I posted over in the Cineform forum, but I am wondering if others are facing sound synch issues on long converted file. Most of my shooting has been in short 2 minute and under recordings. However, I just happended to shoot a "talking head" shot.

In the .mov file everything is synched perfectly. But in the conversion file, as you slide down toward the end of the file, it gets more and more out of synch. David Taylor suggested that I change playback configuration and I did that, but it does nothing for playing the files in Media Player or Media player classic, or on the Vegas time line. Only way I can fix it is chop up sound track in Vegas.

I am wondering if it has to do with frame rate 30 FPS v. 29.97 or some issue like that.

I know there hasn't been a lot of stuff shot of voice and talking heads, because of othersound issues with this camera, but for those that are, have you seen similar issues ?

Chris.. what if you take the transcoded video and line it up with the audio from the original MOV file, does the sync drift still exist?

Chris.. what if you take the transcoded video and line it up with the audio from the original MOV file, does the sync drift still exist?

Yang: Spot on question. And my look at it tells us a lot ! I put the two on two different time lines.

The .mov clip ends at 4:55;23. The Cineform .avi ends at 4:45;01. That tells me that the Cineform render added 8 frames. That final 8 frames has a noisy but otherwise "no sound" bit of sound track that does not match anything. I am attaching a view of the time line.

The sound tracks from the .mov file and the .avi file, except for the rogue 8 frames at the end appear to match. So at the end of the clip, the cineform video is about 4/15's of a second behind the sound track.

Follow up: On the Vegas time line, I took and readjusted length of clip using the control key, and sliding the end of clip back to where it ended at the same place as the .mov clip ended. At that point, it looks like sound was synched pretty well. Of course that is a fix, but it also means a re-render of the entire time line to get it matched up. And what happens when I use the intermediate in Vegas-- am I back in the same boat ?

Chris: This is happening with every Transcoded clip? Does it only occur with 5D2 clips or other clips as well? I'm planning using NeoScene with my new HMC as well.. this is not looking good...

Yang:

First, I just started using NeoScene because of the 5D. Before, I had NeoHDV, and never had a problem. For the three week I have had the 5D, I haven't really had to look closely at synch issues. I suspect they were there. But that it is a 5D 30p problem. Cineform is always good about addressing our issues when they come up. They monitor these forum, and fly in with resolutions in short order... if there is one...

On my thread about the 869 MB, 12 minute clip, there's a quote from Canon support which says the 5D mk II actually records as 29.97 fps, even though they call it "30 fps".

Julian

The problem is that Canon, in it's infinite wisdom, "called it" 30 fps in the freakin' header of the mov file, which then proceeds to screw up any decent app or NLE that pays attention to the header information. Sometimes, with respect to video in the 5D2, I wonder if they would have been better off using some random users from the Internet than their own engineers, doh!

Personally, in my opinion, this NEEDS TO BE FIXED asap by Canon.

Funny thing was in Check Westfall's last tech tips, even he was ignorant of the issue and played off the drift issue as a 30p thing. We made comments in that post of his, and although he responded to everyone else, he didn't respond to our comments. Canon needs to get a clue on this.

(BTW, I may be a little biased considering I had to send my BRAND NEW 5D2 into warranty because it became useless with Err 20 lockups not to mention a hot pixel in video mode that can't be mapped out by the user -- yup, that's not one, but TWO DEFECTS, straight out of the box.)

The problem is that Canon, in it's infinite wisdom, "called it" 30 fps in the freakin' header of the mov file, which then proceeds to screw up any decent app or NLE that pays attention to the header information. Sometimes, with respect to video in the 5D2, I wonder if they would have been better off using some random users from the Internet than their own engineers, doh!



I have to disagree somewhat. While Canon may have a header labeling issue, the company preparing transcoding should be looking at actual file structure in designing its transcoding software. I would expect that Cineform would have done so. Neo Scene had 5D support specifically added to it. I suspect that there is more to it than just a header issue, but I hope I am wrong about that.

That's great, but it is a bit odd that they let you "auto-detect" the output format. Think about that for a second.

Yeah, that's a semantic blooper. Basically, it means whatever you set the input to, that's what the output will be.

Don't take for granted that the 30fps header is incorrect. I have heard both 29.97 and 30 as the true frame rate at different times directly from Canon, and all of our tests indicate that it truly is exactly 30fps. On a 10 minute clip, separately recorded audio syncs perfectly with the footage playing back at 29.97, AFTER you slow down the audio to 99.9% of the original speed. This would indicate that the video was really 30fps, but who knows how headers and such are effecting the software when I attempt to manually reinterpret at 29.97.

Hopefully we will hear something from one of the David's on this issue shortly. And Cineform, as a developer, may have some kind of information on that oft "rumored" firmware update, and may be some reason to wait on that.

For those who have been following, David Newman just posted a new beta of NeoScene, which appears to me to resolve the synch issues.... I did one conversion of a long file, and seems to match well now.

Chris,
Thanks for the positive report.

Anyone have the Nero issue? That should also be fixed, just looking for add end user confirmation.

...This would indicate that the video was really 30fps, but who knows how headers and such are effecting the software when I attempt to manually reinterpret at 29.97.

Apparently, Canon USA support doesn't even know, since I contacted them via email recently and they still claim that the frame rate is 29.97 (NTSC). The text of their response is posted elsewhere in the dvinfo forums:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/1029179-post6.html

But that said, I have no idea what the frame rate in the 5D2 MOV files is and as you stated, the frame rate value stored in the MOV file metadata could be "goofing up" any attempt to figure that out. The audio and/or the video tracks of the original MOV file could be being decoded incorrectly, if the header information is used and the true frame rate really isn't 30.00 fps.

I do know that up until the most recent update to NEO Scene, the converted CFHD files also had the frame rate in the metadata as 30.00 fps. At least, that issue has been addressed. Keep in mind also, that the problem of the A/V synchrony isn't that obvious, because the maximum duration of a 5D2 clip is only about 11 minutes, depending on content. That's less than 20 frames of "slop" in the longest possible converted file. It is still an unacceptable result, but for shorter clips, the lack of synchrony gets less and less noticeable.

It wouldn't surprise me at all that if there is another firmware upgrade for the 5D2 and the frame rate is officially changed to 29.97 for 30p files.

It wouldn't surprise me at all that if there is another firmware upgrade for the 5D2 and the frame rate is officially changed to 29.97 for 30p files.That would make a lot of sense - in conjunction with 25p support (and hopefully 24p and/or 23.97p.)

Frankly, 30p doesn't satisfy anybody. If they were to change it to 29.97p without adding 25p, that would just dis the European/PAL market even more.

I have difficulty getting my pea sized brain around all of this sometimes. What Cineform has done here is changed the playback rate, right ? David indicates here, and elsewhere that there are not frame blendings or anything like that, only that audio is pitch filtered and stretched to meet the new frame rate as employed by the Cineform intermediate.

So, on an esoteric level, because it doesn't mean much to me in the max 12 minute clip one way or the other, which frame rate runs true to a real time clock ? I know when I drop the camera file and the new Cinframe file on parallel time lines in Vegas, the camera's file ends about 8 frames faster in a five minute clip than the Cineform transcode file on a time line set up using the Vegas intermediate preset. All this has me thinking of time warps and theory of relativity....

We believe real-world clock rate for the Canon 5D MkII is 30.0. As that is mostly useless, we have now conformed the output to 29.97. I'm guessing the camera will be updated to 29.97 (and other rates) at some point.

We believe real-world clock rate for the Canon 5D MkII is 30.0. As that is mostly useless, we have now conformed the output to 29.97. I'm guessing the camera will be updated to 29.97 (and other rates) at some point.

Wow, that's one hell of a prediction there. Here's to praying that ends up being true. I mean the 29.97 would be nice, but "other framerates," now that gets my attention! Do you know something we don't, heh...

Wow, that's one hell of a prediction there. Here's to praying that ends up being true. I mean the 29.97 would be nice, but "other framerates," now that gets my attention! Do you know something we don't, heh...

I know nothing more than other Canon outsiders. There have been rumors about firmware video fixes and 24p coming, I'm guess a video fix might include 29.97. Of course with Neo Scene you don't need to wait for that particular fix.

This is why it's hard to a) Understand why Canon used 30.00 fps and b) test whether it's really 30.00 fps. But I digress. Every independent test shows that on a 29.97 timeline, the original 5D2 MOV files will be out of sync with separately recorded audio and/or video of the same footage. That leads everyone who has tested this (except Canon) to conclude that the MOV file is truly 30.00 fps. I've moved on from that a while ago, just because, until Canon does something about this, the only option is to work around this issue. If the only thing that you are editing is one or more 5D2 MOV files, than this issue is somewhat lessened, because you are going to use a different final format out of your NLE anyway. Prior to the upgrade to NEO Scene, your best option was to use a 29.97 timeline and correct the audio yourself in your NLE.

But if you are converting to Cineform, you might as well have the metadata header in the converted file set to 29.97 fps and then correct the audio. As I understand what David Newman has stated, there is no interpolation between video frames to do the conversion. The 5D2 MOV file frames are converted to Cineform frames, of course, by decoding the h.264 and encoding into Cineform.

Why do the neoScene transcoded files being read as non-progressive by vegas? In Vegas, the files are indicated as Upper Field first.

It is limitation of the API Vegas uses to read third party AVI files.

Oh Ok.. so we can just disregard it and render everything as progressive.. ?

Yes. Vegas users have had no issues with this in the past.

Hi David.
I'm looking for a viable workflow for the 5D.
I'm on a Mac and I need 25p output.
My actual workflow gives good quality but it is really time consuming (7h for 4min.):
Duplicate a clip (keep original for audio). Conform duplicated clip to 25p via cinema tools (overcrank by 5 frames). Convert in Compressor to prores 25p retiming at 83,334% (Apple optical flow. Set "best" under rate conversion tab).
Edit.

Do Cineform gives me something better and quicker?
Thanks

edit: just found this, thanks
"That 24p conversion is designed for HDV or 60i AVCHD sources. 30p to 24p doesn't work all the well, so I would recommend post processing for 24p conversions of 5D footage."

I've downloaded the trial version of Neo Scene. My needs are fairly simple; take a 5DII clip, edit and generate a PhotoJPG.mov file. I tried MPEG Streamclip but it seems to darken down the original clip excessively and requires too much fiddling to get it right. Neo Scene conversions look nearly perfect. However they don't play on my older PowerPC which I guess is no big deal. I import into iMovie on a Intel mac, edit and output with QT. Neo Scene conversion become jittery and darken down excessively. Tests show that it's QT that darkens the clip. I tried deinterlacing the clip in Neo Scene and that seems to clean up the jittering problem mostly. Is there a a workflow for me on my Mac that would allow me to get a proper PhotoJPG .mov file? QT seems a real wrecking crew with these converted 5DII files. Within iMovie the Neo Scene converted clips look awesome but I can't get them into the real world still looking that way. Many thanks

Why convert to PhotoJPG, particularly when the CineForm compresssed output looks so much better? The CineForm decoder is free any anyone who needs it (Intel Mac & PC.) Our Mac guy is out this week, so I can't address you particular questions -- like how to make QT behave.

Why convert to PhotoJPG, particularly when the CineForm compresssed output looks so much better? The CineForm decoder is free any anyone who needs it (Intel Mac & PC.) Our Mac guy is out this week, so I can't address you particular questions -- like how to make QT behave.

David,

Thanks for the feedback. It seems PhotoJPEG is a standard for a lot of agencies that sell video clips. I'm only now building my workflow and can't seem to get around the use of QT at the moment. I agree, the clips from the Neo Scene convertor look beautiful but how do I edit them and then get them into a format that is acceptable while maintaining that beauty?

I should note here that I don't necessarily like using QT, it just seems to be the de-facto program for converting to PhotoJPG. If I can do it another way that would be fine too. I guess I don't want to buy FCE or FCP only to find that if I want this format after all the expense and work that they summon QT to do the final conversion and end up with blah results all over again.

I think the right workflow is:

1) Transcode the original MOV files to Cineform.

2) Back up either the originals, or the Cineform files. (The originals are smaller, but recovery will be simpler from the Cineform files.)

3) Edit.

4) Save your project. (Early and often - and back it up.)

5) Render to any and all delivery formats (Blu-ray, DVD, M-JPEG, whatever.)

The bottom line is that your capture, intermediate and delivery formats can be completely separate. Just don't ask how... I'm a Windows/Vegas user.

Hi Folks, just tried Neoscene 1.2.1 and still find the avi washed out in Vegas Pro 8c. Does anyone have the problems?

Hi Folks, just tried Neoscene 1.2.1 and still find the avi washed out in Vegas Pro 8c. Does anyone have the problems?

That means it is working correctly. This is an old bug or feature of Vegas, it display black at 16 and white at 235, not 0 and 255 like other applications. So when it looks washed out, that is Vegas working as designed. To see as normal, add the color correction filter Video Systems RGB to Computer RGB.

P.S. I only wish I could get paid from Sony for every support call we have to do regarding this, as CineForm is one of the few codecs that handles this correctly, we get the most support calls.

Now that is great news David! You will see my Neoscene order ;)
For the benefit of other Vegas users, I will list the workflow in Vegas in a new thread and hopefully it will reduce your "Out of scope" calls!

Just to clarify, there is no need to add the Computer RGB correction. The proper way to use Vegas is to calibrate your monitor for Studio (16-235) levels.

If you add the Computer RGB filter, Vegas will render your output improperly, crushing your blacks and whites.

Of course, if your monitor is calibrated for 0-255, you can *temporarily* add the conversion to see how the output will look. Just make sure to turn it off before you render.

Could I ask a question on this?

If your intended distribution target is video for the web (specifically in my case usually Flash), should I stay within the 16-235 range or can I be in the 0-255 range?

Could I ask a question on this?

If your intended distribution target is video for the web (specifically in my case usually Flash), should I stay within the 16-235 range or can I be in the 0-255 range?Hi Bill,

You're right. The end goal is 0-255 for web viewing. The answer on how to encode is "it depends."

I've done VP6 (Flash) encoding by encoding to DV from Vegas, and then transcoding with Flash 6 or Sorenson Squeeze. Flash 6 would stretch to 0-255 automatically - in fact it would crush the blacks even further to reduce noise. Sorenson offered a few options. So, it depends on your target and your signal flow.

In general, Vegas expects 16-235 for 8-bit projects, so start there. Test your final product and adjust as needed. Maybe it's best to render your final edit to a Cineform master, and then encode that as needed to other formats. It really depends on your tools and your target.

I've been experimenting a little with the intermediate vs. proxy thing (i.e., rendering final output from the intermediate or from the originals essentially). I've also toyed with using a Cineform master for final render to end formats, but I'm using the built in Cineform in Vegas, so I tend to avoid extra generations.

But for flash encoding, I've had the same basic workflow for a while now, which is to frameserve directly from vegas to the Flash encoder app. Works great.

BTW, here's my latest effort (http://baytaper.blip.tv/file/2049611/). A video, audio, and stills mashup from a music gig. This was all done by a single individual (me) -- from capture, to edit, to distribution -- using a single backpack full of gear (plus a monopod). It was double system sound (audio was captured as 2xAKG481+SBD > R44). This is the kind of thing that gives you a feel for the one-man multimedia potential of the 5D2. Amazing camera despite its shortcomings.