grassvalley/canopus system?!! 411...

[memphis-vid (ex-longhaul)]

who's using this system, and what are you using it for? my station is looking into purchasing the system as our primary editing tool. was wondering what some of the highlights and lowlights might be. format will be DVCpro untill a P2 conversion somewhere down the line... again, we will be using the system for day turns. any information would be appreciated.

 

[Canonman]

Not to nitpick, but P2 is a storage media, not a format. You'll still be shooting DVCPRO format after the conversion, using cards instead of tape. That said, the thing to be sure of is how well the P2 tapeless workflow is supported by that system. I use FCP so I can't tell you about GV.

cm

 

[memphis-vid (ex-longhaul)]

sorry, i was banging out a quick message before our afternoon ed. meeting... my point was that we will eventualy be going tapeless, and i was hoping to get info about the system regarding ingesting both DVCpro tape and P2 media... while i'm a fan of nitpicking, i'm also a fan of replies answering the question at hand. now that we've cleared that up, does anyone have any information about the grassvalley NLE in question?

 

[D.St.]

My station is converting to it.

It seems to be pretty good software, and I've used everything from Newsbyte to Avid Newscutter. I have some issues with the way the audio is linked on the tracks, but overall I think you'll find it's more than suitable for P2 editing.

However, it still doesn't support the Panasonic metadata features on the 800 cams (shot mark, voice, etc).

 

[Bulldozer]

P2 and Grassvalley

My current shop is using P2 with the Grassvalley Edit with no major problems. We have been tapeless since early 05. The only problem we have is that people tend to save stuff on the hard drive and sometimes we run low on space. As far as operation of the editing software, piece of cake. Some of our guys have been tape to tape and even film, but picked it up no problem. If you have questions about grassvalley or P2 shoot me a PM.

 

[SandRat]

We use it with XDCAM HD and the software is great, but the computers BITCENTRAL provided us with suck. They have 8 processors, but never utilizes their capabilities. Also, for some reason, the XDCAM material transfers very slowly (85% of realtime). I think it's the decks and not the computers, which doesn't make sense to me. Personally, why be tapeless if your tape formats could digitize at least 50% realtime.

We've had better luck with a "gamers" laptop with dual core and maxed out RAM and hard drive. Only problem with that is HD monitoring isn't available.

 

[Rad]

I'm using the Edius software, HD version, and it's a pretty cool edit system. But it does seem to crash quite a bit. I suggest you Save, save, save every few minutes.

 

[cameragod]

If you are using Edius you need to visit this site http://www.ediustips.com/index.html

 

[Charlie Grisham]

Edit stations

We use it with XDCAM HD and the software is great, but the computers BITCENTRAL provided us with suck. They have 8 processors, but never utilizes their capabilities. Also, for some reason, the XDCAM material transfers very slowly (85% of realtime). I think it's the decks and not the computers, which doesn't make sense to me. Personally, why be tapeless if your tape formats could digitize at least 50% realtime.

We've had better luck with a "gamers" laptop with dual core and maxed out RAM and hard drive. Only problem with that is HD monitoring isn't available.

(Sniff)
Yep, sometimes the best intentions don't work out. For what it's worth, we expect a couple of software updates will fix the processor problem. We'd been shipping dual duals for months, and this station was the first dual quad core we tried. (Cost us a LOT more)

Results...not what we expected, I suppose. Anyway, perhaps a better analysis in a couple of weeks on if the Bitcentral dual quad PCs still "suck"....after the updates.

The XDCam bandwidth issue...sigh...another story. Unlike P2 which mounts as a system drive, Sony’s HD XDCam transfers media from the Blu-Ray disk to OUR edit station via FTP. Transferring HD media from both HD Cam and P2 cards is close to real time on any computer. Our smart guys are working in the secret underground R&D bunker with the PDW unit now...again...for what that's worth.

Each HD installation has been a real learning experience. So far, we've done DVCPro HD, Canon HDV, and now XDCam. Each has been different! Another Vegas station will be doing HD in a few months...with yet ANOTHER HD format. YAY!

Please excuse the interruption by a salesman. Please, continue what you were doing.

Charlie Grisham
Chief Demo Dog and VP, Sales
Bitcentral
"We deliver edit stations that DON'T suck"

 

[shoot da parrot]

Wow! I'm amazed so many people like this software. I used to use news edit with p2 and we had tons of issues. If you have ever used a real post box like avid,final cut,velocity, etc. News edit will drive you nuts. For those in your shop that are new to non-linear it is easy to learn. For those who have a NLE background the limitations of the software are just going to cause frustration. If you do go with news edit make sure you get the breakout boxes that GV makes. We went the cheap way with Miranda boxes and had lots of issues. FYI. for the money you will spend for the news edit you can get nice final cut systems that will blow them out of the water.

 

[Bulldozer]

News Edit

I have used both Final Cut and News Edit and I think for a News story you can't go wrong with Grass Valley. All the bells and whistles are there. I do agree though the Miranda box sucks.

 

[Dedline]

Hi Memphis, you need to distinguish between Grass Valley products. Newsedit (now Aurora) is their simpler editor that's been around a few years. Easy to learn but a full fledged NLE it's not. Designed for guys learning from tape to tape editing. Now they seem to be making Edius their high end editor (since they bought Canopus a couple years ago). While Edius doesn't have all the shared system features that Newsedit has yet, they'll get it in a few months I hear.
SandRat, as for transfer speed, XDCAM just sucks. The laser just can't read the disc fast enough so to edit you have to move clips onto your hard drive. Right now, at 25Mb XDCAM HD, we're only getting transfer speeds 2 to 3x realtime. Our old 4x DVCPro decks are faster. There is good news. Sony announced new discs with twice the storage and laser drives that will read the disc faster, due out next year. P2 transfers faster or you can edit right off the card if you like.

 

[lost focus]

agree with dedline edius is NOT NewsEdit (auroura- which also sucks in my opinion). I've heard the NewsEdit can do lots of stuff but its to complicated and multistepped and its got terrible syntax rules annoying as all getup comming from an edius station. With Edius I could do far more complcated effects, even control the standard ones , far easier and more intuitively. I can only hope that my current station bypasses Auroura and goes with Edius. When my last station went to the Edius product I thought it was a terrible move, but after a rather quick learning curve it was slick and powerful. Now the bit-central play to air and archive server stuff....well there's a special place in hell for those whom first put that product in my last station...two years later P2A was functional but archive was a mess.......

 

[lucky13]

My shop is in process of converting our newsroom to bitcentral/edius. I have used the software a bit and it is pretty easy to use-but we won't get our new P2 cameras until next year, so we still have to capture from a deck until then. I don't like the audio setup very much-not as user friendly as some other software I have used.

 

[mrphotog]

I am guessing that you (lucky13) might be a Raycom station. We were the first station in the country to transfer to enps/bitcentral all at the same time. It was funny because each company trained us on each of their products but no one told us how they worked together.
Anyway, Edius is a relatively solid product. We have had a few isues with the computers crashing. Edius has all of the extras like Avid. The best part is that Edius renders on the fly. You don't have to set around and wait forever for your project to render. Something to keep in mind, Edius really "freaks" out when your audio is not 48k.
I am guessing that your play-out server will be Precis. Precis is also a good product, it works well with Edius.
The audio issue that I have concerns about is when you "control z" something (redo) if you change the audio, it does not staty the way you changed it.
If you lay a clip in and decide to change it, you would "control z" to remove the clip. Edius will change the clip but it will also reset your audio, no matter if you changed your audio with that clip ot you changed your audio several edit before.
We fugured out that the audio mixer in Edius does not "hook up" with anything.
I think I confused myself! If you need any help or you have any question feel free to send me a message.

 

[rexreed]

EDIUS is better with P2

Wow! I'm amazed so many people like this software. I used to use news edit with p2 and we had tons of issues. If you have ever used a real post box like avid,final cut,velocity, etc. News edit will drive you nuts. For those in your shop that are new to non-linear it is easy to learn. For those who have a NLE background the limitations of the software are just going to cause frustration. If you do go with news edit make sure you get the breakout boxes that GV makes. We went the cheap way with Miranda boxes and had lots of issues. FYI. for the money you will spend for the news edit you can get nice final cut systems that will blow them out of the water.

UGH! Another person claiming that FCP with P2 is a good idea for NLE. It's not- at least not for quick day turns. With Edius, not NEWS EDIT you can direct import your P2 clips in a matter of seconds. FCP does not compare!

 

[SandRat]

Well, we're into August and the Edius system is still crashing. Audio drops out for no reason, constantly. Skips while playing through the server system ... although it works a bit smoother with an external hard drive.

I'm restarting at least twice per half hour for the audio drops and I have figured out to not use the XDCAM transfer software and just drag the relevant clips directly off the disc into the drive. Still VERY slow. My FCP and iMac at home transfers much faster from my camera, and the deck is supposed to have a faster transfer time.

All in all, I really like the software and the XDCAMHD...just not the super-quad-dual-turbo processors (mostly running at less than 10%).

The BIG problem is the restarts. I'll have to time it, but when you're under deadline, it seems like these things take 4-5 minutes to restarts.

Those computers are like cranking up a F-22 Raptor, but they never use the afterburners. It may sound like afterburners, but its the internal fans. Don't edit without headphones.

 

[rexreed]

The original post is referring to Canopus, recently aquired by Grass Valley, and P2 cards. You can't really beat the way Caopus works with P2 cards. Mix in XDCam and the other Grass Valley editing system and the point of the original post is lost.

 

[SandRat]

I apologize ... fyi though, you're post wasn't that specific. Edius is a Canopus product and Canopus was bought by Grass Valley. As for losing the point, I was just trying to give some insight and you are welcome to ignore it.

 

[vegasshooter]

We have been using the Edius system with P2 for about 6 months and the workflow is not the greatest. The computers and servers lock up weekly. If you are using it in the field on a laptop in the truck half the time the video disapears in the system. Also dont believe the "no rendering" If you use more that one channel of video the playback stops and the computer can lock up if you dont render the video tracks. It works for daily edit but if you have to do anything Special Projects wise I take the video and import it into my FCP system and it works much better. Having used AVID, FCP ,Adobe Premier,Edius and countless other systems as well as teaching most of them professionally, O rank Edius last.