EventDV by Philip Hinkle
While attending WEVA Expo 2010 in Orlando, Fla., last August, I was roaming the trade show floor and had to stop by the Grass Valley booth to see my good friend and favorite EDIUS spokesperson, Mike Downey. What a treat I got after we shook hands. Mike said, “Come over here. I have something to show you.” There on a large display screen was the much-anticipated EDIUS 6.0. It was still in beta at the time, but to my knowledge, it was the first time anyone in the U.S. (other than beta testers) had actually seen it in action with all the new features. It was great to get a sneak peek. EDIUS 6 has been in the works for a while. With the takeover of Canopus by Grass Valley a few years ago, things slowed down a little on improvements to EDIUS, but Grass Valley kept promising development was ongoing. Before WEVA Expo, I hadn’t seen any details about the new version, although a few beta testers had hinted in online forums that it would be worth the wait. After seeing the beta version at WEVA, I was impressed to see at least a handful of new features being rolled out that would improve my product and workflow. And WEVA Expo attendees were the first to see a near-production version in a public setting. I finally got my hands on a review copy in late October. Here’s a rundown of the new features and other developments that will be of most interest to event videographers and filmmakers.
Installation
There are a few things to note regarding the installation of EDIUS 6: Installing the software went very smoothly and took only a few minutes. Upon running it through the paces on my main editing system, I noticed some unusual and slow behavior. After lots of research and discussion with Grass Valley tech support, I discovered the reason: My minimal-level graphics card has problems if you make the EDIUS playback window too big. If your graphics card is on the lower side of Grass Valley specs for functionality—512MB, 1024x768 (32-bit), Direct3D 9.0c or later, and Pixel Shader Model 3.0 or later are the minimums for HD editing—you may encounter a few small problems with functionality and jerky playback.
I reduced the size of the on-screen monitor, and things settled down; EDIUS functioned like I expected it too—fast, nimble, stable, and all in real time. I can’t blame Grass Valley for the slow performance I got at first; after all, I built the computer and chose the graphics card. But it’s probably best to use the recommended specs as a baseline rather than the minimums. read more...
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