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"10 January 2004: Next time you visit the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, take a look through the window of the BBC’s new studio there."
The museum was built on the premise that it could offer mere mortals such as you and I touchy-feely contact with scientific exotica we could never dream of taking into our own homes. But the Beeb has changed all that.
It is now possible to peer at a video editor cutting together tonight’s edition of Look North – and then go home and assemble your holiday movies with the very same piece of kit.
This is quite something, given the vast gulf, technically and financially, that used to exist between the sort of gear broadcasters bought and the stuff you could afford for yourself.
The editing PC used at the BBC in Bradford runs a software package called Liquid, from Pinnacle Systems.
The home variant, Liquid Edition, is for all practical purposes identical. The only difference is in the type of media it handles: the BBC’s version will support more varieties of broadcast-standard video tape.
Liquid Edition is Pinnacle’s successor to the similar Edition package and represents a big step up from beginner-friendly programs like Studio 8 and Microsoft’s free Windows Movie Maker 2.
Either of those might start to look like a toy after a few hours window gazing at the Bradford museum. Liquid Edition, on the other hand, is demonstrably the real thing.
Targeted at camcorder enthusiasts and semi-pros, Liquid Edition is a rival to the longer-established Adobe Premiere, but makes none of that program’s concessions to the Windows interface.
Though Liquid Edition offers a simple storyboard mode to assemble your sequences, you’ll have to learn some professional techniques – through that window, if necessary – if you’re going to use it to its full potential.
Mastering the basics of what the pros call ‘three point editing’ – telling the software precisely which bit of tape to put where – is what will give you proper creative control over your video masterpieces.
Liquid Edition has a truly dazzling array of special effects, from simple wipes to the sort of multi-screen effects they use on Sky Sports – and they are viewable instantly with no need to wait for the computer to render them.
It also has a full sound mixer and caption generator, as well as – and this is what sets it apart from Premiere – a built-in DVD editor. This means you can master your videos on to disc, complete with DVD menus and animated buttons, directly from the editing timeline.
I’ve tested this and the results are impressive: from camcorder to disc there’s not a grain of discernable quality loss. You will need a recently-built PC, mind.
Experienced Premiere users complain that making the switch to Liquid Edition involves a steep learning curve, and it’s true there are some fundamental differences between the programs – but in my experience Liquid Edition is the one that most closely matches the way the professionals work.
Try it out and see if you aren’t soon mouthing tips through that soundproof window: “I wouldn’t put that cut there if I were you, mate.” |
