Video University: Video University Forums: HDV: Calling all Edius Gurus

VideoUniversity.com
Home	Free Library	Store
Free Catalog Please support VU by making your B&H purchases and links through this B&H ad. Doesn't cost a penny more.

See The New VU Postcard Catalog

To post in the forums see the Forum Guidelines.

Join or Renew Today.
New Benefits for all VU Members

Forum Guidelines and FAQ
Main Index	Search Posts
Who's Online	Log In

Home: Video University Forums: HDV:
Calling all Edius Gurus

sicnarf
User

Jun 4, 2008, 8:42 AM

Post #1 of 15 (1579 views)
Shortcut

Calling all Edius Gurus	Can't Post

I'm attempting to make the transition to HDV. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I know there are many Edius experts on this board.

I'm running Edius 4.51 on a dual quad core processor. I've captured HDV footage using the Canopus HQ setting in project settings. After editing I downconverted to make an SD DVD. Encoding to MPEG, using the Canopus procoder took almost 4 hours for a 45 minute project. Is this normal? When working with an SD project it usually encodes at a 1:1 ratio.

Also the downconverted SD DVD looks very soft to me. It almost looks out of focus. I'm using all of the standard presets which yield excellent results for me when working in SD. The original HDV footage looks very very sharp when played directly on a monitor.

Can anyone guide me through this? Should I be downconverting in the camera upon capturing? Am I missing a setting somewhere? Again, thanks to anyone for advice.

Fran Gagnon

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Jun 4, 2008, 3:53 PM

Post #2 of 15 (1559 views)
Shortcut

Re: [sicnarf] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

I'll try and help.

Quote

I'm running Edius 4.51 on a dual quad core processor. I've captured HDV footage using the Canopus HQ setting in project settings. After editing I downconverted to make an SD DVD. Encoding to MPEG, using the Canopus procoder took almost 4 hours for a 45 minute project. Is this normal? When working with an SD project it usually encodes at a 1:1 ratio.

Quote

I am not sure if this is normal but I can tell you definitely takes longer. Remember you are taking original footage with 3 times the pixels and data and squeezing it down to SD. It is going to take longer. Those numbers don't sound great but they seem in the ball park. A quad core encoding SD to SD just flies but HD is much more intensive.

Also the downconverted SD DVD looks very soft to me. It almost looks out of focus. I'm using all of the standard presets which yield excellent results for me when working in SD. The original HDV footage looks very very sharp when played directly on a monitor.

Can anyone guide me through this? Should I be downconverting in the camera upon capturing? Am I missing a setting somewhere? Again, thanks to anyone for advice.

This has been a small complaint by some Edius users. It seems to be a little soft but not so much that customers are going to complain about it. I use Procoder Express to do the encoding and have had no complaints. It isn't going to be as crisp as HD....you are dumping lots of pixels. It may seem a little softer because you are so used to looking at it in full rez on your screen. If the customer is not paying extra for HD editing and a Bluray delivery I always export to SD out of the camera. It just makes everything easy and fast that way. If they don't want to pay for HD editing why should I spend the time doing it that way. My upgrade charge is very small and affordable. If they don't pay I am not wasting my time editing in HD to deliver in SD. Just not worth it even with a quad core machine.

Some Edius users have created a workflow to create the best quality HD to SD encodes over in the Canopus support forums. If you do some digging and searching there you will find the thread. It is a very cumbersome and time consuming process but they say it gives really great looking SD. I don't worry about it. I just encode and deliver what PCE spits out. No complaints so far.

Check around on the Canopus forums. There are some very knowledgeable users there. Whenever I have a problem that is where I look first.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

sicnarf
User

Jun 4, 2008, 4:31 PM

Post #3 of 15 (1555 views)
Shortcut

Re: [fr0gm@n] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks for the tips. I'm trying to get used to the HDV workflow. I find the picture quality to be very inferior to my SD DVDs. I can't see the advantage of shooting HDV if that's the case. I'm going to try shooting 16x9 on SD and see what that looks like. I'm not selling Blue Ray anyway.

I thought about the Canopus forums but those Guys are way over my Head. I can't understand what they're talking about half the time. Thanks again for responding. You've helped clarify some things for me.

Fran Gagnon

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Jun 4, 2008, 4:51 PM

Post #4 of 15 (1549 views)
Shortcut

Re: [sicnarf] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

If you ask them to not be technical they can be a little more down to earth. If you can make it to Video 09 feel free to track me down and I will talk Edius all you want. Mike Downey from Grassvalley is usually there as well in the tradeshow (and for a basic presentation). It's hard to find anyone that knows more about Edius than that guy.

Feel free to email me specific questions sometime if you get stumped on something. I know it pretty well (at least functionality for us Event shooters). There is a thread in the forums about the best quality SD downconvert possible.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

sicnarf
User

Jun 4, 2008, 5:53 PM

Post #5 of 15 (1542 views)
Shortcut

Re: [fr0gm@n] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

I know Edius fairly well myself - at least the editing part of it. You're right, Mike Downey is extremely knowledgeable about Edius. I've been to his seminars a couple of times. I'm not sure if I'm going to Video 09 yet. If I do I'll be sure to look you up. You've been very accomodating.

Fran Gagnon

KevinShaw
Veteran

Aug 23, 2008, 8:06 AM

Post #6 of 15 (820 views)
Shortcut

Re: [sicnarf] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

Edius has an issue when encoding directly from an HD timeline to SD output, which can be fixed by rendering to HD first and then pulling that into a widescreen SD project for encoding to SD. As far as rendering times are concerned that's dependent on your output settings and shouldn't take that long unless you're doing "highest quality" two-pass encoding. Try "high quality" single-pass settings to see if that speeds things up.

The Edius forums are a great source of info, and if comments there are too technical just say so and you'll likely get a simpler response.

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Aug 24, 2008, 9:28 AM

Post #7 of 15 (790 views)
Shortcut

Re: [KevinShaw] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

Kevin....with your method of better quality SD out of HD does that mean you encode your final HQ timeline out to a single HQ file and then import it into a SD project? This does better than just taking your HQ timeline and changing the project settings to SD before encoding it to a single file? If this improves it alot I will give it a whirl on my current project.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

KevinShaw
Veteran

Aug 24, 2008, 3:06 PM

Post #8 of 15 (781 views)
Shortcut

Re: [fr0gm@n] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

If I'm just doing SD output I use the method of changing the project setting to SD first, but that's trickier because then you have to check titles and some effects before rendering. I would have suggested that but it's harder to explain, hence why I mentioned the two-step HQ/SD method. Either way, the important thing is to get the video into an SD project before generating the SD output, because Procoder does a lousy job of downsampling to SD directly from an HD timeline.

For dual HD/SD projects I've been rendering to HQ format and bringing that into Adobe Encore CS3 for HD/SD authoring, but I'm not totally happy with the quality of the Encore encoder either. Another recent tip from the Edius forums is to encode to MPEG2-HD in Procoder Express, then use TMPGencode to split the resulting video and audio before feeding that to Encore for authoring -- this reportedly creates files Encore will accept without re-rendering for HD output. I doubt that would help for SD-only output, for which the Edius/Procoder combination works fine for me.

sicnarf
User

Aug 26, 2008, 9:06 AM

Post #9 of 15 (749 views)
Shortcut

Re: [KevinShaw] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

Kevin,
Thanks for the tips. I'll try it out if I ever go back to HD.
I've totally abandoned HDV for the time being, choosing to shoot and edit in widescreen DV since that's all the customer is getting anyway. It seems like an awful lot of trouble and time to shoot in HDV and give a DV product. I have a tremendous workload and I don't have the time to incorporate long render times into my work flow. If blue ray ever becomes more accepted I'll have to work on it more.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Your expertise on this and other forums is always appreciated.

Fran Gagnon

KevinShaw
Veteran

Aug 26, 2008, 10:46 AM

Post #10 of 15 (745 views)
Shortcut

Re: [sicnarf] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

I've totally abandoned HDV for the time being, choosing to shoot and edit in widescreen DV since that's all the customer is getting anyway. It seems like an awful lot of trouble and time to shoot in HDV and give a DV product. I have a tremendous workload and I don't have the time to incorporate long render times into my work flow. If blue ray ever becomes more accepted I'll have to work on it more.

I know what you mean but would encourage you to consider shooting in HDV with downsample to DV during capture for editing, so you at least have the HDV source material in case you ever want that for future demo reels. And keep in mind that editing in HD for SD delivery gives you some options for zooming and cropping that you don't have otherwise, plus greater color depth prior to the final render. As far as render times are concerned, if you have two computers just let one chug away on the encoding while you continue editing on the other - but then that requires having all the necessary software on two computers.

If your clients aren't interested in HD delivery then it's definitely easier to work in SD, but you might at least ask a few of them how they feel about the HD option.

sicnarf
User

Aug 26, 2008, 11:39 AM

Post #11 of 15 (740 views)
Shortcut

Re: [KevinShaw] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

They're not interested in HD because I don't push it. I'm sure if I chose to market "HD" I'd get some interest. I don't want to open up that can of worms just yet. Maybe next year I will.

Fran Gagnon

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Aug 26, 2008, 12:17 PM

Post #12 of 15 (735 views)
Shortcut

Re: [sicnarf] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

Don't want to question your workflow but if you don't push it how will you know. When I went to HD at the start of 2007 I made the HD upgrade option so affordable they would be stupid not to take it. Some companies charge $500 to $1000 for the HD upgrade. Initially I was thinking $400 - 450 but when polling a few previous customers I got a little price resistance but a few that would have paid it. I decided it would be better to get 10-15 customers buying the option at $200 than 3-4 at $400.

I sold my HD upgrade for only $200. I had a dual core desktop that could handle HD ok but not great and a dual core laptop that I could let chug away on renders or captures if I wanted to. I had enough people sign up for the $200 I was able to build a new quad core computer (HD editing is like SD now) and buy a bunch of 500gb drives so I could work on one and back up on the other. All drives are external so there is portability too. My $200 upgrades built a new computer and bought a boatload of drives. Since I have multiple editing systems and can have multiple things going at once the HD editing really only added a few hours per project to the work flow. Now that Bluray drives are more affordable we have delivered all our archived HD projects to customers on bluray.

If you are trying to edit raw HDV files you will have sluggish performance and long render times but if you uprez to HQ renders are pretty quick....longer than SD but much quicker than working with m2t files. The only downside is HQ takes lots of drive space but drives are so cheap now that is not an excuse. I just picked up a 750gb drive for $99. No reason not to do HQ.

Having said all that, if a customer doesn't want to pay my $200 upgrade I am not wasting my time editing HD and downconverting. If it is not that valuable to them it's not to me either. I do shoot in HD so they can upgrade right to the time of uploading if they want. If there are any killer shots I want to save for a demo down the line I will either save the tape or import it in HD and archive it that way.

My point is, if you don't offer it you won't know if they want it. Around here everyone says no one is asking for it but when I tell people we are shooting in HD they are excited about it. Over half my customers bought the upgrade...that should say something for the naysayers in my market. At this point it will be more difficult to get a premium for HD upgrades because is becoming more widespread so you may not have that option any longer. I worked the HD upgrade into my price increase so all new customers get it anyway and don't know they are paying for it.

Push the HD....you may be surprised.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

sicnarf
User

Aug 27, 2008, 9:18 AM

Post #13 of 15 (703 views)
Shortcut

Re: [fr0gm@n] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

Right now I've got 20 Weddings on the shelf - with 67 booked for the year. I don't feel like adding anything new. This winter, once the dust has cleared and the backlog is gone I'll look into it again.

fr0gm@n
Veteran

Aug 27, 2008, 9:23 AM

Post #14 of 15 (700 views)
Shortcut

Re: [sicnarf] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

In that case I would agree with your decision. Man...that's lots of work. Glad you are really busy...thats a good problem to have. Cool

We have about 23 scheduled for the year and about 10 on the shelf right now which is about right in our workflow and our market. We shoot in the summer and edit all winter and start over next year.

Why does a gorilla have big nostrils.......cause it has big fingers.

frog blog

sicnarf
User

Aug 27, 2008, 9:36 AM

Post #15 of 15 (697 views)
Shortcut

Re: [fr0gm@n] Calling all Edius Gurus [In reply to]	Can't Post

In the past couple of years I've had an excellent free lance editor helping me. However, this year it seems that he has alot of work of his own and I'm not sure if he's going to be able to help much. So if I don't find another good editor (doubtful) I've got that much more editing to do. I should point out, we quite often send out 2 crews on a Saturday to shoot. Hence, the workload. I definitely haven't given up on HD though. I'm sure it will find it's way into my workflow soon. When I get serious about it I'm sure I'll be back on here begging for help! Thanks for all of your information.

Fran Gagnon