Cineform HD export question

[Tom Lowe]

I have heavily color-corrected a short video shot with the HVX200. I edit in Adobe Premiere Prow with Aspect HD (using the Aspect CC), but when I go to export the video, using the media encoder set to Windows Media 9 720p, most of the color correction information seems to be gone, and the video looks very dull.

This never used to be a problem for me.

I had to resort to exporting a cineform AVI (1.2GBs) then using After Effects to encode the AVI to MOV (200MBs).

What is the most efficient way to encode Cineform projects to WMV or MOV?

I'm having a really tough time of this.

thanks

[David Newman]

Going direct to WMV works, however the Adobe Media Encoder (AME) has issue with the video systems RGB option (so turn that off.) The "Dull" look was the AME assuming cgRGB vs vsRGB.

[Tom Lowe]

Thanks, David. But how do I do that?

[David Newman]

All the Aspect HD controls are within the Playback Settings control panel (I wish there was a keyboard short cut.) Project Menu -> Project Settings -> General then press "Playback Settings", or press the playback window's menu and select "Playback Settings"

[Tom Lowe]

David, it's still not working.

I went to Playback Settings from playback monitor. On the first menu, Composite Video is checked.

When I hit "Playback Settings" the cineform options box comes up. I deselected "Use video system's RGB." So the only thing checked here is "Use HD color space [BT.709]".

I even rebooted the system and tried it again. Still getting that dull exported WMV, without my color correction.

Any ideas?

[David Newman]

Sounds like another AME bug (we worked around others in the past.) Simplest work-around is like what you are doing, however I wouldn't use AE, I would take the flatten CineForm AVI and encode that to WMV with premiere.

[Tom Lowe]

David, yeah, I've tried that a bunch of times, and just tried it again twice, and it doesn't work. When I drop the Cineform AVI into a new Premiere Pro timeline, the color correction appears in the playback correctly, but will not encode in WMV. Not only that, but a new problem occurs: The sound of my MP3 gets wrecked and literally stops at several points during the encode from the Cineform AVI to a WMV.

Any suggestions?

You know, I am just up the road from you guys in Dana Point if you want me to bring my machine in.

[David Newman]

Sorry Tom, you may have a sick system, please file a trouble ticket. Technically it is not possible for a color correction to disappear once it is baked into a single AVI, so that has to be a workful issue, also if you can't export any flattened AVI to WMV that is an Adobe call (at that point we not involved.) Aspect HD has no impact or control over AME exports -- that said I have done several for my own projects in the last weeks without issue (not to mention the many thousands of customers who I'm sure use WMV more than occasionally.) I think support should be able to find the miss-step.

I'll leave up to support if they feel seeing your system would help.

[Tom Lowe]

Okay, I will contact your techinical folks tomorrow. Thanks, David.

[Tom Lowe]

Just to follow up on this, in case the problem arises for anyone else.... the workaround for this is to install the standalone Windows Media Encoder, available for free at Microsoft, and then just encode the Cineform AVI with it directly. Works great.