Wedding and event shooter Christian Valeri started his carrier at the turn of century. Located in the center region of Italy Christian and his wife Silvia offer all services around video production. Christian has won several wedding awards in recent years. Editing to him is about recreating the emotions of the captured event. To be able to fully concentrate on the creative process EDIUS has been Christian Valeri’s editing tool of choice from early on.


Getting ready for the wedding shoot

From childhood on I was dreaming of making films. I started this wonderful profession in 2000 when I was 16 years old. Back then my friend and former boss Duilio started the first video studio in the region where I live, in the central area of Italy in the region of Marche. I went to this studio to develop a film. Back then you still needed to be developed in a physical laboratory instead of software.

From dark room to video

I found myself in such a futuristic environment, with lots of displays, keyboards, and other sophisticated devices. I was quite in awe…


20 years ago: My first camera

But I took the opportunity to show my first video, shot and edited on a VHS tape, to the owner of the studio. Back then video editing was quite cumbersome as one had to cope with the limitations and rather poor quality of VHS machines. Nevertheless, the owner of the studio liked my “work”.

From that day on – more than two decades ago - I have never stopped enjoying the process of telling stories and documenting events, preserving precious moments to be shared in the future.

Positive energy generated by customers’ feedback

I enjoy working together with people and that very much includes the relation to my customers. The moment I deliver the finished edit to them, the moment they see the result for the first time and give such a positive feedback, I receive just as much positive energy for future projects.


20 years later: Enjoying the work with my customers

On the contrary to that the editing process in the early years was not enjoyable at all. Actually, it was quite discouraging. In the beginning I used to work with other software, very popular in post-production, but I’ve lost a lot of sleep with all the system crashes and hours of lost editing. So, I was very eager to try out other solutions hoping for more stability and saving my nerves. Around ten years ago I finally discovered EDIUS. And I realized it was truly simplifying every single phase of my work, saying goodbye to crashes and boring procedures that I had to face before. It was also a matter of motivation, because when you work without problems you can use your full potential and enjoy the process.

Capturing and recreating the emotion

With my videos I try to capture and recreate the atmosphere and the emotions of the event. Often, I don’t follow a chronological order. Instead, I concentrate on evoking emotions, allowing the client to relive the special moment of the event. Audio is very important for an immersive experience, so I use a lot of live audio along with music related to the event. To optimize the audio, I use the plug-ins included in EDIUS. They work well both for enhancing speech as well as suppressing unwanted background noise.

As for video effects I use filters from NewBlueFX and Vitascene. But in my opinion effects should be just a “side dish” supporting the real images. Visual effects should never be dominating the video.

I married Silvia, an EDIUS Cutter!

It was maybe one of the luckiest coincidences that the woman that I fell in love with and married also knew how to work with cameras and with EDIUS! I think that the female point of view always helped me to complete my work in the best way, especially during the shooting.


Silvia and I are a dream team

Sensitivity is needed in many cases like at weddings. Working on such projects together is benefitting the quality very much – and it makes working even more enjoyable.

EDIUS is the perfect editing tool for all our jobs including theatre shows and concerts.  Whenever we shoot with multiple cameras, we do the edit as a multi cam project. EDIUS then allows us to switch to the different camera tracks in real time just as if a director would be sitting in front of a live console for switching. This makes editing very intuitive, and any not so perfect transition can later easily be finetuned by adjusting the switching positions on the timeline.

Speed and versatility

Whenever needed – maybe because the mobile notebook is not so powerful – EDIUS allows us to gradually reduce the playback quality allowing a stutter free playback. This also allows us to do a quick first cut edit, to show to our customer, while the event is still running.


Editing with EDIUS

All together the footage of one event is usually about 8 hours long, shot with 2 cameras, a drone, and an action cam that I place in different positions during the event. The edited video is usually about 20 minutes long, depending of course on the character of the event.

I always shoot in 4k, mainly at 50p, sometimes 100p and in special cases even 1000p, reducing the resolution. I dedicate some time to the color correction at an early stage of the editing process. I can then better evaluate what the look should be and how to tie everything together. The fast to use and intuitive Primary Color Correction filter of EDIUS is a great tool I really enjoy using for that. This filter is also great for correcting any white balance issues or to dialing in some more saturation or contrast. Although corrected and optimized the image still looks natural with no loss in quality.

Archiving projects on NAS and cloud

I keep the footage of every project for at least 2 years on a NAS and in the cloud. From time to time, I need to reopen older projects. This is another great benefit of EDIUS, because working on older projects is never a problem. I never had any issues, no matter how old those projects were.

The market for wedding shooters in Italy

The wedding market in Italy is quite unpredictable. There are periods when I get more requests than I can handle. And there are also very slow times. But being a wedding shooter in Italy I cannot complain. The average price to shoot a wedding is around 2500 EUR.

I love shooting weddings and capturing the atmosphere

Social media helped me a lot in the beginning, allowing my work to be known as well as my style and my commitment. Today, good, or bad, I don’t have the necessary time anymore to keep Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube all up to date.

But still, with other customers recommending my work, and with even a few examples available online, I can win the attention of small up to medium companies for new productions. At Vimeo you can find several examples of my event work and as a wedding shooter: vimeo.com/christianvaleri

Format and file conversions with EDIUS

To finish my story, I like to come back to the studio more than 20 years ago, which I was describing in the beginning. Because my wife and I are now offering services as well! And today, I am also surrounded by lots of video machines. We don’t develop film of course but we offer all sorts of video and format conversion. With EDIUS and a dedicated hardware I capture audio/video from old tapes (VHS, VHS-C, mini-dv, BETA, VIDEO2000, etc.) I then edit and finish the projects with EDIUS. I also use EDIUS for any file conversion, for the great compatibility with codecs and formats. With EDIUS you never experience any quality loss.


I am very happy to be doing what I have dreamt of more than 20 years ago: shooting and editing video for a living and enjoying every aspect of the process.


Saul Carassalle shooting in Greenland

My name is Sara Bonatti (46). Together with my colleague Saul Carassalle (48) I am creating content for Italian TV stations. While Saul is the cameraman in our team, I am responsible for the editing.

We work as an independent team mainly shooting and editing documentaries and regional commercials. Our time schedule is often very tight, and we depend on a fast and stable editing solution to not be held up by technical problems or compatibility issues. EDIUS has therefore been the editing solution of our choice for many years. And although I am checking other solutions such as Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve from time to time they have shown not to be an alternative and there has been no reason to change. EDIUS is just the perfect solution for our demand and fast workflow.

Depending on the topic we might be shooting for a few days in Greenland and shortly after that travel to Dubai to cover the launch of a new cruise ship – like we did in November of last year. Different jobs might require completely different camera setup resulting in a number of different file formats. Sometimes I also include some existing corporate footage, motion graphics or other artwork suitable for the project.

Without any technical restraints
EDIUS allows me to do all of that without any technical restraints. I have never needed to convert any type of source footage. I can use any type of camera, any codec and file type with no need to transcode. And I can even automatically mix different framerates and resolutions on one timeline.

EDIUS allows us to be so fast and versatile that we can fully concentrate on the creative process. It is very handy that EDIUS allows us to do a quick rough cut, so that we can share a first impression almost immediately after shooting. We sometimes use that to give the people involved in the production a quick preview and insight into the project.

EDIUS is fast even on standard hardware because the program is very efficient in leveraging hardware resources like Intel QuickSync. I can edit a complex project even on a notebook. Whenever the real time playback might be about to stutter – because of the multitude of video tracks or exceptional high data rates – I can reduce the preview quality. Editing an UHD project I do not even notice any lesser quality on my notebook screen. And of course, exporting the project will always be in full quality.

Ideal solution for ultrafast turnarounds
I am very happy with the new background rendering feature in EDIUS X. Now I can continue my editing work while an already finished section is being exported by EDIUS X as a background job. This makes EDIUS X an ideal solution for ultrafast turnarounds.

The new audio correction filters in EDIUS X have also shown to be very useful. With these some very typical audio problems can quickly be solved, for example the reduction of reverberation.

While we have used different ENG broadcast camcorders in the past we have soon switched to DSLM cameras like the Panasonic GH5s for creative reasons. As EDIUS supports all recording modes natively we can choose whatever fits our needs. And with EDIUS we can also make full use of the wider colour spaces like V-LOG and HLG. The Primary Colour Correction Filter can then automatically convert the image into the desired target colour space like Rec.709 – fully leveraging the great dynamic range of the camera.

With EDIUS I am not bothered by any technical limitations. I feel I can easily try out new creative ideas because EDIUS never slows me down. We have even won several prices for the art direction of our work.

Besides  TV formats we have worked on several low budget documentaries like this one for the Fondazione Leonardo: Di padre in figlio - Documentario Archivio storico OTO Melara (From father to son – Documentary Historical Archive OTO Melara).

Among other competitions we were also awarded the "Festival du cinemà de Paris" prize for our production "In the garden's mind" created for the performer Elisabetta Vittoni.

Powerful and easy to learn
Right now, we are working on the new edition of Mondo Crociera, an Italian TV-Channel covering exciting places all around the world. In one of the first episodes, we will be covering the launch of the new cruise ship MSC VIRTUOSA that took place end of November in Dubai.

EDIUS is not only very powerful, but also easy to learn. I often recommend EDIUS to other filmmakers and I am hearing very positive feedback

Acun Medya is an international leading production company headquartered in Turkey. With more than 230 EDIUS seats Acun Medya creates shows for the worldwide TV market. More than 3000 hours of primetime content are being produced each year across the world. A powerful global network (connected via fiber) and an editing solution able to fully leverage those resources (EDIUS) are the key of Acun Medya’s most highly effective and ultrafast workflow. In our newest EDIUS-User-Story producers and editors of Acun Medya tell us about their history and experience with EDIUS.

The Berliner Philharmoniker is one of the most prestigious and famous orchestras worldwide. And offering about 40 concert programs and more than 130 concerts per year the orchestra is also extremely productive. This requires the media team of the Berliner Philharmoniker to be as effective as possible in production und postproduction as the concerts are being streamed live and then made available to the subscribers of the Digital Concert Hall in just a few days later. For many years, the Berlin experts fully and successfully rely on EDIUS while streaming, editing and during the postproduction process.

The history of the Berliner Philharmoniker reaches back until 1882 and the names of the conductors and solo artists are legendary. In 2006 the Berliner Philharmoniker took the decision to undertake a visionary step into the future. The ensemble decided to produce their concerts independently in the highest possible audio and video quality and to distribute the content via internet.

Acht stationäre Kameras

Eight stationary cameras in the concert hall of the Berliner Philharmonie

The concert hall of the Berlin Philharmonic was then equipped with eight stationary broadcast cameras. A live studio was installed also fulfilling the most advanced broadcast standards. And the development of an app was initiated serving a large variety of different soft and hardware platforms.

The offering of the “Digital Concert Hall” provides music lovers all over the world with the opportunity to enjoy concerts and documentations of the Berliner Philharmoniker on PCs as well as tablets, Smart-TVs as well as via Apple-TV and Amazon Fire-TV and even selected movie cinemas for special occasions.

The success of the “Digital Concert Hall” allows the Berliner Philharmoniker to generate continuously growing revenues. And this despite the trend of otherwise declining sales industry-wide in the worldwide market of traditional sound carriers.

Fulfilling the highest broadcast standards

“2008 the German Newspaper ‘Die Welt’ opened on page one with the headline ‘The Berliner Philharmoniker play for 10 Euros on the internet’”, remembers Christoph Franke, who was involved as sound director and creative producer form early on in planning and accompanying the development of the “Digital Concert Hall”.

die Welt

Headline on page one: “The Berliner Philharmoniker play for 10 Euros on the internet”

Sponsored by the Deutsche Bank and broadcast suppliers like Sony and later Panasonic the Berliner Philharmoniker are equipped with camera and studio gear at the highest professional level which is continuously being updated. 2008 Christoph Franke and his team started the regular production workflow with Sony HD cameras as XDCAM 422. About two years ago the cameras, now supplied from Panasonic, as well as the live studio and postproduction studio were upgraded to 4K/UHD. The video signal of the eight stationary 4K-cameras is each being distributed by SDI-quadlink to the live studio and from there as AVC Ultra to the server room. Each camera signal is being recorded as AVC Ultra with a data rate of 800 Mbit/s.

EDIUS is an integral part of the Philharmonic’s workflow in multiple ways. “While streaming live we use EDIUS in combination with VisTitle, to playout titles and subtitles. The performance of EDIUS is a perfect partner to the multitude of VisTitle’s design options.”

EDIUS combined with VisTitle

Complex corporate design rules need to be followed. This also means that different fonts as well as font sizes need to be combined in one line. “VisTitle offers these options and the handling of SRT-files for subtitling also works perfectly” says Christoph Franke.


Sound director and creative producer Christoph Franke at the EDIUS desk

Once the concert is over the essential work for the postproduction team begins. The concert recording, which will soon be available in the media center of the Berliner Philharmoniker for all subscribers, is expected to meet the highest quality standards.

In a first step the live mixed audio stereo track is being exported with a compressed video signal. During the audio edit the video picture serves only to check that both are in sync.

Even before the actual concert the media team regularly records both rehearsals. “From time to time musicians ask us to use a certain part from the rehearsal for the master version” explains Christoph Franke. “Depending on the length of the sequence to be replaced we either exchange only the audio part or audio and video both together.”


Bildregisseur

Video director Robert Gummlich explains the live studio workflow

When checking the recording the team might detect some disturbing background noise like somebody in the audience coughing. “We can then very much reduce this noise applying a Spectral Cleaning.”

Editing and optimizing the audio is being done with a specialized audio solution. Once the audio is finalized all further editing is done with EDIUS. The original audio track is being exchanged in EDIUS by the optimized audio version.

The script to the concert

Each concert is being thoroughly planned. The video directors study the score and mark the exact timing for switching cameras. The settings of the eight cameras – a nineth camera on a tripod in the hall can be added when needed – are all precisely defined by preset numbers.



The score is the script for switching cameras

“Because of the precise script and the experienced team in the live studio we need to do only minor changes during the later editing process” explains Christoph Franke.” But of course, it does happen from time to time that a musician is not yet playing when the camera was switched, or the focus might not be perfect.”

In EDIUS all tracks are available of all cameras that were involved in the recording. “The multi cam function allows us to time the switching differently when needed or even choose another camera as source.”

Realtime playback in multi-cam-mode

Thanks to EDIUS playing back the up to nine video tracks simultaneously with a data rate of 800 Mbit/s per track is no problem and possible at any time as the playback resolution can be lowered if needed. “This is an important feature for us and a great advantage. Whether the timing works right especially for music can only be judged if you can play back your project in real time” says Franke.



EDIUS allows Realtime playback in multi-cam-mode

EDIUS tools like the Layouter and the Primary Color Correction allow fast adjustments of framings, exposure settings and the color balance can just as easy and intuitively be corrected and adapted.

The master: 800 Mbit/s video data rate and 98 KHz 24bit audio

The EDIUS postproduction workflow is streamlined to maintain an optimal and therefore futureproof level of quality throughout the complete process of acquisition, recording and editing up to the final master in the shortest achievable time. Christoph Franke: “To maintain the best quality we export the master as AVC-Ultra 800 Mbit/s which is also our acquisition format. Thanks to the Smart-Render-Function EDIUS only needs to render those short moments, where we have applied changes to the picture. These are about only five minutes of a 2 ½ hours long concert program. EDIUS can therefore export the final master file as 4K HDR HLG (800 Mbit/s video data rate in 50p and 96 KHz 24-bit audio) in a fraction of the time that would otherwise be required.

EDIUS support and feature requests

Christoph Franke: “We are lucky that we have found with EDIUS not only an extremely powerful and stable NLE. We also benefit from a very capable support hotline which is in direct contact and exchange with the EDIUS development team in Kobe Japan.”

Within 48 hours maximum time the Berlin media team always received a qualified answer – and in special cases a little bit later even an enhanced EDIUS feature fully supporting the individual Philharmonic workflow.

Such an enhancement was the modification of the desired AVC-Ultra export function, which originally splits the export file into numerous files of 4 GB size each – fully compliant with the P2 specification by Panasonic. “For our workflow needing to export a master file up to 800 GB in size this P2 required splitting made no sense” remembers Franke. “We therefore asked the EDIUS support if they could help us”.

The support and development team were able to provide the desired solution. Since EDIUS version 9.3 all EDIUS 9 Workgroup users benefit from the extended functionality. XAVC Intra 4K and AVC Ultra 4K can now be exported within the MXF container without a size limitation as one file. The AVC Ultra MXF exporter was enhanced supporting HDR metadata and additional audio settings. Christoph Franke: “With this another important wish could be fulfilled because we produce 4K HDR with Hybrid Log Gamma“.

Remote rendering by the XRE-Transcoder Server

Additional to the concert master the Berlin media team also produces trailers for the social media channels of the Philharmonic. “And we use EDIUS to edit and subtitle the interviews with artists which are being shown during the intermission of the live concert streams”.


Trailer

Also trailers, interviews and social media content are being produced with EDIUS

A lot of content is being produced and as many projects need to be edited and exported as master files. To reduce render times exporting files even further the EDIUS workflow was complemented by an XRE-Transcoder Server. This boosted productivity to the next level because the processing and rendering is now being performed completely by the XRE-Transcoder Server. Franke: “Our EDIUS seats only need to initiate the process and are then available for further editing tasks with all of their performance.”

By the time the management team of the Berliner Philharmoniker was developing the concept of the “Digital Concert Hall” about 15 years ago, the mangers clearly did not have in mind how helpful this digital concert hall might once become facing a global pandemic. With this the Berliner Philharmoniker succeeded in overcoming restrictions of the Corona crisis, keeping and even intensifying the contact and digital link to their audience.

Reliability and performance

Christoph Franke: “Within the last 15 years we have been able to gather a steady number of subscribers counting more than 70.000 customers. Among those are many private music lovers as well as many institutions like music academies and colleges worldwide. For this we are very thankful.

One important factor in this success is the reliability and performance of our mastering and creative solutions with EDIUS being an integral part from the very start.

All images origin from the EDIUS-user-video report produced by magic multi media on behalf of the release of EDIUS X.

Initially producing animated cartoons, Przemek Petryszyn moved on to produce TV sports reports and then founded his own TV channel, which is now one of Poland's leading lifestyle channels with over four million subscribers. EDIUS was there from the beginning and still is the core of all activities.

Przemek Petryszyn and EDIUS have a long history together. More than a decade ago, the now 42-year-old had already made a conscious decision to use EDIUS. And this, although Przemek Petryszyn did not produce any video films at that time. Przemek Petryszyn lives and works in Bielsko-Biała in the south of Poland near the Czech border. Many famous animated films were made in Bielsko-Biała.

Przemek Petryszyn CEO
Przemek Petryszyn, Founder and CEO of “Active Family”

"My father was already working in this industry, and I also enjoyed the creative collaboration with the animation artists," Przemek Petryszyn describes his way to EDIUS. However, often the technology was problematic, then as now, because artists delivered their hand-drawn animations in a wide variety of file formats and codecs. "We tested editing programs like AVID Media Composer, Apple Final Cut and Adobe Premiere Pro extensively. But these programs didn't support the variety of file formats we needed. What's more, they kept crashing" recalls Przemek Petryszyn.

“We couldn't afford delays or even crashes”

Petryszyn and his team supplied agencies with animations for TV commercials. "We had fixed deadlines and even then, we couldn't afford delays or even crashes. After we switched to EDIUS, we had the exact platform with the combination of performance, reliability and versatility we wanted."

EDIUS also gave Przemek Petryszyn a perfect overview of the status of projects. The lower of the three tracks contained the storyboard design. In the track above, the artists' supplied clips were arranged. "And this was done without any conversion, because even back then EDIUS processed almost every format natively" reports Przemek Petryszyn. Finally, the result for file export was in track 3 above.

"This was an absolutely perfect workflow, and we were able to work with it very successfully. Around 2013, however, the animation market in Poland went into a deep crisis."  At that time, coverage around recreational sports such as Nordic walking became all the more popular. Did this offer a new market with new opportunities? Przemek Petryszyn: "It had always been very time-consuming to create the animations. I was 30 years old at the time and wanted a medium that would allow us to achieve results more quickly. We invested in our first camera, at that time it was the Sony FS-100, and started producing our own reports. We also started to prepare a demo of a TV channel because the feedback was so positive.”

Founding of TV channel “Active Family”

These sports reports were indeed so successful that Przemek Petryszyn founded his own television station after only a short time. Originally founded as "Family Sport" and recently renamed "Active Family", the channel is available in Poland both on the cable network in HD quality and via satellite in SD.



Today, the channel is one of the leading Polish Pay-TV lifestyle channels with over four million subscribers. "Active Family" features international shows and documentaries, which are purchased under license and then customized for the Polish market. However, the special highlight of "Active Family" are two one-hour daily talk shows, which Przemek Petryszyn produces completely on his own.



In the "Moontalk" show, celebrities and actors present current film and theater projects. The second in-house production, "Wielkie Oczy" ("Big Eyes"), is about records and superlatives of all kinds. Here, too, a host leads through the show in conversation with guests and celebrities.



Two days of shows equal 600 gigabytes of footage

Four episodes of each show are recorded in Warsaw on two consecutive days. The fact that the shows are generally recorded without an audience proved to be a great advantage during the Corona pandemic. When the schedule permits, Przemek Petryszyn accompanies the production on location in Warsaw and finally, then equipped with around 12 memory cards, drives back to the postproduction studio in Bielsko-Biała, some 300 kilometers away, for editing.



"We record the shows with four Panasonic S1s in UHD quality. In total, this is 600 gigabytes of material, which we then transfer to the editing PC. After that, editing begins with EDIUS 9.5 as a multicam UHD project in proxy mode." Przemek Petryszyn explains: "We are really looking forward to the extended possibilities of EDIUS X, so that, among other things, we probably won't need the proxy files at all then."



During the runtime of the current season, however, Przemek Petryszyn does not plan to upgrade to the current version yet to exclude any risk of disruption. And indeed, Przemek Petryszyn is already completely convinced by EDIUS 9.5, both in terms of workflow as well as features and stability.



Przemek Petryszyn: "EDIUS is very easy to learn and convinces with its logic. If someone comes from another editing program, then this person should have no problem at all to work effectively with EDIUS very quickly."

Currently, "Active Family" has two EDIUS editing suites. Of these, one station is tailored for editing the purchased shows of mostly UK and US origin. Polish voice-overs are added here, as well as current popular music.

“With EDIUS I still enjoy editing and post-production”

The two in-house productions are edited on the second editing suite. Przemek Petryszyn explains: "I do the editing and processing myself, because with EDIUS I still enjoy editing and post-production. To edit a complete program of 42 minutes net divided into three segments (due to the commercial breaks, the total broadcast time is 60 minutes), I need about six hours of working time including color correction, audio optimization and multicam editing.

For the audio processing we use the Izoptope compressor as an EDIUS plugin. With only minimal effort, we achieve optimal speech intelligibility and an even audio level. We work with additional audio tracks for adding music and comedy audio effects like clapping and laughing. To control these tracks quickly and conveniently, I like to use the audio mixer being able to adjust the volume on the fly during playback.



The high-quality UHD recording leaves us plenty of latitude for any needed corrections. For color and brightness corrections, I use the 'Primary Color Correction' filter. This makes it possible to match any color shift of the four cameras quickly and intuitively. The exposure can also be optimally adjusted with this filter.

“Our most important creative tool”

I particularly like working with the EDIUS shortcuts, because this allows a very effective and fast workflow. This also includes the ability to switch from one camera recording to another camera during playback in real time in the multicam project using the keyboard.



This 'live switching' gives you the feeling of working in a broadcast studio and allows you to work very spontaneously. And if a cut isn't spot on, we can easily fine-tune it later by moving the markers on the timeline."

Using batch export, the three segments of a show are being exported as HD files in MXF format. "Again, we're happy that EDIUS X will allow us to perform the export as a background job. So, we will be able to already edit the next show while EDIUS X will be exporting the files."

Przemek Petryszyn has further plans for the future with his "Active Family" channel. Soon, the program will also be available to subscribers via the Internet. The program lineup is to be expanded even further. He says it is still too early to announce details. But one thing is certain for successful channel operator Przemek Petryszyn: "EDIUS will continue to remain our most important creative tool, now and in the future!"

To the website of “Active Family“: https://activefamily.pl/