Wouldn't HDMI inputs/outputs be better than firewire anyways?

Is anyone following the development of thishttp://www.cineform.com/products/CineFormRecorder.htmCineform Recorder[/link]? There's a buzz on the http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=107885DVINFO Cineform Forum.[/link] and it SOUNDS viable. But it also will be using HDMI.

I'll take a wild a** guess and say that less than 1% of comcorders in existance have HDMI ports. I not talking models offered, I mean total number sold. The number with Firewire port is probably over 90%. I also understand that the firewire port normally means compressed and HDMI is less compressed with a better color space.

Many of these solutions only make sense if you already own a camera. For those buying a new camera or upgrading it will almost certainly be cheaper to buy a new cam that records to solid state memory.

For those wanting the ultimate in geek holy grail of detail RAW is probably the best and will start at $3,000 for Scarlet next year.

Konrad

Take an Intensity, or Intensity Pro, if you are looking for great preview capabilities with Vegas.

Ignore hardware mpeg-2 Encoder - even Canopus NX does not use hardware encoder really, since the sofware encoder are quite good and fast (ok, they got now a new one, but that is not necessary at all).

Firewire should = the same quality as HDMI off a camera. HDMI supports copy protection, firewire does not (good reason for companies to phase firewire out?)

anyway... that wasn't why I thought it was strange: to capture non-firewire you'd need a capture card 90% of the time. Defeats the point of it being so relatively inexpensive imho: like saying your car is only $5000 new, body is extra.

Firewire should = the same quality as HDMI off a camera.

True if you have already shot something and it is on tape. Not so if you get footage directly off the camcorder. Example: Canon HVnn camcorders. Shoots to tape, stores as HDV, which is highly compressed. Connect camcorder directly to PC using HDMI and you get full 1920x1080HD with no compression = significantly higher quality.

It's not the encoding that slows things down. Delivering the frames to the encoder is what takes the work and slows us down.

Bob.

It's not the encoding that slows things down. Delivering the frames to the encoder is what takes the work and slows us down.

Can you elaborate on this one a little? I am not sure I quite understand what you are saying. If it wasn't the encoding that slowed things down but frame delivery rate, would not all encoding take approximately the same time? It takes a lot longer to encode certain types of video than others, from the same source. Maybe I am just misunderstanding what you are saying.

For certain, different encoding does require different amounts of CPU cycles. However depending on what you're doing in the project this might become almost irrelevant. Multiple tracks being composited and/or lots of FXs use a lot of CPU cycles, then the frame(s) are delivered to the codec.

As a practical example on one of my PCs I can get better than real time encoding to mpeg-2. One current project though involves scaling, gaussian blur, compositing and all at Best. It's taking 5x real time. So at a rough guess my simple cuts only projects would run quite a lot faster with a hardware mpeg-2 encoder, pretty much as fast as the disks could serve up the data. With my more complex projects it'd make little difference to the render time.

Bob.

What role does a genlock play in the digital domain?

OK, to go over what this DOES...

it looks like an uber-fancy AV converter we use now. Nice. But no firewire in/out? That sucks.

((Its not a converter, its a hardware DV/HDV acceleration card. If you check out Matroxs site, its basically an Rtx2 in a box with PCI3 interfaces. Take it with u on ur laptop or mount it to your desktop. This flexibility means OS and config are not an issue. So long as ur NLE is in working order, it should also work, regardless.
By the way it also supports full 10 bit realtime encoding and playback...
No frirewire port.. well theres no need for it see, coz ur laptop or desktop will already have these ))

"Wouldn't HDMI inputs/outputs be better than firewire anyways?"
((Not necessarily. Not all cameras have HDMI. IN addition, HDMI allows for a more "allrounded" compatibility with HDMI capable monitoring displays. Better is relative to the users needs))

"Intensity Pro, if you are looking for great preview capabilities with Vegas."
((Vegas 2nd monitor works fine, however the issue here isnt jsut preview caps, its about preview framerate and hardware encoding. Of which Vegas has neither.
In addition this unit not only supports premiere, but FSPStudio as well.. ))

"It's not the encoding that slows things down. Delivering the frames to the encoder is what takes the work and slows us down."
Thank you Bob,

The point of units such as this, is the fact that pretty much no matter what you do WITH it, your playback and delivery times will, if not mostly, always be consistant.
In addiiton, realtime playback of virtually any filter configuration, in addition to encoding, transcoding, preview, process, colour accuracy (as in what u see is what you get) is important and much more accurate than Vegas 2nd monitor. setup. Even though Vegas method is pretty nifty, its still not realtime.
Realtime def makes a difference when clients are over your shoulder and if you do lots of corporate work where u edit the piece in the comapny of yoru client, then this makes a HUGE difference in how your productivity is percieved

When we were selling RTx100's the capabilites were HUGE. It isnt a perfect system but on a turnkey system , i can vouch that over 85% of event videographers were using these devices.
Now thats alot.. especially for sydney and considering the number of production houses actually here.
Even big name houses like Grundy are using RT and Digisuite systems.
I always felt that the hardware was let down by the flaky software but since CS3 came out, coupled with GFX card integration and RTx2 acceleration, its one of the only systems available today which makes use of pretty much ANY device on the system to accelerate productivity.
This is a big thing when u consider the investment being made.
I mean think about it, an nvidia GT8800 gives you hardware antialiasing (great for scaling) shaders as wella s vector possibilities (those working with PS will know how much power working with vectors can give.. especailly when scaling)

These hardware availabilites on a GFX card valued under $250AUD can potentially make agood program even greater by tapping into these features.
Even if its not realtime, if it can salvage CPU clock cycles for actual rendering ncoding and use teh GFX card for this kind of process/filter, then the playback/rendering will inherantly speed up.

It seems if SCS conitnue to push a SW only worls with vegas, that they will def fall behind, becuase i can see how any and pretty much all mac users, will go forone of these considering cost, and the fact that it works with prem or FC. So regardless of waht NLE they use, they will have the performance they need.
This will also put a dent in Avids pocket for those who would whinge about FC rendering, when u consider the matrox codec inherantly supports HDV, so that in itself is a step FC users wont ever need to worry abotu again.
In addition, the fact that it offers 10bit support is another boon for Apple because compression in itself is one of the biggest issues editors face

I hear you, thankfully I haven't had to do too many edits with someone watching but when I have it's stressful enough without the simply laughable playback that Vegas has to offer. The way Ppro does it is so obviously better I just cannot understand why Vegas, even without hardware assist doesn't take the same approach. Dropping resolution when you can't keep up is bearable, dropping frames isn't.

Still I guess we can't have everything. Vegas rocks at some things and fails at others. Ppro is a heavy load that I'd never turn a buck on if I had to use for everything I do.

Bob.

>>>System spec/compatibility wont be an issue and its purely run through the PCI bus which is 20x faster than 1394.. <<<<

From my experience with Matrox, it will be a huge issue.

This all sounds fine on paper, but until it actually works doesn't mean much. Drivers will always be an issue.

""""""""Intensity Pro, if you are looking for great preview capabilities with Vegas."
((Vegas 2nd monitor works fine, however the issue here isnt jsut preview caps, its about preview framerate and hardware encoding. Of which Vegas has neither.
In addition this unit not only supports premiere, but FSPStudio as well.. ))""""""

You have to address the different issues with different solutions. The Intensity delivers a superior preview picture from the timeline. It allows you to capture via HDMI (what delivers a slightly better quality then firewire, was at least my impression when I captured some FX1 material). The capturing via HDMI makes sense - if you work in a studio environement, and capture with a better color sampling. For external uses, where you capture from firewire, I do not use the intensity.

For rendering, Vegas utilizes 4 cores in a quite good way. Here I would invest in a fast quadcore, what is the solution for fast rendering. If that is not fast enough for you, then there is no solution with Vegas at the moment (but one with Canopus Edius, for example).

The Intensity support in CS3 is a limited one - you MUST work with Blackmagic Intensity procects in 1920x1080, there seems to be no solution for anamorph HDV2 material with 1440x1080. In Vegas I have not seen such limitations, the Intensity is addressed directly and works quite well.

>>>System spec/compatibility wont be an issue and its purely run through the PCI bus which is 20x faster than 1394.. <<<<

From my experience with Matrox, it will be a huge issue.

This all sounds fine on paper, but until it actually works doesn't mean much. Drivers will always be an issue.

That shoudl read PCIe bus..
But heres the thing, its only seen as an exteranl interface. The Matrox Breakkout units for Mac have always been predominately stable, and for windows, it has, if not alwyas been driver and codec conflicts which cause the problems.
I know MNAY people runnign matrox systems for MANY MANY years (were talking over 5 years now) who are STILL using these with on the same install without a problem whatsoever.

As for premiere, personally i thnk its a clunky truck, with trailers and carriages added to it to suit each destinations needs,

To be honest, with the way PCIe has been taken onboard by the IT industry, one would have actually thought that a move like this would be a natural progression.
Lets face it, SW is good, can be fixed when broken with a patch and is cheap.
issue however is that to moev away from the consumer banner we sit under, somethign more diverse and powerful needs to be offered so as not only compete with other NLE's but for us, as producers, to compete with our competitors on at leat an equal footing.
Vegas has slipped its way into certain productivity regimes, but its still way behind when it comes to broadcast or cinema whn comparing to FCP, Premiere and Avid. And lets face it, these 3 apps are Vegas biggest competitor.
Edius is on another planet, and nothign that i have seen in the past 5 or so years can come close to waht canopus have pulled off with it on software alone.
I hate the GUI, but if the GUI was more like vegas id def be using it as opposed to vegas itself. And these sentiments are shared by many users i might add..
no mater how much power u have, or what u can whip out with next to no rendering (such as edius on a laptop) it all means naught if the GUI sux dogs balls..

You have to address the different issues with different solutions.

((Agreed, however this is one solution which ill make do of teh bane of almost every Vegas editor... i mean when i do roadshows with Vegas, i can most certainly guarantee that it IS more than embaressing when i add filters to the m2t and then see Vegas killing frames to keep up... it really is embaressing when ur trying to educate someone or demonstrate a tool when it cant even offer a half decent playback. ))

The Intensity delivers a superior preview picture from the timeline.

It allows you to capture via HDMI (what delivers a slightly better quality then firewire, was at least my impression when I captured some FX1 material).

((how so may i ask, considering they are virtualy identical 1's and 0's ))

The capturing via HDMI makes sense - if you work in a studio environement, and capture with a better color sampling. For external uses, where you capture from firewire, I do not use the intensity.

((I would agree that uncompressed through HDMI would be great, but not all cameras offer this. COnsidering the next round of AVCHD and HDV cameras making the rounds, most arent offering HDMI...
Aside from interface from cam to PC, the issue here that all this can be done one way or another within vegas. Its costly but it does nothign to increase performance.
THIS unit, MX0, DOES offer a HUGE boost in performance in addition to offering addition interface options for those using HDMI and the like and capturing live footage. The fact it supports 10bit off the bat with HDMI in/out makes one consider this as the perfect solution to cam owners using EX1 or H1 (SDI) capaple cameras.
Its the definitve solution aside from the the forthcoming Blackmagix XDR card device... we REALLY do need a unit liek this, which is around the 3k mark and offers all this within OUR environment.
Id happily pay up to 5k for something like this if it means i can see aht im editing as im editing without it lagging behind or killing frames.
Full res preview out to a 46' full hd panel would be ideal and would vastly change the way i show and deliver certain types of work. as it stands, i cannot bear to show my vegas to any client else its lack of performance raise more questions. ))

For rendering, Vegas utilizes 4 cores in a quite good way. Here I would invest in a fast quadcore, what is the solution for fast rendering.

((It not simply about rendering.. Its abotu playback performance, codec managements such as uncompresed playback vs M2t, vs DV etc etc whereby vegas chokes on uncompressed, the Rt systems dont.. its also abotu utilising the features available within the system which the NLE lives in. Much like mb2, i can tweak its performance by overclocking my GFX card, which i do, and it shaves at least 10minutes from a 90min longform render.
If i find that perforamce isnt as high, i just upgrade my GFX card to something else, (which i reently did to a 8800GT) which boosted rendering to no less than 3x realtime with MB2... my agp6800 gave me half realtime

Hell 2 weeks ago i did an SDE on my laptop and a 9 minute video tok 18mins to render on a "lowly" Nvidia Go7300.
Using the GFX card this way shos the potential vegas has as if ALL filters had the option to be routed through the gfx card, we could at least utilise THOSE features to colour, and the CPU cycles to focus more on encoding.
Its a huge difference as opposed to this SCS/AMD thing theyve been touting with Parrallel GPU processing whereby theyre claimgin that the app uses the GPU processor more as an additional core, as opposed to actually PROCESSING the video through the card itself BEFORE its encoded...
Very different ways to use the HW, but whether or not this will work, who knows.. Id rather buy a sony product which will work with ANY system or GPU i throw it on, as oposed to being forced to buy another make or brand of GFX card which really wouldnt offer any more peformance for me, when i could easily overclock my CPU up to over 20% and get the same results..
This amalgamation is somethign of a mystery to me, as noone is yet to have any official word abotu what this AMD thing is al about. Frankly im not holding my breath and i know that if Vegas 64 doesnt offer the performance and engine upgrades it needs, (progressive frame management, slowmotion, etc ) then i'll be jumping ship without hesitation.

i can get 6x faster than relatime mpg encoding using Mainconcpet standalone encoder on a single quad core with 2gb ram. plus have the headroom to do my paperwork and emails.. lol
Its not an issue of encoding or rendering, Its an issue of performance and system utilisation))

If that is not fast enough for you, then there is no solution with Vegas at the moment (but one with Canopus Edius, for example).
((Edius has been a soltuon for many people. Sadly its GUI sux ))

The Intensity support in CS3 is a limited one - you MUST work with Blackmagic Intensity procects in 1920x1080, there seems to be no solution for anamorph HDV2 material with 1440x1080. In Vegas I have not seen such limitations, the Intensity is addressed directly and works quite well.

((Im not doubting that, but i do doubt its ability to increase Vegas performance.
If the feed being sent to the video overly is not converted, be it to DV or HDV or AVCHD, then clock cycles woldnt be an issue and we could filter out any unecessary processing during playback.

Much like audio, Edius applies its filter on an "Aux" type level, whereby the actual feed is sent and then tweaked.
Vegas on teh other hand, tweaks the vision THEN sends the feed to the playback device.
The difference with this, is that the feed being sent from edius is always constant, regardless of the chain in which the filtering occurs.
Basically the effect is "added" to the video during playback.
Ie Source - > playback - > filter - > output vision

The matrox also does this for that matter as matrox works with variable resolution when dropped frames are imminent.
So as the video is sent though, it will always playback, if it starts to puke, it will kil res for that moment while it rebuilds its buffer.
ie source - > playback - > filter (HW or SW) -> output vision - > frame scan ability where output res fluctuates to accomodate processing needs

Vegas however, does al the processing and sends that processing out before its even played back.
ie Source - > Filter -> playback -> output vision. Vegas however drops frames to accomodate timeline tempo.

With Vegas, when using Mb2, its much like the matrox way but with an additional filter node as the GFX card can ONLY process whats being fed into it, in turn, the playback must be active BEFORE the GPU filter processing.can occur...
source- > filter - playback - filter GFX -> output vision

so can u see how thie management of the codecs and the chain of processing can affect the way a product performs?
Premiere had a HUGE issue of "inefficient" filter chain setups. If you set up, lets say a sepia then a colour corrector in that order, Prem would puke.. if however you chained CC, then sepia, it would fly. Why>? I dont know.. its just the way in which each filter managed the colour gamut being fed into it..
But Vegas doesnt have this issue, as instead of chaining filters, it stacks them. Theyre essentially the same way of getting from A to B, but with vegas, waht u do with one filter, WONT affect the performance of another..

Sticking to the point.. a unit like this IS needed. If you make money with video, HW is always something to consider.

When considering how vegas handles HDV and with the consistant issues we face with memory leakage and pagefile mismanagement (black frames anyone) having a system to bypass all that is somethign to consider.
In addition, going one step further, would also allow Sony to offer a realtime AVCHD encoder/decoder. With teh constant increase of compression offerings, and the compromises made to video because of teh demand for HD content, with the increasing demand for higher compression, having a HW device to manage this element of processing for EDITING, would be welcomed...
Recoding to solid state is one thing but having the need to transcode to certain codecs to get decent playback defeats the purpose. This is why i think cineform, as good as it is, defeats teh entire process of solid state recording and editing.
I mean lets face it, we want to deliver our work faster and by transcoding to intermediates, defeats the purpose...

Sony, lets jsut say that a unit like this wil lnto only sell like hotcakes, but will also offer Premiere users a reason to leap across to the Vegas camp.
Not only woudl it sell, but it will change the way this application is considered out in teh real world, coz in reality, out there, over 85% of studios and editors alike see vegas as a toy

"Not only woudl it sell, but it will change the way this application is considered out in teh real world, coz in reality, out there, over 85% of studios and editors alike see vegas as a toy"

The intensity is perfect as a high quality preview card for Vegas, other solutions are 5-7times more expensive (like the Canopus NX).

The capturing takes place with a 4:2:2 conversion, if you use the blackmagic mjpeg-avi codec - what results in a slightly better picture, compared to 4:2:0 HDV (PAL).

However: I do not see what your point or your question is really. If you think that vegas is a toy - fine, then use another tool. Its only up to you.

wolfgang, im not doubting the intensities usefulness. However the point of the subject matter here is the hardware acceleration within the NLE itself, not the capture or codec options..

ok lets say u capture 422 with ur intensity... you wouldnt however be able to get full frame rate multple video tracks during preview playback on vegas. Couple that with the encoding requirements for delivery, and rendering is then another thing to consider.
THIS tool however does away with the issues surrounding playback and encoding.

My take on all this acceleration business is this:

Unless you're doing same day turnaround stuff such as News, what's the big deal?

Whether it takes 10 minutes or two hours to render, there's scores of other things to do, and if it's a really long project, I sleep overnight whilst Vegas renders.

I've probably missed something, in which case please enlighten me - in the meantime excuse me whilst I make a comfortable living with Vegas as it is.

There is always some need for hardware encoder in some cases - but I think that this is not addressed by Vegas.

In terms of quality, even for HD the render capabilities are good for mpeg2 - for AVC we are still faced by long render times. So, I see a major need for hardware decoder/encoder that come from AVCHD today. And I am not sure if that is adressed at all by the hardware mentioned here.

I might get to see one of these boxes first hand. My local Macolite is very impressed even though it's made by Matrox. He got badly burned by them years ago.
One problemo though, there's no drivers for this box for Windoz. If Vegas was to support it SCS would likely have to write their own drivers. Now that'd be a first. For once they wouldn't be able to shift the blame onto some 3rd party.

Bob. Still waiting for V8's Decklink support.

aahh.. but heres the thing, its NOT just about realtime rendering, its also about realtime playback during editing..

As for windoze driver, i dont think well ever see them Bob.. Matrox never released Win drivers for the Old MacRT BoB, even though it was virtually identincal to teh RTX100

I guess the point of this thread is to outline a need for something like this in the Vegas environment..
Avid did it with Mojo, even though Mojo had its flaws, it worked for lappys and Desktos alike..
Edius have SP (and doesnt it kick... ) but thats locked into Desktop systems.. balh blah we can go on and compare btu whats the point..
If we want to use THOSE systems, w'd buy them...
But we dont, which is why wre discussing it here.. and asking VERY nicely if we can have a new toy to play with.. lol

Be it MPG or AVCHD driven (or both), it doesnt matter.. but what matters is that we need it like 4 years ago... not just for rendering, i mean i can build a dual quad which will give me faster than realtime output, but it still doesnt manage my NLE playback issues. It still doesnt give me my bandwidth and codec management even though my drives can pump Gbs/second, Dv even loses framerate during playback and thats with NO effects... its jsut the way Vegas manages its memory and decoders.

If however there was a solid system which worked as in i/o interface and a hardware accelerator which allowed the support of 10bit and uncompressed HD formats, and make it modular, for those that only want MPG, or AVCHD, or both, and for those that want 10bit or not, and for those that want 10 bit with HD 2k+

The options would be manyu and varied but were not stupid. Canopus did it with edius and their broadcast codec packs, and its been a success... COnsidering SOnys take on the broadcast workd with their cameras and the push for XDCam (most of what were seeing on HD FTA TV today is XDCamHD) this is the perfectt injection system for SOny to push their NLE into broadcast. THeyre already there with teh Camera gear.. why not persue it with the NLE's as well?

The big thing I'm not getting is the interface to the computer. Where is it? They don't show any sort of data connecttion that would control the box, making me think it's the dumb end of the equation.

They say it connects to either a PCIe card or an ExpressCard. How? A fantail? DVI, like the MXO?

I think the Matrox page is being kind of vague.

Rob