EDIUS
A new version of EDIUS, EDIUS X, was released on the 15th September 2020. This new version adds many new features such as background rendering. You can see a full list of the new features here: http://www.dvctraining.co.uk/edius-x-features/
You can see a list of commonly asked questions about EDIUS X here: http://www.dvctraining.co.uk/edius-x-faq/
You can order an EDIUS upgrade here: http://www.dvctraining.co.uk/ordering-edius-or-edius-upgrades/
EDIUS’ major strengths are the speed of the editing, its reliability and the realtime performance. It is probably true to say you could do a job faster and more reliably in EDIUS than any other editor.
EDIUS not only has excellent editing functionality but also has many advanced compositing features built in including animatable, feathered masks and very accurate motion tracking.
EDIUS is the fastest program for making Blu-ray discs or MP4 files because it supports Intel’s QUICK SYNC technology found on their Sandybridge, Ivybridge, Haswell, Skylake & Coffee Lake processors.
Previous EDIUS versions
EDIUS 7 shipped in July 2013 and added support for third party devices from Blackmagic, and support for 4K formats. EDIUS 8 shipped at the end of June 2015. For approximately two years Grass Valley added a range of new features including a new program called MYNC for cataloging footage, a new colour correction filter, motion tracking in the mask filter and useful options like project templates. You can see information on this here: What was new in EDIUS 8?
EDIUS 9 was released in November 2017 and there will be a range of new features added to it in the next couple of years. The initial new features include HDR support, new scopes for grading and H.265 encoding. Click here to read more information on the features of EDIUS 9.
Stability
One of the biggest advantages for EDIUS is its stability. To say you will never have a crash is not something we would like to promise, however, many of our customers say just that!
Buying EDIUS
You can buy EDIUS in two versions: Workgroup and Pro. You can upgrade from version 9 to either version of version X and you can also upgrade from older versions buy ordering the EDIUS jump upgrade. The main difference between the Pro and Workgroup version is that the Workgroup versions has many extra features needed by broadcasters. However, not all the differences are for broadcast so make sure you check out the section below which explains the main differences between the two versions.
EDIUS 9 is still available
Because EDIUS X only works on Windows 10 and certain legacy functions have been removed, such as DV capture, some people may prefer to have EDIUS 9 until they are ready to move on to Windows 10. Therefore, EDIUS 9 is available. However, if you buy EDIUS 9 you do not get EDIUS X, and if you buy EDIUS X you do not get EDIUS 9. Only buy EDIUS 9 if you need the features which have been removed.
Stocks of EDIUS 9 are starting to run out so it will be discontinued fairly soon.
If you do have Windows 10 EDIUS 9 and EDIUS X can exist on the same system.
Windows 11 support
EDIUS X is the only version which supports Windows 11. EDIUS 9 appears to work ok on Windows 11 but it not officially supported.
Activation
The EDIUS licence lets you use EDIUS on one machine at a time. You are allowed to install it on two computers, but you are only supposed to use one machine at a time. If you are using your copy of EDIUS on two computers at the same time you are breaking the licence agreement; you should buy two copies if you are planning to use both at the same time. You can activate your copy of EDIUS twice and deactivate it twice in one month. This limitation was added in November 2013; previously you could only have two “active” activations but you could activate and deactivate as many times as you liked. If you loose all your activations because a computer has crashed or been re-installed Grass Valley will need to get your serial number re-enabled. You can do this by contacting them directly or contacting me on david@dvctraining.co.uk.
This is fairly similar to other editing programs. Avid will only let you have one activation although you can activate/deactivate as much as you want; Premiere lets you have 2 activations, and with the Creative Cloud you can log in and out of the software when you need to.
EDIUS Pro needs to connect to the internet once a month to validate the licence.
In previous versions of EDIUS you did not need to connect to the Internet at all. Even the activation could be done “offline”. With EDIUS 8/9/X the Pro version has to check the licence once a month. If you do not do this the program will stop working until it can be validated. This does not cost any money and if your computer is on the internet permanently you may not even notice.
If you do not use your computer for 2 or 3 months this is not a problem. You will need to connect to the internet to reactivate EDIUS when you next start the computer but the fact that you did not use connect for a couple of months does not cause a problem.
If you do not want to connect your machine to the Internet or are not allowed to then you will need to buy the Workgroup version which never has to connect to be verified.
EDIUS Workgroup does not need to connect to the internet
You can activate EDIUS Workgroup using the offline activation and then you never need to connect to the Internet with the EDIUS computer again.
There are definite advantages of connecting your machine to the Internet and making a Grass Valley user account to register and activate your software, but with the Workgroup version you do not need the EDIUS machine to be on the internet. There are quite a few differences between Workgroup and Pro which are mainly aimed at giving more broadcast-oriented features in the Workgroup version. The Internet activation requirements are the major practical difference which is not related to broadcast features, of which you need to be aware. You can see a video regarding the other differences here: an introduction to EDIUS.
You are not allowed to resell your copy of EDIUS to anyone else.
EDIUS Workgroup & Pro
There are two versions of EDIUS – EDIUS Pro and EDIUS Workgroup.
The two versions are very similar. EDIUS Workgroup has the following additional features:
- Output UHD 50/60P projects to a monitor using a suitable Blackmagic or AJA card.
This is a new feature in EDIUS 9 Workgroup. You can view UHD 50/60P full screen just using your graphics card but it is not a proper video signal so not the best way to do this. Using a Blackmagic/AJA card will give you a proper video signal which is great for grading as you will see the image exactly as it will appear on the final output. With EDIUS 9 Pro you can output UHD at 25/30P or full 4K at 24P, and HD at 50/60P, if the hardware supports it, the only settings that you cannot output is UHD at 50/60P even if you have a card that will do so in other programs. - Output to a TV using projects which your hardware does not support
If you have Blackmagic/Matrox/AJA or Grass Valley card to output to a TV then the video formats it supports will be limited depending on the card. For example, GV’s HD Spark could only do output at up to 1920×1080 50i, or a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4K can output upto UHD @25/30P but not from 50/60P projects. Now with the Workgroup version you can get EDIUS to convert the video output into a format that your device does support so you can at least see a picture on your monitor in just about any project. Great of editing 4K and all you have is a card or a TV that supports HD, or you want to edit 50P UHD but don’t want to pay the extra for a card that supports this. - Avid DNxHD support for MXF files – available as an option for Pro, built in to Workgroup.
This lets you load files that are saved in Avid’s specific formats and stored in MXF files. You can make Avid codec files using QuickTime using the Pro version, but more programs are now stopping supporting QuickTime files on Windows since Apple stopped supporting QT for Windows. Some programs, like DaVinci Resolve, have QT Avid support built-in. Others may not – the CC2018 version of Adobe Premiere will remind you constantly that they are dropping support for “legacy” QuickTime files and Adobe have not said if they will still support Avid format files. However, Adobe will continue to support Avid Codec MXF files – which is only possible with the Workgroup version of EDIUS.
The biggest use for this feature is if collaborating with Avid users. If you want to get a project out of EDIUS and into Avid you can export an AAF with MXF Avid format files, just drop the files into an Avid media folder and import the AAF, and it is very simple to get Avid to link to the files you made in EDIUS. Most other ways of exporting a project to Avid do not work properly. EDIUS can also read any files you have imported or capture in Avid and are in the Avid media folder. - Loudness metering and automatic loudness correction on export.
If you are providing a clip to broadcast then it must be delivered within certain broadcast parameters. EDIUS Workgroup has a loudness meter which will analyse the timeline and point out problems, and also has the option to automatically correct the loudness on export. This is not like using a compressor or other filter to “level out” the audio on the timeline; to do that you need an extra plug-in regardless of which version of EDIUS you use. This is really only something you will need if delivering a file for broadcast. - Audio monitoring mode
Suppose you have two speakers connected to your system but the file you are playing is surround sound. You can hear the left and right speakers but what happens to the other channels – centre, subwoofer etc? Some cameras will let you record on more than two channels and you can have different mikes on different channels – what happens when you play one of these clips in EDIUS? The Workgroup version lets you change how audio is monitored so you can down-mix several channels into 2 and hear them all on your stereo speakers. This mainly changes how you hear the clips when playing them. When editing you can choose which channels go where on the timeline and hear all the channels that you recorded in your final edit in both EDIUS Workgroup AND EDIUS Pro. This Workgroup only feature only really helps you listen to clips when playing them and hear all the channels, but the final edit will be the same.
In earlier versions of EDIUS you did not have this option and would only hear selected channels when using multichannel clips. Therefore, EDIUS 9 Pro does exactly what EDIUS 4, 5 6 and 7 did. This ability was added into the later versions of EDIUS 7 Pro but then moved into EDIUS Workgroup when version 8 arrived. However, if you are using an older version of EDIUS and have never found multi-channel audio to be an issue you will not notice any difference choosing EDIUS Pro 9 rather than EDIUS Workgroup 9.
How to deal with multi-channel audio being added to a stereo timeline is explained in my EDIUS tutorial videos. - EDIUS watch folders
Tell EDIUS to keep and eye on a folder on your computer and anything which is dropped into that folder automatically appears in the EDIUS bin.
Edit growing files – edit files as they are captured. - Generic MXF exporter – EDIUS Workgroup will export files in MXF format, EDIUS Pro will not, although EDIUS Pro will make XDCAM-EX style MXF files.
- Dolby Pro licence option – Add a Pro version of Dolby encoding. This was an option for EDIUS Pro 7, although it did not ship with EDIUS 7. Now it is only an option for EDIUS Workgroup 8, you cannot add it to the Pro 9 version.
- Connect to external storage via FTP
- Connect to Stratus, connect to K2 SAN.
Stratus is Grass Valley’s media management system, used primarily in news organisation. If you don’t have Stratus then you do not need this option.
Dolby E pass through – if the files have Dolby-E then this is passed through without re-encoding
ANC Data (captioning) pass through. - Draft preview- the option to drop the playback resolution of the timeline to help playback complicated effects without rendering.
– this feature is in EDIUS X Pro & Workgroup. It is not in EDIUS Pro 9, but was in EDIUS 9 Workgroup. This feature is very useful if you have very busy, effects heavy timelines or using hard to play 4K footage with limited processing power, because you can drop the resolution and the timeline will still play back at the proper speed. Effects will be rendered at lower quality meaning you can see effects that otherwise you would need to render. With EDIUS 9 Pro you would need to render to see the results and any change means you render again. It is not the end of the world if you have to do so, but nicer if you can keep playing the timeline and not waste time rendering.
Internet connection required for Pro
With the Pro version of EDIUS you have to connect to the internet once a month to validate the licence. You only pay for the software once – when you buy it – and do not pay every month. However, your machine must connect to the Internet once a month otherwise EDIUS will stop working and will not work again until the computer is connected to the Internet again.
If your machine is always connected to the Internet then you do not have to do anything, EDIUS will automatically check the licence with not intervention from you.
If you do not use the machine for 2 months then the computer will simply need to be connected to the Internet when you turn it on again. You do not have to turn the computer on every month; simply after a month EDIUS will not work again until you have plugged the machine into the Internet. Once activated, which EDIUS will do automatically simply by running the program, you can disconnect from the Internet again for another 30 days.
If you do not want to put your computer on the Internet every month (some people do not like to connect their editing computer to the Internet at all) you have to buy the Workgroup version of EDIUS.
EFFECTS
EDIUS has a huge list of effects. It has one of the best realtime chromakeyers available, excellent high quality picture in picture effects, nice blending modes, good film-like looks through the old movie filter. and colour correction that quickly and easily gets the shot looking like you want.
It has keyframable slow motion, with optical flow for the best quality, keyframable masks for effects or rotoscoping, which can be tracked around the screen, and motion tracking for effects and titles (the latter was added in EDIUS X).
Click here to learn more about EDIUS’ range of effects.
Titling
EDIUS has good titling built-in as standard, using QuickTitler, which can do static, rolling and crawling titles. It also come with NewBluue Titler Pro for high quality animated titles. There are also other options you can add on such as the excellent animated title program, VisTitle.
Hardware support
Ideally I like to add an extra device to an editing system for two reasons:
- To playback your edits onto a proper video monitor, rather than rely on the “preview” quality display from the graphic card.
- To let you capture video through analogue, HDMI or SDI.
Playback to a TV or video monitor
EDIUS can play back video full screen on a computer monitor without any additional hardware. Modern graphic cards will let you have 3 monitors attached so you could conceivably have two screens showing the EDIUS interface and a third with a full screen playback of the video, however, this will always be the playback of a graphic card rather than a proper video image. The image may sometimes “tear”, although it has to be said that EDIUS has one of the most reliable full screen playbacks I have used. The colour and brightness levels will differ slightly from a proper video device (because computer screens are RGB and not YUV) and it will always be a progressive picture.
A better way is to add additional hardware which will let you see a proper video image on a TV or monitor. Grass Valley support third party devices from Blackmagic & AJA. There are still some devices specifically made by Grass Valley available but the range is small and practically everyone buys Blackmagic devices as they are the cheapest. EDIUS used to work with Matrox devices but support for these was dropped when EDIUS X was released, as Matrox devices were discontinued several years ago.
Capture
For analogue, HDMI & SDI you will need to add an i/o card. These cards will normally also output video for you. Blackmagic tend to be the most popular since they are inexpensive and work well. The most popular card is the Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4K which handles component, composite, SVIDEO and HDMI in and out and outputs at video resolutions of up to UHD. It also has a Time Base Corrector built-in which can “clean up” bad signals and let you capture video off old decks that would not work on other devices. Blackmagic also have a range of devices which are PCIe or Thunderbolt.
FireWire
EDIUS 9 and earlier versions would will talk to DV and HDV cameras via a standard FireWire. It could also output in real time at full standard definition quality through FireWire. This is no longer available in EDIUS X. You can still capture from FireWire and use the clips inside EDIUS, it is just EDIUS itself will not talk to the DV deck. To capture I use free programs like Scenalyzer and HDVSplit.
Format Support
EDIUS normally supports new formats quicker than other programs. It was the first program to properly support HDV editing, and the first to take AVCHD formats as well. EDIUS’ slogan is “edit anything”. This is a bit ambitious as new formats are being invented all the time and so it does not quite edit anything but it can handle nearly everything. EDIUS X has improvements to help using mobile phone footage which is normally variable frame rate and can cause problems with all editing programs.
Making DVD, Blu-ray & different types of file
EDIUS has DVD & Blu-ray creation built-into the program. With EDIUS’ print to disc option you choose a template for the menu, and then all the chapter and navigation buttons are created from the template. You can thoroughly customise the menus, using your own graphics and background and as well as using a video background and moving thumbnail images for buttons. Markers on the timeline and these become the chapter markers on the disc.
The discs consist of a main menu, followed by a chapter menu for every title on the disc. Beyond this you cannot add a more complex menu structure, or have slideshows or other audio tracks and subtitles. EDIUS’ disc writing us quick an simple, if lacking some of the more advanced features of a program like Adobe Encore. However, as Adobe no longer supply Encore you cannot use it unless you actually bought it when CS6 was available!
EDIUS also exports to a wide variety of files and formats – MP4 files for upload to YouTube, MPEG2 files, XDCAM & P2, as well as AVCHD files which you can even record back onto an AVCHD camera.
STEREOSCOPIC EDITING
EDIUS is one of the best programs for editing stereoscopic footage. This was added in EDIUS 6.5 and widely praised across the industry. It has tools for fixing convergence issues (so you can decide exactly where the items you are viewing appear in 3D space) and can handle just about any Stereoscopic footage. MVC encoded 3D footage plays very well inside EDIUS, something with which most other programs struggle. Some programs, like Avid, do not even understand MVC footage in the first place.
EDIUS can output to many types of 3D file as well as make discs in 3D formats – although it cannot make full 1920×1080 3D Blu-ray.
How does EDIUS compare to the competition?
This is a question I get asked a lot. The biggest reasons you would choose EDIUS is for its reliability and speed. It is great for large and complex projects and its very unlikely you will get a crash with it! It also handles new video formats quicker than other programs. EDIUS is my favourite program because of its reliablity and speed. Recently I editi part of a project with EDIUS and the rest with Blackmagic Resolve. I tried Resolve because I was using old Hi8 footage which needed a lot of clean up, and Resolve has great tools for this. Although I could achieve the same things in both program, doing things in Resolve seemed to require more mouse clicks or hunting in menus to find the best option. EDIUS generally has its tools laided out in the simplest and quickest way possible.
EDIUS X System Requirements
Minimum System Requirements (standalone):
CPU: CPU with AVX2 support: Intel 4th Gen or newer or equivalent AMD CPU
Memory: 8 GB RAM or more | for 4K projects 16 GB or more
Hard Disk: 6 GB of hard disk space for installation, fast drive for video storage
Graphics Card: 1 GB VRAM or more | for 4K projects 2 GB or more
Sound Card: Sound card with WDM driver support
Network: Internet connection required for initial software license activation, thereafter once per month to maintain usage | Offline activation and usage possible for EDIUS X Workgroup
OS: Windows 10 64-bit version 1903 or later
Changes can be made at any time without notice.
More information
You can read more about EDIUS on the Grass Valley website here: https://www.grassvalley.com/products/edius_x/#menu2
And on the EDIUS.NET site here: https://www.edius.net/x
Supported Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Chinese traditional (Chinese simplified is available in the Chinese Version and Japanese in the Japanese Version of EDIUS X)