CS3 and 24f...compatible?

I ingested some 24f stuff yesterday. HDV/downconvert and everything on the timeline is read as 29.97. The ghosting is very apparent.

Jay

Did you shoot the footage in DV or HDV?

Do you want to deliver to HDV or just stanard-def DV?

How did you capture the footage? Did you capture it with CS3? If so, what preset did you use? If you capture with CS3, I'd make sure you started with either the Canon 24f HDV preset, or with Cineform Aspect plugin preset for HDV 24f. The Canon HDV preset for 24f was developed for Premiere CS2, and I know some people were having problems getting to work with CS3. (Does anyone know if this has been fixed?)

Now, you will have trouble if you shot in HDV 24f, but decide to downconvert in-camera and capture to DV. As far as I know, When you downconvert 24f HDV to DV, the 24p flags are NOT set, so CS3 won't be able to remove the pulldown. You'll need to then use another program to remove the pulldown. I think an easier way would be to either use the Cineform plugin if you have it, or to capture the 24f HDV stream, and then use cs3 (not the camera) to downconvert to a 24p stanard def DV file.

Any of that make sense?

Here is the cs2 canon presets for capturing and working with 24f. You may be able to get it to work with cs3:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3408

Note, editing in native hdv in cs3 is not a good idea. The footage won't play back very well, and you'll start getting generation-loss the more you tinker with the footage. To do so, you really need an intermediate codec, like cineform. But Cineform is $500. So if you don't feel like spending that, and you're really only going to deliver the finished project to standard def, like a DVD, then I would capture the 24f hdv via the canon presets, and then render-out to a 24p DV file. That worked for me.

Bob,

Excellent response! Very detailed and you verified what I was thinking may be the only route. Cineform.

I will try the CS2 preset and see if CS3 recognizes. Did this work for you?

I am interested in Cineform but I am concerned it will effect my SD workflow when I choose to shoot that way. I am under the impression it changes the native engine in CS3. Are there downsides to this that you may know of?

Thanks again Bob.

Jay

I've come to the conclusion that most have. Most of us have fought it, too: if you're going to work with HDV, and especially 24f, and you want to edit with Premiere, you really need to get cineform.

Many, including myself, think it is absurd that Premiere users need to shell-out an extra $500 to get it working right. But for people like me who have trouble learning new editing packages, and really need to stick with Premiere for convenience's sake, they really have us by the short hairs.

Yup, I'd get Cineform Aspect.

As to any downsides, I only used the free 30-day trial so far (as you can too), and I had virtually zero troubles. I was also using CS2, and I hear it told that cs3 actually works BETTER with cineform, so you should be ok.

But you didn't answer my questions: Did you shoot High Def or not, and what do you want to deliver to?

Ooops

I shot 24f HDV and I want it to end up on DVD and perhaps the web. This is the reasoning for the downconversion.

I will try the trial and see how it goes. Now I am wondering about vista 32bit compatibility.

Technology is sweet, but it is so infuriating.

Did you try cinefrom yet, Jay? Any luck?

I just shot a short film for the DV challenge on my XH-A1 in 24F, used the CS2 presets for 24F in CS3 and then rendered out to WMV 24P... worked fine for me... didnt have any extra tools...

PC is an X2 4400+, Geforce7800GTX 512MB, 2GB system RAM, Vista Ultimate.

Josh, did you do any editing of the imported footage prior to rendering, or is it the rendered WMV file you'll actually be editing in the end?

thanks, Daniel

I just shot a short film for the DV challenge on my XH-A1 in 24F, used the CS2 presets for 24F in CS3 and then rendered out to WMV 24P... worked fine for me... didnt have any extra tools...

Hey Bob,

Downloaded cineform the other night but I have been unable to use it becasue work has kept me busy until very late the past few days. Tonight however, will be the test run.

Josh,

I downloaded the plug-in for CS2 and opened it as the instructions said but the 24f preset failed to appear.

I am able to capture and edit my 24f stuff, but once on the timeline everything is converted to 29.97 and the ghosting is too much for me.

My biggest fear is that I will pay for cineform and CS3 will adapt to 24f a day later.

I edited 30 minutes worth of video down to 3 minutes and 20 seconds so there was a bit of editing and THEN I rendered out to the WMV for sharing. When I looked at the video properties it showed as 24 frames. Currently my main editing Rig is dead. I have a replacement that should be here around thanks giving. The hard drives are fine so I can pull up the projects and post screen shots and what not so you can see them.

I just followed the instructions in the read me and placed the folder and XML. Make sure you put it in the right folder if you are using a different language install (French maybe?) and it showed up as expected.

Josh,

I forgot to mention that 24f (24p preset in CS3) works well when all footage is shot in SD. I think this is where the problem lies. When downconverting the 24f hd footage in the camera, CS3 has a problem registering the files as 24f or as downconverted sd for that matter. 60i hd downconverts without a hitch.

I hope to shoot all footage with my A1 in Hd and one of its great features is the 24f style. IF the only way I can have both together is by purchasing Cineform than that is what I will probably end up doing.

I filmed in HD 24F with my Canon A1 and after editing in HDV I exported to 720P WMV and then to a lower flash file. The video can be downloaded here:

http://www.simplethoughtproductions.com/2007/10/28/instant-message/

I will have to re-read everything from above, maybe I got confused on what you are trying to do.

I've come to the conclusion that most have. Most of us have fought it, too: if you're going to work with HDV, and especially 24f, and you want to edit with Premiere, you really need to get cineform.

Many, including myself, think it is absurd that Premiere users need to shell-out an extra $500 to get it working right. But for people like me who have trouble learning new editing packages, and really need to stick with Premiere for convenience's sake, they really have us by the short hairs.

Yup, I'd get Cineform Aspect.

As to any downsides, I only used the free 30-day trial so far (as you can too), and I had virtually zero troubles. I was also using CS2, and I hear it told that cs3 actually works BETTER with cineform, so you should be ok.

But you didn't answer my questions: Did you shoot High Def or not, and what do you want to deliver to?

Bob,

You do not need to shell out the money for Cineform. Premiere will edit your HDV footage, but depending on the power of your computer, you will have problems like scrubbing or previewing in real time. That is not Premiere's problem, that is merely a function of your computer not being able to handle HDV compression at a fast enough rate. If you captured uncompressed HD footage, your computer could play it back because it does not have to convert it all. But, HDV is highly compressed and needs a lot of computer power to uncompress it for play.

You can edit on another NLE with that same computer and you will have the same problem. Cineform is just an intermediate codec that allows you to do previews etc. in realtime. Then it is encoded back to HDV when you are finished.

Mike

Bob,

You do not need to shell out the money for Cineform. Premiere will edit your HDV footage, but depending on the power of your computer, you will have problems like scrubbing or previewing in real time. That is not Premiere's problem, that is merely a function of your computer not being able to handle HDV compression at a fast enough rate. If you captured uncompressed HD footage, your computer could play it back because it does not have to convert it all. But, HDV is highly compressed and needs a lot of computer power to uncompress it for play.

You can edit on another NLE with that same computer and you will have the same problem. Cineform is just an intermediate codec that allows you to do previews etc. in realtime. Then it is encoded back to HDV when you are finished.

Mike

Hey Mike.

I know it's technically possible to edit native HDV in Premiere, I just don't think it's a good idea. For one, you really seem to need a powerhouse computer to have it run smoothly in the timeline. My PC is no slouch, and it was stuttering pretty badly. Also, members on this board have told me that the native HDV Mpeg2's are not really designed to be an editing format and that the more work you do on the clips (rendering, transitions, etc) you will be adding more and more generation loss to the footage.

As much as I hate to say it, and as much as I fought it, experience has taught me that if you plan on doing a lot of work with HDV in Premiere, it will help a lot to get cineform.

Hey Mike.

I know it's technically possible to edit native HDV in Premiere, I just don't think it's a good idea. For one, you really seem to need a powerhouse computer to have it run smoothly in the timeline. My PC is no slouch, and it was stuttering pretty badly. Also, members on this board have told me that the native HDV Mpeg2's are not really designed to be an editing format and that the more work you do on the clips (rendering, transitions, etc) you will be adding more and more generation loss to the footage.

As much as I hate to say it, and as much as I fought it, experience has taught me that if you plan on doing a lot of work with HDV in Premiere, it will help a lot to get cineform.

Bill,

You have missed my point. You are not having problems just because you use Premiere, it is the same with any NLE! It is the HDV format that causes the slow-ness. And, it will on any NLE.

Mike

Bob,

You do not need to shell out the money for Cineform. Premiere will edit your HDV footage, but depending on the power of your computer, you will have problems like scrubbing or previewing in real time. That is not Premiere's problem, that is merely a function of your computer not being able to handle HDV compression at a fast enough rate. If you captured uncompressed HD footage, your computer could play it back because it does not have to convert it all. But, HDV is highly compressed and needs a lot of computer power to uncompress it for play.

You can edit on another NLE with that same computer and you will have the same problem. Cineform is just an intermediate codec that allows you to do previews etc. in realtime. Then it is encoded back to HDV when you are finished.

Mike


Mike,

Being a long time Premiere User, since version 4 and have been literally testing Sony Vegas out for the past 2 weeks, as much as it pains me to say it as I have invested thousands of hours in using Premiere + a lot of money over the course of 8-9 years, Vegas playback of DV and HDV blows Premiere away, hands down. It took a lot for me to even download the trial, but I couldn't ignore all the raves and after my last let down with "out of memory" errors which left me high and dry, I gave Vegas a spin. Although different, the one thing that keeps me with it is the playback. The more I use Vegas, the more I like it, but the playback performance is unbelievable. Conducting a comparison, I brought in a DV clip, applied Levels, Curves, Color Correction, and Vegas was still playing back at full 24fps. I then added Magic Bullet effects and it still was performing like a champ, some stutter, but fantastic, not what I am use to. And this is all the while I'm tweaking settings while it's playing. Premiere simply cannot do this. Did the same test with the same clip in Premiere Pro 2 and it just chokes, it has worse playback with just Levels, Curves, and Color Correction than Vegas does with all of those effects and Magic Bullet. As far as HDV goes, I just got my XHA1 last week and haven't had much time to do testing, but I was able to bring in an HDV clip and apply the same effects above and have full 24fps playback in Preview-Half mode (no Magic Bullet). Haven't tried other modes yet, this is amazing, better performance with HDV in Vegas than DV in Premiere, whoa, something is wrong here. And this is without Cineform, just native m2t files. With cineform, my playback of said file is significantly better with effects heavy clips, usually 3-6 fps faster than the m2t. And get this, Vegas comes with Cineform. I'm no fanboy, but just my observations over the past 2 weeks, Vegas is one impressive app when it comes to it's playback engine, Adobe is doing something wrong in this department. Just my experience.

Kevin

slightly off topic but didn't Premiere 1.5 used to ship with Cineform as well? Why did they stop this? What changed? Bulk pricing or something?

slightly off topic but didn't Premiere 1.5 used to ship with Cineform as well? Why did they stop this? What changed? Bulk pricing or something?

Premiere 2.0 did ship with CineForm! I'm not sure about CS3 as I had my own Cineform installed first. I think it still does.

What version of Premiere were you using Kevin?

M

Premiere 1.5 did ship with CineForm! I'm not sure about CS3 as I had my own Cineform installed first. I think it still does.

What version of Premiere were you using Kevin?

M

I think they just ship with the decoder? The actual paid version of Cineform is required for the real time effects and other goodies such as HDLink.

Carl

I think they just ship with the decoder? The actual paid version of Cineform is required for the real time effects and other goodies such as HDLink.

Carl

The CineForm that ships with Premiere is a normal version with less goodies. It still provided realtime scrubbing etc... At least mine did.

And, I'm sure if Vegas ships with the FULL version, it must cost several hundred to 500 more for the software too, as CineForm is not giving it away.

Mike

Premiere 1.5 did ship with CineForm! I'm not sure about CS3 as I had my own Cineform installed first. I think it still does.

What version of Premiere were you using Kevin?

M

I currently use Premiere Pro 2.

I currently use Premiere Pro 2.

Premiere Pro 2 came with Cineform, was yours missing?

M

Mike do you use AIM or something? Would love to chat with a Cineform user in real time to ask some additional questions without tying up this thread about 24F and CS3. You can IM me on AIM via canmanjc

Premiere Pro 2 came with Cineform, was yours missing?

M

I'm sure it's there but I never got that far as I just got my XHA1 and have only done HDV tests in Vegas.

Mike do you use AIM or something? Would love to chat with a Cineform user in real time to ask some additional questions without tying up this thread about 24F and CS3. You can IM me on AIM via canmanjc

Email sent.

M

Email sent.

M

never got anything. Not sure why. Checked spam and such. Mind sending it to josh <at> simplethoughtproductions.com? Thanks...