Coming Soon: Grass Valley ProCoder 3

[BJ_M]

A new version of our acclaimed video transcoding software has now been announced. Grass Valley ProCoder 3 continues to provide high-speed, high-quality video conversion between multiple formats, incorporating the existing features and workflow options found in ProCoder 2.0, and adding several key new features, including Canopus HQ video encoding profiles, H.264 video encoding/decoding, AVCHD decoding, MPEG-2 Grid Encoding for Multiple/Multi-core CPUs, and Dolby® Digital encoding/decoding support for up to 5.1 channels.



New Features in ProCoder 3
Grid encoding for MPEG-2 (transport stream, program stream)
Based on the same technology featured in EDIUS Speed Encoder for HDV, with more flexibility and expanded controls, the MPEG-2 Grid Encoding support within ProCoder 3 takes full advantage of PCs that feature multiple CPUs and/or multiple cores within the CPUs (including quad core). Parallel-based encoding ultimately yields much faster MPEG-2 encoding times, producing content such as HDV- and DVD-compliant material quicker, saving you time.

Timecode Preservation
If both the source and target video formats support embedded timecode, ProCoder 3 can preserve that information. This makes insert editing possible even after a format conversion.

Inverse Telecine
Content that had previously been converted to interlaced format using 3:2 pulldown can now be restored to progressive film frame rates.

Audio Mapping
When converting files, you can add, swap, and remove individual channels of audio within the target format. This is particularly useful when combined with the new Dolby Digital audio support included in ProCoder 3.

NLE Export Plug-ins
ProCoder 3 includes timeline export plug-ins for Grass Valley EDIUS version 4 and Adobe® Premiere® Pro 2, which provide extensive timeline export capabilities, including DVD-Video image export options.

New Source Formats

* H.264
* AVCHD (M2TS)
* Dolby Digital (AC-3)


New Target Formats and Profiles

* Canopus HQ
* H.264
* iPod (MPEG-4)
* Dolby Digital (AC-3)
* MediaEdge (MPEG-2, MPEG-4)

[edDV]

I wonder if the price will quadruple with the "Grass Valley" name on it.

[BJ_M]

well since grass vally is part of Thomson , they could have called it RCA Procoder

[edDV]

well since grass vally is part of Thomson , they could have called it RCA Procoder

Or worse, Thomson Procoder.

[AlecWest]

Just a word of warning, perhaps. I have ProCoder Express (under the "Canopus" name) which, almost immediately after I bought it and activated it, was pulled from the Canopus/Grass Valley product lineup. I emailed their customer service department and asked them, point blank, if they intended to continue activation support for ProCoder Express in case of a hard drive replacement or computer upgrade experienced by customers. Their terse reply was, "Don't count on it."

They mentioned that ProCoder 3 was coming out soon but made it clear that Edius was their "flagship" product of the future - and suggested I consider buying it. This could possibly mean that ProCoder 3 might be the last version they release - with all future software being under the Edius umbrella (at a more expensive price).

In short, my ProCoder Express is one hard-drive failure or upgrade away from being unworkable ... and ProCoder 2 and/or 3 may be one unsupported dongle away from the same thing.

Hmm ... makes me wonder whether Edius requires a dongle.

[lordsmurf]

I no longer suggest Procoder. The more I worked with version 2, the more I found it to be faster albeit wholly inferior in quality to version 1. Version 2 had a number of never-fixed errors too, in terms of things it did to video.

I suggest MainConcept at this time.

[ron spencer]

why is it called grass valley?

[olyteddy]

The Grass Valley Group made their fame in High End Video Production equipment. Haven't worked in Broadcast gear in a few years, but I imagine they're still pretty much the best.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Valley_%28company%29

PS, Grass Valley is the name of the town they started in....

[edDV]

why is it called grass valley?

Name of a town in the Sierra Foothills of California (Gold Country) and of a company founded by Dr. Hare in 1959 to bring solid state electronics to the broadcast equipment industry. Before they were done they had driven RCA, Marconi, EMI, Bosch and Thomson from the production switching and studio distribution business.



Now owned by Thomson
http://www.grassvalley.com/products_all/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Valley_(company)

[AlecWest]

I suggest MainConcept at this time.

I just visited their website. The price isn't all that bad considering what it does. I'm assuming it can do NTSC/PAL (and vice versa) transcodes, too. But, I admit to getting addicted to converting just about anything to just about anything else format-wise with ProCoder Express (sigh). MainConcept appears to be only a 3-format one-way tool ... either Quicktime or AVI to MPEG2 (but not the other way around).

Just curious. Could ProCoder 2 do any conversion (SD type) that ProCoder 1 couldn't do - and did ProCoder 1 require either a dongle or online activation? If neither a dongle nor online activation was required of ProCoder 1, I might start hunting for anyone still selling it -assuming it still had the conversion power. The slowness factor would not be a big deal to me if it performed.

[BJ_M]

ProCoder 2 can do time shifts that 1 can not do - there are also several other added features .... but on 2, you have to use master quality

[ron spencer]

so did grass valley take over canopus? It was always just canopus procoder....

[BJ_M]

a year ago almost -- it was family owned for the most part

[ron spencer]

thanks for the info!!!! Will be interesting to see tis V3 thing. Procoder used to be the cats a** for a while...but seems to have fallen off the map....

[thecoalman]

MainConcept appears to be only a 3-format one-way tool ... either Quicktime or AVI to MPEG2 (but not the other way around).

Not sure about the standalone version but using Uleads version you can convert just about anything to MPEG2........., SWF, MOV, RM, WMV, QT etc. That's in Media Studio Pro 7 which is quite old. VS and some of their other products have a wide support for multiple import formats.

[BJ_M]

mainconcept h264 will convert from and to a number of formats

[dvd3500]

I have media Studio Pro 7.3 and I can't get RealMedia to convert at all and MOVs take forever. I usually use AVIDEmux or SUPER to convert them first.

using Uleads version you can convert just about anything to MPEG2........., SWF, MOV, RM, WMV, QT

[thecoalman]

I have media Studio Pro 7.3 and I can't get RealMedia to convert at all and MOVs take forever. I usually use AVIDEmux or SUPER to convert them first.

I'm going by what file types are listed under the import video, never actually tried it. All my material is DV-AVI.

Edit: Actually I ws going from memory and now that I look I don't have an option for importing RM but only for exporting.

That really makes no sense, it's usually the other way around. Unless i got something screwed up in the registry. I've recently lost my ability to select Dolby Digital so that may be the case.

[dvd3500]

@thecoalman:
There's an .ini tweak that will get that back AND allow you to tweak the MPEG settings.
It's explained her ein French:
http://forumvideo.tavis.info/forum_posts.asp?TID=12493&PN=1
PM me if you need help.

[Marvingj]

Grass valley has great ideas but lousy customer support. Just call them about a problem with there hardware...They will started speaking Russian....

[thecoalman]

@thecoalman:
There's an .ini tweak that will get that back AND allow you to tweak the MPEG settings.

Actually I have used that tweak before on DVD Workshop. I should have been more clearer, I can select Dolby Digital in the settings but I get an error when I go to export. Going to try to reinstall when I need it. Thanks anyway.

[edDV]

Grass valley has great ideas but lousy customer support. Just call them about a problem with there hardware...They will started speaking Russian....

Actually Grass Valley has great support for high end customers but if Thomson wants them to go down market, they wouldn't want to bother. It isn't elitism* so much as never having to deal with a checkout counter before.

Call Boeing to complain about your dead headset connector and expect a similar response.


* The historical customer ethic of this company would cause employees to avoid planning weddings or childbirth during the Olympics, Presidential Elections, Superbowl, NAB convention or World Cup where all hands were needed to be on deck. Thomson operates by the French ethic.

[jlietz]

It seems to be officially released now http://www.canopus.com/products/ProCoderSW/index.php, but I can't find any price for the upgrade version. Buy.com has the full version listed at $444.97 http://www.buy.com/prod/ProCoder_3/q/loc/105/204518096.html, but no upgrade. Anyone know the upgrade price?

[BJ_M]

Upgrade Version: $199 (US MSRP)

[BJ_M]

if you are wondering what "Rhozet" means in the above screen shot -

procoder 3 was written / tweaked / by the Rhozet Corporation (who first wrote the sdk procoder was based on - and refined in japan)

Rhozet Corporation is the creator of Carbon Coder, which is a stand-alone application that handles transcoding between all major formats, as well as providing a host of additional functions like standards conversion, logo insertion, timecode burn-in, etc.

It is used now by almost ALL major networks and studios for one thing or another -- along with sonic and/or avid , etc .. hardware/software ....

Supported Formats
Video Codecs

* MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4
* H.263, H.264, VC-1, Flash
* DV25, DV50, DVCPro
* DPS, DivX, JPEG 2000
* Image Sequences
* Windows Media, RealVideo

Media Containers

* HDV
* MXF (including D-10/IMX)
* MPEG-2 PS, MPEG-2 TS
* GXF, LXF, QuickTime
* WMV, ASF, AVI, VOB
* 3GPP, 3G2
* WMA, WAV, Broadcast WAV


Audio Codecs

* PCM, MP3, DTS
* AAC, AMC, AMR-NB
* WM Audio, RealAudio

Systems

* Leitch VR, Nexio
* Grass Valley Profile, K2
* Omneon Spectrum
* Quantel sQ
* Avid Editing Systems
* Apple Final Cut Pro
* Adobe Premiere Pro
* Grass Valley Edius

Additional Functions
Basic Operations

* Frame size conversion
* Frame rate conversion
* Color space conversion
* Aspect ratio conversion
* Interlace/de-interlace
* Telecine/inverse telecine
* PAL/NTSC conversion
* SD/HD conversion
* Cropping
* Key-frame extraction
* Multiple target outputs
* Batch processing

Advanced Operations

* Timecode imprint
* Subtitle/CC imprint
* XML controllable titler
* Metadata transport/conversion
* Line 21/CC conversion
* Watermarking
* Logo insertion
* 601/709 color space support
* Video capture board support
* Remote job submission
* Watch folder automation
* Segment extraction/insertion


Video Filtering

* Fade in/out
* Median
* Blur
* Sharpen
* NTSC-safe
* Rotate
* Black/white correction
* Color correction
* Gamma correction
* Temporal noise reduction

Audio Filtering

* Normalize
* Low-pass
* Fade In/Out
* Volume
* Dynamic range compressor


Carbon Coder is $4995 plus $795 a year plus (i think) $495 per render farm cpu

procoder 3 is its little brother ....

procoder express is its baby baby brother i guess ...

[jlietz]

Upgrade Version: $199 (US MSRP)

Where is this available? Thanks

[BJ_M]

from where you bought procoder 2 full version -- you can only get it from a dealer, not online

[lenti_75]

personally I love Procoder, especially for pal-ntsc conversions.
I haven't used mainconcept yet, but I doubt it would be any better on system conversions.

[jlietz]

Spoke to Grass Valley sales...Upgrade is only available through Grass Valley (so don't waste your time searching through dozens of Canopus dealers like I did ) and as BJ_M said, is $199. Upgrade is good for owners of Procoder 2 and Procoder Express for Edius. The salesperson told me they are selling Procoder 3 direct for $499.

As a side note, Procoder 2 seems to be pretty much sold out and most dealers have not yet added Procoder 3 to their inventory. Guy Graphics http://www.guygraphics.com/GGPROD-75415.html has it for $449 though.

[hiptune]

I'm still using Procoder 1.5. I had major success with it right outta the box and never looked back.

2.0 did not offer anything I needed right then, and 3 does not sound like something I need right away.

Sometimes it is a good idea to sit by the sidelines for a while and watch the cars go by.

I don't care about speed as much as quality, and Procoder got it right the first time. Beautiful picture when you have good source footage.