The Great DV Shootout 2003
Page 11 of 14
Patrick Beaulieu, Pinnacle Systems:Pinnacle Pro-ONE RDTV delivers realtime performance without any small asterisks or conditions at the bottom of the page. You can be sure that you will get what you pay for -- we deliver! With the others, what you don't hear is the investment you have to make in a new PC. How fast is your NLE computer? Are you prepared to buy another one? You will never be sure that you get all the features they're talking about!
Our Pro-ONE version 2.01 release is a huge advance, introducing a series of new effects and capabilities -- better quality with NO hardware update. Pinnacle has tripled the number of realtime filters and features from the original release, adding such new tools as Magic Shape, Multiform PIP, Water Wave and Lens Flare. Innovation with no charge to the customer! We have also improved our image stabilization filter that helps correct shaky video and we now have a unique motion tracking tool that can be in a variety of scenarios such as law enforcement: Use the magnifying filter with the motion tracker to effectively mask out areas that you don't want viewers to see.
Pro-ONE also comes with the most powerful realtime 3D engine: Hollywood FX - very popular in the market for its 3D video effects. With Hollywood FX you can mix 3D objects with video and graphics, all with unlimited keyframing. Modify your 3D models to get just the effect you need and much more with hundreds of realtime effects to choose from.
In conclusion, the Pro-ONE offers you the highest realtime performance solution on the market with the absolute lowest total cost of ownership.
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| Click for QuickTime movie -- Pinnacle Pro-ONE RTDV performance example |
I have to disagree with Patrick because I don't think the Pro-ONE has the highest real time performance. I took the Pro-ONE to its limits, and it shows itself to be a capable contender, but with reservations. In my test sequence (see QuickTime clip at left) I have one clip transitioning to another with a still keyed over them, where the transition is a configurable 3D page curl (which looks very nice with a soft shadow and highlight), each video clip has slow motion applied to it and color correction, and the keyed still transitions off the screen with its own separate 3D rollup effect. As soon as I added one more attribute, it wouldn't play back in real time, so this is indeed the limit of its real time playback capabilities on the test machine sent to me by Pinnacle, a 2.53GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM, quite a monster machine in this day and age. So you can either have two video clips and a still on-screen at the same time, or two stills and a video clip.
Anyway, keep in mind that this is something the other two systems can't do: two 3D effects on-screen at the same time. Also, unlike the DVStorm2, and similar to the RT.X100, you're able to apply 3D effects as a filter as well as a transition in the Pro-ONE RTDV. But in this case, I tried the 3D effect as a video clip instead of a still, and it wouldn't play back in real time. So, if you want two 3D effects on-screen at the same time with the Pinnacle system, apparently one of them must be a still or title, at least in the configuration I have here. Another important note: While working with this complex sequence, when I hit the Space bar to play the sequence, it played back fairly quickly, but when dragging the mouse around, with each move there was a delay of at least two seconds and sometimes three or four. It just didn't feel as responsive as the other two to me.
Another problem I encountered with this Pro-ONE RTDV test system is that not everything that plays back in real time will transfer to DV tape in real time. For example, that same sequence where I tested the real time playback capabilities of Pro-ONE RTDV would not play back to DV tape in real time -- it required rendering. But when I removed the clip that had the second DVE move on it, the sequence printed to DV in real time.
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