Surely 64bit support isn't too far away....

[holeycow]

I bought an ediusnx card 2 years ago to replace my old dps velocity card, which had served me well for a good 8 years. However, the lack of 64bit driver support for the edius card is making me wonder if I'll need to shop around for a different product a little sooner.

Quite often in these forums, the issue of 64bit support is raised, and then shot down with the comment "video editing rarely needs more than 2gb of ram."

Obviously, the people making these comments don't do much animation or motion graphics work. With the setup I use for my work, I have edius on the same machine I use for compositing. A dedicated machine just for editing would not be economically viable as I need the video output for the compositing software as well as the edius. I don't want to be doubling up on hardware like broadcast monitors either.

As the needs of my clients grow and the deadlines shrink, I need to constantly be looking to upgrade and improve the workflow.

My 3D machine now runs Vista 64bit and it's made a huge difference.

But the compositing is now a real bottleneck, largely due to the ram restrictions of the 32bit os. I am starting to get extremely anxious about the need to upgrade my edit/composite machine to 64bit as well.

I think you'll find there are many people in the same boat, who are anxious for the ediusnx card to get 64bit support not so much for the editing, but because of the other software they are running.

If this support dosen't come by early next year, I will probably be forced to ditch the edius altogether and purchase a card that will give the support I need.

Dual booting is not an option when you have tight deadlines to deal with.

Whenever people raise this issue, they seem to get told that 64bit support dosen't matter yet.

Well I'm telling you that for many of us, it does.

Does Grass Valley have any plans to deal with this issue in the near future?

Or will I need to dump my edius card and find another alternative?

Sorry to word this post so harshly, but this issue is causing me great frustration. When I called the edius ditributor in Australia to find out what was going to happen, I was basicly told that 64bit support would never come and that I didn't really need it. I'm telling you that I DO need it, and I need it fast.

[mike0130]

If this support dosen't come by early next year, I will probably be forced to ditch the edius altogether and purchase a card that will give the support I need.

And you will be greately dissapointed...

My 3D machine now runs Vista 64bit and it's made a huge difference.

Oh, please... Not that "huge"...There is nothing ready now to go for 64 bit, not the OS-ses, not hardware, not software... If Pinnacle will come tomorrow with 64 bit, don't go for it. Wait till market will be stable and it will be at least 5-6 companies on it. Probably GV will come a little after Adobe. This is what happened with Vista- Adobe CS3 is already Vista-32 ready, CV will probably be with version 5.0 of Edius... Not before. So be patient. Wait. And as my people say, please never run in front of moving locomotive...

[holeycow]

Actually, I think you'll find the software and hardware for my needs ARE there.

With my 3d, I'm using the 64bit version of Lightwave 9.3. When you get past the restrictions of a few gig of ram in 3d, it DOES make a difference.

For compositing, both Nuke & Fusion are 64 bit applications. I've been working with Combustion up until now, but have worked with Fusion before and am looking very much in that direction for when I switch to 64bit.

The Blackmagic Decklink HD card seems to be good quality and also supports 64bit.

I don't care if the editing software that runs on the card is 32bit, as the editing is not the problem. The compositing is the big bottleneck.

The locomotive I'm running in front of is the expectations of my clients.

[Khoi Pham]

Actually, I think you'll find the software and hardware for my needs ARE there.

With my 3d, I'm using the 64bit version of Lightwave 9.3. When you get past the restrictions of a few gig of ram in 3d, it DOES make a difference.

For compositing, both Nuke & Fusion are 64 bit applications. I've been working with Combustion up until now, but have worked with Fusion before and am looking very much in that direction for when I switch to 64bit.

The Blackmagic Decklink HD card seems to be good quality and also supports 64bit.

I don't care if the editing software that runs on the card is 32bit, as the editing is not the problem. The compositing is the big bottleneck.

The locomotive I'm running in front of is the expectations of my clients.

How about networking, build another computer for your comp and keep the old one for Edius?

[holeycow]

The trouble with that is thast I'm running out of room. I work from home and have four workstations already, each dedicated to a purpose (3d, edit/composite, ftp server & dtp). Typically, I'll have the 3d & composite machines rendering while other files are uploading on the ftp server and I'm pushing out some press work on the dtp machine. Another machine would also require another broadcast monitor and an output card for the compositing machine would be needed anyway.

[GrassValley_BH]

I don't know if it (64-bit drivers for EDIUS hardware) will never come, but I haven't seen/heard anything about it. Then again, the folks in Japan tend not to tell us about things until they're already done, so go figure.

That said, how much editing are you doing, and what are you using the NLE for? I assume to assemble and preview work on broadcast monitor - anything beyond that? If your 3D and compositing machines are rendering most of the time, a separate editing machine would probably be useful.

Instead of getting another broadcast monitor, unless you always need to see the output of everything simultaneously at full-res, I'd consider a component switcher or multiviewer to save space.

Likewise if you don't need to see everything PC-wise simultaneously, a KVM (if you don't already have one) can save you lots of space.

[shueardm]

Lightwave 9.3 doesn't supported Vista 64 bit OS even if it runs. Point being is that what you are running now is not officially supported anyway.

I too think GV are followers instead of being front runners. They have to support 64 bit versions for the reason you mentioned. Because it's not that we need EDIUS to run on it, but we want to use other stuff with it.

Can i suggest you look at getting your PC's in a rack, saves a lot of space.

[holeycow]

Thanks for the kvm switch suggestion Brandon.

I don't do a great deal of editing, and could get away with using a fairly computer for it. I would still want to be able to output the compositor to the broadcast monitor, but could probably do that reasonably cost effectively.

Looks like it time to do some number crunching and see what the best option will be.

[Mike Truly]

I agree with the desire for 64 bit drivers for the NX hardware. I too use 3D apps which are 64bit (MAX) as well as Fusion (soon Fusion64), and other compositing apps and I am basically in the same situation (work from a studio in my home and have more computers than I can count and space is very tight). I'm actually having an addition put on my home partially to accomodate my growing requirements.

I would highly recommend a rack mounted situation as it saves a tremendous amount of space for render slaves but it does have it's own set of issues such as cooling, noise, etc.

KVM switches do help but generally, KVMs don't come in the quality configurations that I need them too. My main workstation is a 4 monitor system and I have configured 3 of those to be an Edius workstation and there are quality issues with the monitors that are switched via KVMs. But it is doable.

I prefer x64 as an OS and would not be opposed to dual booting as when I recently speced a new laptop, it would only come with Vista so to get x64, I would have to install that as a dual boot and not remove the Vista so as not to void the warranty.

Bottom line, I would definitely like to see GV come out with 64bit drivers for NX as well as further integration with more compositing apps, etc. so that users could utilize the NX framebuffer for viewing comps in HD.

Thanks!

[jonandmarkuk]

I wouldn't even bother with 64bit at the moment, hardware and software support just doesn't exsist. 64bit CPUs have been around for a while yet the driver and software support is still lacking.
Canopus / Grass Valley are no different to a lot of other companies, why produce drivers and have to go though the Microsoft certification for a small customer base.
Once you can do down the local PC shop and get a 64bit PC which is totally 64bit so NO 32bit mixed in then it maybe viable.
I don't think 64bit has taken off as quickly as first thought.

[GrassValley_BH]

We're slightly off-topic, but I think the tangent (using multiple machines) is pertinent to editing and of interest to the EDIUS community so let's keep going...

Multi-monitor KVM does get a bit tricky. In the past I had three PS2 KVMs rigged to switch my three monitors.

The "professional" and most flexible way is to use a matrix-type KVM switch, but they can be quite pricey.

Alternatively, if your graphics card is up to the task and you don't mind stretched desktop (versus Windows being able to "see" each monitor independently) then you can use a standard KVM with one of Matrox's DualHead2Go or TripleHead2Go units. Two or three physical monitors appear to be one huge monitor to the system.

Back to the x64 support topic, I too would like to have x64 drivers for the EDIUS hardware and I believe it'll happen at some point - I just don't know when.

Meanwhile I upgraded my scanner because I needed (erm, wanted) x64 support, and ended up ditching my Keyspan PS-4A USB network print server for a Silex SX2000U USB network device server because the Silex unit has x64 drivers.

Luckily my printers all got x64 drivers pretty early on. I guess printers are easier to support compared to scanners and other devices.

[swsw1550]

Yes it has

Hi guys,
Me being an ex employee of Microsoft for 15yrs to be exact, have got to disagree, 64bit operating systems have taken of and will continue too, I now run my own computer buisness on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland Australia and have over 900 clients on my data base, I would say that a good 80% of these people use 64bit vista or 64bit XP. XP 32bit is finished, Bill Gates has wanted every one to go to 64bit machines for a couple of years now, And as for software that supports 64bit computing I say learn to surf the net a bit better as it is every where, I have solly been 64bit for over 2yrs and have never had a problem, I will admit some 32bit programes will not run, but you learn to live with that, I to wish that Thomson would release 64bit drivers, if not I might have to make them my self if I get time...

Cheers
Steve

[GrassValley_BH]

Okay, I think this thread has run its course.

Summary:
64-bit Windows is the future. But, drivers for all hardware, especially older hardware, are not available and may never be available.
Software on the other hand, should work in 64-bit unless it has some virtual device component, in which case it will require an update.

64-bit support for hardware and software will come, but we can't say when, and for what hardware yet.

As for me, our VPN client is 32-bit only, so I'm stuck at running 32-bit Windows in a virtual machine for VPN until we get a 64-bit VPN client...