DigiSuite DTV Keying Controls

For now, the version of DigiSuite that's shipping is 4.0, with 4.1 said to be available soon. Originally, Matrox promised the update in late November, but there are still a few bugs to be fixed before Matrox makes it available to the public. The closest Matrox officials would say it would be available was "in the coming weeks." Hmm. What advantages will version 4.1 bring? All the real time functions will remain the same, but you'll be able to capture MPEG-2 video in real time from within Premiere. This will allow you to immediately have MPEG-2 files available for DVD authoring, rather than having to transcode the files to MPEG-2 as is necessary with version 4.0. Also forthcoming in this new release are enhancements to its multi-layer compositing engine, allowing an unlimited number of layers with effects that will render in .75x real time per layer. Hey, that's twice as fast as what it does today. This I gotta see. Another needed enhancement is the ability to stream a cuts-only program directly to DV tape without having to compile a complete project to disk as a DV AVI file. And, even when you will need to compile video, such as when rendering effects or changing a DV file to MPEG-2, the operation will be faster.

Beyond those improvements, the road map for 2000 includes a codec module that allows real time encoding and transcoding and an SDTI card for native digital transfers at 4x real time. Sounds like even more great things to come, from a system that's already versatile, powerful and easy to use.

Tool Kit:
IntelliStation ZPro with 256 MB Ram, 2 Pentium III 400 Xeon processors running on Windows NT 4.0 service pack 5. Matrox DTV card, G400 dual head video card, two 19” monitors, as configured (DTV $5995, 1394 option $995, Computer $2500, 30 GB Rorke Data array (striped set not required) $1500, If you do DV, single drive, if you’re doing MPEG-2 or DV50 you'll need a striped array.  Total cost of system, about $12,000, including Premiere RT, BorisFX, Inscriber, DVDit LE. For DVD authoring you'll need a DVD burner for around $5K.

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Charlie White has been writing about digital video editing since it was the laughingstock of the post-production industry. He's an Emmy award-winning producer and director for PBS, and Producer of this Web channel. Reach him at cwhite@digitalmedianet.com