Video Buys - Hardware and Computers

If you have a relatively new home computer, and especially if you own a newer Mac, you can do some impressive digital video editing right on your PC. For most casual users, the power of a modern desktop or laptop computer is enough to do basic organizing of video clips, adding transitions, and perhaps throwing in some background music and narration.

For those wanting to take it to the next level, to semi-professional movie making and beyond, increasingly affordable hardware has become available to hook into your computer (or replace it) to give you powers and abilities once reserved to Hollywood movie producers and a few TV Network technicians.

Recommended for PC/Windows: Grass Valley Edius NX Express High Definition Video Editing Hardware/Software (formerly from Canopus) View or Buy at Amazon.com: Edius Nx Pci Express INCLUDES Grass Valley EDIUS Pro 4 NLE Software for Editing DV, HDV, HD Let the groundbreaking Grass Valley EDIUS NX Express take you to the world of high definition video production. Use any mix of HD and SD video content; work with unlimited video, audio, title and graphics layers and any combination of realtime effects; and, most importantly, preview your work in progress in high-quality, full resolution — in realtime — on the type of video monitor on which it is intended to be displayed — even HDTV. Many of the HDV editing systems currently available compromise video quality in order to provide realtime editing functionality. Grass Valley EDIUS NX Express delivers genuine realtime HD resolution editing including full quality, full frame rate HD output — to an HD video monitor — from the timeline. Two important workflow benefits are derived from a genuine realtime HDV editing system like EDIUS NX Express: No rendering is required to preview edited sequences; results are displayed instantaneously — on HD video monitors. The original video and audio data can be preserved at every step of the editing process. You can always be assured that the format you start with is exactly what will be delivered. This eliminates any guesswork when applying the multitude of realtime effects featured with the system. EDIUS NX Express: Key Features Realtime mixed format editing of HD, HDV, DV, MPEG-2, uncompressed and lossless video with Grass Valley EDIUS Pro editing software Realtime HD/SD resolution conversion and output Realtime aspect ratio conversion and output, including 16:9-4:3 Realtime frame rate conversion and output, including NTSC-PAL Realtime HD/SD effects, keyers, transitions and titles High-quality proprietary software codecs, including the award-winning Canopus HQ codec High-speed, hardware-based SD MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 timeline export High-quality analog and digital inputs/outputs for DV, S-Video, composite video and unbalanced audio Hardware-based video overlay design for accelerated HD/SD editing Realtime, full resolution, full quality component HD and SD video output Filtering and noise reduction technology for analog input Bidirectional analog/DV conversion (ADVC technology), available from within any Windows-based NLE software Direct-to-DVD timeline export Optional* video I/O modules available for XDCAM, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD, P2 and VariCam Future-proof codec and performance scalability Capture/video output plug-in for Adobe® Premiere® Pro v1.x** and video output plug-ins for Adobe After Effects® and Adobe Photoshop® 64-bit PCI-X version available: Ask your Dealer or Canopus Representative for details 3-year limited warranty on hardware; 90-day limited warranty on software EDIUS NX Express: Specifications Package Contents: EDIUS NX Express (NHX-E2) PCI Express x1 bus card HD/SD component output and SD MPEG-2/MPEG-4 encoder PCI Express x1 bus card 1 x FireWire cable (4-pin – 4-pin) 1 x board connection cable EDIUS software installation DVD-ROM (includes bonus utilities and sample content) EDIUS Pro USB dongle EDIUS Pro user manual Video Formats (Capture) Canopus DV - 720x480/59.94i (NTSC), 720x576/50i (PAL) YUY2 (Uncompressed) - 720x486/59.94i (NTSC), 720x576/50i (PAL) Canopus Lossless - 720x486/59.94i (NTSC), 720x576/50i (PAL) HDV/Canopus HQ - 1080/59.94i (NTSC), 1080/50i (PAL), 1080/30p (NTSC), 1080/25p (PAL), 1080/24p, 720/30p (NTSC), 720/25p (PAL), 720/24p, 720x480/60p (NTSC), 720x576/25p (PAL), 720x576/50p (PAL) Video Formats (Output) DV/DVCAM - 720x480/59.94i (NTSC), 720x576/50i (PAL) HDV - 1080/59.94i (NTSC), 1080/50i (PAL), 1080/30p (NTSC), 1080/25p (PAL), 1080/24p, 720/30p (NTSC), 720/25p (PAL), 720/24p, 720x480/60p (NTSC), 720x576/25p (PAL), 720x576/50p (PAL) S-Video, composite - 720x480/59.94i (NTSC), 720x576/50i (PAL) BNC component - 1080/59.94i (NTSC), 1080/50i (PAL), 720x480/59.94i (NTSC), 720x576/50i (PAL) Digital Video Input/Output 1 x 4-pin FireWire 1 x 6-pin FireWire Analog Video Input/Output 1 x S-Video and composite combined (7-pin miniDIN) input 1 x S-Video and composite combined (7-pin miniDIN) output 1 x component (BNC Y, Pb, Pr) output Analog Audio Input/Output 1 x stereo (3.5mm, unbalanced) input 1 x stereo (3.5mm, unbalanced) output 1 x stereo (RCA, unbalanced) output MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Export Video Resolutions MPEG-2: 720x480, 720x576, 704x480, 640x480, 480x480, 352x480, 352x576, 352x240, 352x288, 320x480, 320x240, 176x120 MPEG-4: 720x480, 720x576, 704x480, 640x480, 480x480, 352x480, 352x576, 352x240, 320x240, 176x120 MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Export Video Frame Rate MPEG-2: 29.97fps (NTSC), 25fps (PAL) MPEG-4: 15fps (NTSC), 30fps (NTSC), 25fps (PAL) MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Export Video Compression MPEG-2: (ISO/IEC 13818-2) Main Profile @ Main Level (I, B, P frames) I-frame support only MPEG-4: (ISO/IEC 14496-14) MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Export Video Bitrate MPEG-2: 128kbps - 15Mbps MPEG-4: 32kbps - 8Mbps Variable (one-pass) and Constant Bitrate support MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Export Audio Sampling Rates MPEG-2: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz MPEG-4: 24kHz, 48kHz MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Export Audio Compression MPEG-2: MPEG-1 Layer 2 MPEG-4: AAC MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Export Audio Bitrates MPEG-2: 96 to 384kbps MPEG-4: 32, 48, 64, 96, 128, 144, 182, 224, 256, 288kbps Minimum System Requirements EDIUS NX Express is capable of editing both SD and HD content in realtime, however the system requirements for realtime HD editing are significantly higher than for SD editing. The requirements shown here are for realtime HD editing. Intel® Pentium® D 3.0GHz or higher (Multi-processor and Hyper-threading technology supported) 1GB RAM Two free PCI Express x1 slots 800MB free disk space DVD-ROM drive for software installation ATA100/7200rpm or faster hard disk, capable of sustaining at least 20MB/sec data transfer. A RAID stripe set of two or more hard disk drives is required for multiple HD stream output Graphics card with at least 128MB of video RAM and hardware-based DirectDraw overlay and 32-bit color display at a 1024x768 resolution One free 5.25-inch mounting bay Windows® XP Home or Windows® XP Professional (Service Pack 2 or later) DirectX 9.0 or later Soundcard