Discreet tool for vide editing

#1

Is there a Discreet tool for video editing? (Something similar to Premiere or Final Cut Pro)

Thanks.

#2

Smoke and Fire are the editing tools, but they are not designed as desktop applications like Premiere Pro or FCP. Even when they are available on linux, they are designed as a complete system with hardware I/O. In the past there were a editing software called “Discreet Edit”, but after version 6.5 the development stopped. In my opinion it was a great piece of software because combustion was integrated as FX tool. You were able to launch it direct from the timeline and render the result direct to the “Edit” bin.

#3

smoke is roughly $80k and Fire around is $250k. The price all depends on if it’s SD, HD, and how much storage you get. So it will vary.

Oh, and I hated Edit. Floating window hell and pop up windows for everything. It’s gui was along the lines of AE.

#4

The Smoke of “80k” would have that capacity (SD, HD, how much storage)?

#5

SD version is 68k, I forgot that the 80k version was the Flint/Smoke combo. I think the HD version is around $150k and I am unsure on the 2k version. The prices are the same whether it is on Sgi or Linux. Unsure about the amount of storage on them at those prices. Storage is ridiculous on Autodesk turnkey systems because of the Stone “tax”. You have to buy the array’s from Autodesk because the serials from all the hard drives have to be licensed to Stone in order for them to work.

If your spending that much money, I’m sure you can contact someone from Autodesk about the amount of storage in them.

#6

Only curiosity. I read in an article in the FXguide has certain time more (I can is wrong) the new versions of these systems already can import archives of other sources (soft import) beyond the Stone, then the use of the Stone would be necessary only for licensing questions ?
looking at link, I looked at that these systems don´t support bit depths great that 12 bits (log, but when convert to linear space is necessary great bit dephts ?)

#7

I often hear the complaints about smoke only support up to 12bit color. In my mind it’s really a non-issue. The only place you’ll ever run across 16 or 32 bit images, or at least the only time I ever run across floating and half float images is from 3d packages. I have no idea why someone would want to edit in 16 bit color. Film scanners scan at 10 bit log, so all of your film source is going to be 10 bit. Almost all video is 8 bit.

You only really want 16 and 32 bit images for compositing. Even 10 bit will give you 99.9% of the flexibility you need for conventional color correcting.

#8

The Smoke make color corrections in log space without conversion to linear space?

#9

I would assume so. 10 bit cineon log files are the work horse of the industry.

#10

If you are just offline editing,it doesn’t matter, if you are online editing, it can matter. 10bit log scans images when made linear are actually equal to 32 bit float linear image. The nice thing is though that FFI supports log images, so you can work in 10 bit log and still retain all the information. I assume since FFI can work in log that also Smoke and Fire can. This is an assumption though. We have a Fire at work on one of our Inferno stations, but I have never used it. Ill have to check it out.

Also your comment about television being 8 bit is incorrect. Digitibeta, D5 and HDCAM-SR are all 10 bit. Quite a bit of television is still shot on film and telecine to tape(especially 16mm or 35mm 3 perf). Yes you can get away with 8 bit for most television, there is many instances where getting 10 bit data can be important, especially dramas, or action shows where there is a lot of high contrast, stuff from cable especially since they seem to go for an extremely CC’d look.

#11

Thanks - this i all interesting stuff! Could I have a little clarification on a few things (as I said I’m new to this)?

What is the difference between SD, HD and 2k?

What is the difference between online and offline editing?

Thanks.

#12

SD = Standard Definition is what you see on TV:
resolution of 640x480 (720x480 with pixel aspect ratio of .9) NTSC

HD = High Definition is what you see on an HDTV with an HDTV signal.
resolution of 1920x1080 or 1280x720

2k = sort of half resolution of film. Since film doesn’t actually have a “resolution” per say, it’s something of a guestimate of the average grain structure. Varries wildly in height based on aspect ratio, however usually either 2048 (hence 2k) or 1806 pixels wide.

4k = see 2k, only “full resolution” for film. Again varies in height based on aspect ratio however usually 4096 (hence 4k) or 3612 pixels wide.

Often when a film project is being worked on, in an effort to save money, many shots will be either scanned or down-rezzed into a lower resolution copy to be used on slower machines. This is referred to as working “Offline”. If you’re working with the full resolution, “real” copy of the project, you’re working “Online”.

An example or two:

If I was working on a film project, but didn’t plan on using a digital intermediate, I’ll have my Film telecined to an SD Digibeta tape which I then capture onto my “Offline” editing bay, say Avid Xpress Pro. I’ll do all of my editing using the SD footage for reference, and then send out an EDL (Edit Decision List) which will dictate how my film will be actually cut together.

If I was working on a film project that wasn’t going to be destined for a film print (TV, Direct to Video, Internet, etc…) or I was going to be using a digital intermediate, I will have my film scanned at the necessary resolution for the project, say 2k resolution. I will then take this 2k footage load it up onto my Online editor. Probably something with a little more spunk than th average desktop machine, for instance Smoke or Fire. I’ll do all of my editing with the “real” 2k footage. When I’m done editing, the film is done. I edited the “real” movie. It can now be scaled and encoded for whatever destination it was intended for, or printed back onto film.

In short:
Online is working with the full resolution footage.
Offline is working with proxy footage.

#13

There is no full resolution in film. Technically you can see detail all the way up to 16k. 99% of the work out there is all done at 2k (or recently developing trend is to transfer everything to HD). The only time you scan at 4k is for texture reference or recently in the last year an a half a few movies were DI’d at 4k. Otherwise, 9 out of 10 times, your film is going to be 2048x1556(majority of the 35mm movies out there are shot full frame Super 35).

9/10 times, working online is a waste of time and resources and it’s slow. When your editing a movie, you don’t need the full resolution in order to edit it. Editing has to do with pacing, timing, etc… Think of it as a layout(like working in Quark Express for print). When you have hundreds or thousands of reels of film you shot, it is a waste of time to scan all those in and edit the full frames, especially when your not going to use 75% of the stuff you shot. Also offline editing, things are rarely scanned, they are mostly just telecine to something like digibeta.

#14

Thats news to me! Internally FFI always works linear. Even 10 bit support is a bit weird. Its mainly implemented for I/O reasons. From what I understand internally your 10bit footage will simply be converted to 12 bit (as you can see in the color res of the CC nodes for instance).

These are very different flavors. And lets not forget that 10 bit YUV is different to 10 (or 8 Bit) RGB.

-k

#15

I know I said “I’ll have my Film telecined to an SD Digibeta tape which I then capture onto my “Offline” editing bay”.

You probably won’t see anything above 4k in our lifetime, just because most projection print stock is equivalent to about 1k or 2k. The dream would be to have 4k projectors, but those are only slowly starting to roll out.

#16

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