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MillimeterMedia 100 CineStream
Aug 1, 2001 12:00 PM, BY FRANK McMAHON
Media 100 has waved its wand and merged two separate programs: its desktop editing system EditDV, and web encoder CleanerEZ, the light version of Cleaner 5. For icing, the company has added EventStream authoring, which allows items such as clickable hotspots and HTML triggers to be exported along with the final streaming file.
EditDV has always been the little editor that could, nipping at the heels of bigger boys such as Adobe Premiere. This new combo suite of functionality certainly puts a new spin on existing software and might be a safe bet if interactivity is what you are really craving in web video productions.
EditDV, the center of the CineStream world, actually offers some great core functionality if you fancy yourself a FireWire aficionado and want to slap together some DV projects. The software works with any OHCI-compliant card, and Media 100 also offers a separate CineStream bundle, which ships with its MotoDV FireWire card. CineStream allows capture right from within the EditDV program, with snazzy extras such as scene detection, SMPTE, dual-processor support, and luma clamping, which locks down broadcast-safe color values and prevents hue shifting. After capturing your footage, you can easily slide in clips and edit with an interface that resembles a typical desktop editor.
One feature especially well integrated in the editor is the ability to create multiple compositions in a single project. This allows flexibility in nesting multiple edited scenes within one master movie. If you want to work on an individual scene, you can choose it easily from a pulldown menu. This is handy for complex projects with a lot of moving around of scenes to test pacing. At any time you can make a quick copy of any composition, allowing nondestructive editing. If you like a scene, keep it; if not, the original scene remains.
One cool feature that should be implemented in all desktop editors is CineStream's history palette. Jump back as many steps as you want if you are editing down an experimental path.
It is always a challenge to display your DV footage accurately when using a standard OHCI card. CineStream has a few methods that do the trick. The LiveDV technology passes DV program video out through the DV device for realtime playback. Also available is a DraftDV option, which knocks your video display within CineStream down to VHS level for faster, realtime previews. This will help primarily with older computers and processors to keep up the frame rate while still displaying a good picture.
Once you edit your movie together, the next step is to incorporate interactive events that occur when the video is viewed on the Web. In its press literature, Media 100 gushes about the awesome interactive authoring functions, and then devotes a scant 10 pages out of the hefty 550-page manual explaining how to employ them. While documentation that goes over every minute detail of the editor is great, it would have been nice to walk video producers more thoroughly through the powerful interactivity options now at their disposal.
Some of the interactive features included are displaying text over web video, adding named chapter stops, and a “Goto” feature, which allows the player to jump to certain parts of the video stream.
Perhaps the two most fun features are the “Open URL” command and the hot spot option. Open URL launches a webpage at a designated part of your movie. You can set the target as well, choosing to launch into the current window, a separate window, or a parent frame. Hot spots can be added into any movie as well, allowing the viewer to click and launch webpages, jump to other parts of the video, and even launch other movies.
Not every media player supports all of these interactive features, however. RealPlayer and Windows Media Player support several, while QuickTime supports all.
While these interactive features are nothing new — you could actually whip them up outside of the software with a little coding — what is unique is the ease with which CineStream lets you add them. Essentially, just drag and drop the interactive effects. Want chapter stops? Drop the chapter stop icon into your timeline. Hot spot in the fourth scene? Just slide it over to that scene within the editor and set your hot spot size.
After all the interactivity is constructed, the last step is to encode your movie. The package ships with CleanerEZ, the scaled-down version of Cleaner 5. But if you already have Cleaner 5, you can export movies to that program via a menu command. The best part is that aside from effects, your movie does not have to be prerendered to move into the encoder. So you can put together a cuts-only production and be one click away from encoding to any of the major web video formats.
CineStream is a good all-in-one solution, but make sure your FireWire card is OHCI-compliant. I tried capturing and editing with a Canopus DVRaptor card, but I was greeted with erratic behavior from time to time. I often had trouble loading clips. Media 100 seems focused on supporting only OHCI, which is a safe bet from a support standpoint.
CineStream competes with Premiere 6.0 now, since the new Premiere release has a lot of the same functionality as CineStream with respect to editing, adding interactive effects, and pushing the movie straight into the encoder without prerendering — in CleanerEZ no less. So if you have Premiere 6.0, there is little reason to purchase this, especially considering Abobe's new robust FireWire support.
However, if you do not yet have a desktop DV editor, CineStream costs quite a bit less and offers everything you need — from capturing to editing to authoring to encoding. If Media 100 bumped up the interactive features with more options and tutorials, CineStream would be a compelling alternative to the current crop of DV editors. As it stands, it mainly hits the nail on the head of price rather than innovation. If you are looking for a low-cost alternative and don't yet have a FireWire solution, CineStream is worth checking into.
Frank McMahon is a media artist specializing in directing, editing, animation, and graphic design. He can be reached via his media company at www.fmstudio.com or via Portland Media Artists at www.mediaartist.com.
QUICK FACTS
Company: Media 100 Marlboro, Mass.; 508-460-1600
Product: CineStream
Features: EditDV is strong for FireWire editing; EventStream authoring allows easy placement of hotspots, pop-up windows, and chapter marks; several display options
Price: $499
Website: www.media100.com
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