miro’s all new DTV line-up for Summer '97A quick review of the entire new miro product line. PLUS each new unit is compared to the old one it replaces!!
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Over the past year I reviewed two new cards from miro, the DC30 and DC10. Here we are at year end and both cards, as well as the DC20 have been discontinued. But unlike other players in the field, miro has replaced each card with a better performing one and expanded the available software bundles to include several of the hottest new editing packages. The new miro product line can best be summed up as good, better, best. They have a non linear editing solution for every level of end user, all under $1000. It is no wonder that miro dominates the affordable desk top video editing marketplace in the US.
All of the new miro video capture cards have PCI bus mastering. This technology is required for attaining the highest possible throughput and audio sync. They all support DirectDraw overlay. This means that with today’s advanced graphics cards you can view your video full motion on the computer screen. They all have both regular and S-Video input and output jacks. In addition you get the miroDEMO CD -"How to Make your First Movie" to help you get up and running as soon as possible. The CD ROM includes sample clips for you to use while learning non linear editing.
In this article I will give an overview of each new card, my thoughts on the software bundle, and then a quick what’s new comparison with the model each one replaces. I tested each of the cars using a P133 w/32 megs of EDO RAM and a 9.1GB CTI external Seagate Barracuda Ultra Wide SCSI drive hooked up to an Adaptec 2940UW controller.
The improved hardware performance of the DC30plus is only half the story. What really sets the DC30plus head and shoulders above any other card in the industry is the new miroINSTANT video plug-in for Premiere. miroINSTANT video allows you to play up to 1 full hour of video directly from the Premiere timeline. The only thing that gets rendered is the effects, titles, filters and transitions. The unchanged footage is not re-rendered. This not only lets you breakthrough the 2 gig file limitation of video for windows, but it means you no longer need twice the disk space for DTV. Without miroINSTANT video the entire video has to be rendered into a new file that has to be under 2 gigs, and you must have room for it on your hard drive. Since miroINSTANT video only renders the changed video segments onto your scratch disk, you need about 40% less disk space, and rendering is more then twice as fast.
The quality and features of the DC30plus put it in league with more expensive cards costing 2 or 3 times as much. It has CD quality audio capture/playback built on board. The DC30plus ships with the full version of Adobe Premiere 4.2 . The deluxe CD ROM also included Photoshop LE, Crystal Flying Fonts LE and Acrobat.
The DC20plus has the coolest software bundle I have yet to see. It comes with not just non linear editing software, but software for creating all kinds of digital video. Presentations, CD ROMs, multimedia and even streaming video for the web!! Here’s the details. First, you get the latest, coolest NLE software, Ulead Media Studio Pro 5.0VE (you can upgrade to the full version of 5.0 for $149.95). MSPro5.0 is MMX optimized for today’s super fast and powerful computers. MSPro5.0 also includes SmartRender technology. Very similar to INSTANT video, SmartRender only renders those portions of your video that have changed, and you can play video directly off the timeline. The rest of the bundle includes Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 4.0XP for high end audio editing, Ulead MPEG converter for making multimedia content for presentations or CD ROM, and ViVo producer 1.0 software for creating web streaming video clips that can be played form any webpage, without expensive/special server software.
The highlight of the DV100 is the StoryTools software, which lets you find, index, organize and edit your video footage. This lets you save a tremendous amount of disk space and makes the editing process dramatically faster and easier. What many folks don’t realize is that the FireWire interface is a very sophisticated device control protocol in addition to a high speed input/output device. StoryTools takes full advantage of this technology. If you should drop a few frames during capture, StoryTools can automatically go back and recapture just the lost frames! StoryTools is one of the most useful utilities I have ever seen for video editing.
Gary Bettan
miroVideo DC30plus
The DC30plus is the top performing video capture card for under $1000 in the industry. It can capture full screen 704x480, 60 fields per second video at compression as low as 2.5:1 (7 megs per second throughput). I had no problem capturing and playing back perfect jitter free video at every compression setting. I found that I liked 5:1 the best. It gave me a good trade off between excellent video quality and disk usage. What this means in real terms is that the SVHS output of the card looks as good as the original footage, even after adding all kinds of incredible effects/transitions and titling. At 5:1 compression I ended up with less then 5 minutes of video per gig.
What’s different from the DC30?
miroVideo DC20plus
The original DC20 was the first PCI video capture card on the market, less then 2 years ago. My how things have changed. The DC20plus replaces the old unit at the same price point the original unit finished its life at. For under $500 the DC20plus gives you a great combination of top notch video quality and a very cool software bundle. The DC20plus is capable of capturing 640x480 video, 60 fields per second, at compression under 5:1 (max throughput 4 megs/sec). The DC20plus does not have audio on board, instead it relies on your audio card for the sound. This is great news for people who already own a top notch sound card like the Turtle Beach Fiji or Pinnacle or the AWE64 or the Audiotrix Pro. Why pay more for a video capture card with audio on board if you already have a great sound card that has better features like Midi or audiophile sound quality? Since the DC20plus has uses PCI bus mastering, you will get perfect audio sync and no audio drift. I found the DC20plus did a great job and I had no frames dropped and perfect playback at my favorite 5:1 compression setting. On the hardware side, the DC20plus is more like having the old DC30 w/o the audio on board, then the old DC20.What’s changed from old DC20
miroVideo DRX
The DRX is not actually a new board at all. It is the exact same hardware as the old DC10. The difference is that the software bundle now includes MGI videowave and the price is under $300. I reviewed the DC10 earlier this year, and MGI VideoWave has received excellent reviews from several publications the past few months. Both were very good reviews. The DRX is the first hardware bundle shipping with Videowave.
By combining the low cost of the miro board and the incredibly easy to use Videowave software, the DRX is the perfect starter system for novice digital videographers. Best of all, you can get very good, better then VHS/8mm quality video using your existing EIDE drive. If you’ve got a loaded multimedia P133 or faster, 16+ megs of Ram and 2+ gigs available disk space, you can create awesome 10 minute long videos!! 3 years ago you would have had to buy over $1000 worth of ‘black boxes’ plus special editing decks to create a video that looked half as good as what any high school kid could make with the DRX.
What’s new from the DC10
miroMOTION DC30 for Mac
Power Mac owners should be happy to know that miro has not forgotten about you, unlike many other vendors in this market segment. The miromotionDC20 has been replaced by the miromotionDC30. The miromotionDC30 has audio built on board plus the ability to let you preview and edit the video using your computer monitor. The DC30 for Mac is a major improvement over the DC20. The new hardware gets to 3.5 megs/sec sustained throughput (5:1 compression) with audio sync. I am a PC guy, so I am not going to give you a hands on review of the miromotionDC30, that will be done in the future by one of our Mac experts. The miromotionDC30 ships with the LE version of premiere to keep the price under $800.
MiroVideo DV1394
The DV1394 is actually a two board solution that includes both the DV100 FireWire card and the DC30plus w/ Premiere. The DV100 is miro’s entry into FireWire video editing. This system lets you input video directly from your DV camcorder using the bi-directional FireWire jack. The DC30plus is then used to convert the video for output to SVHS or VHS video. Unfortunately the DV100 will not output the video digitally back to your DV cam. Although you can’t output in DV, the video output quality you get from the DC30plus is superb. You can also combine footage from your old analog tapes with the new DV footage. With a list price of $1394 (pun intended) it is a very affordable system. If you already own a DC30 or DC30plus, miro will give you a $100 mail in rebate when you buy the DV100. That brings the cost of the DV100 board to under $500.
Conclusion
There you have it, the new line up from miro. As you can see, miro now offers video capture solutions for every budget and for every level of video. From home video to prosumer /event videography to multimedia and web streaming video. If you want to get into digital videography and create video using your computer, miro has a solution for you. You can find more info and get the full specs about miro products on the miro page of our website.
Late breaking news flash
Just as this article was being put to bed Pinnacle Systems announced that they intended to purchase the Digital Video Editing portion of miro. I checked with both miro and Pinnacle and was told that no changes were planned for the current product line, although new product development is a top priority. I am very optimistic about this merger. Pinnacle Systems is highly regarded as a leader in the broadcast professional DTV market. About a year ago they purchased Video Director from Gold Disk and have since released Video Director Suite 200, a great linear DTV editing system for home users. The new company that emerges should have the technology and market strength to lead the prosumer/home/hobby DTV market into the new millennium. I wish them all the luck in the world.
videoguy@videoguys.com
