Love the Layout Tool

[medeamajic]

Jimjulian,


I agree with Khio Pham's comments. I am not sure how long you have been in the business but your zoomed image produced rabbit fur. Most of us in the professional world prefer hair to look like hair rather than rabbit fur (VHS quality). I admit zooming in on any video footage will produce a poor image. I just would not post that no one would notice the difference unless you told them. I hate to say it but I see rabbit fur as opposed to hair don't you?

I also agree that the layout tool is a complete joke for still images. Yes I have used it but why should I have to (I don't anymore)? True you can crop and zoom an area of a map 6-7 times in Edius but with Premiere Pro you can make nice pans from one end of a 4500 pixel image to the other end. You can key frame it with PP rather than using an inept layout tool 6-7 times to handle a still image. Premiere's real time preview sometimes beats out the Edius RT quality. Edius looks smoother than PP CS3 when the PIP is moving fast but starts to shake on slower images even with the anti flicker. Premiere Pro can handle a slow image OK as a real time preview but when rendered Premiere Pro wins hands down over Edius. I hope Edius can one day over come the limitations but I have just sunk $2499.00 into the CS3 Master Collection. The poor handling of image files in Edius has been mentioned time and time again along with the 3D PIP producing pixeled artifacts. I am not talking about the shadow from the light source but the artifacts produced on the underlying video when using 3D PIP with text. Many users even complained about the crop tool of the 3D PIP 4-5 years ago but nothing has changed. I decided to invest in the CS 3 Suite when one of the moderators hinted that the Grass Valley editing solutions would see support for the Red cameras before Edius (Edius may not be the top dog). Edius rocked my world when I had a P4 at 3.2 GHZ but the Quad Cores are here for real cheep. Premiere Pro gives me good RT previews (not as good as Edius but when renderd they are even better) and a much more elegant GUI. The RT of Edius is great but when push comes to shove I felt Edius was forcing me to jump through hoops. Edius does have some strengths over Premiere and has gotten some what better but not enough for me to upgrade form 3.5 because to many of the same problems and inadequacies still exist. DVD authoring from the timline is nice but still falls short of the CS3 Production Suite. Edius is OK as a NLE but it can not complete with the full multimedia solution that Adobe can offer.

It is odd to read a thread complimenting the Edius layout tool as being a good thing for still images. I find it to be an inept way of handling still photos and it is the #1 reason I jumped ship but your milage will vary.

[GrassValley_BH]

Quality is in the eye of the beholder. Remember that not all clients are video savvy and most are impressed by the "100% digital quality" cable/satellite signal they get.

[Jim N]

Mediamajic's comments are not really comparing apples to apples, after all Edius isn't a megabundle. If I wanted to pay for a megabundle, or learn a megabundle I'd buy a megabundle, but Edius lets you get a great job done relatively simply and at much lower cost. It is possible to conjecture that version 5 will allow an "Imaginate" like treatment of stills that could improve the layout feature. I'm sure this will be something we all would look forward to but the Edius feature set is still very extensive with some features PPro doesn't have that I need. I am often amused by my institutional imaging friends who have fallen for the hype and ended up with hugely complicated software editing suites that bog them down with a massive array of features they'll never use when Edius would have been perfect for them.

Jim

[JimJulian]

Jimjulian,


I agree with Khio Pham's comments. I am not sure how long you have been in the business but your zoomed image produced rabbit fur. Most of us in the professional world prefer hair to look like hair rather than rabbit fur (VHS quality). I admit zooming in on any video footage will produce a poor image. I just would not post that no one would notice the difference unless you told them. I hate to say it but I see rabbit fur as opposed to hair don't you?

I also agree that the layout tool is a complete joke for still images. Yes I have used it but why should I have to (I don't anymore)? True you can crop and zoom an area of a map 6-7 times in Edius but with Premiere Pro you can make nice pans from one end of a 4500 pixel image to the other end. You can key frame it with PP rather than using an inept layout tool 6-7 times to handle a still image. Premiere's real time preview sometimes beats out the Edius RT quality. Edius looks smoother than PP CS3 when the PIP is moving fast but starts to shake on slower images even with the anti flicker. Premiere Pro can handle a slow image OK as a real time preview but when rendered Premiere Pro wins hands down over Edius. I hope Edius can one day over come the limitations but I have just sunk $2499.00 into the CS3 Master Collection. The poor handling of image files in Edius has been mentioned time and time again along with the 3D PIP producing pixeled artifacts. I am not talking about the shadow from the light source but the artifacts produced on the underlying video when using 3D PIP with text. Many users even complained about the crop tool of the 3D PIP 4-5 years ago but nothing has changed. I decided to invest in the CS 3 Suite when one of the moderators hinted that the Grass Valley editing solutions would see support for the Red cameras before Edius (Edius may not be the top dog). Edius rocked my world when I had a P4 at 3.2 GHZ but the Quad Cores are here for real cheep. Premiere Pro gives me good RT previews (not as good as Edius but when renderd they are even better) and a much more elegant GUI. The RT of Edius is great but when push comes to shove I felt Edius was forcing me to jump through hoops. Edius does have some strengths over Premiere and has gotten some what better but not enough for me to upgrade form 3.5 because to many of the same problems and inadequacies still exist. DVD authoring from the timline is nice but still falls short of the CS3 Production Suite. Edius is OK as a NLE but it can not complete with the full multimedia solution that Adobe can offer.

It is odd to read a thread complimenting the Edius layout tool as being a good thing for still images. I find it to be an inept way of handling still photos and it is the #1 reason I jumped ship but your milage will vary.

I agree that the 3dPIP is a very weak, let me say again, very weak at scaling in Edius. Imaginate is much better. After Effects is much better. My "clumsy praise" for the Layout Tool was for those looking for a solution to the shortcomings of 3dPIP rather than running off to buy $2500 worth of software(I have the same collection by the way) My tv station has 75 licenses of Edius. Jumping ship is not an option for some as it is for you.

Someone on the forum asked about zooming on video, so I did a little test. Frankly, the results surprised me a little. Remember, your looking at a low rez jpeg taken from video zoomed in 200%...and she is moving a bit. The video playing on the timeline still looks pretty good. Having said that, in my 28 years as a producer of Broadcast TV I have never had a reason to zoom in on video. If I found myself zooming on my video all the time I would "Jump" to another cameraman before jumping from my NLE.

smiles,

jim

[Khoi Pham]

I agree that the 3dPIP is a very weak, let me say again, very weak at scaling in Edius. Imaginate is much better. After Effects is much better. My "clumsy praise" for the Layout Tool was for those looking for a solution to the shortcomings of 3dPIP rather than running off to buy $2500 worth of software(I have the same collection by the way) My tv station has 75 licenses of Edius. Jumping ship is not an option for some as it is for you.

Someone on the forum asked about zooming on video, so I did a little test. Frankly, the results surprised me a little. Remember, your looking at a low rez jpeg taken from video zoomed in 200%...and she is moving a bit. The video playing on the timeline still looks pretty good. Having said that, in my 28 years as a producer of Broadcast TV I have never had a reason to zoom in on video. If I found myself zooming on my video all the time I would "Jump" to another cameraman before jumping from my NLE.


smiles,

jim

You don't understand, some people are shooting in HD but still deliver in SD, and since HD resolution is much more, you can put the HD clip on a SD timeline and use the layout tool to zoom in and reframe a shot, get a tighter shot, cut out some excess head room, if a shooter doesn't follow the rule of third to frame a shot you can reframe it, so many posibility with it to make a better video, but this is not the point, if Layout tool is going to have keyframe, then they should look and see why it can't zoom into the original resolution and not have the same quality, if it is going to replace Imaginate then they should look into that problem, that is all I'm asking.

[JimJulian]

You don't understand, some people are shooting in HD but still deliver in SD, and since HD resolution is much more, you can put the HD clip on a SD timeline and use the layout tool to zoom in and reframe a shot, get a tighter shot, cut out some excess head room, if a shooter doesn't follow the rule of third to frame a shot you can reframe it, so many posibility with it to make a better video, but this is not the point, if Layout tool is going to have keyframe, then they should look and see why it can't zoom into the original resolution and not have the same quality, if it is going to replace Imaginate then they should look into that problem, that is all I'm asking.

I agree and it sounds like we can expect an improved 3dpip in the near future. We'll have to see if they get it right this time.
In the meantime, if you have to crop something in Edius (and this is your only option) try the Layout Tool first before applying a 3dpip.

jim

[medeamajic]

Jimjulian and JimN,

The layout tool is usefull for somethings. I made mention that all footage will look worse if zoomed in to far. We both agree on that. My point is that many of us have wanted the 3D PIP to be revamped for years. Edius does not have a bad 3D zoom compared to the competition but it could be much better for odd sized images and footage. Edius does indeed have some great features. As a stand alone editor Edius and FCP might be a tad bit better than Premiere Pro but I had to look at my needs and I decided the CS3 Master Collection would be the best option. I agree that CS3 is not for everyone but it does indeed offer the user a lot of tools. I would like to see Edius get the features of Imaginate and Xplode Pro in a revamped 3D PIP tool but I think you would both agree that we must choose a product for what it does today as opossed to what it will do in the future.

I would welcome a more robust Edius 5 but it may or may not happen.

[biopic]

Well I did submit the request, but 11 days have passed and the moderators have not seen fit to allow the post :(

[SoundFreak]

11 days have passed and the moderators have not seen fit to allow the post :(

Thats the reason why I stopped posting a while ago. Maybe I'm getting too old to get worked up about improving things.
Been asking several improvements and additions over the years (using Edius since ver. 1.0) but was never heard.
Nowadays just use the software daily, read the forum when there is time left in a day, if others (competitors) will provide me what I need, will use that along side, or completely switch.
This problem is not only GV or Canopus, it's reflects the world today, I can't name 1 company who listens to their customers like they used to do.

Just my 2 Cents ...............

[mattmatt]

Common soundfreek! Us users appreciate you on this forum, so its not all that bad . . .

[Khoi Pham]

Thats the reason why I stopped posting a while ago. Maybe I'm getting too old to get worked up about improving things.
Been asking several improvements and additions over the years (using Edius since ver. 1.0) but was never heard.
Nowadays just use the software daily, read the forum when there is time left in a day, if others (competitors) will provide me what I need, will use that along side, or completely switch.
This problem is not only GV or Canopus, it's reflects the world today, I can't name 1 company who listens to their customers like they used to do.

Just my 2 Cents ...............

DPS (Velocity) did, almost every request for improvement from the forum were implemented on the software, until they got bought out and I knew that was the end of the line and that is when I jumped to Canopus.

[Bassman]

I am very hopeful that version 5 of Edius will add some of the improvements we have been wanting over the years.

If V5 does not, then I have to think that Grass Valley is signaling that they are not planning a large amount of support for the Canopus software they purchased.

After all, they have had over a year to put this next version together, and the other companies in this space are not exactly sitting on their hands.

IMHO, if they can add some spice to Edius, it is hands down the best NLE for the non-broadcast user.

By spice I mean ways to add creativity to your video.

Edius has always been a workhorse, but has lacked some things that add that extra 10%.

Like the Layout tool not having keyframes. It just seems like it is still not a complete toolset.

I am optimistic at this point though.

[fukly]

i've been in premiere since 5.0 to 6.5...then i changed my 'religion' to canopus edius...having 5 miserable days to adapt..but I DO LOVE IT now!..
been edius 'follower' since 2.0 to 4.5... but i don't see huge improvement under Grass valley.. hope GV has the spirit to make it the best NLE...not just 'catching up' against PP or FCP... don't make me switch,please! u don't know how hard it was to change religion ;)

[alpi69]

I am very hopeful that version 5 of Edius will add some of the improvements we have been wanting over the years.

If V5 does not, then I have to think that Grass Valley is signaling that they are not planning a large amount of support for the Canopus software they purchased.

After all, they have had over a year to put this next version together, and the other companies in this space are not exactly sitting on their hands.

IMHO, if they can add some spice to Edius, it is hands down the best NLE for the non-broadcast user.

By spice I mean ways to add creativity to your video.

Edius has always been a workhorse, but has lacked some things that add that extra 10%.

Like the Layout tool not having keyframes. It just seems like it is still not a complete toolset.

I am optimistic at this point though.

totally agree. The Leyout tool is the perfect example of the Edius-approach. You can do some importaqnt and basic things fast and simple. That´s Edius. Fast and simple. But once you are asking for more (like a pan in a still) you need to use other software. I also hope v5 will change that. With the Premiere bundle and FCP bundle (FCP, Color, Motion) as competitors Grass Valley better comes up with new stuff or people like me will leave soon.

[lauri]

3D PNP always a probelm with the zoom. I'll have to do my own test to see which is the lesser of the 2 evils.

LB