Video editing "wow!" moments

[Hulk]

As we approach the end of yet another year I thought it might be fun to share some of those moments that really make you go "wow!" in relation to video editing hardware advancements and learning.

Here are a few of mine:

- Being able to capture full frame video with my old Matrox Marvel G450eTV. For the first time I could actually edit video that was full D1 resolution. I remember my computer at the time was a Celeron 300a (overclocked to 450 but of course) with a "gigantic" 10GH IBM hard drive.

- I also remember searching the internet one night for software that would allow me to author a DVD. After downloading lots of trials and checking them out I came across DVD Workshop 1. After a few agonizing hours figuring out the interface and what DVD authoring actually was I burned my first DVD, ran downstairs, put in in the DVD players and smiled as the menus popped onto the screen.

- Mark

[Dr Mordrid]

- my first project using an Amiga Video Toaster in 1990; NLE, DVE's, CG titling, Lightwave 3D, a synch generator and genlocking on an 8 mhz system with 16 MB of RAM?

Then came the Toaster Flyer addon, which gave the satisfaction of knowing rigs like yours were used to generate special effects for Babylon 5 and many, many other sci-fi programs & movies. Flyer added my first HDD storage & Wavelet compression; before that everything was tape-to-tape

- the first time I used MediaStudio Pro 2.0. Wow....if only Toaster Edit had some of this stuff!! Still using it (8.0).

- setting up my first RAID array and capturing uncompressed D1 at 30 MB/s using a Mystique/Rainbow Runner Studio. My effects just got a lot better.

Still not up to the Toaster, nothing was until the RT-2000 & RT-X100 came along, but cheap enough to set up 4 editing bays to take the load off the Toasters (had 2 by then).

- Day one with the RT-X100. Oh my, almost as much fun as day one with the Toaster

I say 'almost' only because with the Toaster I'd never done this kind of DVE's before save for some genlocked animations & titles using the Amiga hardware starting in the mid 1980's.

[Elie]

hehe, I go as far back as the rainbow runner, with the Mystiqe, then Mystique 2.0, editing using Ulead 2.0, then 5.0

RT2000
RT2500
RT.X100
RT.X10
AXIO SD
AXIO LE
RT.X2


And enjoying every minute of editing

[Dr Mordrid]

The only bad thing about the RT's has been using Premiere; the most convoluted mess I've ever used

[Hulk]

Doc,

I remember hearing the CG on B5 was done using lots of Amiga's. That's crazy, those B5 effects were really good. They still hold up today IMO. B5 was a great, great series.

- Mark

[Elie]

I agree and Premiere still has it's issues!

Matrox needs to write it's own editor like the Insyc Speed Razor if you recall that.

[Jerry Jones]

There are also the *negative* "WOW" moments.

I remember shelling out $1,000 for a Pinnacle PCI card that was...

...incompatible with all retail Compaq computers...

...incompatible with all retail Packard Bell computers...

...incompatible with all retail IBM computers...

...incompatible with all retail Sony computers...

...and on top of spending the $1,000 for the PCI card I got about $1,000 worth of sarcasm from the folks at Pinnacle.

That was a "wow" moment for me.

Fortunately, I bought the card from a vendor who agreed to refund my money.

The vendor then privately shared the horror stories about how a division of Compaq had bought several of those same PCI cards in an attempt to do desktop video internally.

It turns out they couldn't get the cards to work with any of the computers they were using at Compaq.

They had to go out and buy "workstation" models to get the cards to work.

It was a hilarious story.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Brian Ellis]

One of mine was while I was still on linear editing - and what a pain that was! It was adding a card to my 386/25 computer with 387 co-processor, which allowed me to add titles over a video. No scrolling, restricted to two typefaces (serif and non-serif), 3 fonts in each (16, 24 and 48 pixels high), 8 colours, fixed position. I think this was in about 1986. Everything was done in VHS, of course.

My worst one was when I bought a G-200 Marvel. I tried it first in a Pentium Pro 200: didn't work. I then tried it in a Pentium III 450: didn't work. In both cases, no sound and choppy video. I had other sound probs with both computers with several sound cards (voice recognition was flaky). Got an updated BIOS chip (before downloadable BIOS, of course). Even tried NLE proggies other than MSP: no better. Struggled for a whole year with no joy. Changed the motherboard to a Baby Bravo in the PIII, with same processor, RAM etc. and, oh miracle, I had it working within an hour (and the voice recognition). I swore, from that moment, never to buy another Asus motherboard (both computers had Asus ones of 2 very different models). An extra year of linear editing as a result

[Dr Mordrid]

Doc,

I remember hearing the CG on B5 was done using lots of Amiga's. That's crazy, those B5 effects were really good. They still hold up today IMO. B5 was a great, great series.

- Mark

Lightwave 3D evolved from Alan Hastings "Videoscape" and Stu Fergusons "Modeler", both originally sold by Aegis Software. The quality came from it being one of the first to use a radiosity rendering engine with complex light calculations for caustics. It was also multithreaded, which Amiga's could take advantage of with up to 8 processors.

Yes, there were 8 CPU Amiga's way back in the early 90's. The higher models had their CPU's on a replaceable card and some of the third party upgrades had multiple processors. Some of these used PowerPC's.

Add these to your Amiga Movie list;

Star Trek - Undiscovered Country: Enterprise and Excelsior animations
Terminator 2: T2000 morph sequences
Robocop/Robocop 2: CG effects
The Abyss: water tentacles
Total Recall: genlocked graphics
Jurassic Park: previsualizations

[KRSESQ]

The first NLE system I ever saw or worked with, was the Media100 system at Prairie Public Broadcasting in 1995. Dual monitors and a whopping 30 GB of SCSI storage! That was when I realized just how useful these personal computer thingees really were. When I found out I could build my own, I almost had a heart attack.

Kevin

[Nowhere]

...
My worst one was when I bought a G-200 Marvel. I tried it first in a Pentium Pro 200: didn't work. I then tried it in a Pentium III 450: didn't work. In both cases, no sound and choppy video. I had other sound probs with both computers with several sound cards (voice recognition was flaky). Got an updated BIOS chip (before downloadable BIOS, of course). Even tried NLE proggies other than MSP: no better. Struggled for a whole year with no joy. Changed the motherboard to a Baby Bravo in the PIII, with same processor, RAM etc. and, oh miracle, I had it working within an hour (and the voice recognition). I swore, from that moment, never to buy another Asus motherboard (both computers had Asus ones of 2 very different models). An extra year of linear editing as a result

I wonder if some of these PCs had Via chipsets...

...
Add these to your Amiga Movie list;

Star Trek - Undiscovered Country: Enterprise and Excelsior animations
Terminator 2: T2000 morph sequences
Robocop/Robocop 2: CG effects
The Abyss: water tentacles
Total Recall: genlocked graphics
Jurassic Park: previsualizations

I'll add SeaQuest to that list

[Dr Mordrid]

Ahhhh, but TV shows is a whole other topic

Babylon 5
Star Trek TNG (some panels)
Seaquest DSV
Max Headroom
Young Indiana Jones
Amazing Stories
Unsolved Mysteries
Quantum Leap
Animaniacs
Beauty and the Beast
Tommyknockers (movie)
ABC 1992 Olympics
Dinosaur (movie)
The Flash
The Dark Half (movie)
Afterburn (movie)
Ghost Writer
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
My Secret Identity
Alf
Bionic Showdown (movie)
Entertainment Tonight
Golden Years
Miami Vice
Goof Troop
Mysteries Beyond the Other Dominion
Nick Arcade
Robocop
Tail Spin

Stadiums/events;

Atlanta Braves Sports Display
BC Place Stadium video displays in Vancouver, Canada
California Angels Anaheim Stadium
Cotton Bowl
Dallas Mavericks Reunion Arena's Scoreboard
Florida Marlins Joe Robbie Stadium Event Scoreboard
Harlem Globtrotters events
Miami Dolphins Jumbotron
Philadelphia Phillies Scoreboard and Phanavision.
Portland Trailblazers, Portland Oregon, sporting events

"Phantom of the Opera" at the Pantages, Toronto: controls audio effects

etc. etc. etc.

[Brian Ellis]

I wonder if some of these PCs had Via chipsets...

No, they were 100% Intel. Probably even before Via started its chipset business which I believe was in 1999. I know that many others had problems with these boards for hi-tech applications, but what irked me most was Asus' attitude to the problem; they simply ignored it.

[Dr Mordrid]

My first non Amiga editing rig was based on the Intel Atlantis board w/integrated graphics (ATI) and audio. Not too bad with the Mystique/RRS but I needed to move on when the 300mhz CPU's came out.

Didn't try an Asus until the P2B, and it was sweet. So was the P3B-F, one of the most stable boards I've ever owned and only approached by the MSI-745 Ultra and (so far) the Tyan Thunder n3600B.

[Hulk]

Jerry and Brian,

Those are some serious "Uh Oh!" moments there.

I also spent countless hours figuring out workarounds for various video editing problems when I first got into this field.

Luckily as the technology has progressed I've noticed more "Wow" moments than "uh oh" moments.