequential process, I can't see how you can easily achieve 'real-time'editing. You transfer the file, usually in scenes (based on the start/stop point on the DV timecode), then reassemble them in the editor. Unless you have multiple realtime inputs that you can cut between, you can't do much else.

[video_editor]

After reading your comments, I did some further research and I found the Canopus EDIUS DVX package (at £313, or about $540).
This includes, among other things,

EDIUS DVX PCI bus card
EDIUS Pro 3 editing software application

I found great reviews for both the card and the software application about their real-tile editing capabilities. They also work even faster with a powerful PC, like the one I recently bought.

Since the above is a more straightforward solution to my needs, althought it comes at a higher price than the one I could afford, if it delivers what it promises, then I might go for this one.

Does anyone know anything about the above product?

many thanks

[harley2ride]

Unless you plan on doing this professionally, you don't need a Canopus Edius, or DVRAPTOR. Adobe Premiere 6.5 will do what you want, Ulead Studio 9 will do it. If you really want to get fancy, I've seen Liquid Edition with Break out Box on ebay for as low as $275.00. If you have the bucks and want to spend it on the fancy toys you mentioned, then by all means go ahead. But it is overkill for what you want to do.

[video_editor]

Oh no, believe me I don't really have and I wouldn't like to spend/waste money for something that would not really add value to my work (and there is definitely a professional element to it).

And this is exactly my problem, as I am starting now I am trying to understand what would be better for me but it seems that the more research I do and the more replies I have, the more confused I get!

[edDV]

many thanks for your comments!

I use Premiere 5.1 to capture the video from my SONY camcorder, via IEEE 1394 connection. Premiere captures and stores the video as uncompressed avi's.
The capture settings are the following:

capture format - video for windows (only alternative is 'QickTime capture')
Video Format - 720x576
Compression - no compressor (there isn't an alternative anyway)

The problem is that although the footage is captured and stored by Premiere 5.1, Premiere cannot open these uncompressed
avi's (it says that the format is unknown).

I had to go fire up my old Pentium III computer that still has Premiere 5.1 installed. I could have sworn it supported DV format without requiring uncompressed capture. I see that DV format support in 5.1 was added as part of my Pinnacle DV200/300 package and wasn't part of the Adobe package.

Bottom line, your Premiere needs upgrade to v6.5 or better to properly support DV format as a "realtime preview" source. For 5.1 without 3rd party support, you would need to completely decompress to 24bit RGB.

So I have to use the 'ulead videostudio 5.0 DV' application that
came with my SONY camcorder, convert the videos into tga sequences
and then import these sequences inti Premiere for editing.

What I want to be able to do, is to capture uncompressed (or high
quality compressed) DV footage from my camcorder, edit it in real-time,
wthout converting it, preview it in real-time and then export it
back to miniDV or DVD.

Again you are using very old software that doesn't support DV properly. Upgrade to ULead Video Studio 8 or 9 to get a reasonable functioning product.

So far, I think the 'Canopus DVStorm2' and 'Canopus Edius NX' are the
hardware closer to my needs (altough they are quite expensive).

You only need those products if realtime effects and transition editing are requirements. It would be nice to have but expensive. Here you are several software versions back and you've been sitting on that kind of money?

With your comments above, I realised that If I buy the Canopus ADVC 110, when I capture the footage in full frame DV quality, I can then edit it
and preview it in real-time in Premiere Pro (which comes with the ADVC 110). If I understand correctly, ADVC 110 is only for capturing and converting my DV footage. But Premiere Pro will be able to take the ADVC 110 footage and edit it in real-time, without the help of any additional editing cards.

Like said above, Premiere 6.5 and above will work fine with your DV camcorder for "realtime preview" so long as you have a $10 IEEE-1394 port on your computer and XP OS. From the above it sounds like you may still be on win98se and that can be used only with v6.5.

You only need the ADVC-110 if you need to capture analog. Many DV camcorders can do this as well if your model has "analog pass-thru" capturing. There are other advantages to the ADVC but for most, analog capture through the camcorder is good enough.

Bottom line, get your software up to date and you may not need any other hardware.

[edDV]

...
As trabsfering the video in the first place is essentially a sequential process, I can't see how you can easily achieve 'real-time'editing. You transfer the file, usually in scenes (based on the start/stop point on the DV timecode), then reassemble them in the editor. Unless you have multiple realtime inputs that you can cut between, you can't do much else.

In Premiere Land, "realtime" means a transition or an effect can be previewed without full rendering. This allows refinement of edit points or motion paths without having to wait many minutes to many hours to render each iteration.

Steps are:
1. Transfer DV material to the HDD.
2. Add trimmed clips to the timeline. Pointers reference the original file so everything plays realtime from the timeline.
3. Add transitions. Background processing renders a low resolution version of the transition that can be previewed immediately or with minor pause for computation.
4. Add effects. Again low resolution versions (better than wireframes) are computed.
5. When you get everything positioned and previewed, a full render is needed before export.

Beyond that, some hardware cards support true realtime transitions and a menu of realtime effects using DV data on the HDD. The HDD system needs to be fast enough to support 3 simultaneous DV streams. If the card doesn't support what you want to do, you're back to software computation.

[video_editor]

OK, I think we are now getting there!

I will try and upgrade to a newer version of Premiere and see things from there (do you know if there are any free trials?).

However

Beyond that, some hardware cards support true realtime transitions and a menu of realtime effects using DV data on the HDD. The HDD system needs to be fast enough to support 3 simultaneous DV streams. If the card doesn't support what you want to do, you're back to software computation.

So am I right to assume that the EDIUS DVX PCI card offers that and this only why I should prefer this over a software solution only like Premiere? Also I think the 10k raptor HDD is fairly quick? And the pc has a firewire port and will be using Windows XP.

And lastly how does the EDIUS Pro 3 software compare to Premiere?

Thanks again for your help/patience.

[edDV]

Premiere is good as a software program only and balances well for a good "power" PC with multiple HDD. It is flexible for a wide range of uses. Premiere Pro is rewritten for a power PC XP platform only and v2.0 requires SSE2 support which eliminates many AMD processors. Vegas and ULead Media Studio are also very good and work on a wider range of PC platforms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2

Premiere/Vegas/ULead also have wide "realtime" video hardware support but when you go that route, costs climb exponentially due to I/O and/or RAID support requirements.

You need to describe your needs and budget then we can narrow in. Quite frankly, still running 5.1 Premiere and v5 Video Studio indicates you either lack interest or budget to go further. Also the XP1800 is slow for this kind of work.

Edius is designed narrowly for effects intensive promos, wedding videos etc. It will work somewhat as software only but if you want to do that kind of work, you will need the hardware support cards plus RAID and you are quickly talking $2-5K and up.

As I've concluded in other threads, a Raptor has little application to video editing considering cost. It is a game drive. If you can't do what you need with a PATA/SATA capture drive (separate from OS drive) then you are into serious RAID with multiple PATA/SATA or an external server connected SDI.

Motherboard RAID controllers are seldom adequate. You need a PCI RAID card designed for supporting multiple synchronized video streams.


PS: I forgot you said you bought new hardware.

I forgot to mention the pc details (already bought I am afraid):

AMD X2 4400+
2x1 Gb of Corsair ram
150 Gb 10,000rpm Raptor hard disk
NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT
MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 SLi motherboard

Thanks again for any help!

I assume you got the Raptor for games and use it as an OS drive. What you have is a nice game machine. Ideally, you need a separate drive or RAID for video capture depending on how serious a video editing machine you need.

[video_editor]

I finally got my new pc, and got it running. I installed the Premiere Pro 2 tryout for Adobe's website.
With it I can capture and then edit and preview footage from my SONY camcorder in real-time, even with up to 2-3 filters applied to it.

So for the moment I'm happy with it and I'm glad I haven't spent any money on additional hardware.

The editing card will be useful if I want to work with many filters on my video footage, but for the moment I don't need that.

So, what I've learnt from this is that with a powerful pc you'll be able to do real-time editing and previewing of full frame DV footage without using any capturing or editing cards.

many thanks for all your comments and help.