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High Definition Video for Independent Filmmakers
A How To Guide for Digital Filmmakers
Welcome all! This is my blog to share my latest research,
thoughts, etc. on utilizing HD for independent filmmaking.
YES, I am available for consulting
Contact me at mike@hdforindies.com
All content copyright 2004-2007 Mike Curtis.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Avid releases Intel Mac native Media Composer & Xpress Pro with new features
Avid Delivers Media Composer and Avid Xpress Pro for Intel-Based Macs
Avid released new versions of Media Composer (v2.7) and Xpress Pro (v5.7). Big new features:
-Intel Mac support (hooray!)
-updated bundle of third party apps
-support for new formats
-can read AND write back to XDCAM & P2
-720p50 for Euro markets
-BIG new feature for Media Composer - ScriptSync for syncing script to the video clips (more below)
-new codec support - DNxHD 36, for low datarate (36 megabit) for offline editing at HD pixel resolutions at a bit over 4 MB/sec - not much more than DV's datarate. And it is full raster (no horizontal shrinkage) as well. This has LOTS of uses, I'm a big fan of cutting compressed HD for your offline, including seeing full resolution of your project and cutting at native frame rates.
The catch: gotta use a high powered Avid to get the footage in:
Using either an Avid DNxcel(TM) powered Media Composer Adrenaline(TM), or an Avid Nitris(R) system, customers can encode HD content to Avid DNxHD 36 in real-time.
It SHOULD be possible to convert to DNxHD in non-realtime after capturing in some other compressed codec, but how quickly that transcoding be done? With what tools? I don't have answers to that yet - if you do, please post in the Comments, as I'm insufficiently familiar with these Avid capabilities.
ScriptSync sounds pretty damned impressive, but I have yet to sit down and get a demo. If you are cutting to a script, ideally you want all your shots associated with the right part of the script. The old way was to play footage and click ins and outs - not terribly precise. The way this new product works is to scan the audio track of the footage, do voice recognition, and then correlates that text to the text of the script. If it works right, it will be a HUGE time saver for those cutting narrative content from scripts. Clearly, you'll need ot have decent quality audio for this to work, but it could be a substantial time saver. I need to play with it to see how practical it is, and I will soon. From their press release:
"Script-based editing has been very popular among customers because it provides an easy way to respond to directors, who often want to quickly review different takes of scenes based on the dialogue in the script."
Stuart Bass, A.C.E., 2006 Emmy nominee and ACE Eddie award winner for Arrested Development: "I can easily line up twelve takes of a single performance and evaluate each one in a thorough and organized fashion. It enables our team to evaluate different readings with greater speed, streamlining the storytelling process under extremely tight deadlines."
....
...the ScriptSync tool advances the functionality of Avid's script-based editing by automating the task of synchronizing scripts or transcripts with their respective media files, and eliminates the labor intensive process of manually inserting sync points. Once the script and media are matched, editors, directors and producers can quickly and easily review multiple line readings and select individual takes. With ScriptSync, script-based editing is significantly more accurate and more practical for everyday use.
Other new stuff in the bundled apps - Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite 4.5 - faster encoding. SmartSound SonicFire Pro 4 - auto-creation of music with "Mood Mapping" to create a vibe and "match the mix and feel of music to the changing moods of any production." Boris Continuum Complete 4.2.2 lets you apply filters directly in Media Composer (but not Xpress Pro).
Media Composer (software only) if $4995 list, you can add Mojo SDI or Adrenaline hardware.
Existing users can upgrade to v2.7 for $195 (& includes Boris Continuum Complete 4.2.2). After June 30, goes up to $995.
For Xpress Pro, from the press release:
Avid Xpress Pro Software
Version 5.7 of Avid Xpress Pro software is available for $1,695 USMSRP. Customers with versions 5.5 or higher of Avid Xpress Pro software will receive upgrades to version 5.7 for $49.95 USMSRP. Customers with Avid Xpress Pro systems that precede version 5.5 can upgrade to version 5.7 for $149.95 USMSRP.
Native Intel support is a big deal - the latest laptops and towers are fast and powerful - but if you couldn't run the latest software natively, you couldn't use that power. And with eight processor Macs expected any day now, native support is an even bigger deal.
-mike
PS - I should have mentioned this before (I'm updating this Sunday) - Avid was kind enough to send me a copy of Media Composer 2.7 beta prior to its release for review/commentary, but I haven't gotten far enough into it to have salient commentary (SXSW then family crisis intervened in that time). I'll be testing this ASAP.
Avid released new versions of Media Composer (v2.7) and Xpress Pro (v5.7). Big new features:
-Intel Mac support (hooray!)
-updated bundle of third party apps
-support for new formats
-can read AND write back to XDCAM & P2
-720p50 for Euro markets
-BIG new feature for Media Composer - ScriptSync for syncing script to the video clips (more below)
-new codec support - DNxHD 36, for low datarate (36 megabit) for offline editing at HD pixel resolutions at a bit over 4 MB/sec - not much more than DV's datarate. And it is full raster (no horizontal shrinkage) as well. This has LOTS of uses, I'm a big fan of cutting compressed HD for your offline, including seeing full resolution of your project and cutting at native frame rates.
The catch: gotta use a high powered Avid to get the footage in:
Using either an Avid DNxcel(TM) powered Media Composer Adrenaline(TM), or an Avid Nitris(R) system, customers can encode HD content to Avid DNxHD 36 in real-time.
It SHOULD be possible to convert to DNxHD in non-realtime after capturing in some other compressed codec, but how quickly that transcoding be done? With what tools? I don't have answers to that yet - if you do, please post in the Comments, as I'm insufficiently familiar with these Avid capabilities.
ScriptSync sounds pretty damned impressive, but I have yet to sit down and get a demo. If you are cutting to a script, ideally you want all your shots associated with the right part of the script. The old way was to play footage and click ins and outs - not terribly precise. The way this new product works is to scan the audio track of the footage, do voice recognition, and then correlates that text to the text of the script. If it works right, it will be a HUGE time saver for those cutting narrative content from scripts. Clearly, you'll need ot have decent quality audio for this to work, but it could be a substantial time saver. I need to play with it to see how practical it is, and I will soon. From their press release:
"Script-based editing has been very popular among customers because it provides an easy way to respond to directors, who often want to quickly review different takes of scenes based on the dialogue in the script."
Stuart Bass, A.C.E., 2006 Emmy nominee and ACE Eddie award winner for Arrested Development: "I can easily line up twelve takes of a single performance and evaluate each one in a thorough and organized fashion. It enables our team to evaluate different readings with greater speed, streamlining the storytelling process under extremely tight deadlines."
....
...the ScriptSync tool advances the functionality of Avid's script-based editing by automating the task of synchronizing scripts or transcripts with their respective media files, and eliminates the labor intensive process of manually inserting sync points. Once the script and media are matched, editors, directors and producers can quickly and easily review multiple line readings and select individual takes. With ScriptSync, script-based editing is significantly more accurate and more practical for everyday use.
Other new stuff in the bundled apps - Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite 4.5 - faster encoding. SmartSound SonicFire Pro 4 - auto-creation of music with "Mood Mapping" to create a vibe and "match the mix and feel of music to the changing moods of any production." Boris Continuum Complete 4.2.2 lets you apply filters directly in Media Composer (but not Xpress Pro).
Media Composer (software only) if $4995 list, you can add Mojo SDI or Adrenaline hardware.
Existing users can upgrade to v2.7 for $195 (& includes Boris Continuum Complete 4.2.2). After June 30, goes up to $995.
For Xpress Pro, from the press release:
Avid Xpress Pro Software
Version 5.7 of Avid Xpress Pro software is available for $1,695 USMSRP. Customers with versions 5.5 or higher of Avid Xpress Pro software will receive upgrades to version 5.7 for $49.95 USMSRP. Customers with Avid Xpress Pro systems that precede version 5.5 can upgrade to version 5.7 for $149.95 USMSRP.
Native Intel support is a big deal - the latest laptops and towers are fast and powerful - but if you couldn't run the latest software natively, you couldn't use that power. And with eight processor Macs expected any day now, native support is an even bigger deal.
-mike
PS - I should have mentioned this before (I'm updating this Sunday) - Avid was kind enough to send me a copy of Media Composer 2.7 beta prior to its release for review/commentary, but I haven't gotten far enough into it to have salient commentary (SXSW then family crisis intervened in that time). I'll be testing this ASAP.
Comments:
I've been beta testing this new version and ScriptSync does seem to work pretty well. It's very cool. What will be better than narrative feature scripts is to use this with interview intensive programs with a transcript.
For about twelve years now, Avid had a more primitive version of ScriptSync...I think it was called Script Tool (I could be wrong), but it depended on some poor assistant editor manually typing in the time codes of each line of dialogue for each take in order for it to work. For that reason, I never knew anyone who actually used it. But if the voice-recognition works that may change.
The potential downside I see to using this, though, is: what if a project is re-edited to the point where the original structure of the script no longer applies? Would it be worth looking through the script for lines from scene 17 when scene 17 in the cut is now placed between scene 4 and scene 59? Would someone be updating the script to match the current structure of the cut?
These were questions I had when Avid introduced the Script Tool (or whatever) twelve years ago. (Which, by the way, was the basis of a now-defunct editing system called the Ediflex, which Avid bought the rights to.)
The potential downside I see to using this, though, is: what if a project is re-edited to the point where the original structure of the script no longer applies? Would it be worth looking through the script for lines from scene 17 when scene 17 in the cut is now placed between scene 4 and scene 59? Would someone be updating the script to match the current structure of the cut?
These were questions I had when Avid introduced the Script Tool (or whatever) twelve years ago. (Which, by the way, was the basis of a now-defunct editing system called the Ediflex, which Avid bought the rights to.)
# posted by 
: Sat Mar 31, 09:40:00 AM CST
: Sat Mar 31, 09:40:00 AM CST
I don't know about it being dangeours as I think it is just another tool. I'm sure you will be able to find and look at clips like you always could in an avid bin. ScriptSync seems like itis just another way to organize clips. If it works then it could save time and allow for you to see coverage faster. If it doesn't you wouldn't have lost anything over the current way that you edit.
# posted by : Sat Mar 31, 06:09:00 PM CST
: Sat Mar 31, 06:09:00 PM CST
It's nice the Avid finally got off the bums and released this after considerable delay. We've had to reschudle our editing classes for months now to trying to work around.
And now we find out, without warning, the MacBook is not supported, even for ExpressPro. They might have said something before we bought all these macbooks, we told them that was what we planned to do. We may have to stop teaching Avid for awhile altogether.
We already use Final Cut for our HD classes.
Steven Bradford
Collins College
And now we find out, without warning, the MacBook is not supported, even for ExpressPro. They might have said something before we bought all these macbooks, we told them that was what we planned to do. We may have to stop teaching Avid for awhile altogether.
We already use Final Cut for our HD classes.
Steven Bradford
Collins College
Steven;
Why did you buy Macbooks for video editing? They aren't supported by anyone for editing as far as I've ever seen. They are a very consumer oriented product. Did Avid say they supported it?
Why did you buy Macbooks for video editing? They aren't supported by anyone for editing as far as I've ever seen. They are a very consumer oriented product. Did Avid say they supported it?
# posted by : Mon Apr 02, 08:57:00 AM CST
: Mon Apr 02, 08:57:00 AM CST
I still cringe when I hear the price tag of a 44k machine for what I can build an 8 grand mac for... In any case though I just got a working avid pipeline going for batch ingest in final cut and transcoding into avid using the provided codecs. Its about a 3/4 realtime op with a quad G5. I've also got timecode and meta data dolowing through so...whats the point of paying 45 thousand for a dnaxd media composer adrenaline HD ?
# posted by : Tue Apr 03, 10:26:00 AM CST
: Tue Apr 03, 10:26:00 AM CST
Mike,
I think You make the same wrong assumption as Avid does then they delayed the development of 720p50. This is not a european format. This is the world format, the 30/60 format is only used in North America, the west coast of South America and in Japan. The rest of the word is using 25/50.
Anon.
The point witha $22k Adrenline HD is that is lets You edit HD material in a compressed format which is close to uncompressed in quality and has the bandwidth as uncompressed SD. The saving on harddisk systems can be important, and I make it possibly to edit HD in and standard network solution.
Post a Comment
I think You make the same wrong assumption as Avid does then they delayed the development of 720p50. This is not a european format. This is the world format, the 30/60 format is only used in North America, the west coast of South America and in Japan. The rest of the word is using 25/50.
Anon.
The point witha $22k Adrenline HD is that is lets You edit HD material in a compressed format which is close to uncompressed in quality and has the bandwidth as uncompressed SD. The saving on harddisk systems can be important, and I make it possibly to edit HD in and standard network solution.
# posted by : Thu Apr 05, 12:50:00 AM CST
: Thu Apr 05, 12:50:00 AM CSTLinks to this post:
