David,

Recently I downloaded the demo of VegasPro8 and Neo2K. I was hoping that maybe these new releases would work out the lack of recognizable timecode in the AVIs (doesn't seem to work in .mov files either).

Back in Aug you posted this response to someone else.

"We try not to missing things, but timecode is not supported for historical reasons. AVI has no standard mechanism for storing timecode. If you use our Premiere integrated products (Aspect or Prospect HD) you do get timecode as we created the AVI importer. But outside of Premiere everyone implements timecode differently or not at all."

Timecode support is important to me. If anyone else finds this important please say so - maybe if there is enough interest this can be addressed.

Can this be solved?

Pete

Any progress on this? Did I miss some news?

" biggest advantage to Vegas, is it can now work with RAW cameras, SI-2K, Red, "

and speaking of RED raw ... any cineform solution in the makings ??

Problem with digging up old threads is none of this applies today. We haven't yet supported the 32-bit modes in Vegas, as the market has not demanded it. Also Vegas can support 4K yet, defeating it useful for Red footage. Yes CineForm has a 4K workflow for raw cameras, but for only Premiere Pro today.

David- when you mean that cineform doesn't support 32bit in vegas, what do you mean specifically? IO? Presumably you don't have to do anything in order for people to benefit from 32bit internal processing, truncating to 8bit on output. By the way- if I render from a 32bit project to a cineform AVI, should I apply a levels to bring values into studio rgb space? (I'm just about to embark on this whole area for our current project.)

Yes, I'm only talking about I/O. The codec Vegas uses only support 8-bit I/O in the studio RGB space.

Shortly after my previous postings in this thread I bit the bullet and built a Q6600 PC with Vegas 8.0b. My Cineform footage still won't reach full playback speeds and Vegas still does not use its available resources. I have tried the following.

GOAL: Playback 1920x1080 Cineform files on a 1080p monitor with 1:1 pixel mapping using Vegas 8.0b on a new Quadcore system.
Source file: 1920x1080 full raster 29.97i Cineform HD Codec v.3.8.2 AVI captured live using Blackmagic Intensity.
Vegas Project file settings: HD 1080-60i default
Cineform NeoHD Build: 3.3.1.169 17-June-2008

Suggestion: Set Cineform to "faster" playback mode
Outcome: about 1 fps faster
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Set Vegas to "Preview" or "Half" or "Auto"
Outcome: Framerate hovers at ~29 but resolution is only 960x540. For solid real-time playback it has to output 480x270 which looks like YouTube.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Upgrade computer.
Outcome: I did. My Q6600 1066mhz FSB computer is what these tests are run on.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Don't use Intensity card during playback.
Outcome: I'm not. These results are for the video preview window only.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Maybe other processes are slowing your computer.
Outcome: Did a fresh install of Vista 32-bit and Vegas 8.0b and cleaned up non-vital processes.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Use Premiere. (NeoHD version)
Outcome: Neither Intensity Pro nor second DVI on my Quadro provide full raster 1080p output. Cried in corner just remembering past 5 years of unpleasant NLE experience.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Use Premiere. (ProspectHD version)
Outcome: External monitoring options provide low-rez output with incorrect aspect ratio. Color change between freeze-frame (RGB) and playback (YUV).
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Buy a mac.
Outcome: If I had spent the amount of time dedicated to this issue working for wages then the $10k pricetag wouldn't be prohibitive.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Edit in HDV.
Outcome: This is about getting Cineform to work, silly.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Remove filters and effects.
Outcome: No increase in framerate and I'm not stupid.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Change pixel format to 8-bit instead of 32-bit.
Outcome: I'm not stupid.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Change "Full Resolution rendering quality" to draft.
Outcome: No increase in framerate.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Place a checkmark in the "Enable smart rendering" box in HDLink.
Outcome: No increase in framerate.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Encode the "Low" quality Cineform files.
Outcome: No increase in framerate.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Edit your footage at 23.976 progressive in order to bypass on-the-fly deinterlacing and lower the data rate (due to lower framerate).
Outcome: No increase in framerate.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Run in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode
Outcome: No increase in framerate.
RESULT: FAILURE

Suggestion: Do not install Sony Media Manager.
Outcome: No increase in framerate.
RESULT: FAILURE

ALL I WANT IS REAL-TIME PLAYBACK FROM THE TIMELINE. I haven't even brought up getting the correct colorspace yet!

My current conclusion: Cineform is incompatible with Sony Vegas 8.0b for full raster online editing.

This is my last hurrah before I give up.

-Robert

Tried setting Vegas's "Dynamic Ram" memory allocation to Zero? (0mb) In the preferences.

We edit on DRAFT FULL, which looks approx half-res and runs very fast.

Thanks Kris. It's good to hear from somebody who is trying to accomplish the same thing I am. I tried setting the dynamic RAM from 1024 to 0 but it didn't change the framerate.

Your second suggestion, setting it to "Draft (full)" is equivalent to setting it to "Preview (half)" in my opinion and doesn't offer the full raster image I seek.

I did try something else which got me much closer. I tried playing the Cineform files off of my RAID instead of just a regular 3gbps SATA drive. This is true even though the data rate is 41510kbps (5 MB/s) which is peanuts to a properly configured SATA drive. Apparently there was some bottlenecking at the hard drive because I can now get ~23.7 fps when playing back a full raster 1080 23.976p cineform AVI from my RAID. So close, but not quite there. It dips even lower when there's lots of movement or action, so there's no headroom and the image stutters as a result. Dropping it to half res allows a consitent correct framerate, but again this does not meet my goal.

Anyone else have suggestions? I'm so close.

-Robert

To be honest this isn't really a quest for us-- our stuff tends to have a lot of rapid cutting, and not skipping any frames under those circumstances is much more important than being full res. Our current project is a feature length horror/thriller- we run Draft/Full on Q6600/ 4gb ram, no RAID, files are 1440x1080 FilmScan... behaves very well indeed. Other boxes that we're grading/ rendering on are dual cores, and they pull the footage over the gigabit network and keep full framerate as long as it's not too rapidly cut.

Although that said, I am curious as to where the bottleneck is... and why vegas won't use multiple cores for the timeline decoding.

I'm seriously considering buying an HP laptop with Vista 64 (Home Premium) to use in the field to capture HDV footage with HDLink and edit in the field. I'd like to simultaneously convert to Cineform intermediate during capture (as I do with my desktop). Will it be possible to successfully capture/encode with this laptop, both to its internal 5400 350Gig drive as well as to an external 7200 USB drive? This laptop has a Core2Duo 2.0 GHz, 4Gig RAM, 8400 Nvidia 256MB dedicated video memory.

The issue is not the laptop, Vista may be. Try it first before committing to any workflow paths.

Would Vista 32 also cause a potential issue, or were you referring only to the 64bit version?

HDV cameras under Vista(32 or 64) and not always seen by HDLink.

Dissappointed to see no input from you, David, as you have been very helpful in the past. What do you make of the lack of any change in framerate when switching between "fast" and "quality" mode?

I did some further testing and have refined my current conclusion:
Vegas Pro 8.0b is unable or unwilling to fully utilize my computer's resources when playing back Cineform files on the timeline. I believe inadequate use of processor time is my immediate issue, at present it uses a max of 50% of all 4 cores when playing back Cineform 1080p/23.976 files, unaltered on the timeline.

I have begun changing settings in the "internal" menu (accessed by holding shift while loading tools>preferences) in Vegas and have made no significant gains.

12 more days and I forget all of this ever happened. Maybe it's time to take up a new hobby like searching for undiscovered prime numbers.

-Robert

For the record, I too would love to hear something from Cineform on this topic. Though I enjoy using and appreciate the Cineform NEO software, since using Vegas version 7, I saw an distinct slowdown in preview speed on the timeline with playback. My source footage is plain vanilla 1080i HDV 59.97fps footage out of a Sony FX1 camera to boot. I have found editing the raw .m2t files to be much faster. I've not given up using Cineform because I am a believer in their format and it has it's benefits.

What would be nice is some type of post or "guide" that could explain what to do to maximize playback on the Vegas timeline while using Vegas. If it's not going to playback full-rate, fine, I'd just like to see something that says.. Use of the following processors will yield best playback rate, RAID up two Raptor drives, etc, etc. I have no idea where the bottleneck is.

Frankly, this was a big decision when I was deciding to buy either a Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz processor or a Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz processor. Same price, one has 4 cores and runs at 2.4Ghz, the other only has 2 cores but runs 20% faster. I am actually more willing to give up rendering time than I am playback performance. I couldn't get a straight answer out of anybody as to which one would help me the most on playback. I personally can live with a 960x540 preview window. What I can't stand is the minute I put some color correction in or a semi difficult transition, while previewing my work, the frame rate drops to 10-12fps. That's just rediculous considering todays powerhouse computers in my opinion.

Jon

Just an update for anyone else trying to playback their Cineform footage in realtime at a decent resolution on the Vegas timeline:

I contacted Vegas support and Cineform support for help. Vegas basically said "wait for the new version"... I thought 8 was the new version... Cineform said the CTO is aware of this and was going to look at improving playback in Vegas...

In the meantime my trial expired and I am going to occupy myself finding a prime number higher than 2^25,964,951 -1 until I hear back. Maybe I'll get something accomplished before my new computer goes obsolete.

-Robert

... Vegas basically said "wait for the new version"... I thought 8 was the new version... The next version is supposed to be a free upgrade for all owners of Sony Vegas 8. The next version is said to be 64-bit. Hopefully it alleviates some if not all of the playback issues.

Are we talking about version 8.0c? Is that the "new" version?

As of this post, Sony Vegas Pro 8.0b is the version that is currently available. The next version might be 8.0c, might be 9.0, might be something completely different.

I contacted sony support and after a couple of weeks they said wait for the new version.
Oh well. I may have to bite the bullet and go Final Cut Studio.

10-bit 4:2:2 only exists at the file level, Vegas doesn't support YUV or 4:2:2 chroma sampling, so it is up to the codec and I/O module to translate to the Vegas internal pixel format. Previously Vegas only had 8-bit per channel RGB, and that limited the usefulness of 10-bit imports and exports (CineForm uses 10-bit YUV with the compressor anyway as there is a slight advantage.) With a 32-bit float internal format the I/O module could take all the 10 precision an map that to 32-bit float.

The biggest advantage to Vegas, is it can now work with RAW cameras, SI-2K, Red, etc. as 8-bit is just too limiting for these camera dynamic range.

thanks, does this mean that Vegas cant currently handle yuv 10bit 422 cineform video? given that i have Vegas pro8 (32bit color engine) & Neo HD latest version, where do i stand in achieving a 10bit YUV 422 video workflow? can i CC & edit in YUV10bit 422?

Hello Abdullah,

It should work but doesn't:
My quad-core E6600, 4GB of RAM computer is unable to playback YUV 10-bit Cineform AVIs @ 1080P using Vegas 8.0b in realtime, much less able to do so in 32-bit mode or with color-correction filters inline. I can playback lower quality "draft" (half-rez) to get the framerate up, but have been unable to get 1080P to play back at full-res consistently.

Final Cut/Mac Pro-res works:
When I told this to a Red tech on a shoot I was working on a couple of weeks ago he laughed. Stock Mac towers can all do such online editing with the apple pro-res codec which I have verified myself since my last post. I'm now running OSX and FCS 2 and got it installed and operating to spec within two days during off-hours. I tried for a year to get the Cineform/Vegas workflow working for me. I made great effort to get help from Cineform and Vegas which was fruitless. "Get a faster computer" was the only option, which seemed foolish to me as my current computer was only being utilized at 50% and playing back slowly.

Premiere didn't work for me:
Cineform worked okay outside of any editorial program, and Vegas worked on uncompressed 422 1080P, but I could not get any editorial program to playback the files in full raster and real-time. Adobe Premiere can supposedly do this with ProspectHD (check Cineform for exactly which version is best), but last time I tried that I was unable to get a satisfactory secondary monitor solution. Cineform didn't support my blackmagic-design card and the only overlay it offered was using the video detect feature on graphics cards. My Quadro FX1500 (not a cheap-o graphics card) produced unsatisfactory results. It's also worth noting that the colorspace of the Cineform footage in Premiere changed when it was stopped (RGB) versus playing back (YUV). This was a major inconvenience for me and it not a problem for Vegas even when using a secondary monitor display. Perhaps AJA has a solution, but I got sick of spending money and another year trying to solidify my workflow.

Avid never got a fair turn with me due to its expensive proprietary hardware. Sure they lowered the price of Media Composer into a reasonable range, but it's still expensive proprietary hardware which I do my best to avoid. I tried editing on an Avid for a little while and my simple response was that it didn't work in the way I'd learned to edit. Too bad really because until very recently they were the sole go-to for high-res non-linear editing and are now competing with Apple, the newly mounted king of silicon valley.

Thus ends my saga. I fought to remain a PC user for over a decade and have finally succumbed to Apple. I love the new iPhone (my first Apple purchase ever) and my new OSX tower. Being tied to particular hardware sucks too and is expensive, even if it does work. I've been building my own computers from parts for years and don't buy this pre-config crap. I embrace it with the iPhone because it's chips soldered to a specialized motherboard for a specialized purpose. Presently, a Mac is nothing more than a shiny silver Intel-based PC with standard components and a Unix-based operating system (OSX) on it.

None of this is meant to deride Cineform or Sony, just to share my experience which has been shared numerous times with both companies over a year's time. I spent a lot of time and money to learn the hard way that Windows is not ready for primetime: 1080P, wavelet-compressed, full-raster, online, YUV 4:2:2 editing and real-time preview without render eludes standard, affordable and more-than capable hardware.

Apple's mean-spirited commercials suck.

-RK

Technically "but I could not get any editorial program to playback the files in full raster and real-time" has been achievable for 4 years. I understand that you are coming at the problem from a different direction, and a lot of barriers were put in your way. The issue is Vegas isn't well threaded for third party codecs, but we have higher hopes for Vegas 9. Most of the other issues mentioned are gone also. If you only started with an AJA card four years ago (which we have always recommended for high-end work), you would never needed to go through the hassles you experenced. For PC fans, if are starting a-fresh, and you need to do "1080P, wavelet-compressed, full-raster, online, YUV 4:2:2 editing and real-time", today a $1500-ish PC with a Xena card (HS $820 or LHe $1430) running Prospect HD ($1000) under Premiere Pro easily does the trick.

This is all very good information to know...

From my experience, I too have had a frustrating time trying to get consistent full rate playback in Vegas as well. Using Cineform or editing raw .m2t files resulted in similiar experiences which, when dealing with a timeline that has color correction, transitions, etc resulted in choppy playback even when previewing at half the full frame size which is actually perfectly fine for me.

I tried for quite some time to determine if a 3.0Ghz Core 2 Duo processor would be faster at doing this task than a 2.4Ghz Quad processor but never was able to ascertain the answer.

In the end, it appeared to me that disk access times were mainly to blame and that a faster I/O subsystem using a RAID 0 configuration would yield the best performance. I can't say for certainty which is best.

Thanks so much Robert for sharing this information....

Jon

It was and still is my feeling that the AJA card complicates things. My standard config 2.4ghz quad-core Mac has no trouble playing back wavelet compressed 1080P YUV 4:2:2 footage in real-time from the editorial timeline on a secondary 1080P display with 1:1 pixel mapping. Also, the Xena cards you suggested do not have a DVI output and I prefer to use a $500 24" LCD for picture editorial monitoring. Another necessary purchase would be some box like Blackmagic Design's HD Link. Yet another hardware item I'm trying to avoid. Also, another problem point for inaccuracies to develop, compromises to be made and numbers to be rounded. Sure, it's digital but in my experience digital conversions are often less-than-perfect. The idea is 3 years from now the hardware I own won't be as obsolete. I can repurpose it to another task since it is standard equipment. The only electronic device that I have that I never use is a video converter (NTSC to DVI) which doesn't work in my HD world. I only buy pigeon-holed hardware when there is no other choice. I never have to start fresh.

So assuming I don't have an AJA card and some kind of SDI->DVI converter, has Cineform updated Prospect HD so that one can play Cineform HD AVIs back in real-time on the timeline while displaying the picture on a secondary monitor off of the second DVI port available on most video cards? Is is no longer necessary to do the "video-detect" feature which results in a clearly inferior picture far from 1:1 pixel mapping? Does the still image displayed no longer show an RGB color-space while the video shows as YUV color-space?

While we're at it, is Premiere wildly better than when I abandoned it last year after 5 years as a loyal customer due to it's lack of ability to use timecode to sync multiple-cameras and sync sound? I could buy a Mac and FCP and be editing and previewing my timeline, without render, in full raster on a secondary display and real-time without any specialized hardware for arguably less $$. It will sync broadcast wave files and multiple cameras based on timecode too. Another benefit of my reluctant migration to FCP is that I can exchange projects with editors without having to convince them to install additional codecs or buy a PC and run Adobe Premiere or Vegas. The majority of me peers are running FCP and for once I'm going with the flow.

I would LOVE IT if you guys or someone else would make high-quality HD editing software available that can do what I describe on PCs that are clearly powerful enough to handle the task. If such software exists RIGHT NOW, I am unable to find it and am open to suggestion.

Also, you're welcome, John. I think it is important that consumers communicate honestly with each other regarding products and businesses.

-RK

There are none of those issues, you discuss things long ago solved. We have a RGB surface for recalcitrant NVidia cards and an accuracte YUV surface for the better behaved ATI cards, we have direct AJA support (still the best) and are adding Xena 2K (only weeks away) and Blackmagic support. So we output full res, in real-time to DVI, HDMI, Display Port, YPrPb component, HDSDI and soon DualLink, you choose. Or choose FCP, were you will experience the pain of QuickTime / FCP gamma shifts, the grass is not always greener -- unless your NLE / video card screws it up :).

Using ProspectHD and Premiere Pro can I view 1080p footage, full-raster from the timeline on a 24" 1920x1080 LCD with 1:1 pixel mapping without any specialized hardware, just the secondary DVI output on my nVidia video card?

ATI has been more recalcitrant than nVidia in my experience. nVidia produces the results I want while I have spent hours on the phone with ATI in Canada and not reached resolution on previous issues with their cards. They lost me as a customer. Will I still experience the RGB/YUV color shift when editing using ProspectHD and my nVidia Quadro card?

The AJA cards you suggested (Xena card HS $820 or LHe $1430) do not have DVI output. Can you suggest one that would work with a 24" LCD? Also, I tried several Blackmagic products including the original Decklink Extreme and Multibridge Pro and could not drive my 24" LCD satisfactorily. When I learned I would need the $2,500 Multibridge Extreme to support 1920x1200@60hz, I thought I might be taking this pre-professional hobby to the, well... extreme. What product are you suggesting that supports a standard 24" LCD monitor with DVI input and 1:1 pixel mapping?

How perfected is the Intensity Pro card support in ProspectHD/Premiere Pro?

Thank you,
Robert

I have answered these questions, the issues are gone.

I loaded Adobe Production Studio CS2 on my quad-core 2.4ghz Vista machine and downloaded the ProspectHD trial to give it one more go as you insist the issues I experienced have been resolved. I can still not get to the goal using PC/Cineform even with this configuration.

1. I have "overlay" checked in the ProspectHD setup in Prem Pro, but my secondary monitor is not displaying the full raster image.. it still displays the windows desktop. I read the ProspectHD manual and checked Cineform support online and the only mention to overlay says I should tell my vid card to detect video and display it on the secondary monitor. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I can't do this in Vista as that feature is no longer available. When I did it on WinXP (months ago) it looked like crap. Searching Cineform online support for "overlay" leads to two articles about getting a secondary display going and they both have below 2 stars for ratings. Am I missing something?
2. I find no support for my Blackmagic card. Upon rereading a previous post, I see the Blackmagic support must still be forthcoming.
3. I have a ~5 second lag from when I hit "play" until the stream starts playing. This seems consistent even when I try different playback setting configurations.
4. The RGB/YUV shift still exists on my recalcitrant nVidia quadro card.
5. I still don't know what PC supported AJA card supports a DVI output to a 24" 1920x1200 LCD.

I'm not trying to raise hell here, I'm merely trying to do what you say is possible. I'm not happy that Apple is the only provider of an editing package that I have been able to get to do what I want using standard hardware. I applaud you for offering a free trial. Without this, I would have had to spend $999 without testing for myself whether my goal was achievable. We have gone back and forth before on a technical issue and you convinced me in the end so I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Our discussion has diverted from the topic of this thread which is Vegas 8 and Cineform, so I won't push further.

-Robert

You are trying to raise a little hell. These are setup issues, you have no interest in getting a setup resolved as you have moved on. All easily addressed, the only item worrying is the delay, that is way out of wack, something not right on your PC, I hope you have better luck on your Mac.

I loaded 8.0c and found no improvement in framerate playing back Cineform encoded 1080p/24 files on the timeline. Are your experiences any different. Still only 16fps which doesn't cut the mustard. For me, FCP did it out of the box.

Thoughts?
-Robert

I'm not trying to raise hell here, I'm merely trying to do what you say is possible. I'm not happy that Apple is the only provider of an editing package that I have been able to get to do what I want using standard hardware. I loaded 8.0c and found no improvement in framerate playing back Cineform encoded 1080p/24 files on the timeline. Are your experiences any different. Still only 16fps which doesn't cut the mustard. For me, FCP did it out of the box.
Thoughts? -Robert

I would stick with FCP. As you say, Vegas isn't working for you, but FCP is. It would seem logical that you would stick with what works for you.

I installed the Neo HDV trial and converted some m2t files to cineform intermediates. I decided to hold off on purchasing Neo HDV at this time and now the trial has expired. I want to continue working with the intermediate avi files I made with Neo. Now when I open the project with the Neo made intermediates the video is marked as offine. I have audio but no video.
Can Vegas 8.0C read Neo made avi's if Neo HDV is no longer installed?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Charles Dennis

You might try to down load the Cineform Player, which has decoder with it.

Thanks for your reply Chris, I have installed the Neo player. I can read the avi files now - I see the video but I can't render either the avi's or m2t files to avi hdv intermediates. I get the message no compatible codec was found.
During my use of the Neo HDV trial I renamed the cdhd.dll file to cdhd.OLD.dll because I read a post suggesting that helped Vegas to use the newer codec. Could this be part of the problem?

Charles:

Hopefully David will respond to this. The player is only has an decoder, not an encoder.

However, it would likely not hurt to rename the previously changed codec to see if you will regain that capability. I have been using Neo HDV ever since I had Vegas 6 (previously Connect), and just migrated to a new Vista system, and have been doing fine there, with a few tweeks. I have never had to deal with your issue, because I have continuously upgraded Cineform and Vegas. My recollection is that Vegas8 does not include the intermediate codec. My memory is not great on this, but I think Cineforms older codec. 2.5 was the original version included in Vegas 6 and maybe 7.

HDV cameras under Vista(32 or 64) and not always seen by HDLink.

That is true. HD Link will not see my HVR-Z7 at all under Vista 64. I don't believe that the problem has anything to do with Cineform though. None of my capture applications will see my camera. Not Vegas, not HDV Split, not Nero... none of them! I can either capture the video on another computer or shoot to memory card.

Hi All,

I always use both Sony Vegas 8 and Premiere Pro 2 & CS4.

I like to know as which Cineform I should be buying so it will be comparable with both softwares?

Thanks

Matthew

Thanks for your reply Chris, I have installed the Neo player. I can read the avi files now - I see the video but I can't render either the avi's or m2t files to avi hdv intermediates. I get the message no compatible codec was found.
During my use of the Neo HDV trial I renamed the cdhd.dll file to cdhd.OLD.dll because I read a post suggesting that helped Vegas to use the newer codec. Could this be part of the problem?

I just got the same problem yesterday , see my thread here , hopefully Dennis or David can help us out ,


http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/cineform-software-showcase/143032-neo-hdv-neo-player-help-please.html

Hi All,

I always use both Sony Vegas 8 and Premiere Pro 2 & CS4.

I like to know as which Cineform I should be buying so it will be comparable with both softwares?


I have the same issue. Thinking about going from PPCS4 to Vegas because CS4 is a mess!

I own Prospect HD. Do i need NEO now or what?

Simon

I have the same issue. Thinking about going from PPCS4 to Vegas because CS4 is a mess!

I own Prospect HD. Do i need NEO now or what?

Simon

No. Prospect HD is Neo HD with the addition of Premiere filters and the playback engine.

Thanks for the clarification David.

Now I just need to wait until Vegas 9 (64-bit) and/or Premiere Pro CS4 are compatible with Prospect HD.

;)

Simon

What is better workflow between the two (with Cineform and Vegas) to get mpeg2 file for BluRay?

1) transform m2t file to Cineform with HD Link – edit video on Cineform Vegas timeline – render that project directly from Vegas timeline to mpeg2 for BluRay

2) transform m2t file to Cineform with HD Link – edit video on Cineform Vegas timeline – render that from Vegas timeline to new Cineform file (for unedited parts you use Vegas smartrender option for Cineform) – render again from Vegas that new and now completely arranged Cineform file but now from Cineform to mpeg2 for BluRay

And second question: is it better to transform m2t file to Cineform with HDLink or with Vegas (I think that I noticed that with Vegas I need more time to do that, but I couldn’t notice any difference in quality)?

And another question from me.

I have HDV cam, but I think that in future all consumer cams will be mpeg4, so I would like to prepare for that.

Suppose you have mpeg4 cam which shoot with 24 mbps (all new Canon cams). You have Vegas which have AVC template but for maximum 16 mbps. You also have ULEAD with maximum 18 mbps (to author with smartrendering) for mpeg4 . And, you have one Cineform product.

I think maybe it is not very good idea to shoot mpeg4 video with 24 mbps and than lower the bitrate to 16 mbps for BluRay because of the restrictions from your software.

So is it good idea to do something like this: you shoot video with 24 mbps with mpeg4 cam – transform that mpeg4 video to Cineform – edit in Vegas and at the end – render from Cineform Vegas timeline for BluRay but to mpeg 2 (not mpeg 4) with, for example, 30 mbps (or maybe even with higher bitrate) ?

I am concened much more on quality here, not about space on disc.

What is better workflow between the two (with Cineform and Vegas) to get mpeg2 file for BluRay?

1) transform m2t file to Cineform with HD Link – edit video on Cineform Vegas timeline – render that project directly from Vegas timeline to mpeg2 for BluRay

2) transform m2t file to Cineform with HD Link – edit video on Cineform Vegas timeline – render that from Vegas timeline to new Cineform file (for unedited parts you use Vegas smartrender option for Cineform) – render again from Vegas that new and now completely arranged Cineform file but now from Cineform to mpeg2 for BluRay

And second question: is it better to transform m2t file to Cineform with HDLink or with Vegas (I think that I noticed that with Vegas I need more time to do that, but I couldn’t notice any difference in quality)?

I'd go with #1... :)

Thanks Jon,

So if I have understood you correctly you would:

- render to mpeg2 directly from Vegas Cineform timeline after editing (no need for any additional step here)
- transform original m2t file from cam with HDLink rather than with Vegas (and you can do that even during capturing with average core duo PC)

Thanks Jon,

So if I have understood you correctly you would:

- render to mpeg2 directly from Vegas Cineform timeline after editing (no need for any additional step here)
- transform original m2t file from cam with HDLink rather than with Vegas (and you can do that even during capturing with average core duo PC)

That is correct...

Jon

Hola, at the end of the game to edit with avi intermediates is the best workflow to keep a good structure of the file(maybe stronger then the m2t)?
I wanna understand if it's suggested to transcode evreytime even if i own a new powerful machine.
thank you

Have installed a Vegas 9a (32 bit) and trial of Neo4K build216.
In option render to AVI i can not see Cineform Neo4K codec (VFW ?).

It is there, but it is called "CineForm HD Codec v5.x.x". With Neo 4K the control panel get you access to more quality, 4:4:4 and alpha channel support.

Good Morning,

sorry for the double post as I posted this on the Vegas forum to but no answers prevail.


32 bit vegas 9b now will run my cineform files.

however my 64 bit program only lays down an audio track, no video at all.

A shame to have an I7 with 64 bit and not be able to optimize it in Vegas!!


Or is it just my configuration?