This is an archive page, kept for reference. The current version of ivsCapture has its own page.

Overview

Non-linear editing was a great step forward, but editors always complained about the time wasted waiting for footage to be recorded. ivsCapture removes this waste of time: it captures footage into several formats, including the DPS file format, without stopping your editing, so you can edit the very clip you are capturing – without using your Reality, Quattrus or Altitude hardware.

The “Play and Edit While Rec” technology creates the .dps/.dva file as soon as you press Record, so it can be added both to the Velocity timeline and to the gallery. At first all frames are black, but they are replaced in real time by the video source during the capture.

ivsCapture was available as a stand-alone application and was also bundled with ivsEdits and with ivsPowerPack for Velocity. The ivsCapture Pro version could capture several video sources on the same workstation at the same time (a dual Xeon dual-core workstation could capture up to 6 sources). Together with the multicamera features of ivsEdits or VelocityQ/VelocityHD, this made it possible to use an NLE system as a live broadcast switcher (see below): all sources are already recorded along with the editing decisions, so any further editing is quick and easy.

ivsCapture supported FireWire inputs through standard OHCI cards under Windows (32 and 64-bit), and SDI/analogue inputs through Blackmagic Design capture devices.

ivsCapture capture window

Key features

  • SD, HD and 2K sources
  • Blackmagic Design capture devices and OHCI FireWire
  • VTR and camera remote control via Sony RS-422 or i.LINK FireWire protocols
  • Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32 and 64-bit)
  • MPEG-2 capture, 4:2:0 or 4:2:2, up to 60 Mbit/s
  • AVI capture: DV, DVCPRO 25, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD 100, Blackmagic, MJPEG
  • IMX 30/40/50 Mbit/s 4:2:2 (.mxf)
  • XDCAM HD 50 Mbit/s 4:2:2
  • DVA/DPS capture with timecode and reel names
  • Windows Media capture and streaming
  • Aspect ratio conversion (16:9 to 4:3 and vice versa) and up/down-scaling during capture
  • Broadcast video filters (blur, sharpen, glow) and real-time colour correction (white and black levels, saturation, etc.) while capturing
  • Overlay of 32-bit graphics, timecode, date and time and titles during capture
  • Clip renaming after capture
  • Audio level adjustment, even from digital sources (FireWire and SDI)
  • Bandwidth Trimmer feature to improve the quality of DVDs and TV station playout

Advanced live non-linear multicamera editing with VelocityQ/HD

The following is based on the IVS document “Advanced Live Non-Linear Multi-Camera Editing with VelocityQ/HD”, version 2.0 (23 September 2006), an update of the Harris/Leitch document “Live Non-Linear Multi-Camera Editing with VelocityQ” version 1.0 (30 November 2004). In this document the capture software is called ivsEncoder.

What it is

“Advanced Live Non-Linear Multi-Camera Editing” was an evolution of multicamera editing based on Harris's award-winning VelocityQ™ and VelocityHD™ non-linear editing systems. Velocity's “Live Non-Linear Multi-Camera Editing” paradigm combines full-quality multicamera editing with the ability to record and edit multiple input sources at the same time. Multicamera programmes can be edited interactively from the live feeds, which are also recorded separately to disk; after the initial live edit, the editor can refine the programme, including moving and changing edit points between camera angles.

With the IVS solution, up to 8 SDI live sources are captured by a dedicated ingest station running ivsEncoder Pro with 4 multi-I/O SDI DirectShow-compatible devices, and several ingest systems can be synchronised to add more inputs. Each ingest station, running up to 8 ivsEncoder instances without using the Quattrus™ or Altitude™ hardware reserved for Velocity, records the live feeds on any shared RAID storage – no SAN is required. A Velocity editing system on the same LAN storage can start editing these sources immediately, while they are still being recorded. Using VelocityHD's multicamera functionality, up to 8 sources can be “switched” interactively while viewed in real time; once recording is complete, edit points can be refined before being applied to the timeline with cuts or transitions. Since ingest and editing are done at full quality, no re-capture is needed and the programme is immediately ready for output.

This combines the immediacy of a live switcher with the non-destructive flexibility of non-linear editing: editing can begin during shooting, without waiting for the ingest of multiple camera angles.

Components

A system consists of one complete VelocityQ/HD non-linear editing workstation and one or more ivsEncoder Pro recording servers/workstations. Everything can also be combined in one workstation with Altitude or Quattrus, reducing the simultaneous live inputs to 4 SDI or 3 DV/HDV.

VelocityQ/HD editing workstation. VelocityQ/HD combines the Quattrus or Altitude SD multistream real-time hardware with the Velocity software, delivering real-time full-quality playback of several streams of compressed or uncompressed video (up to 4 SD streams on Quattrus, up to 8 on Altitude), several graphics streams and optionally up to four channels of 3D DVE (ivsPowerPack 2007 adds one real-time export video stream and one real-time export HQ DVE on both Quattrus and Reality with Velocity 7.6 or higher). It was available as a turnkey system or as a boardset-and-software bundle for Windows XP Professional workstations. Multiple editing systems can share the same LAN storage, for example to create highlight reels from the same sources at the same time.

ivsEncoder Pro recording server/workstation. Simultaneous recording and editing in a VelocityQ/VelocityHD environment without a SAN is made possible by ivsEncoder, also a key component of the ivsNewsManager server. It is a dedicated recording application running on the same PC platform used by Velocity, without using any Harris hardware resources. The standard ivsEncoder, bundled with ivsNewsManager server or ivsPowerTools 2007 for Velocity, supports one live input; ivsEncoder Pro allows an unlimited number of instances, up to 8 SDI or 4 DV/HDV live inputs per workstation/server.

Configuration example

IVS configured this kind of system for several broadcast customers, with multiple VelocityQ workstations and interoperability with Nexio or SeaChange servers, XDCAM VTRs or P2 readers through ivsBatchConverter. The configuration shown uses one ivsEncoder Pro recording station on a custom array of 8 × 300 GB 15k rpm drives in RAID 50 and two independent VelocityQ editing workstations. It was first used in Germany during the final stage of the FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 by Frame Italia S.p.A. for a major pay-TV broadcaster.

Live non-linear multicamera editing configuration diagram

This configuration recorded four video streams and up to 32 audio streams while playing back 8 video streams (four on each of the two VelocityQ systems), all at 7 MB/s (56 Mbit/s) as required by the customer.