The Digital Revolution Continues: The All-Computer-Video Buyer’s Guide

by Arthur Aiello
March 2000

The past year has been a breakout year for computer video products. New MPEG-2 editing products now make it possible for independent videographers to produce high-quality DVD videos, and IEEE 1394 (i.LINK or FireWire) equipped editing computers like Sony’s VAIO Digital Studio and Apple’s iMAC DV now cost less than some camcorders. To top it off, new turnkey nonlinear editing appliances have created competition in a category long-dominated by the venerable Casablanca. On the software side, Apple’s Final Cut Pro exploded onto a revitalized Apple market, spurred on by the inclusion of FireWire jacks on all G3 and G4 computers. So let’s take a quick look at the ever-increasing universe of computer video products.

Preproduction Software

There is no better way to start a dramatic video production than writing a script. There are a variety of plug-ins available for the more-popular word processors that automatically pre-format your script. One of the most popular is Parnassus Software Script Werx ($129) a plug-in for Microsoft Word that will help you format your script.
Once you have a script, the next most important thing that you can make before you shoot the first scene of your video is a storyboard. Storyboarding software, such as PowerProductions Storyboard Quick 4.0 ($249) helps the art-impaired make storyboards by providing a variety of templates and clip art to help you visualize your shots before you put a tape in your camcorder. There are also packages such as Screenplay Systems Movie Magic 3.0 ($200) that combine script writing software with storyboarding software.
Logging your footage properly during a shoot can be one of the most important preparatory steps to editing a solid video program later. Dubner International Scene Stealer ($960) includes a capture card, plug in your camcorder and the computer will automatically log your shots while providing screen grabs and video thumbnails to match the shot logs.

Encoders and
Scan Converters

An encoder or scan converter allows you to record computer-generated graphics directly from the computer to videotape. They used to be either an extra expansion card or an external box, but now many VGA cards include a scan converter built-in. If your video card has TV-out features, it already has a scan converter, and you can take titles and graphics out directly to your camcorder or editing deck. If it doesn’t however, you can easily add an external scan converter such as AverKey iMicro ($99) that runs under DOS, Windows, Mac or BeOS. If you need really high quality video, you can use the TV One Multimedia CORIOscan-Pro ($1295). It includes S-video, composite, RGB and YUV connections to output to all kinds of video equipment.
Scan converters provide another valuable service, as well. They allow you to preview your graphics on a television monitor before you lay them to tape. This affords you the opportunity to correct any errors in color or text without inadvertently ruining your edited program.

Titling Software

Titling software can help you make amazing 3D titles like those used in broadcast television. You can either import your graphics into your nonlinear editing software, or use an encoder or scan converter to run them out of your computer onto a video tape. Remember if you want to build titles in your computer and key them over moving video, and you aren’t using a nonlinear editor, you’ll need a genlock or overlay device. Crystal Graphics 3D Impact! Pro ($149) is a simple titler that has a lot of power. Cayman Graphics makes Power CG Plus ($495) a full-featured titler that can do the rolls, crawls and motion path animation that advanced users might want to include in their titles.

Genlock and
Overlay Devices

Before the days of nonlinear editing, if you wanted to put titles over moving video, you had to have a genlock or overlay device. Now, with nonlinear editing systems as common as camcorders, genlock devices are becoming more of an endangered species. Magni Systems makes the Magnicoder Pro ($2000), an external Windows device that allows long-form video producers, such as wedding videographers, the ability to overlay computer-generated titles over moving video. It also supports chromakey. Compix Media makes the VGA Alpha ($1495), an internal Windows 98 card that does fades, chromakey and superimposition.

Video Digitizer and Capture Boards

Perhaps the most important, and most technically challenging part of building your own nonlinear editing system is choosing and installing a capture card. Analog capture cards such as FAST Multimedia’s AV Master 2000 ($599) are a great choice for the videographer who wants to edit nonlinear, but is still shooting with an analog camcorder. If you shoot with Mini DV or Digital8, you’ll want to get an IEEE 1394 card like the Adaptec HotConnect Ultra 8945 ($699) or the Digital Origin IntoDV ($249). A new wave of MPEG-2 encoders like the Canopus Amber ($2495) and the Pinnacle DC1000 ($2495) make DVD authoring a viable possibility, instead of a pie-in-the-sky ideal. Lastly, the NewTek Video Toaster for Windows ($2995) provides digital capture without compression for the highest-possible quality.
Many Web video producers don’t need full-frame, full-motion video capture. There are many inexpensive video capture devices that can fit the Web video producer in a pinch. These include the Dazzle Digital Video Creator ($250), an external device that will let you capture video, without having to crack the case to install a card. There is also the Pinnacle Studio MP10 ($270) another external device that will work great for MPEGs or streaming video.

Special Effects Software

Nonlinear editing packages usually come with a handful of transitions, but some people just want more. For those people, there is Boris FX ($495), a plug-in for nonlinear editors that, in addition to the many pre-configured transitions, lets users customize their transitions to fit their personal needs. Another well-known special effects package is Adobe After Effects 4.1 ($689) that lets users apply a variety of filters and layered effects to their video.

Nonlinear Editing Software

The most compelling way to use a computer in video production is nonlinear editing. Nonlinear editing consists of digitizing your raw footage onto your computer’s hard drive, then re-assembling the shots in any order you like. Nonlinear editing software provides the interface to arrange the clips that have been captured to your hard drive. Two big players in the consumer nonlinear editing software market are Adobe Premiere 5.1 ($579) and Ulead MediaStudio Pro 5.2 ($595). MediaStudio Pro and Premiere have battled each other for many years, but now there is Apple’s QuickTime-based Final Cut Pro 1.2 ($999). Final Cut Pro heated up the long-running platform war between Apple and Windows-based computers in the video-editing arena.
For the last two years, a slew of new Windows-based hardware and software hit the market, but this year and last, Apple has really come back swinging.

Computer Based
edit Controllers and Hybrid Editors

You don’t have to go nonlinear if you plan to use your computer for editing. There are a few programs that exist which allow you to use your not-so-powerful computer as a very powerful linear edit controller. You can even combine a computer-based edit controller with nonlinear capabilities to make a hybrid system.
It was the NewTek Video Toaster/Flyer for the Amiga that made the idea of hybrid systems popular. This way, you can edit longer productions using the computer-based edit controller, and go hog wild on shorter productions using the NLE.
Play introduced the Trinity ($4995), last year to great fanfare. The Trinity is can control decks, do A/B rolls, nonlinear editing (with the right expansion options), titling, frame sync and has a switcher. At the base price, it comes with no input options, but can handle up to eight inputs on the SEG and switcher, for a price of course.
One of the surviving hybrid editing systems is the FAST Multimedia Video Machine ($3995). You can use the Video Machine with standard linear editing decks to do A/B-roll editing, do titling, or even as a switcher.

Audio Digitizers

You’ll need an audio digitizer if you want to be able to add additional recorded material to your nonlinear projects. Most computers already have a low-quality audio digitizer built in as a part of the sound card, but for high-quality audio, you’ll want to get a high-quality digitizer. If you plan to do all-digital audio transfers from a DAT deck or CD player, you’ll want a sound card with digital inputs. The Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Platinum ($199) offers digital input and output in addition to analog connections. If you are really serious about audio, there is the SEK’D PRODIF PLUS ($449), a professional-level input card that includes an 8-channel fiber optic interface for doing captures from ADAT decks.

Turnkey Nonlinear Editing Systems

Building your own nonlinear editing system can be a real nightmare. If you aren’t a computer genius, but want to have the power of a nonlinear editing system, getting a turnkey nonlinear editing system is your best bet. The past year has been a breakout year for Apple when it comes to turnkey nonlinear editors. First, there is the Apple PowerMac G4 450MHz Final Cut Pro Bundle ($5997) which includes built-in FireWire, Final Cut Pro software, a 21-inch monitor, 256MB RAM and 27GB of hard drive. Canopus has the Rex Rack ($6995) a rack-mounted computer that has a Pentium II 450MHz, 128MB RAM, 35GB of hard drive and Adobe Premiere 5.1.
Not all turnkey editors are built around traditional computers. Some turnkeys are black boxes that you hook up to a TV to edit. They do not use Windows or Mac operating systems, they are solely for video editing. The Draco Casablanca 040 ($3995) used to be the sole inhabitant of the nonlinear editing appliance category, but now there are many. Draco also makes the Avio ($1495), Applied Magic makes ScreenPlay ($3995), Blossom makes the PVA 100a ($2495) and even Panasonic has a video editing appliance: the PV-DS1000 ($2200).

Animation Software

If you’d really like to push the line between amateur and professional video, you can consider 3D animation. Such an undertaking requires separate software, and while these packages are often not cheap, and can be taxing to even the most sophisticated computer, the results can be dramatic. Perhaps the best known 3D animation package is NewTek Lightwave 3D 6.0 ($2495), an animation package that can produce amazing results when used by a skilled operator. Another well-known animation package is Animation Master 8 from Hash, Inc. ($299), finally there is Metacreations Bryce 4 ($299) a 3D landscape generator that can produce amazing results in almost no time at all.

A Look to the Future

As nonlinear editing continues to become more and more popular, it’s likely that we’ll see more and more computer video products. IEEE 1394 (FireWire or i.LINK) have revolutionized video editing, putting broadcast-quality video into the hands of more people than ever before.
With streaming video rapidly going from a Web curiosity to a viable means of distributing video, there are more and more ways for independent video producers to get their messages out to interested viewers. Along with this, there are probably going to be fewer and fewer products that work with linear editing gear, such as genlock devices and computer-based edit controllers. One thing is certain though; computer video is booming, and it makes video easier to create, with better results than ever before.

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