Systems of Pinnacle Liquid Edition series

By Oleg Bondarev, Alexey Gel’mel’, Lydia Tsirkul’

Review contents:

Post-production systems of DV format The mobile DV-solution from Apple AVID systems for TV programs post production in DV format Canopus DV Storm2 Pro System NewsBaseDV System Serial-4-Cam for preparation of material at multicamera shooting DV-installation: variants are possible Videoediting stations of DV format from Matrox Company Systems of Pinnacle Liquid Edition series DV Rack from Serious Magic Program-making system DV Station

The tendency of development of formats of DV25 family has understood by Pinnacle Systems Company very quickly. The wide line of devices for operation with them is the evidence of this statement also. There was no without attention and the DV format essentially. It is enough to remember DV500 cards and other cards of this series. Then the line Liquid from system purple, then transformed in Edition has appeared. Today it is the youngest system of the line, and it is “particularly sharpened” for operation with content of DV format.

The stake in Edition is made on computing resources of the computer. The packet contains the DV card, but it is only the standard controller IEEE 1394 which is produced by Pinnacle Company. Nevertheless, such approach does not prevent to carry out a lot of special effects in the real time mode, certainly, under condition that the computer, on which the system is installed, is not “fire wood”, but something decent.

Designers have declared about ability of system to process up to 10 streams of video with 2D and 3D effects, color correction and keying on brightness/color key in the real time mode.

Doubtless advantage of the system is background calculation that allows to not interrupt operation process with the project and to not distract on separate procedure of the calculation which, as it is known, in some other systems “devours” practically all resources of the computer and does not allow to make at this time anything more serious on it, than a card game or play solitaire.

Interfaces of modules of color correction (left) and DVD authoring

The Edition allows the DVD-authoring carrying out and export on the disk directly from time scale. For simplification and acceleration of operation under disk preparation more than 40 patterns supplied together with a packet are served.

Functions CX Color Correction (secondary and by the chosen color), Dynamic Slow Motion and other exact program tools of special effect realization on subpixel level provide high quality of content on an output.

Edition Pro system interface

Liquid Edition Card and the breakout box

In comparison with the previous system version Edition Pro is more powerful. It is already the hardware-software complete set consisting of card and software package Liquid Edition (version 5.5). The card created for AGP bus, is in reality the hybrid of AGP-video adapter on the base of chip set ATI 8500 and videocapture card which, in turn, includes the following parts: digital (controller FireWire) and analog (analog video/audio path). For convenience of connection the complete set of delivery includes the external switching unit over which are all analog (composite, Y/C, asymmetrical audio) and digital (IEEE 1394) connectors.

For performance of special effects Edition may apply both either the capacities of the graphic chip (such effects refer to as GPU), or capacities of central processor RS: there are so-called CPU-effects. Naturally, the more powerfully the computer, the more CPU-effects can be made in real time. For example, by the powerful dual-processor machine with a high-speed array the number of real time streams may reach up to ten!!! And to each of them it is possible to apply 2D-and 3D-effects, color correction, keying over color and brightness keys etc.

Certainly, at arsenal of this system there is also a background calculation which only becomes more effective from presence of the complex hardware.

As to reliability — the system makes permanent autosaving, some times per second, therefore any “editing” losses are absent even at sudden switching-off of power supply. The user interface and keyboard combination for fast calling of functions may be adjusted on individual preferences of the user. The system of automatic recognition of scenes, built-in in Liquid Edition, basing on time code or video content, allows to divide video fragments used in the project into separate clips. After input of whole cartridge this function enables to avoid the long and labor-intensive process of hand-held cutting of video materials.

Liquid built-in technology XSend easily allows to transfer clips and projects directly in such applications, as Commotion Pro, Adobe After Effects, Macromedia Flash MX and certainly in broadcast products Pinnacle, such as DekoCast and Thunder. System is also provided with integrated opportunity of DVD-authoring. The master of DVD/VCD/SVCD creation with animated menu, buttons and the automatic references, using the simple, intuitively clear interface, is settled down, as was already mentioned, on time scale Liquid Edition directly. In the complete set, except for software Liquid Edition 5.5 also enters the subtitling packet Title Deko RT and the set of 3D-effects Hollywood FX Plus are included.

Slow Motion module’s interface

It is necessary to mention once again, that Liquid Edition is the younger representative of Liquid family which includes such known systems as Blue, Chrome and Silver, capable to operate with material of any format practically, including uncompressed content (Blue). Besides inherited from the senior systems interface and powerful tools, Edition keeps compatibility with them both over project formats and over media data, that allows using of this system as preliminary editing station, and final editing and finishing to make with more perfect system of the family. Also the important advantage of any Liquid system is the opportunity of operation with network disks. In other words, some users may get access to the same material simultaneously. Thus, there is no necessity of video copying from one station to another, and EDL created in Edition is simply transferred, for example, to Chrome on which the output of the edited program can be made in the real time mode, that is without a calculation, even background. The base of it there are network standards and support of technology of network storage 100-baseT, Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel. Certainly, all systems are easily connected to Palladium. On assurances of designers, in this case the productivity of network operation is doubled in comparison with use of standard IT-solutions.

And in conclusion it is necessary to note, that the new version ON Edition 6.0 which in fastest time becomes accessible to users has already appeared.

Material provided by ProVideo Systems and HLS Medientechnik companies