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a newbie question :-)
Hello everyone
I’ve been into digital editing for many years but always on workstations running software such as Premiere, Edius and recently made the big switch to Final Cut Studio that solved a lot of problems. In the past I tried Avid Xpress Pro (software only) but I have to confess it was different than what I had tried since then.
My question is this: I’ve seen I/O controllers such as Adrenaline, Nitris, Mojo SDI and recently AJA. What do these “boxes” do? How do they work? Realtime has always been an issue in editing, which is why decent workstations get help from video cards (in my case, a Matrox RT.X 2 and an Axio for Premiere). These cards allow realtime, render-free preview when the editor uses their settings and effects. Does this also happen with Adrenaline, Nitris or Mojo and at what level? I mean, if they cost that much, I understand they must allow a preview of almost the most demanding project in real-time. Is that the deal? I am thinking of switching to Avid and I?d like to know a little more. Any help would be greatly appreciated.Thank you very much in advance
Themis
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3 Replies
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Adrenaline, Nitris.
These aren’t I/O controllers. The Adrenaline box does supply the interface to broadcast grade audio, timing, reference and video ports but in addition is a hardware accelerator for the Avid line of editing applications – NewsCutter and Media Composer.
Symphony Nitris is designed as a ‘Finishing’ system to work on edited programmes from the other editing products with an emphasis on clean-up, colour correction etc. This is achieved in realtime with true High Definition media rather than the high-quality proxy versions used by Media Composer and Xpress Pro. Custom high-end hardware is required to achieve this and is reflected in the cost of the product.
DS Nitris is a system for working on productions from Standard Definition through true High Definition and through to 2K RGB film resolution in realtime and upto 4K resolution.
Mojo (analogue) and Mojo SDI are also I/O devices to connect to broadcast grade audio and video systems. The SDI version has the benefit of optical and wired interfaces in digital form. The Mojo also provides audio and video monitoring facilities and some hardware acceleration.
These cards allow realtime, render-free preview when the editor uses their settings and effects.
Sure, when using their effects. If you watch feature films, docos and animated features, you’ll very, very rarely see this ‘gimmicky’ effects being used. I’m not knocking products such as the Axio, which is an excellent system but I wouldn’t pay that sort of money to use on an editor such as PPro, which doesn’t work in the way true professional work and has rudimentary media management capabilities. As a hobbyist/serious amateur/in-house production system it’s fine but it fails in far too many areas.
Most Avid editing applications are able to work natively with multiple streams of video and audio in realtime, depending on the formats used. This is unlike many of the other editing systems out there that require render after render or pre-render in the case of FCP and audio pre-render of Premier Pro.
Again, unlike nearly all the editing applications out there, Avid editing systems are designed to work with the keyoard and some mouse import. Some see this as a non-intuitive way of editing and believe the mouse driven applications such as FCP and PPro are more intuative and quicker to use. As an ex-PPro editor, I foolishly believed this was the case until I converted to Media Composer. As virtually all film, broadcast and production house editors will tell you from experience, a keyboard driven interface is much, much faster to edit with and takes just a couple of hours to get to grips with.
Am I biased? No. I’ve used both products and I’m far more productive with the Avid systems than either FCP or PPro. Time for me is money and I can make more with Media Composer than I could with PPro. It is also way more stable and works flawlessly on my laptop in SD uncompressed in realtime.
If you still have Express, give it another go or try the FreeDV version available from http://www.avid.com If you like it and would like to move to Media Composer, I believe the upgrade special offer is on until the end of June.
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You’re probably right, my friend. I hear this from every editor in the business and I think sooner or later I’ll have to deal with Xpress Pro deeper. So far I have no complaint, I’ve made serious cash as a free-lancer using PPro and mainly FCP, but I have to say real pro work is Avid and its “peripherals”. Holywood edits with it, that says it all. On the other hand, if objectivity is the case, I must tell you I hear from a lot of Avid editors that the company failed the competition on products such as AJA’s new I/O, that does the same things as Nitris for almost 1/3 of the money.
Anyway, I’ll try Xpress Pro once again, although I don’t think it will play real-time in HD if it is software only even on a Dual Core PC at 2.66. I have to start from somewhere, don’t I?
Thanks a lot
Themis
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There’s no reason why you can’t use DNxHD to edit with, visually you will have to try very hard to notice the difference, and re-link to the original HD source once you’re ready for full-res output.
AJA IoHD: With this high performance hardware and codec, you can work on the road with 720 and 1080 HD, all in full-raster 10 bit 4:2:2
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