Cineform has a major problem.

Amadou

Amadou

Carbonite Member
When exporting to Cineform from the Premiere Timeline, we noticed that all exported clips are clipped on the superwhites (This happens in all export settings). Anything above 100% gets clipped. This means information gets lost on the brightly exposed regions. We tested exporting in other formats including H264 and none of them have the same clipping problem. THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM FOR COLOUR CORRECTION. You can't recover the white regions. All the info gets lost. Cineform is therefore the problem here. Has anybody else had to face this problem? How can Cineform be considered professional if you can't use it to export properly? I contacted them and am still waiting for a response.

Meanwhile since I work on PC, I can't export in Pro-Res. Is H264 good enough to do the back and forth post production workflow? I can't use Cineform to do any sort of colour correcting or even post production sub contracting until the clipping issue is solved.

I'm surprised this never came up before. What lossless codec could I use as an alternative which can go back and forth between platforms?
 
You should be recovering your highlights and doing any colour correction before you export to a compressed format. Since this sounds like a post workflow issue, can you tell us what programs you are using?

Craig

P.S.
How are things in Bamako? What are you shooting?
 
We went to the color correction facility with Cineform because the colour correction person never informed us that it would be best to work Natively. Once we found out about the clipping, it was too late. We had already spent a week on the Da Vinci and the clock was ticking. We did not have the option of going back, delivering the original XDCAM, and stating again. Obviously we were very angry that the person (who is a professional) did not tell us to deliver the native format. We therefore went for fixing the Cineform problem and delivering re-rendered Cineform clips without the clipping. Imagine our surprise when we found out the problem only happens in the Cineform Codec. All other exports retain the super whites. Meanwhile all Cineform settings bring thge same clipping result. We are considerening going to another codec or exporting uncompressed but that would be another learning curve. Ideally it would be best if somebody knew how to render Cineform without the super white clipping. Thank you.
 
Which Cineform software package do you have installed?

I use Sony Vegas Pro with the now extinct Cineform NEO SCENE software, and have never had any problems with Cineform exports.

Cineform is a great production CODEC ( high performance wavelet based 10-bit 4:2:2 ), though the starting price is now $300 as Cineform has discontinued their low cost NEO SCENE software.
 
I know I'm off topic, but just as standard practice, shouldn't the colorist always be given native material to work with?

I'm too small time to have another colorist do their job after I cut, but I do wonder how the process work ideally. Like, do I make all the cuts, then give the colorist the program files and native footage? Or do I export the cut into something, like the OP here, then give it to the colorist.
 
chromeboy007 said:
I know I'm off topic, but just as standard practice, shouldn't the colorist always be given native material to work with?

I'm too small time to have another colorist do their job after I cut, but I do wonder how the process work ideally. Like, do I make all the cuts, then give the colorist the program files and native footage? Or do I export the cut into something, like the OP here, then give it to the colorist.
Click to expand...

There are LOTS of variables and different situations that can cause all kinds of errors. That's why all post-production workflows need to be tested. Even when just the codec changes.
 
many native shots are in low performance codec. that means the codec is probably great enough to capture the picture, but will not sustain any heavy work done on brightness or contrast.
Every codec native in 4:2:0 or limited to 8 bit or limited to 15-235 range could be a problem.
So early conversion to a better codec (at least 10 bit and at least 4:2:2) is almost mandatory to allow decent correction.
 
Converting to a "better codec" does not actually gain any data of course.

I believe it only pads the bits out.
 
nosys70 said:
So early conversion to a better codec (at least 10 bit and at least 4:2:2) is almost mandatory to allow decent correction.
Click to expand...

If I need to do some color grading, Premiere Pro will, on-the-fly, upsample the footage to 4:4:4, and it does this very well, and in a lot of cases, in real-time. Going to a 4:4:4 intermediate codec does have some benefits – in the transcode process, upsampling every frame to 4:4:4 means that your CPU doesn’t have as much work to do, and may give you better performance on older systems, but there’s a huge time penalty in transcoding. And, it doesn’t get you any “better color” than going native. Whether you upsample prior to editing or do it on-the-fly in Premiere Pro, the color info was already lost in the camera."

https://blogs.adobe.com/VideoRoad/2010/06/color_subsampling_or_what_is_4.html
 
Just for the record, Cineform codec is entirely capable of retaining superwhite information, so it's a workflow issue not a codec issue. (I don't know what the issue actually is, because on my system I export from Premiere to Cineform most days, and the Superwhites are always retained).
 
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