David Newman
Well-known member
Ray,
Wow! It is startling what images you can get.
Wow! It is startling what images you can get.
CineForm
- Thread starter coolguy007
- Start date
Ray Smithers
Member
Thanks David. You have one killer product there, thanks for creating it. May I add that one of the reasons I got interested in Cineform was the incredible support you guys have shown all over the Internet.David Newman said:
As the owner of the PigsFly forums (mostly Digital Fusion) I know how important it is for the company folks to get down in the mud with the end users.
You folks are great.
Ray
David Newman
Well-known member
erdiaz,
DVC Rack or HD Rack will not encode directly into CineForm, as they would need to license that ability from us. However we have worked out how to convert HD Rack AVI files into CineForm AVI through HDLink. Once that product is made available there should soon be a free update to the CineForm products to support it.
Now if HD-Rack would add a third party encoding option, then you could capture directly into CineForm, although that would impact to minimum system specs, although not too greatly (our encoder is fast.) Contact Serious Magic to request this feature.
DVC Rack or HD Rack will not encode directly into CineForm, as they would need to license that ability from us. However we have worked out how to convert HD Rack AVI files into CineForm AVI through HDLink. Once that product is made available there should soon be a free update to the CineForm products to support it.
Now if HD-Rack would add a third party encoding option, then you could capture directly into CineForm, although that would impact to minimum system specs, although not too greatly (our encoder is fast.) Contact Serious Magic to request this feature.
David Newman
Well-known member
Mike,
As far as I can tell there is none. The Serious Magic project just takes the firewire stream from DVCPRO-HD cameras and embeds that bit-stream into AVI. So whether you are converting a P2 MXF files or a S.M. AVI file, the quality of the results will be the same.
As far as I can tell there is none. The Serious Magic project just takes the firewire stream from DVCPRO-HD cameras and embeds that bit-stream into AVI. So whether you are converting a P2 MXF files or a S.M. AVI file, the quality of the results will be the same.
Christopher Barry
Veteran
David,
Any idea what type of laptop CPU (and various specs) we would require to capture via DVC Rack, directly to CineForm 720 and/or 1080 at the various frame rates (2-60fps), if such a third party encoding option was made available by Serious Magic? Probably hard to gauge without knowing DVC Rack's use of the puters resources, etc.
I will request this feature from Serious Magic in due course. Great idea, one less step in the process. :thumbsup:
Any idea what type of laptop CPU (and various specs) we would require to capture via DVC Rack, directly to CineForm 720 and/or 1080 at the various frame rates (2-60fps), if such a third party encoding option was made available by Serious Magic? Probably hard to gauge without knowing DVC Rack's use of the puters resources, etc.
I will request this feature from Serious Magic in due course. Great idea, one less step in the process. :thumbsup:
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Question for you David:
I purchased Cineform and inquired about using it with Premiere Pro and having it show the overlay on a 3rd monitor hooked up via PCI. You said a PCI card would not be fast enough or have enough bandwidth for HD. What I did was get a PCI Radeon card in addition to my AGP Radeon card. I configured it so my main monitor is on the analog out of the AGP card and my preview monitor is on the DVI out of the AGP card. Then the PCI card acts simply as additional real desktop real estate. I setup the ATI control panel to clone the overlay to my 2nd monitor.
This works in theory. When I scub the timeline I see full screen hi res output on my DVI output. It helps a lot. However when I build a preview it only plays in the preview window of premiere and not to the external monitor. I guess technically it says in the Cineform control panel "scrub to external overlay" or something and not "preview to overlay".
Scrubbing doesn't really require bandwidth so much so I am wondering why I needed an AGP output when it doesn't even appear to support motion going to the overlay? Surely scrubbing could have been achieved even on a PCI card. Can I get it to stream video and not just frames as I scrub?
In addition when I tried Premiere using an HDV preset I could assign the output to the 3rd monitor and get scrubbing and playback to that monitor. Granted I had to render the HDV edits but upon completion I got a realtime playback of HD (HDV in this case) the the overlay and thus fullscreen on my monitor.
I guess I am confused as to why with default Premiere Pro 2.0 I have the ability to play clips from the timeline and see them on overlay monitor in HDV, but when I upgrade and want to utilize the Cineform codec (obvious advantages over HDV) I no longer can see playback on overlay...even if I build previews of these files.
To clarify I am simply looking to get playback of timeline to overlay using Cineform presets. I love the codec but don't want useful features of the basic software (Premiere) to go away when using it.
Thanks!
I purchased Cineform and inquired about using it with Premiere Pro and having it show the overlay on a 3rd monitor hooked up via PCI. You said a PCI card would not be fast enough or have enough bandwidth for HD. What I did was get a PCI Radeon card in addition to my AGP Radeon card. I configured it so my main monitor is on the analog out of the AGP card and my preview monitor is on the DVI out of the AGP card. Then the PCI card acts simply as additional real desktop real estate. I setup the ATI control panel to clone the overlay to my 2nd monitor.
This works in theory. When I scub the timeline I see full screen hi res output on my DVI output. It helps a lot. However when I build a preview it only plays in the preview window of premiere and not to the external monitor. I guess technically it says in the Cineform control panel "scrub to external overlay" or something and not "preview to overlay".
Scrubbing doesn't really require bandwidth so much so I am wondering why I needed an AGP output when it doesn't even appear to support motion going to the overlay? Surely scrubbing could have been achieved even on a PCI card. Can I get it to stream video and not just frames as I scrub?
In addition when I tried Premiere using an HDV preset I could assign the output to the 3rd monitor and get scrubbing and playback to that monitor. Granted I had to render the HDV edits but upon completion I got a realtime playback of HD (HDV in this case) the the overlay and thus fullscreen on my monitor.
I guess I am confused as to why with default Premiere Pro 2.0 I have the ability to play clips from the timeline and see them on overlay monitor in HDV, but when I upgrade and want to utilize the Cineform codec (obvious advantages over HDV) I no longer can see playback on overlay...even if I build previews of these files.
To clarify I am simply looking to get playback of timeline to overlay using Cineform presets. I love the codec but don't want useful features of the basic software (Premiere) to go away when using it.
Thanks!
David Newman
Well-known member
TylerD said:
As Serious Magic has already done to work for decoding the source, we will need extra cpu cycles just for encoding. So their minimum system spec is a 3Ghz P4 (totally guessing) for 720p60, we would likely need a dual core equivalent, 3Ghz P-D, or a 2GHz+ Conroe. Lower frame rate are much easier. And 1080p24 is a little easier than 720p60.
David Newman
Well-known member
icicle22,
If you play a clip in Media Player does it use the overlay as expected?
If you play a clip in Media Player does it use the overlay as expected?
David,
Yes. Anything I play in media player plays full screen on the target monitor (monitor assigned to display full screen overlay). Just when in Premiere when using Cineform preset I only get the scrubbing to overlay. But actual playback doesn't get overlayed onto the monitor.
Thanks for any input.
Yes. Anything I play in media player plays full screen on the target monitor (monitor assigned to display full screen overlay). Just when in Premiere when using Cineform preset I only get the scrubbing to overlay. But actual playback doesn't get overlayed onto the monitor.
Thanks for any input.
David Newman
Well-known member
icicle22,
That is odd, as we use the same mechanism for the overlay. If you check "Disable Preview Playback", same thing? If so I'm baffled.
That is odd, as we use the same mechanism for the overlay. If you check "Disable Preview Playback", same thing? If so I'm baffled.
David- I have been working w/ Jake and I think he may have talked to you about a problem I am experiencing. I am shooting DVCPRO50 in SQUEEZE (true 16:9). When I bring the clips into P2 Viewer it says that the clip is 16:9 in the ASPECT RATIO information area. However, when I convert the files using HDLINK the clips somehow become 4:3 clips that look squished. I import them into a Premiere timeline and they are 4:3 clips. I can choose to interpret footage to 1.2 pixel aspect and the clips strecth back out to 16:9. However, when I go to export the project, using CINEFORM HD CODEC, even though the export settings say 16:9 the resulting exported file is 4:3 again. Any ideas? Jake has a sample copy of an MXF and a converted file so you can see for yourself. Thanks for your great support. Jake and Tim have been great!
David Newman
Well-known member
roro20,
This is a cosmetic bug in SD only -- we haven't got around to fixing it yet as most of our customers are using the HD features of Aspect HD. The file you export is fine, only the header still says 4x3 instead of 16x9, this is where interpret footage is a valid workaround. So it will not impact the quality of your productions -- mainly annoying for MediaPlayer previous -- as the compressed bit-stream is identical as 720x480 is correctly encoded.
This is a cosmetic bug in SD only -- we haven't got around to fixing it yet as most of our customers are using the HD features of Aspect HD. The file you export is fine, only the header still says 4x3 instead of 16x9, this is where interpret footage is a valid workaround. So it will not impact the quality of your productions -- mainly annoying for MediaPlayer previous -- as the compressed bit-stream is identical as 720x480 is correctly encoded.
Thanks for your response. So then would I be safe to assume that when I export my project using the CINEFORM HD CODEC out to DVD that the aspect ratio will be correct @ 16:9-even though the exported project (CINEFORM AVI) "looks" 4:3.
Will there be a fix for this in any upcoming updates, because doing "interpret footage" for that many clips isn't the ideal workflow?
Thanks again.
Will there be a fix for this in any upcoming updates, because doing "interpret footage" for that many clips isn't the ideal workflow?
Thanks again.
Also, I have found that if I choose a standard DV project and inport the cineform clips into it and then interpret the footage to 1.2, when I export the project using Microsoft DV codec- the resulting file "is" AND "LOOKS" 16:9.
By doing this workflow, I would be losing 4:2:2 that I would have if I export with the Cineform HD codec, correct?
By doing this workflow, I would be losing 4:2:2 that I would have if I export with the Cineform HD codec, correct?
David Newman
Well-known member
Yes, you don't want to use DV for that reason. The interpret footage workaround is not difficult even for a large number of clips as you can do a select all "interpret footage", it take only a couple of seconds so do 100s if not 1000s of clips. We are planning a fix.