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Thanks for the info. Why would anyone want the Mojo?

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It sound like you folks are using hardware to get the RT. If that is the case thne this has been a waste of time. I want to know what the G5 can do with the DV-25 or DV-50 codec and OHCI only.

Does anyone have a DV-25 camera and a G5 to test the RT of Final Cut Pro?

I know the Cinewave can do several layers of DV in RT and out put to SDI, DV and analogue in RT but the Cinewave is doing the work not the G5.

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bill and Kaspar Kallas,

If you are using the Kona card, Decklink card or just editing in RT on the VGA monitor then we can not compare apples to apples. No pun intended. A mere 155 MHZ Pentium could not record or play back DV-25 footage back in 1997. The Fast DV Master Card had a hardware encoder/decoder so that the Pentiums could. My little 160 MHZ Pentium could not play back MJPEG at 640 X 480 with out my cheap DC10 Plus card. It had hardware to do the encoding and decoding. I doubt a 200 MHZ G3 would play MPEG 2 at 720 X 480 with out droping frames. I admit a G4 at 800 MHZ should do it with ease.

I am not saying the Decklink or Kona cards have reel time acclerator chips but it would have a hardware encoder for capturing the footage and playing it back. I bet it also has some small buffer built into it to help out. It is easier to play back 4 layers of uncompressed to an analogue port then it is to squeeze 3 layers of DV-25 at 3.6MBPS back to to OHCI port as a single 3.6MBPS stream. Edius can convert MPEG 2 and uncompressed to the 3.6MBPS DV-25 format in RT. Sending 4 layers out to analogue is not a problem since nothing has to get re-encoded to squeeze back out to the analogue port as opossed to OHCI with DV-25 or DV-50.

bill and Kaspar Kallas, I need the two of you to out put back to any DV-25 or DV-50 deck in RT with CC and PIP effects. If the G5 can do it I will talk to the sles staff at the Apple Store. You folks are using hardware. I am talking DV-25 or DV-50 with OHCI only.

Is Apple RT with OHCI? I was told it is not.

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Kaspar Kallas,

Sometimes Vegas can play an effect and it looks like it is RT at 720 X 480 60 fields per second but it will infact only be 48-58 fields per seccond. It looks good but it is droping frames. Other software some times plays 30 fields per second in RT . In other words half the resolution at 360 X 240 with odd or even fields only.

Let me know what you find out before I start bitchin at the sales person at the Apple Store. I know when I saw the demo last year I could tell it dropped frames. I think it was FCP 4. FCP 5 maybe better. I did not see a demo since the sales guy said it must render. I was not going to argue with him.

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Kaspar Kallas and Bret Williams,

Thanks for the info. Maybe I should have bought an Apple after all. It sounds impressive. Maybe the folks at the Apple Store do not know how to use it. Can either of you post what the settings should be for RT DV-25? I will show it to the sales person. I will have him or her play 3 five minute long clips with PIP and CC on the dual G5 at 2.5 GHZ.

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Kaspar Kallas,

Are you speaking of cuts only editing or PIP with CC?

bill,

I agree with you 90% but I can not say I agree with you 100%. Here is why. You wrote the following below.

Maybe one day we will be renderless, but in the meantime embrace it. It really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s life as we know it.

Edius does not render back to tape for DV-25, DV-50 or the HD Fire Wire cameras at DV-100. With DV-100 you may only get CC and a transition in RT but it is true RT. You would be amazed at what it does in true RT with DV-25.

bill you also wrote this.

“Real Time” is a very tricky word in the world of non-linear editing. It is a sales pitch word. Yes, as the systems get faster and the codecs allow for quicker data streams there are more realtime options. The key is most of it is “realtime” preview.

I agree with most of that. I used Editon by Pinnacle. It was VGA previews only but they looked smoother than the other software solutions. It was sold as a RT solution. You could get several layers in RT preview with the VGA monitor. It was full resolution and full frame rate in the VGA monitor but it had to render to go back to tape (DV-25). Vegas, Adobe, Ulead, etc were all the same except Editon was the only program to render in the back ground and the previews were very smooth. I was impressed with Edition so I bought it. If it was not for Edition I would have opted for FCP and a MAC. The FCP GUI is great but Edition could render in the back ground. At NAB 2004 Canopus released Edius 2.0. There was not much buzz about it. Some one had stated it was true RT with OHCI in a discusssion forum. I thought it was hype like Final Cut Pro, Vegas and Premiere Pro. It was not hype. I downloaded the demo from Canopus and was shocked. I bought it the next day. You can infact drop uncompressed in the timline and play it in RT to the OHCI port. It will get converteed to DV-25, DV-50 or DV-100 depending on what camera or deck you use. It does not convert uncompressed or MPEG 2 on import. The MPEG or uncompressed is dropped on the timeline and you hit play. As it plays the uncompressed or MPEG gets altered to DV-25 or DV-50. You can even add CC and transitions and PIP to the uncompressed or MPEG 2 video streams in RT. How does Edius do it? I do not know. I just know Canopus was the first to figure out the DV riddle with the REX and Storm systems. They were the first to convert muliple streams of DV-25 back to tape with RT cards like the Storm and REX systems. I get more RT with Edius 3.0 on my 3.2 GHZ laptop with OHCI than I did with a 1.4 GHZ system and my Storm. I wanted to edit on a laptop that is why I junmped ship to Pinnacle’s Edition but now I am back with Canopus.

Like I said other than Canopus’s Edius I don’t think there is a true RT solution with out an accelerator card.

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Bret Williams,

Thanks for the info Bret you wrote the following below.

But on any real time system I’d always render before going back to tape.

If you must render back to tape then it is not a real time system. I don’t think the Dual G5 with Final Cut Pro is an RT system like Edius on an Intel chip. In other words the dual G5 could not play a 5 minute long clip with CC and speed change in RT for the full 5 minutes with OHCI only. It might do a 2 second dissolve in RT or it may not. In other words you should render with Final Cut Pro. That is why I use Edius so I do not have to render and I can see everything in true RT on the NTSC monitor. I can use CC with transitions all day long without a droped frame on my 3.2 GHZ laptop. There is no need to render. I can even use a PIP with CC all day long in RT.

The sales men said the the dual G5 with Final Cut Pro was not true RT with OHCI but RT previews. I think that is the best wording to use.

Final Cut Pro is an OK program but I did not like the fact that it was not true RT. That is why I opted for Edius over a year ago. I am glad I did.

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Michael Horton,

I saw the Final Cut Pro Guru at an Apple store demoing the system. I admit it was a little over a year ago. Things could have changed. The person demoing FCP said it would have to render to out put back to DV-25. That is what we were editing. I saw the frames dropping my self. For the demo I just had the guy take a 10 second clip and crop it and rotate it and flip it. It was jerky to say the least going back to the camera.

MPE,

I admit Avid may do it now in RT with out the Mojo. Back when Edius 2.0 was released none of them could do true RT with out hardware back to tape. Just between me and you I can get more true RT with Edius than I could get from a VGA preview with Edition or Premiere Pro. Most software vendors count a VGA preview as RT. With FCP and a dual G5 is it possable to do two layer of DV-25 flipping and rotating with CC in RT to OHCI at 720 X 480 and 60 fields per second for 10 minutes? I am not talking degredation but true NTSC DV out put. Can I play an MPEG 2 video with an uncompressed PIP and a DV-25 PIP to the OHCI port in RT. Edius can infact do this. I did not think it could squeeze uncompressed out the Fire Wire port but it can. How Canopus can let you combine formats with CC and PIP with OHCI and get RT is beyond me.

Can Avid Xpress Pro HD combine MPEG 2 and uncompressed in RT with PIP and CC to the Fire Wire port?

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The RT of Apple is hype. Sorry you had to learn the hardway. With the Cinewave you would have RT back to tape but not from the dual G5s. It would be the Cinewave doing the work. I have heard rumor that Avid will not support the Cinewave once they own Pinnacle. The new Avid systems should be RT back to tape like you like. The only company that can out put DV-25, DV-50 and some of the OHCI HD footage in RT at 100mbps with out hardware is Canopus.

I seen a dual G5 drop frames doing a PIP with just DV-25 fotage and an OHCI card. Edius with a genric OHCI port and a single 3.2 GHZ P4 can infact play 3 layers of DV-25 video in RT back to tape or the NTSC monitor. It is true RT unlike FCP and the G5s. Premiere and Vegas will also drop frames up the wazoo. They all seem to hype their RT except Canopus.