I have played with a trial version of Neo Scene in Premiere Pro CS4.1 and noticed that render times are either very slow or very fast...

If i go to File > Export > Media and in the Export Settings dialog choose CineForm AVI File under Format one minute 1080i AVCHD footage takes 3 minutes and 13 seconds to render out to an CF avi file. I render out to 1920 x 1080.

If i do exactly the same thing, but this time choose Microsoft AVI as the Format and set the Video Codec to CineForm HD Codec v5.0.7 the very same render takes 53 seconds. I render out to 1920 x 1080.

I cannot see any visual difference, so whats the difference between the two ways?

The audio is unusable due to a Cineform bug if i use the second method, but if i export video only i see the same differences, so that bug alone cannot be the reason. No video or audio filter are applyed to the AVCHD footage

Computer:
HP xw4600
Intel Q9550
8GB RAM

I have seen the same differences on a:
Dual Intel Xeon E5450, 3.0 GHz ( eight cores )
16GB RAM

Does anyone else see the samme difference as well?

We are still working through why the new CS4 API is slow for us. The quality will be better under new API as we can support more and deep formats, the old Microsoft AVI is effectively 8-bit only.

Also, when you choose Microsoft AVI and choose Cineform Codec 5.0.7, if the exported file is more than 2GB and you try to use it again in Premiere, Premiere will NOT play it back correctly.

David Newman also confirmed this and I have personally experienced it. It is some bug in Premiere.

i also have the two issues:

1. audio issue when using microsoft avi in the export option with cineform
2. unable to import cineform file as mentioned by Andy (this used to work before 4.1 update)

whats now the fastest way to export from timeline to SD if the above two options dont work. the cineform avi export option is too slow.