TECH TIPS
The Return of EDIUS
Now PC People Can Edit Like the Final Cut Pros, Too!
by Michael Grotticelli
PC users who have cast envious eyes at Final Cut Pro may now take heart. Thomson Grass Valley’s EDIUS allows you to do pretty much everything FCP can, and in some cases a bit faster, assuming you’re using a multi-core CPU and motherboards with PCI Express slots.
This PC-based craft editing software was first introduced in 2001 by Canopus and quickly attracted users in Europe and Asia, but failed to make much headway in the US. When Thomson bought Canopus in 2005 and added it to the Grass Valley product line, some loyal EDIUS users grew concerned that the platform wouldn’t continue to evolve.
However, as new versions began to appear––with easier-to-find menu structures and multi-user features designed for NTSC content creators––EDIUS is starting to take hold in America in a big way; witness its adoption by NBC this year. The software is now in version 4.5, the largest jump in functionality since version 3.0. EDIUS now offers many of the same features as the competition: noticeably multi-format, native high definition (HD) editing.
New and Improved 4.5
EDIUS 4.5 features a new graphical user interface (GUI), designed by the same
industrial design team who developed the operational interfaces for the company’s
TURBO intelligent digital disk recorder/playout system and the Indigo AV Mixer
(a digital video production switcher). This common GUI strategy promotes a
cohesive and professional look and feel across quite diverse product lines
(a similar idea as Adobe Bridge), and has enhanced the experience of working
with EDIUS considerably.
With EDIUS, you can work with multiple formats, standard definition (SD) and HD, then output video from the timeline, all in real time. This includes uncompressed analog SD and digital HD, on up to 4:2:2 HD-SDI, depending on the Grass Valley hardware sitting underneath the application. When outputting video from the timeline, all aspect ratio conversions (true 4:3 and 16:9), frame rate conversions (including NTSC and PAL), and up/downconversions are processed in real time. This saves a lot of time when inserting footage from a variety of projects shot over a long period of time.
For example, EDIUS automatically upscales any mix of SD MPEG-2 and DV footage for playback in HD resolutions (either 720p or 1080i). EDIUS can also downscale a project that features HDV clips and quickly output it to DV, or an HD project can be easily resized to a 4:3 SD project for DVD distribution. It doesn’t even have to render MPEG-2 streams and applied effects; they can be viewed instantly on the output monitor.
Advanced Progressive Functionality
A new multi-cam feature supports up to eight cameras and provides monitor
preview, as well as a master channel preview that displays all eight camera
angles. This allows users to switch between live and taped sources, and see
all sources simultaneously. EDIUS Pro 4.5 has also added native 50 fps progressive
and 60 fps progressive editing support, and AAF export to applications like
ProTools. There’s also support for AVC Intra compression––which
helps get more data (sometimes twice as much) on a solid-state Flash memory
card (but requires a lot of CPU horsepower to decode).
The real value of the software however, is its built-in HQ codec, developed by Canopus. Designed to be scalable so that customers can grow along with it, this innovative compression algorithm provides extremely high image quality and the benefits of MPEG-2, Long GOP I-frame editing. The Canopus HQ codec provides excellent Luma and Chroma sampling of HD video, and also allows users to adjust the bit rate during ingest and encoding.
The company also offers EDIUS NX Express, a hardware/software package that includes a hardware-accelerator board set and EDIUS Pro. It also includes the ProCoder Express software package (a stripped down version of the full package), which processes files for export to multiple platforms, including DVD and mobile phones.
Non-Tape Formats
For those working with Panasonic’s P2 solid state HD storage
media or Sony’s XDCAM, EDIUS offers what is coming to be regarded
as one of the best workflows in the business. There are two ways of
working with P2 media. Because the solid state storage media’s
transfer rate is so fast, it is perfectly possible to work directly
from it, even with a heavy codec like AVC-Intra––although
this does require considerable PC horsepower (see Figure 1).
 Figure 1: Edius P2 file Clip Select window. |
Alternatively, if you need to use your ever-so-valuable P2 cards on another shoot, you can transfer the data to your local hard disk. P2 camcorders also offer the ability to simultaneously copy the low-resolution proxy files to an SD card. This means you can edit your story on a laptop, for example, while traveling back to base, then transfer the project to a workstation and hook up a P2 drive. EDIUS will auto-conform using the high-resolution footage.
To output the finished project, you can either transcode to one of the formats supported by EDIUS, or if want to write back to the P2 media itself (something many other NLEs cannot do), you can do so as long as you are using the DVCPRO codec, either in SD or HD. This can also be useful if you need to move the project to another location quickly (see Figure 2).
 Figure 2: Edius XD select window showing proxy clips. |
There are also two ways of working with XDCAM. Editing on the storage medium directly in high resolution is not an option because it’s too slow, but you can edit with proxy files instead. Proxy data is indicated by a ‘P’ on the thumbnail, and it can be edited in the timeline as you would any other footage. You can edit your entire project using proxies, then select XDCAM HD Exporter (see Figure 3) and the hi-res data will be automatically inserted to create the final output.
 Figure 3: XDCAM HD Exporter. |
If disk space is not an issue, you can take the “no-brainer” option by copying across all data. Proxy files are copied in a matter of minutes, but the high-resolution files will take some time. Now you can edit using proxy files while the high-resolution data is transferred in the background, a great time saver.
EDIUS Broadens Appeal
Thomson recently introduced a new, lower-cost editing software called EDIUS
Neo. Designed for the education and OEM markets (either with third-party products
or with Grass Valley hardware), the new Windows Vista-based EDIUS Neo is a
reduced feature-set version of EDIUS, although it sacrifices none of the multi-format
SD/HD processing power. In fact, it shares many features of EDIUS 4.5 and
is fully upgradeable to the full Pro or Broadcast versions, as the need arises.
Like its big brothers, EDIUS Neo offers native editing in various formats, including HDV, DV, Windows Media and QuickTime, and provides a seamless real-time workflow that supports the mixing of multiple formats on the same timeline. It also features multi-track, mixed format HD/SD editing, compositing, chroma keying, titling and DVD output capabilities.
EDIUS Neo is priced at $249 ($129 for the education market) and began shipping in September. The new software is now available in three versions: an English-only software product for North America; an International software product on DVD; and EDIUS Neo XL, which includes the international version of EDIUS Neo bundled with the ACEDVio hardware (available in PAL and NTSC versions). EDIUS Pro is priced at $699, and the broadcast version, which supports more formats, including the aforementioned P2 and XDCAM, is priced at $999.
What’s Next?
What’s clear is that the software designers tasked with keeping EDIUS
up with the times have done a good job, keeping the interface intuitive and
easy to understand. The company says there are many more features planned
in a busy product roadmap, some of which we can expect to see by NAB 2008
in April.
A free download (30-day trial) of EDIUS Broadcast is available at http://ediustraining.grassvalley.com/ and http://www.canopus.com/.
 EDIUS timeline. |
Michael Grotticelli regularly reports on the professional video and broadcast technology industries.
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