Edius Hardware

The STORM Mobile

The STORM Mobile was launched in September 2011 and replaces the HDSTORM and the HDSTORM plus.  It adds analogue (SVIDEO, composite and Component) and digital (HDMI) inputs and outputs to EDIUS 6.  It will capture 8-bit and 10-bit footage into a variety for formats.

There are two versions - the Internal and the External.   The Internal version is designed to sit inside a tower case, the external connects to your computer via an interface card, but all the electronics are in the external box.  This means it can be used on a laptop or a desktop, and you can even use the box box on both - just plug the STORM Mobile into the machine you want to use when needed. Click on the link below for full details on the differences between the two versions.

For more information click here.

The HDSPARK & HDSPARK Pro

If you are filming on a card-based camera, or a camera that transfers video via FireWire (like DV or HDV) then you may not a card that gives you special inputs like HDMI or analogue - all you really need is a way of seeing the picture on an HD monitor at full resolution. This is why Grass Valley designed the HDSPARKs.

If you think you might need inputs or analogue outputs, then you need either the HDSTORM (HDMI in and out) or HDSTORM Plus (HDMI, component, composite and SVIDEO in and out).

Also be aware that a lot of HD monitors, although they will display an excellent HD picture through HDMI, they may not display an SD picture.  Even our favourite monitor, the 22" LG screens, will not display a 4:3 standard def picture.  If you are still editing SD as well as HD you may need to consider buy the HDSTORM PLUS instead of the HDSPARK.  This will give you component i/o as well as HDMI and all screens that have a component input will take both types of SD picture (4:3 and 16:9) through component.

The HDSPARK will work with both EDIUS Neo (2 & 3) and EDIUS.  The other Grass Valley cards (STORM and STORM 3G) will only work with EDIUS.

For more information click here.

This board has SD and HD-SDI i/o to EDIUS 6.  You can capture into a whole variety of formats including Canopus HQ, lossless and uncompressed.  To handle uncompressed HD footage you will need a couple of fast hard drives set up in a RAID array but for most other resolutions a normal SATA drive is sufficient.

The STORM 3G also comes with an HDMI output socket so you can view your edits on a low cost HD screen as well as the HD-SDI output if you have this on your monitor. This is a mini-HDMI socket - so you will need to make sure you have amini-HDMI cable to connect this to a standard screen.  With EDIUS 5 this board was called the HDTHUNDER.  If you have an HDTHUNDER already just install EDIUS 6 and it will become a STORM 3G Elite.  This will update the firmware on your board so that it will support the new output resolutions of the STORM 3G - namely 1920 x 1080 50P.  The STORM 3G is one of the few devices we have that can output at this resolution.

The STORM 3G ELITE comes with EDIUS 6, NewBlue FX, Prodad Mercalli and Vitascene and a range of VST plug-ins.

For more information click here.

The STORM 3G ELITE is a new device for use with EDIUS 6.  It captures directly into Canopus new 10 bit HQX format using hardware chips inside the STORM 3G ELITE box.  The box features just about every kind of input you need and can upscale and downscale footage all using the hardware included.

It will work on a laptop or a desktop and a PCIe card for a desktop and express card for use on a laptop.  You may find the laptop hard drives are not fast enough for use with some of the formats you can capture.

For more information click here.

An older Grass Valley card than the HDSTORM or HDSPARK, the EDIUS SP is still available.  As of July 2011 it is now shipping with a full copy of EDIUS 6.  

The advantage of the SP, compared the the HDSTORM, is that it has XLR audio inputs as well as composite, component and SVIDEO connections.  The disadvantage is that it does not have HDMI, cannot capture HD footage, only SD footage, and is an older generation.  We know it will be supported in EDIUS 6, but will it be supported in future versions?  HDSTORM and SPARK being current products probably will be but the SP may not.

Buy it because:

1. You like the SP you already have and want another one.
2. You want XLR audio connections and do not want to but the STORM 3G Elite

The FIRECODER Blu is a faster than realtime H264 encoder for making the correct format for Blu-ray disc faster than your PC can manage.

It either works in it's own program or straight off the timeline of EDIUS 5 or EDIUS 6. With EDIUS you can encode into H264 files which you can then load into other authoring programs like Adobe Encore, or you can use it with EDIUS' built-in Blu-ray writing software.

For more information click here.

This card has a very simple purpose - fast encoding into AVC-Intra format for users filming in that format.

For more information click here.