Having just recently purchased Cineform Aspect HD, I am again drawn to the idea of using a Blackmagic Intensity card with my V1U to achieve 4:2:2 (not to mention, also bypassing 25mbps long-GOP and getting 1920x1080)

Has anyone here had much success with this combo? I'd love to know if all these factors add up to a big difference.

The quality jump is large to use the HDMI output Intensity vs tape based HDV compression. However, one small correction, Aspect HD is only licensed to 1440x1080 not 1920x1080, so it will scale the HMDI output to 1440x1080 on the fly. Note: this is not a big quality factor as the V1U is only 1440x1080 4:2:2 internally. For 1920x1080 encoding you need Prospect HD or NEO HD.

David,

I intend to build an editing system based on ProspectHD/ Intensity Pro. This is specially for materials shot on Sony Z1.

Z1 > Prospect HD (4:2:2 / 1920 X 1080) > Edit (PPro) > Post (After Effects/Combustion) > Output to Beta SP (720 x 576). your suggestions?

When I tried the ProspectHD demo (w/o Intencity Pro), the upscale to 1920 X 1080 did not work. I was ingesting materials shot with an adaptor and M2 adaptor setting was on. Ingesting to 1440 x 1080 worked fine. What went wrong with the 1920 setting?

Although Cineform suggests using Matrox Pahilia, Intencity pro advises not to use Matrox graphics cards. What is your advise?

Thanks.

The quality jump is large to use the HDMI output Intensity vs tape based HDV compression.

David; can you please clarify? Is this when shooting live only? Is there any difference if playing back from tape (already hdv compressed) firewire vs hdmi capturing.

Curt

Once you go to tape the damage has been done, live captures only.

Maheel,

If the upscale didn't as it should, please file a trouble ticket with support.

As for graphic cards, the AJA Xena LHe card is the best way to go for Prospect HD, yet most ATI and NVidia will work.

I wonder if it's safe to extend an HDMI cable by about 50-75 feet from the camera to the Intensity. That's how far away I am from my desktop computer when I'm shooting video in my living room.

For home-theater use I heard 75 feet is fine (with a good cable) but I'm not sure if video capturing is a different story.

David,

The trial version of ProspectHD has expired. so I do not think that I will be able to file a trouble ticket.

I was considering Intencity Pro / ProspectHD combination. Isn't it possible to get my worlflow (stated in my earlier post) using that?

Thanks.

I wonder if it's safe to extend an HDMI cable by about 50-75 feet from the camera to the Intensity. That's how far away I am from my desktop computer when I'm shooting video in my living room.

For home-theater use I heard 75 feet is fine (with a good cable) but I'm not sure if video capturing is a different story.

I don't know the HDMI distances, but it is digital, so home-theater should bhavor the same.

David,

The trial version of ProspectHD has expired. so I do not think that I will be able to file a trouble ticket.

I was considering Intencity Pro / ProspectHD combination. Isn't it possible to get my worlflow (stated in my earlier post) using that?

Thanks.


You can file a trouble ticket. Go to cineform.com/support

We haven't integrated the Intensity card for playback within Prospect HD, that is quite a lot of work. We do hope to find the time to do that work before the next great thing hits the market. That said, don't wait for a feature that is not here.

Since my main requirement is getting SD Component fron HDV footage after edit, (and not in a position to invest around 15K on a Xena system,) how about outputting through Convergent Design HD connect, to the BetaSP deck.

This way I could edit using PPro/Cineform and output from the PPro tineline. Any thing I may have misunderstood?

A Xena card is one tenth of that cost with real-time integration that you will not get from Convergent Design box.

David,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, Xena card is one tenth of 15K. But According to their website the certified system would cost around 15K. I may have missed something. Please correct me.

Since with Cineform/PPro combination I could get realtime editing ( I could use my existing machine), I thought it would be easier to do the final HDV output through the the convergent Design Box to BetaSP deck.

SonyZ1 > capture via firewier/ Cineform HDLink > Edit/Cineform avi/ PPro > HDV Output > Convergent Design Box > BetaSP deck

Your advise Please.

I simple disagree that using the Convergent Design Box makes a functional workflow. The AKA 15K spec is overkill and is for uncompressed HD, which is painful -- it doesn't apply to CineForm users. If you have a modern dual core PC (these days a $1000 PC,) you can plug in an AJA Xena card with Prospect HD and go. That is all you need.

Instant reply. Thanks David.

Yes If I could plug in a Zena in to a Dual Core machine, that solves everything.

Thanks again David.

The quality jump is large to use the HDMI output Intensity vs tape based HDV compression. However, one small correction, Aspect HD is only licensed to 1440x1080 not 1920x1080, so it will scale the HDMI output to 1440x1080 on the fly. Note: this is not a big quality factor as the V1U is only 1440x1080 4:2:2 internally. For 1920x1080 encoding you need Prospect HD or NEO HD.

Sorry to revive a dead thread, but I have a complex where I don't trust any information unless it comes straight from Cineform :)

Internally I thought the V1U was 1920x1080, which is why I strongly considered upgrading to Prospect HD. From your tests with the Blackmagic card, is it really effectively giving us 1440x1080? How about your experience with the HV20?

Assuming that was a mistake and that the V1U's HDMI actually could take full advantage of a 1920x1080 capture with the right software. Since HD-Link is the capture tool, couldn't I capture 1920x1080 and afterwards scale to 1440x1080 on the fly while I'm using Aspect HD? I plan to one day upgrade to Prospect, so I was hoping I wouldn't be limited in my capture resolution until then. I always figured HD-Link was the same tool no matter which plugin you were buying.

Cause it would be great if I could capture 1920x1080 live via the HDMI, even if I can't take advantage of it right now while I use Aspect HD. That way I could at least archive it and possibly re-edit the material at a later point in full 1920x1080 after upgrading to Prospect.

Now here's the real question. Am I making a big deal out of nothing? What has been your experience comparing 1440x1080 and 1920x1080 in this workflow? It could be such a minor difference that it's not worth fussing about.

Confusing question. Let me see if I have the answer.

HMDI is 1920x1080.

Aspect HD only captures 1440x1080 so it scales 1920 to 1440 on the fly.

Does this greatly impact image quality, no, as internally the picture is 1440x1080 and scaled up to go at HMDI. We believe the same is for the Canon HV20. While scaling 1440 to 1920 (in camera) and back to 1440, is not ideal, you are not losing your 1920 across as they didn't exist in the first place. Now 1920 has the advantage of being square pixel, so the HMDI was a free upscaler for you that Prospect HD or NEO HD can directly capture. Once you're editing in Prospect there are many other advantages, but the image quality from V1U/HD20 is not a large factor as both are effectively 1440x1080 8-bit sources.

That's interesting then, because the prelimenary specs on the Cineform HDMI Recorder will give the option of recording 1920x1080 or 1280x720, regardless of which Cineform product you plan to edit with (in fact at the moment it doesn't plan to offer 1440, which isn't bad or anything). So the files being saved will be 1920x1080 even if you cannot take full advantage of it with your plugin. It doesn't descriminate, so to speak.

So I guess that would be one other advantage to using this HDMI recorder as opposed to a Blackmagic Intensity installation which WOULD discriminate (if I'm understanding you correctly) and only allow you to capture/save based on the plugin that's installed on your system.

I'm just confused because I looked at the Cineform Intensity support webpage and it was clear that it's not Prospect or Aspect *itself* that does the capturing, it's all done in HD-Link.

I guess HD-Link checks which plugin is installed with it and then imposes necessary restrictions? Or are there different versions of the HD-Link tool itself?

HDLink is slightly different in each of our software packages. Aspect HD will edit 1920 files, it just would create them. Therefor no need for 1440x1080 mode on the mobile recorder.

Craig, for many of us, one major advantage of taking HDMI output from the V1, is to catch the video before more processing is done by the camera, then saving it as 1920x1080 files in 10bit color. That is real gain, especially for chromakey. Compression introduces DV artifacts and there is NOTHING else you can do to change that once the video is recorded on that tape. ONLY CF'ed video, captured at that HDMI point can change that scenerio.

If you do much chroma, you'll soon discover that those beautiful chroma's done on "flying, blond hair" are not nearly so easy to do as Ultra (or AE) would lead you to believe! Even under ideal lighting with a very good screen, it's hard to pull off under some conditions, especially if you're doing it in HD. There is very little margin for error and it's very unforgiving when seen at these high resolutions on good screens.

So, that's certainly "gain" for some of us. And probably more, if most knew about it...