Canopus DVRaptor-RT

In its day, Canopus' DVRaptor was one of the best DV cards around (see Reviews, issue 60, p169). Now almost three years old, however, it seems its time is up. Contenders such as the Matrox RT2500 (see Reviews, issue 83, p166) and Pinnacle DV500 (see Reviews, issue 66, p169) have introduced analog capture and real-time editing to the prosumer market, while low-cost OHCI (open host controller interface) IEEE-1394 cards work very nicely for capture and output in non real-time systems.

Canopus' answer is the DVRaptor-RT - a mid-priced board with real-time editing features. As with the DV500 and RT2500, real-time editing only applies to its analog output. That said, rendering is still necessary for output to DV via IEEE-1394. Unlike the others, the DVRaptor-RT has no analog input. What it does have in its favour is the ability to do all its real-time work in software, rather than relying on hardware codecs - as the host system is upgraded, real-time performance improves.

For these tests, the DVRaptor-RT came installed in a turnkey system from DVC (www.dvc.uk.com) - a powerful machine sporting a 1.5GHz Pentium 4 processor, 256Mb of RAM and a 60Gb hard disk dedicated to video. I also used Adobe Premiere 6 (see Reviews, issue 78, p162), which is bundled with the card for an extra £90, for editing; like most other non-OHCI DV editing cards, it's the only editing application with which the DVRaptor-RT is designed to work. A dedicated Premiere shortcut keyboard is also available, designed exclusively for DVC, giving easy access to many of Premiere's more commonly used tools.

Capture from DV sources is done directly in Premiere or with Canopus' own capture utility, RaptorVideo. With both applications, device control and capture works well. Capture in Premiere is generally the most preferable method, however, as it allows batch capture lists to span more than one tape and creates icons for captured clips directly in Premiere's clip bin.

Premiere's own selection of transitions and effects requires rendering - only Canopus' own can be previewed in real-time. Fortunately, Canopus' effects are better and more versatile than Adobe's. Canopus provides 15 transition types, including dissolves, wipes, slides and stretches. All can be customised and have their speed varied to give a gentle lead in and tail off. Chroma keying and luma keying are easily achieved with a good deal of control, and picture-in-picture effects are very effective, with optional borders, drop-shadows and movement of the inset image. A selection of 16 image filters includes comprehensive colour-correction tools with decent vector scope displays. Soft-focus and old-film filters can be applied to video. The range also contains a number of Photoshop-style effects such as Emboss and Pencil Sketch. Titles created in Premiere play directly from the timeline in real-time. As Premiere's titles are very basic, you may prefer to opt for a dedicated app such as TitleDeko, normally associated with Pinnacle cards, which DVC supplies with its systems. Real-time audio filters are also provided, including a graphic equaliser, parametric equaliser and panpot/balance controls. Real-time performance was superb with video filters - a stretch transition and title played together without complaint. The system only reported dropped frames when the transition was changed for a chroma key effect.

Additional non real-time effects are provided by Canopus in the form of Xplode Basics - a selection of crazy 3D transitions and alpha wipes, which, while amusing, will have limited use in the real world. Rendering for DV output was fast, thanks to the power of the host system and Canopus' excellent software codec. A ten-second cross dissolve completed rendering in around 24 seconds, and a ten-second picture-in-picture with two video filters finished rendering in 46 seconds.