Hi , i have a canon xha1 and vegas pro 8. I need to choose between NEO HDV or HD. I know HDV is ok and ill get by with that , but i read on cineforms site that HD is a better choice because of the 10bit 4:2:2 , i woont be using after effects , but some slow motion in vegas and 3d compilation. Will i see a difference using HD? Does the canon reord in 8bit or 10bit? Also the HD is 600, which is alot if there is only little benefits.

Thanks for any feedback ,
Chris

By specification, HDV is 8-bit. Using Neo HD will help you only if you want to resize your native images to HD size(1920x1080) or if you want to output to a storage format in 10-bit.

thanx bill ,

i have a 70 inch 1080p TV , is it better to take the 1440 retangular image and resize to 1920? To do the resizing , ill be using neo HD , right? i want the best possible picture from the canon to my TV.

when you scale up, the picture gets bigger but the resolution stays at the original resolution. So, the scaled image won't look as sharp. Take your pick, 1440x1080 and resolution or 1920x1080 with 1440x1080 resolution. not sure it's worth the cost.

So if i want the clearest picture possible i should use cineform HDV and not rescale?

TV standards are pretty wide open. Some TV rescale, some don't. It's like choosing good audio speakers. The answer to your question is somewhat academic. Probably what I'd recommend is to go over to Best Buy with a CD with your footage on it. Watch it on all kinds of TV sets. Pick the one you like most.

when you scale up, the picture gets bigger but the resolution stays at the original resolution. So, the scaled image won't look as sharp. Take your pick, 1440x1080 and resolution or 1920x1080 with 1440x1080 resolution. not sure it's worth the cost.

The very act of viewing 1440x1080 *requires* that it be scaled to 1920x1080, so it is incorrect to say that it "wont look as sharp". It's a simple pixel aspect ratio conversion.

TV standards are pretty wide open. Some TV rescale, some don't. It's like choosing good audio speakers. The answer to your question is somewhat academic. Probably what I'd recommend is to go over to Best Buy with a CD with your footage on it. Watch it on all kinds of TV sets. Pick the one you like most.

I've never heard of a TV that takes a CD with 1440x1080 video on it. Did you mean to say BluRay or HD-DVD player? If so, are you saying that there is great variability in the quality of their 1440->1920 scalers? How did you learn that?

FWIW I rendered my vegas timeline back to my hdv camcorder. I then took my hdv camcorder to the store and plugged into the component jacks of each hdtv i was interested in and chose the best picture. may want to do the same....

BTW, I had bars at the beginning of the tape, so I could rough calibrate each monitor

Chris, are you using Vegas? Which version? BTW, I'm in Bristol.

Bill , i have a jvc hd-70fh96 dila 1080p display , why would i take my footage and go to best buy? That doesnt make sense.


Hey Paul , im gonna purchase vegas 6 and do the upgrade to pro 8. Im running a 2.4g core 2 duo , which should be no problem. when i captured my tape using 7.0e it captured to a .m2t file which is still kinda an overload on my pc. Plus .m2t is compressed. I want to get the best possible image from this tape, so i read that i must purchase a better capturing software like cineform neo , either HDV or HD. They are a much lower compression codec from what i understand. Now i need to know which one is right for me, the HDV or HD version. one is 250 , and the other 600. If the HD version will capture my footage better in a lower compressed file and look alot better on my TV than i guess id go with that. But if theres not much of a difference and that program exceeds the limitations of what was captured on my tape than i dont need that , and id go with the HDV program.

chris....

sorry, I lost the intent of your original question. If you already have an HDTV, great. Then, you can download trial versions of Neo, HDV and HD, render each out, and look at them on your HDTV to see if you can see a difference.

thats true Bill , i thought this question could be easily answered than going that route. But i guess thats the true way of finding out. Thanks

I tried the neo HDV last night. I captured 5 mins. of my footage to cineforms direct AVI codec. Its nice because it plays in windows media player no problem and looks very clear.

The only problem i have with it is the fact that when i play back the video i have blacks bars on both the left side and right side of the video. Is this because of the 1440 x 1080 pixel count? Its weird because when i play play my footage from tape to my TV via component video it plays 16:9 which i want.


So im gonna try out NEO HD and see if resizing the image to 16:9 1920 x1080 fixes that problem and hopefully holds that clearity.

Any Ideas , hints. Thanx Chris

Not to hijack, but...
Bristol? Cromwell?

I'm in Cheshire, and I know of another Vegas user from Brookfield. A virtual CT Vegas/Cineform support group!

Check your email CT Vegas users.

I tried the neo HDV last night. I captured 5 mins. of my footage to cineforms direct AVI codec. Its nice because it plays in windows media player no problem and looks very clear.

The only problem i have with it is the fact that when i play back the video i have blacks bars on both the left side and right side of the video. Is this because of the 1440 x 1080 pixel count? Its weird because when i play play my footage from tape to my TV via component video it plays 16:9 which i want.


So im gonna try out NEO HD and see if resizing the image to 16:9 1920 x1080 fixes that problem and hopefully holds that clearity.

Any Ideas , hints. Thanx Chris


Sounds like you might be using Media Player under Vista, which has this bug (it uses the wrong decoder.) If you use Media Player Classic, or any other DirectShow player your the aspect ratio is correct.

Really David? Thanx for the info. Yeah , i was using media player in vista and didnt know about the bug. I hope they fix that. Ill download classic or a directshow decoder and see how it displays ,


thanx

Really David? Thanx for the info. Yeah , i was using media player in vista and didnt know about the bug. I hope they fix that. Ill download classic or a directshow decoder and see how it displays ,


thanx

I'm sure it will our job to work around the Vista Media Player changes, but Media Player Classic (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm), is actually a better player (faster, more flexible.)

sweet bro , thanx for the link , i could find a legit site to download it from.

hey David , i downloded the mp classic , but when i open the file with it i get an error , Now do i need to download the codec for it? , which codec ? classic is new to me , thanx Chris

No, you shouldn't need to install anything. Go to the Start Menu->CineForm->Tools->Register Components. It seems your PC is not seeing the DirectShow decoder.

thanx David , got it working , i had to enable all video codecs in the options menu ,