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!

EDIUS and EDIUS Neo

There are two versions of EDIUS, the normal version, simply called EDIUS and EDIUS Neo.  Both share the same interface and most of the same features. Neo is the entry level version with support for HDV and AVCHD editing.  The full EDIUS has more features and support for more hardware and formats, such as Panasonic DVC Pro HD (as used on P2 cards), Sony XDCam and XDCam-EX and Grass Valley JPEG2000.

Click here for a full list of the differences. 

EFFECTS

EDIUS may not have as many effects as other programs - it lacks track or image mattes, has no lens flares or garbage mattes, and some effects are not keyframable - but it does all the basics and it does them very well.

It has one of the best realtime chromakeyers available, excellent high quality picture in picture effects, nice blending modes (only added to Adobe Premiere with CS4!), good film-like looks through the old movie filter (again not something that comes with Premiere or most other editing programs), and colour correction that quickly and easily gets the shot looking like you want.

It also has keyframable slow motion - which you can apply both to picture and sound - and which is both completely realtime and excellent quality.

EDIUS also comes with a range of 3rd party plug-ins:

• ProDad Mercalli - an excellent and simple image stabiliser.  Take wobbly hand held footage and smooth out the motion.
• ProDad Vitascene - a collection of glow, movie look, sparkle and board filters, many of which use the graphic card to speed up rendering.  With Vitascene you can also keyframe all effects which makes up for some of the non-keyframable EDIUS ones.  For example the EDIUS native blur filter is not keyframable where as the Vitascene one is.
• New Blu Effects - a collection of movie filters and filters which simulate artistic materials.

These filters are available for other programs, like Adobe Premiere Pro, but you would need to buy them separately, where as the come with EDIUS (most are NOT included with EDIUS NEO).

Click here to learn more about EDIUS' range of effects.

Hardware support

Edius will talk to DV and HDV cameras via a standard FireWire. It can also output more in real time at full quality through FireWire than any other editing program. There is a range of hardware available to add different types of analogue and digital i/o to Edius - these cards include HD component output, and introduced in the last quarter or 2008 cards that have HDMI i/o and HD-SDI i/o.

Click here for full information on these cards.

HD 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.

Click here for information on how Edius deals with different formats.

AVCHD Booster Pack

In November 2009 Grass Valley introduced the AVCHD booster pack for EDIUS NEO.  This allows you to edit native AVCHD in EDIUS in realtime.  Without the booster pack you can still put native AVCHD on the EDIUS timeline but even on the most powerful computers EDIUS cannot play it back.  With the booster pack on a modern computer, like an i7, you can play play 3 layers of picture in picture in realtime using native AVCHD footage.  This is a huge leap forward for editing AVCHD - without it you have to convert the footage to Canopus' own HQ format, which takes time, and then edit the clips.

Currently the booster pack is only available for EDIUS NEO, not for full EDIUS - so in fact Neo edits native AVCHD better than its big brother.  The booster pack will be incorporated into full EDIUS at some point but we do not know when.

You can buy the AVCHD booster pack with EDIUS NEO or as a separate add-on.

Making DVD & Blu-ray

EDIUS has a DVD & Blu-ray creation section built-into the program. You add makers on the timeline and these become the chapter markers on the disc. The menus themselves can be thoroughly customised, although you cannot use video backgrounds or have video buttons. The menus 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.

The disc writing part of EDIUS does single and dual layer DVDs and 4:3 or widescreen menus as well as single and dual-layer Blu-ray discs. It can also write Blu-ray style discs on to a dual layer DVD. Corel Movie Factory 7 is bundled with EDIUS 5 so you can make more complicated discs easily. Click here to read more about Edius DVD and Blu-ray writing.

How does EDIUS compare to the competition?

This is a question we 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 lacks some of the features (big and small) found in other editing programs, and does not have the integration with other programs that are available in the Adobe Production Studio. But then it does have some useful features not found in other programs - you can rip video off non-copyright DVDs and re-edit them in EDIUS, for example.

To help we have written some comparisons to other programs which you can read here: 
Click here for an in depth comparison between EDIUS and Premiere Pro.