CineForm

David:
Two quick questions:
Just shot my footage 720 24pn. Up till this film, I've upconverted to 1080 in Cineform.
This film is mostly chromakey and I'm thinking the higher resolution, although would yeild a better result in my compositing, might put too much strain on my dual Xeon system.
Question 1: Will there be a noticible difference in quality if I kept the film at 720 24P?
Question 2: In premiere, when I start a new project, all I see is 720 x 1280 HDV, while I have options for not using HDV when I edit in 1080 mode. If I'm using Cineform AVI files, is the 720 x 1280 24 p HDV setting the correct preset for me?

Thanks,

MIKE
 
That "HDV" is only indicate that the default live capture will be HDV (which is selectable) but as you don't need to worry about capture, it is the correct preset. I don't generally see any huge advantage to upconverting 960x720 to 1920x1080 unless your project has a large number of high-res titling elements (like in Super Size Me.) Of course I do argue for shooting 1280x1080 and downres'ing to 1280x720. Certainly there are workflow advantages to upconverting 960x720 to 1280x720.

Here was my blog post on the subject : http://cineform.blogspot.com/2006/08/hvx200-resolution-options.html
 
Reviving this old thread for CineForm users on the forum can get there free updates.

---

Now available for download:

Prospect HD 2.3.1
Aspect HD 4.3.1
Connect HD 3.4.1


While there are many updates to all our tools, these also contain support for capture via the Black Magic Intensity card (http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/) within HDLink (currently a beta feature.) This includes pulldown extraction from 1080p24 cameras like the Sony V1, allowing effects shooters to bypass MPEG camera compression and go directly to 4:2:2 CineForm files. For those with Intensity cards with would like your feedback (and yes we are adding live preview.) Read more details here http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/Blackmagic/Intensity.htm

Other major upgrade include features designed for the Sony HVR-V1 and the HVR-DR60 drive unit. Batch converting files from the DR60 and P2 media is now much easier.

More info at www.cineform.com
 
First of all, this has been a very useful thread. My question is, I am starting a new project using mainly 720/24pn from my HVX200 but cutting in 4 x 3 DV/24p from the 2nd camera (DVX100A). I was planning on purchasing Instant HD first for up-rezzing and then Aspect. My system is PPro 2.0 running on a Boxx dual xeon 3.0 with Nvidea quadro (I forget the #) it has a dual output SDI with one having an RGB breakout for I/O. There is also a raid 0 750gb installed as well. Long story short, this was my first P2 shoot aside from tests and to have a back-up in the event of lost or corrupted files, I double recorded from the A/V out of the HVX into a little Sony PD-100A. I knew at the time the back-up footage would not only be squeezed into 4 x 3 but interlaced. As expected, we are in editing now and there are some missing P2 files. Can Aspect HD correct the format differences in something like this? Even though it is SD cutting with DVCPRO HD, we don't have a choice. Any answers?
 
Jim Anderson said:
First of all, this has been a very useful thread. My question is, I am starting a new project using mainly 720/24pn from my HVX200 but cutting in 4 x 3 DV/24p from the 2nd camera (DVX100A). I was planning on purchasing Instant HD first for up-rezzing and then Aspect. My system is PPro 2.0 running on a Boxx dual xeon 3.0 with Nvidea quadro (I forget the #) it has a dual output SDI with one having an RGB breakout for I/O. There is also a raid 0 750gb installed as well. Long story short, this was my first P2 shoot aside from tests and to have a back-up in the event of lost or corrupted files, I double recorded from the A/V out of the HVX into a little Sony PD-100A. I knew at the time the back-up footage would not only be squeezed into 4 x 3 but interlaced. As expected, we are in editing now and there are some missing P2 files. Can Aspect HD correct the format differences in something like this? Even though it is SD cutting with DVCPRO HD, we don't have a choice. Any answers?
Click to expand...

Hi Jim,

For up-rezzing from SD to HD and/or from interlaced to progressive, the most impressive tool I've seen so far is "Topaz Enhance" by Topaz Labs.
It interpolates the missing pixels not only from the neighboring pixels but also from the neighboring frames, which enables it to use information not available in the current frame, that might be available in the frames right before or after the frame it is dealing with. I do not have extensive experience with the "Topaz Enhance" software, but I do recommend you to take a look at it.

http://www.topazlabs.com/topazlabs/03products/topaz_enhance/#000003#more

Cheers,

Yuval
 
Jim Anderson said:
Can Aspect HD correct the format differences in something like this? Even though it is SD cutting with DVCPRO HD, we don't have a choice. Any answers?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can mix SD And HD within the one project. Also HDLink has upscaling and deinterlacing features. Of course you can also use other third party tools to do this.
 
David,
I just spent the past week reading through all 65 pages of this thread. I will be purchasing a system this month with Prospect HD and the Xena LHe. I called you a few days ago to say thank you for the spectacular customer service you provide. I will be contacting you as the approach our full HD product for a workflow diagram.

Thank you once again!

-Brian
 
Thanks you reading through 600+ posts. This is the mini CineForm forum within a forum. Pity is doesn't have a little more stucture, and is a pain to search.

We have lot of cool stuff coming, particular in the Prospect HD/2K line of projects. Thanks for coming aboard as a customer.
 
CineForm & MacOS play together -- finally!

CineForm & MacOS play together -- finally!

Announcement :

This has been a very long path to port the CineForm Intermediate solution to OS-X. The work became practical since the release of the new Intel Macs, so now it was up to us. So CineForm, without much support from Apple, completed the port of the core CineForm compression, and you are welcome to try out the public beta release.

The beta version is fairly capable with full 32-bit float I/O (a must for decent quality from FCP), resolutions up to 2048x2048 in 4:2:2 with an internal precision of 10-bit. The main limitations are speed (we are haven't completed the threading that makes the PC versions so fast), Intel only, and there is a time limit of the beta (May 1st / 60 days.) We are going to be updating the beta regularly for speed/features and to extend the trail period (so we hope to keep a good number of beta users up-to-date for the all the valuable feedback.)

Please read more on the release and get the download link from here:
http://www.cineform.com/products/MacOS-Beta.htm
 
bpotter said:
Excellent work. It's Saturday, go hit up Santa Monica beach or something.
Click to expand...

I went to the beach today nothing but sand there. Great News now if only the new macbook pro had a hdmi input.
 
I'm having some issues with transitions- mostly dissolves (both Premiere's and AHD's) using a 1280x720 24p AHD preset.

Most of them work fine and play in realtime, but after I export to WMV or QT, some of the transitions are buggy or... aren't there at all! One instance of this was a fade to black (I used a dissolve). In the exported video, the clip played until the transition should have ended, and then cut straight to black.

Also, I have a title over a single clip- both of which I'm dissolving out. The title starts to dissolve out before the clip, but both dissolves overlap. Once the title has dissolved out completely, the video clip glitches slightly- for a split second it gets brighter. I've tried turning off Preview Mode and rendering it, but no good.
Any ideas?

1280x720 24p AHD preset.
Premiere Pro 1.5.1
Aspect HD 4.3.1

Thanks in advance!
 
I love it when I totally know want is going and know it is not our bug :), this is a big Adobe bug, fortunately it is easy to work around. The Adobe Media Encoder is broken for alpha channels, put a title on black and notice how the edges will look like cr*p, put a dissolve on the edge of a clip to fade it out and it will just cut. This happens is non-CineForm modes as well, and Adobe knows about this bug. The fix is to have only premultiplied alpha data on the timeline. So no dissolves on the end of clips, yet dissolves to a black clip work fine; no titles sitting over blank space, put them on a black clip. You can also nest the entire sequence over a black clip. Of course these can be a pain for some sequences, so your best / guaranteed solution is to export to a CineForm AVI as you master clip, then export than through the broken Adobe Media Encoder -- this will always work.
 
Hi David,

I have a few questions about CineForm HDMI support, Blackmagic Intensity card and general workflow issues. (I hope this thread becomes a sticky, finally)

I would like to know the difference of the final CineForm avi bit rate between capturing compressed HDV and uncompressed HDMI. Does HDlink support real time downscaling and frame rate converison in HDMI ?

Blackmagic should consider seriously giving us a Carbus verison of the Intesity card, mobility is an issue. Until then for me its only theory instead of going and buy one right now. Does anyone know if this is something that can be done ?

Can we convert component analog outputs to HDMI ?

I just remember that I have a request for CineForm. I would like when converting a file, to have the ability to choose to save our CineForm avi to a different hard drive then the one our target is, is this possible ?

best
Andreas
 
re: I would like to know the difference of the final CineForm avi bit rate between capturing compressed HDV and uncompressed HDMI. Does HDlink support real time downscaling and frame rate converison in HDMI ?

From uncompressed sources the data rate will be a little higher as the MPEG compression hasn't had a chance to throw away image data. Yes HDLink can do a downscale in real-time before the compressor, you just need a nice PC -- Intel Conroe is a good choice.

re: Blackmagic should consider seriously giving us a Carbus verison of the Intesity card, mobility is an issue.

Agreed, we want this too (and we have asked.)

re: Can we convert component analog outputs to HDMI ?

There are device that do it, although none have been tested with Intensity.

re: I just remember that I have a request for CineForm. I would like when converting a file, to have the ability to choose to save our CineForm avi to a different hard drive then the one our target is, is this possible ?

In HDLink you can set the output directory for captures and conversions, is this want you mean?
 
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