[Floh Peters]

There are only a handful reasons for working in 768 these days. I would strongly recommend to work in 720 unless you either have a Vincent or Vincent 601 board (which don

[Floh Peters]

[Lawrence Marshall] “Floh, you said that v11.5 also outputs HD through Firewire, in addition to Producer. “

Actually I said (or at least wanted to say, maybe it still was not clear) that you can output SD (Standard Definition, PAL or NTSC) to FireWire in both Producer and V11.5. All StandardDef timelines with all kind of different supported codecs can be played out via FireWire directly. HiDef timelines cannot; they have to be conformed to SD first for FireWire output. For SDI output the HDx and Aja cards have hardware downconverters, though. So while it is not possible to play a HiDef timeline to FireWire without conforming you can play it to StandardDef SDI through the hardware downconverter.

[Lawrence Marshall] “So, does that mean if my HDx hardware fails, or I have to edit on location but don’t want to haul the HDx breakout box, the AD-DA converters, etc., I can stil edit and output to Firewire with Version 11.5? Do my HDx boards need to be in there at all? (trying to understand the difference between 11.5 and Producer in this regard…).”

It depends on how your HDx board “fails”. The Media 100 V11.5 software (the one that works with either HDx or Aja hardware) is locked to a board serial number. On launching the application it checks the serial number of the board and matches it to the encryption code you entered. So if you don

[Floh Peters]

Try exporting video only as self contained (you need audio as an extra clip if you want to go to DVDSP anyway). If that

[Floh Peters]

[FargoRoss] “Does Media100SW support any type of video out that would be on a PowerPC QuadG5?”

If you mean playing out video to a Video Monitor in realtime, no. You can export QuickTimes (e.g. to go to Media 100 i or to DVD and web), or you can upgrade to Producer with FireWire I/O.

[Floh Peters]

Media 100 sw does not have FireWire I/O. Media 100 Producer, the successor of Media 100 sw has FireWire I/O.

[Floh Peters]

[Michael Slowe] “Sorry Floh, more confusion in my mind! Am I right in saying that an HD timeline won’t be converted to DV for mastering via firewire? Don’t I have to re conform first in order to master via firewire? Previously with HD I could master to tape vie Composite to my DSR 20 but the picture quality wasn’t brilliant.”

Michael,

in Media 100 Producer you can play out SD timelines (NTSC or PAL) to FireWire/DV in realtime, independent of the codecs used in the timeline. The same is true for Media 100 V11.5.
If you have a HD (1920*1080) timeline you have to conform the timeline to SD first before you can play it out via FireWire on Producer and on Media 100 V11.5.
If you have one of the hardware systems (HDx or Aja except the SDe) you can play out a HD (1920*1080) timeline to SD via SDI or any other video output (not FireWire) in realtime though, without having to conform to SD first.

[Floh Peters]

[edunwody] “Will this have any speed change for RED?”

If you are referring to Red as a standalone Render Engine on a Media 100 i system, yes. Red uses either the Hardware Codec or the software codecs if you do not launch it from within Media 100. The software codecs are considerably faster, so all File In/File Out will be much faster. The actual rendering will stay the same, though; so if you have very complex effects the read/write will not have a big share of the rendering time and therefore not affect the overall rendering time that much. But for “easy” effects this will be much faster.
If you open Red from inside Media 100 i, the movie clips will be handed over from Media 100; inside the Media 100 i application (and for exchange with PlugIns) the hardware codec is used always, so you won

[Floh Peters]

[Floh] “Producer can output all SD formats (or any mix of different SD Codecs) through FireWire.”

I got a hint that my post may be a little bit misleading. To clarify my post:
Media 100 Producer and HD can play back timelines with any supported SD codecs or any mix of supported SD codecs out via FireWire. The FireWire output contains a DV or DVCPro signal, depending on the selected settings. This means that all clips that are not in DV or DVCPro codec are converted to DV/DVCPro in realtime on playback and then sent over FireWire. Files in DV/DVCPro codec will stay in that codec without any additional decompression/recompression. So you can play out your SD timelines to DV and DVCPro over FireWire.
Note that DVCPro50 compression over FireWire is currently not supported in Producer or HD. It can be used as an acquisition or playback codec, but it is not supported natively over FireWire right now. But I would expect most DVCPro50 decks to accept DVCPro streams also.

[Floh Peters]

[Michael Slowe] “Could it be the downscaling to SD that is the problem? It certainly takes a long time (about six hours for fifteen minutes) but that doesn’t worry me, it’s the quality I am worried about. I am using double pass, VBR average 7.5, max 8.5, min 5.5. I suppose it’s just the MPEG compression of DVD’s but frustrating when I see th”

I would guess that if you are seeing problems they probably are related to the downscaling in BitVice. If you have the time I would suggest doing a short test using the Media 100s “Conform” tool and then feeding an SD signal into BitVice. This should produce excellent results, especially at settings as high as the ones you chose in BitVice.

[Floh Peters]

Producer can output all SD formats (or any mix of different SD Codecs) through FireWire.