Install the audio decoder from AC3Filter.net, and reconvert.

Dipping my toes in the water David.....Looking to download the trial shortly.

Are there any plans to convert the captured MTS stream to a separate audiom for ease of CPU cycles on the editing timeline?? When i see Cineform AVI's advertised on your website, i always assume that audio would be uncompressed within your AVI..

Can i assume that any audio decompressor built in to your codec, is as accurate and easy to handle as any Windows .WAV file?

Thnx..

The audio with a CineForm AVI is the same as a WAV file, it is uncompressed 16-bit stereo (typically.) We don't put compressed audio in our files.

Install the audio decoder from AC3Filter.net, and reconvert.

Thank you David, did that and it all works again. Can't understand how the bit of software went missing though. It was strange, since on trying to play back the converted file in WMP, it took a while as it "aquired codec" and then ran without audio... just a Windows moment I guess!

I really had no complaints with Neo HDV before it was orphaned, but I took advantage of the upgrade offer to get Neo Scene. Now I can't access the Neo HDV version of HD Link which would handle several input formats that Neo Scene won't: .mov and .avi. This means that I can't use .mov footage from my Kodak Zi6 anymore. Is there any way to still access the Neo HDV version of HD Link after Neo Scene is installed? This upgrade is feeling a little bit like a downgrade right now.

you can have one or the other installed, but not both. NeoScene has fewer options than NeoHD

Not quite, if you install Neo Scene without uninstalling Neo HDV, they might coexist.

I have a new Sony HDR-S11 and have purchased Neo Scene. I have some experience with PPRo CS3, but always in SD and this is my first adventure into editing and outputting HD. However I seem to be stymied every step of the way, almost like there's some lost "How to use PPro CS3 with Neo Scene" instruction manual that I haven't found.

Instead of writing everything that I have already tried (and I have tried ALOT of combinations!), I'm going to explain what I want to do. I am not a professional videographer and don't have strict requirements for my video quality. I'm editing home movies and my kid's school projects and plan on outputting to SD DVD and/or Blu Ray DVD. I have a decent Windows XP machine with a 3.0ghz Core2Duo, 8800 GTS, 2GB of RAM, plenty of hard drive space.

I have a bunch of AVCHD clips that I shot at 1440 x 1080 and have successfully used Neo Scene to convert them to .AVI files.

I want to edit this footage and output one big master Cineform .avi file.

Now I load up Premiere. What should my new project settings be? I see no presets for Cineform or Neo Scene.

After I have the above answer, I edit my footage and use Export Movie to create the master Cineform .avi file. What should my Export Movie settings be (including resolution, field order, and aspect ratio)? Should I use Adobe Media Encoder and if so, what settings should I use there?

Finally I've heard that some workaround needs to happen when I want to convert my Cineform AVIs to SD DVD. The instructions on the cineform site mention using the FIle Type dropdown box to find a Cineform preset.. which doesn't exist for me.

Thanks in advance for your help and patience with my questions.

Phil, The advice I had from David Newman:
"New project, custom settings, then select desktop mode. From here you can create any preset you like."

Set the frame size to whatever you have been shooting, ie, 1440 x 1080, 1.33 pixel sze, upper/ lower frame etc.

Don't worry that you see a red bar on the timeline, CS3 will still handle the clips without having to render them first...

Also, in the Program window, set the playback to Draft Quality. It will playback MUCH better in CS3

I am now having problems with Cineform playback on both Source and Program monitors, regardless of if I use Draft or Automatic quality.

If my project is created with 1440x1080 @ 1.33, upper field first, it's jumpy playback.

If my project is created with 1440x1080 @ 1.33, no fields (progressive), it plays back perfectly smooth.

As far as I can tell, my HDR-SR11 shoots 1080/60i video, upper field first. I would guess that if my project settings were set identical to the resolution, aspect ratio, and field order of my footage, CS3 wouldn't need to do any additional processing when it plays the video, thus is should be perfectly smooth. Unfortunately this doesn's seem to be the case. Any ideas?

I have the exact same version of Windows XP (from the same DVD) installed twice on my computer, just separate boot drives) and use the Windows Boot Manager to select which copy of Windows I boot to. I do this so that I can do quick projects on my "messy" Windows installation, and do longer/more involved projects on the "clean" system.

Can I install my recently purchased Neo Scene on both Windows drives? It's the same Windows, the same hardware, and both Neo Scene installations cannot be used simultaneously.

Julian

Just to confirm, version 110b108a-090215 appears to fix the problem, and I have closed the ticket.

Thank you.

Yes, that is allowed, if the second drive activation gives you any trouble, just send an email to support@cineform.com and tell what you are doing.

I am trying to downconvert a Cineform HDV to SD with Premiere CS4 (Media Encoder) with no success. The downconverted files are corrupt. If I use Vegas Pro 8c the downconvert works perfectly. I assume I have the Premiere Media encoder parameters set incorrectly, Neo Scene needs the importer or Neo Scene has a problem. Any help appreciated.

Additional inoformation:

When I play the Adobe encoded clip with the Window Media Player, the clip plays at the correct aspect ratio, DV aspect ratio (Squeezed WS image). The clip has to be interpreted to correct aspect ratio. When the clip is played with WMP the first few seconds play fine and then the image hangs for the remainder of the clip. If I load the same clip in Vegas, the clip loads fine and is displayed with the correct aspect ratio (DV aspect ratio (Squeezed WS image)). When I play the clip in Vegas, the first few seconds play fine then the thumbnails turn red and the video preview goes black. The only way to recover is to close Vegas. One more quirk. The same clip is displayed in DVWS aspect ratio in Adobe, not the correct aspect ratio (DV aspect ratio (squeezed WS image) , and the preview screen turns black after a few seconds. I believe there are more problems than just the wrong aspect ratio.

Try support. As Vegas and Premiere use the same component, if it works in Vegas and fails in Premirere, that is looking like a Premiere bug.

David,

Let me start off by telling you that I have purchased Prospect HD and am patiantly waiting for the CS4 version. Neo Scene rocks with CS4 and I am sure we can expect the same in all other Cineform products.

I am working on a "Peru non-profit" project with CS4/Neo Scene. I will be leaving the country agian before I can convert all my files and finish the project. I was wondering if it was possible to download a second 7 day trail version in Neo Scene upon my return to complete the file conversion... if the Prospect HD CS4 has not been released. Or can I get an extension to help me out. Return date will be Feb. 27...maybe another product will be released by this date and I can download trial.
Suggestions?

Billy

We should have v4 out soon. If you need an extension now you will have to make your case with support as they do that, unforutnately Neo Scene is hard to extend on some systems (we don't know why.)

Is the Neo Scene codec supposed to show up as AVI codec in the AE CS4 Export render options?

Thank you!

Under the Output Module, Video for Window Format, you will find the "CineForm HD Codec V4.7.x".

Thank you. :)

Can I install Neo Scene and Prospect 3 on the same system? I can't get HDLink to convert my AVCHD files (it crashes & tech support is working on it).

This fix is going into Prospect v4, as the fix for AVCHD require licensing components not available in PHD v3. v4 will be out in a few weeks.

So is the problem I am having because of the licensing issue? I do have COREAVC pro version 1.9 installed with Mediasplitter and HDLink crashes. Does an earlier version of COREAVC work?

No, you using CoreAVC that is a different component, not what we are licensing. CoreAVC works in 95% of systems, it seems like the 5% can't resolve some other system conflicts. One of the reason we are adding a AVC decoder to version 4, so we don't have these system conflicts, add we can features with fewer support issues.

I had tried NEO Scene a few times and it worked well so have bought and installed on my system. I now have a problem where DVD Architect will not create a Bluray and stops with message " external video renderer has stopped". If I then change project settings to SD DVD it will continue and start to encode the file for DVD creation. I have uninstalled first the AC3 filter( which I didn't seem to need for the trial but need to get audio for the purchased version) with no effect. Then uninstalled Neo Scene and all now works. I have contacted support but was interested to find if anyone else had this problem.
System is X48 DQ6 motherboard, Q9450, 8G RAM running Vista 64.

Ron Evans

Interesting. I didn't realize NeoScene was involved with this. The same thing happened to me, coincidentally right after I installed NeoScene to try it out. The solution is that if you install DVDA version 5.0 it will work again with NeoScene also installed. Either Sony or Cineform created an incompatibility with 64 bit Vista and DVDA 5.0a.

I will try again but I think I actually had DVD Architect 5.0 installed, then installed 5.0a to see if that would solve the problem , then unnistalled first the AC3 filter then Neoscene. Will start again when I have time.

Ron Evans

Present workflow: capture HDV in Vegas 8 from Canon XH-A1 (24f). Edit native captured clips directly on timeline. Color correct within Vegas, mostly with Magic Bullet Looks. Render to SD MPEG2 for delivery on DVD.

Problem: heavy color correction/grading sometimes introduces color banding, 'blockiness', and color distortion in portions of image.

Contemplated workflow: capture HDV as above, convert to Cineform AVI with NeoScene, then color correct and grade on AVI clips, and render as above.

Question: Will this single change in my workflow result in a better looking color corrected/graded product? In other words, will the Cineform AVI hold up better to aggressive color grading than did the native HDV source material?

Note: I'm rendering only once, as stated, so I don't need the lossless attribute for multiple renders. I ask because of the expanded "headroom" of 4:2:2 colorspace touted by the Cineform AVI, and I've seen anecdotal evidence (textual) of this actually resulting in better looking rendered footage. Will this make a difference specifically when using Vegas 8?

Thanks,
Steve

Try for yourself. However your color banding and blockiness in your DVD is not something 4:2:2 upsampling helps with, that is all due to you down stream encoding. While CineForm helps solve many things in post, a bad download encode can still waste many of your efforts. Try a different encoding software, bit-rates etc. The better your download encoding the more you will get out of using a CineForm product.

Thanks for the quick reply. I had a hunch that "try for yourself" would be the ultimate suggestion, which I'll follow. Looks like a minimum effort to test this.

Query on terminology: "download encoding" = render/compression out of NLE?

Thanks again.

Steve

I meant to type "downstream encoding"

Query on terminology: "download encoding" = render/compression out of NLE?
Steve
Are you referring to the words in the post, "down stream encoding"? If so, that would be the encoding after editing, color correcting, etc.

A good encoder you can try is TMPGEnc 4 XPress. This is one of the best encoders, and it will give a good idea if encoding is the problem. There is a 14 day free trial:
TMPGEnc - Download: TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress Downloads (http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/te4xp.html)

Also, I would suggest using your current encoder to re-encode the timeline without making corrections and changes.

Other encoders that give good results you may or may not have are Procoder, CCE (Cinema Craft), and the encoder with Adobe Encore (don't remember the name of it).

Try encoding tests at about 7500 constant bit rate to eliminate variable rate issues your encoder may have.

It is also possible that the encoder is causing problems, but Cineform could still help by providing a "cleaner" intra-frame source. I would think that timeline rendering in native mpeg could deteriorate the quality, as well. But all said, I'm not an expert.

Are you referring to the words in the post, "down stream encoding"? If so, that would be the encoding after editing, color correcting, etc.

A good encoder you can try is TMPGEnc 4 XPress. This is one of the best encoders, and it will give a good idea if encoding is the problem. There is a 14 day free trial:
TMPGEnc - Download: TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress Downloads (http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/te4xp.html)

Also, I would suggest using your current encoder to re-encode the timeline without making corrections and changes.

Other encoders that give good results you may or may not have are Procoder, CCE (Cinema Craft), and the encoder with Adobe Encore (don't remember the name of it).

Try encoding tests at about 7500 constant bit rate to eliminate variable rate issues your encoder may have.

It is also possible that the encoder is causing problems, but Cineform could still help by providing a "cleaner" intra-frame source. I would think that timeline rendering in native mpeg could deteriorate the quality, as well. But all said, I'm not an expert.

Many thanks for your suggestions, Jack. I don't harbor any illusions that downstream encoding to MPEG-2 for delivery on DVD will do my images any favors, regardless of what encoder I use. Vegas 8, for instance, utilizes the MainConcept encoder, which I understand is quite good (not as good as others you mention? I have no idea.) Yes, I always encode CBR at about 8000.

But note the thrust of my original post focused on what I could do to my raw footage BEFORE any downstream encoding artifacts are introduced (that is, after color grading and correction) that would reap overall image improvements. For instance, color grading of my native HDV clips ON THE TIMELINE can produce odd color distortions that I see ON THE TIMELINE if I push hard. To be clear, I can see these distortions on my editing timeline.

I query whether editing Cineform AVI's generated from my source HDV footage instead would be more tolerant of the grading, i.e., not easily resulting in the color artifacts, and that would survive nicely after downstream encoding. Suggestion seems to be: just do it and see what happens!

In my ignorance, I may be asking for a solution that is best addressed by choice of downstream encoder, as your and David's posts suggest, given inherent limitations of my source footage. Still, if I can eke out better quality, I'd want to know.

Thanks,
Steve

(Adobe Encore uses the Main Concept encoder, I believe, as well.)

I think that an intermediate file would give you improvements, whether it be Cineform, SheerVideo, or simply setting the timeline (if possible in Vegas) to uncompressed before rendering and exporting.

I am setting up a new system for a particular project, and I have similar requirements as you seem to, that is, extensive color grading and special effects with a minimum of quality loss before final output.

At this point I have concluded that Cineform Prospect HD, with the new "First Light" capabilities, might be perfect. (I don't know if it will be necessary to do special effects and color grading in a 4:4:4 format or not.)

We have special looks for different sequences, and we are using more than one camera, so the idea of doing non-destructive color grading and matching (which it seems "First Light" might do, though we will know next week) before final rendering and output is very appealing.

Hopefully, "First Light" will also let us go back and batch apply a changed preset to clips used in a sequence.

I've been trying to evaluate Neo Scene, for a couple of updates now, on my Vista 64 bit system. So far, I have not been able to get it to work. I evaluated a version of Aspect prior to this attempt, which was un-installed before the installation of Neo Scene. I've attached some screen shots below of what happening. When I try to convert a 5d mark ii file, Neo Scene quits giving me the "HD Link.exe has stopped working" message. When I try to capture HDV footage, the application begins to capture and then immediately stops giving me the "invalid pointer" error. Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this problem?

Thanks,
Chad Jones

Here are my system specs:

Dell Core i7 920
Vista 64 bit
4 GB Ram
Radeon 4850
CS4

What exactly is qtmux? It looks like something that was part of a software or codec package that you installed. Try uninstalling it. Or run GSpot and see what you can find out about qtmux.

Sound like there may have been an old Aspect HD setting that is throwing off Neo Scene. You should not be using QTMux, with is for producing MOVs on the output.

Try this:

1) Uninstall Neo Scene.
2) Open RegEdit
3) Delete everything in HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/CineForm
4) Reinstall Neo Scene
5) Try again.

Chad,


I have the Dell xps with the same processor. I had huge problems capturing and hd link would not work either.

I cleared it off, got the dell guys to take out conflicting background programs and that seemed to resolve my issues. (for now at least)

It now captures with all tools and HD Link works fine. Just wrapping my my first project using cineform.

Dale
I have a Dell i7, Vista 64 currently on order.
Do you recall what sort of Dell "background" programs were causing a conflict with CF? I'm currently using Prospect HD.
I was hoping this transition was going to be smooth, but I guess it never really is.

I read that Neo Scene is a good tool to help edit HDV, so I downloaded the latest trial version of Neo Scene two days ago. I did a capture from my HV30 (HDV footage), opened Premiere Elements 3.0, created a project and added all of the Cineform intermediate AVI files. PE3 stopped responding after I tried to add the files. I allowed Windows to close the application and I rebooted the computer, and now PE3 will NOT start. I double click the icon, the PE3 splash screen comes up, and I immediately get a "Adobe Premiere Elements.exe stopped working" error message.

I'm using a Dell E520, Intel Core 2 Duo (2.13GHz), 2GB SDRAM and Vista Home Premium. Video is on external USB HDD.

How can I make PE3 work again???

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Ron, that is a support question. I have not heard of this as Elements is a supported application.

Robert, a bit off topic but there is a thread somewhere around here where at least one model of Dell is giving lots of grief with the esata port. At least three folks have reported issues. Two of them are unresolved, even after having hardware replaced.

I, not too long ago, found Dell lower end units to be too unreliable and got back into building my own.

I'm only posting this so that after you receive your unit you cannot say you cannot say "Why didn't anyone say something to me before!".

You may be fine, but be forwarned. If you have issues early on and can't get them resolved quickly then you should return the unit and go with something else. Good luck, hopefully yours will be fine.

David, thanks for taking the time to view these posts! I sent the inquiry to support at Cineform dot com and I'm getting help with it. BTW, other people at muvipix.com have reported similar problems with Neo Scene, but I don't know if they asked for help with it.

I'm converting my 5D Mark II footage with Neoscene, but I get a file that judders as if it's under a strobe light. Any suggestions?

I used to own aspect HD (and removed it)

scratch that, just upgraded my video card and it works now.

Quick question. I recently purchased Neo Scene, and downloaded the newest version 113. But I cant seem to convert any other file type but the MTS from my HF10. I get an error saying file type not supported when I try to convert mpeg4, mt2s, mov. Am I doing somthing wrong? or does Neoscene only support MTS??

While Neo Scene doesn't support everything NEO HD does, it does support 99% of AVCHD and HDV sources. If you are having issues, please contact support. Of course, try an uninstall, then reinstall, it might fix it for you.