Final Cut Pro HD is out and free to upgrade

[litemover]

Final Cut Pro has been upgraded to Final Cut Pro HD. If you own FCP, just do a software update and you will recieve Final Cut Pro HD, a huge improvment.

FCPHD can handle 4 simultaneous full quality HD streams or 10 low quality HD streams, I saw this being done at full speed with using 1 Xserve Raid Storage system and a dual 2ghz g5. It can also render real time effects using RT extreme in FCP. Iv'e seen it do page peels, wipes, dissolves, and color correction in real time with 10 layers of 720i content without any lag (they put a TCR on the canvas).

It also comes with all the DVCpro HD codecs now so you can take full advantage of RT FX. You can also bring HD in through firewire via the new panasonic DVCpro HD decks with firewire or any other DVCpro firewire device. Apple has announced that they will soon come up with a solution for HDV, which it has as usual declined to comment on a timeline. My guess would be when the new Sony HDV cam comes out next year. In the mean time Lumier HD and Heuris remain the tools for extracting HDV m2t files into mpg files which can be read and edited into FCPHD after installing the quicktime mpegII component.

There are a few nice fixes and adds to the software, for more info: after you update your software go to help/late breaking news.

Christian

[samsc]

It also comes with all the DVCpro HD codecs now so you can take full advantage of RT FX. You can also bring HD in through firewire via the new panasonic DVCpro HD decks with firewire or any other DVCpro firewire device. Apple has announced that they will soon come up with a solution for HDV, which it has as usual declined to comment on a timeline. My guess would be when the new Sony HDV cam comes out next year. In the mean time Lumier HD and Heuris remain the tools for extracting HDV m2t files into mpg files which can be read and edited into FCPHD after installing the quicktime mpegII component.
Christian

I have the upgrade.

The DVC Pro HD codec doesnt work fast enough at the moment in catalyst.
So dont use it for doing 1080p. Photojpeg is twice as fast.

[litemover]

Yes photo Jpeg is working well. Even encoding at half still retains an acceptable level of color quality.

HDV relies on tweener frames of which I'v been using Heuris extractor to turn into mog files for FCP to read. Apple doesn't like HDV because of the tweener frames but said they will come out with a linear solution, probably similar to hueris or lumierHD.

BTW, don't use the pixlet codec as it is mostly intended for animation and is very slow. I don't like the fuzzy artifacting that comes with it either. PhotoJpeg is much cleaner for HD and plays back fast on my system.

I've learned that encoding at photojpeg high(one notch below best) is as good as you will ever percieve on a screen being televised situation so I've been experimenting with Half quality photoJpeg and it blazes while still looking great. I've gone off DV for now, the color is very bad and it comes with too much artifacting for rear projection, especially under the scrutiny of the TV people and Profile heads that I must co-exist with.

Christian

[samsc]

Yes photo Jpeg is working well. Even encoding at half still retains an acceptable level of color quality.

HDV relies on tweener frames of which I'v been using Heuris extractor to turn into mog files for FCP to read. Apple doesn't like HDV because of the tweener frames but said they will come out with a linear solution, probably similar to hueris or lumierHD.

BTW, don't use the pixlet codec as it is mostly intended for animation and is very slow. I don't like the fuzzy artifacting that comes with it either. PhotoJpeg is much cleaner for HD and plays back fast on my system.

I've learned that encoding at photojpeg high(one notch below best) is as good as you will ever percieve on a screen being televised situation so I've been experimenting with Half quality photoJpeg and it blazes while still looking great. I've gone off DV for now, the color is very bad and it comes with too much artifacting for rear projection, especially under the scrutiny of the TV people and Profile heads that I must co-exist with.

Christian

Christian there is a new DV type codec that came with the final cut upgrade - its called DVCPro HD - it works at 1080p/720p - you saw this as well?- i presume this will be compatible with the next generation of cameras-
it doesnt use inteframe compression. its too slow to use at the moment.
but it probably will be ok with the next mac revision.

DVC Pro 50 works ok - it will work better than dv. gives you a couple of layers if you need high quality.

HDV - is different to this. its mpeg2

[litemover]

Yes, I've seen the DVCpro HD codec. I haven't tested it though because you had said it is too slow. I have seen it being played back in FCPHD with 10 simultaneous layers all with RT fx on including page peel and pans.

DVCpro50 is much nicer than DV. My camera is only DV though so it won't help the 5-1 compression that comes with DV. A good DVCpro50 camera is the Pana SDX-900 but it starts at $28,000. Looks great though. Maybe someday I'll invest in something like this for now I've been pretty surprised by my little JVC HD10u. The quality is nice and is the only game in town for a while when it comes to HDV or HD under $65000. The frameyness can be bothersome in fast situations but overall it looks great compressed in photojpeg on large format rear projection set to 1024x768.

Christian

[samsc]

Yes, I've seen the DVCpro HD codec. I haven't tested it though because you had said it is too slow. I have seen it being played back in FCPHD with 10 simultaneous layers all with RT fx on including page peel and pans.

DVCpro50 is much nicer than DV. My camera is only DV though so it won't help the 5-1 compression that comes with DV. A good DVCpro50 camera is the Pana SDX-900 but it starts at $28,000. Looks great though. Maybe someday I'll invest in something like this for now I've been pretty surprised by my little JVC HD10u. The quality is nice and is the only game in town for a while when it comes to HDV or HD under $65000. The frameyness can be bothersome in fast situations but overall it looks great compressed in photojpeg on large format rear projection set to 1024x768.

Christian

the dvcProHD took 40ms in my testing to decode a single frame with a single 10k disc drive. try it on your disc system.
I think there is some cheating going on in your demo....

Yes dvcpro 50 looks good. its only 2.5:1 compression. pretty close to digibeta. but the price of decks and cameras is a killer.
I think i can do a couple of layers

[samsc]

Yes, I've seen the DVCpro HD codec. I haven't tested it though because you had said it is too slow. I have seen it being played back in FCPHD with 10 simultaneous layers all with RT fx on including page peel and pans.
Christian

10 layers of HD is impossible - just from a bandwidth point of view.
The computer subsystems get saturated way before this.
even at 720p this is totally impossible.

even pushing pixels around:
1280x780x30fpsx10 layers is 276,000,000 pixels/second...

in a dual 2ghz processor you get say at most 2,000,000,000 instruction/second.

thats less than 10 instructions per pixel. impossible to do any compositing.

There is not sufficient memory bandwidth, agp bandwidth or computer hp to do this...
Someone is telling lies, or pulling sleight of hand tricks.

---

[litemover]

It's 4 layers of high quality HD or 10 layers of med quality HD all in the DVCpro HD codec. It was their biggest presentation done on a huge stage right in front of the Avid booth and 130,000 people throught the course of the convention.

They also plopped a TCR right on the sequence and it was playing back at full speed.

Don't think they would be pulling any funny business in front of the world and their competitors to see.

It was running off an Xserve Raid 3.5terrabye storage unit. I'm sure you can find a clip of the demo online somewhere.

Christian

[samsc]

It's 4 layers of high quality HD or 10 layers of med quality HD all in the DVCpro HD codec. It was their biggest presentation done on a huge stage right in front of the Avid booth and 130,000 people throught the course of the convention.

They also plopped a TCR right on the sequence and it was playing back at full speed.

Don't think they would be pulling any funny business in front of the world and their competitors to see.

It was running off an Xserve Raid 3.5terrabye storage unit. I'm sure you can find a clip of the demo online somewhere.

Christian

maybe the xserve raid works quite well. then.
thats the only way.

normal discs in any kindof configuration dont work well enough to do anything like this

[litemover]

I think we need to start an Xserve raid thread on how to configure and certain problems thata arrise when trying to hotswap with certain manufacture's fibre distros.

More people need to know how Xserve and Xraid distributes out to a SAN distro and how to configure it or rebuild it from scratch.

Christian