Hello,

I have a 22 meg, 5 second .avi file that was produced from Cineform’s Aspect HD software and I was wondering if I could get a few of you to try and edit it on your non-linear editors?

I’m trying to determine which editors can edit these kinds of files. I already know Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 can edit the file.

Thanks for your help.

Sasha

http://sashafroyland.home.comcast.net/

Sasha,

Only other CineForm customers can currently edit these CineForm clips (it played fine here.) Clips from Aspect HD are compatible with Connect HD and Prospect HD. To use the CFHD clips on other systems requires the decoder components to be installed. In the future we intend to make the decoder components freely available, to allow for more clip sharing (including cross platform support.) If you want other non-CineForm systems in your workplace to decode, email me and I will tell you what components need to be installed.

Thanks David,

Hey, is there an automated way I can convert these clips to mpeg-2 or back to native .m2t.

My goal here is to make some of my footage available to others and I'm looking for a format that will not degrade quality but increase the number of non-linear editors that can edit the footage.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Sasha

MPEG2 or M2T are not good choices for downstream editing work (because of quality issues, plus many editors don't support MPEG.) It is best to output to MPEG formats only once (when you are making the final distribution.) But you have struck the very issue that makes HD so tricky, the only high quality sharing formats are very large (uncompressed). For a good intermediate formats for HD it is CineForm HD and Avid DNxHD (plus maybe the Canopus codec.) Neither CineForm or Avid have completed their plans to make these format wide spread (working on it.)

You might try HUFFYUV, but that only halves the space over uncompressed HD. HUFFYUV is free and has good compatibility (it is very slow however -- always a trade-off.)

I cause I believe CineForm is the best for this application, but today you have a limited number of potential editors (note: this a about to change in a large way.)

Thanks David,

I was looking for an alternative format to distribute footage but maybe it's current form is best. It's large file size will require some further thought as to how best to distribute the footage, high quality and editing speed are paramount. At a file size of somewhere from 3-5 megs per second, DVD is not a viable medium for distribution of raw HDTV footage. Maybe distribution of stock footage could be achieved at a low cost point by using IDE hard-drives as the distribution medium. It would save file copying time and 120 gig drive is going for less then $75.00 these days. However, I am unaware as to if Macintosh computers can read IDE as I was under the assumption Macs use SCSI. Thoughts?

Cheers,

Sasha

Sasha - modern macs (g3 and up) all use standard IDE/ATA for hard drives.

Thanks Dylan.

With a MAC can an IDE drive be read if the drive is formatted FAT32 or NTFS?

Sasha

As far as I know - Macs can read FAT32 but not NTFS, but I've not tested either.

Dylan - I was also starting to look at external hard drives via firewire as a medium to share large amounts of HDTV footage betwen PC & MAC. I think that MAC & PC both use Firewire and if the external drive was formatted FAT32 then I think that would work.

Agree?

Have you tried to share files between PC and MAC?

Sasha, I've frequently shared files between Mac and PC - I did a lot of work with a a designer who only used PCs, and I only had Mac OSX - and we never had problems trading files back and forth as long as we had the right software to open them.

Your Fire Wire Hard Disc plan should work.

In terms of video it's childs play, as long as you have the codecs installed, and they're usually cross platform (wmv9 may be an exception).

We never shared hard drives, portable or otherwise, but at times we did manage to take stuff right of each others' hard drives over the LAN (this was XP to OSX)

Other than that DVD-R might be a possibility. There are dual layer DVD writers and DVD-R media available now, and in theory you'd be able to put around 40 minutes (>8GB) of HDV footage on a dual layer disc. Even single layer discs would hold about 20 minutes.

I've had no substantial problems playing and editing all of Kaku's m2t's on my Mac, I'll run them on to a DVD-RW tomorrow and try messing around with it on the Windows2K edit suites at work tomorrow.

<<<-- Originally posted by Sasha Froyland : Dylan - I was also starting to look at external hard drives via firewire as a medium to share large amounts of HDTV footage betwen PC & MAC. I think that MAC & PC both use Firewire and if the external drive was formatted FAT32 then I think that would work.

Agree?

Have you tried to share files between PC and MAC? -->>>

It is possible to share some files between PC and Mac, but not all of them. For this, among other reasons, it's not a good idea to share harddrives. However, it is possible to network a PC and Mac together with programs like Dave, which let them talk to each other, and pass large files across the network (all Mac G4s and higher are built with GigE, so you can pass files pretty quickly with a good network setup). It is a bit more timeconsuming than swapping external hardrives, but ultimately less trouble.

Joshua, I think we're not talking about "sharing" hard drives, in terms of two computers using them simultaneously, but rather trading them - using them as a storage medium, and I think FAT32 is something they can both read. However FAT32 has the 2GB file size limit I believe - that's about 10 minutes of footage.

With OSX 10.2 or higher, and windows XP, programs like DAVE are unnecessary. They have all the networking capabilities built in.

Joshua - I think I stay under the 2 gig limit.

Dylan - I leaning towards External Hard Drive - Firewire/USB 2.0

The numbers:

Duel Burner = 18 gigs burner cheep under $100.
Media about $10 each! Much more then single sided 4.7

4.7 = $1.0 x 4 = $4.00 for 4 single sided dvds.
Not yet cost advantage for double-sided burners and still slow transfer rates.



Firewire/USB External Hard Drive - 250 megs - top of the line.
Ebay: $180 - latest chip sets - Maxtor. Should work on the majority of machines.

Can you do me a favor and try and download sample video I have and see if your editor will import it?

One video I have available - 5 seconds - 22 megs.
http://sashafroyland.home.comcast.net/

I am hearing that it might not be editable by most editors but I like to check with multiple sources.

Cheers,

Sasha

Sasha - I cannot open the cineform avi as on Mac, as I don't have the cineform codec - neither Quicktime nor VLC will do anything with it.

Therefore the best thing would be to see if you can extract the original m2t or .ts stream - maybe the cineform software doesn't allow you to do this. In fact, not all PC users would be able to open such a file - only those with the cineform codec/software, which is why we all prefer the native mpg transprt streams - there are a number of freeware/shareware options which allow you to open, play and transcode the original TS clips.

I've found Streamclip is good to demux them and then transcode into DV and AIFF, and the the demuxed M2V files can be opened directly in FCP (though they gum up FCP pretty thoroughly - it's impossible to actually EDIT with demuxed m2v files)

Thaks for putting up the files though - it was worth the try. I'll give your clip and some others a go tomorrow on the PCs using the new DVD2AVI and Vdub.

Hey Dylan,

Thanks for trying.

The Cineform software, when you first extract the data off the camera does come into m2t or .ts files but then I converted them to AVI for working in Premier Pro and deleted the original m2t files. The only way to get them back is to re-import from tape and that is a HUGE time consumption as each cut has to basically be extracted manually - Premier's Batch Capture doesn't operate with JVC's HD10U camera - total pain!

So, in order to share my footage, it sounds like I must convert the .avi files back to native m2t format. I worry that all this demux will reduce quality.

Appears from what you are saying is that I'll need a series of freeware/shareware products in order to accomplish this task. I will check out Streamclip and ask Cineform if they have any suggestions.

Cheerrs,

Sasha

Premiere or Vegas will happily do this.

You never really explained your application, but it would seem that normal MPEG2 would be more readable than M2t files. Try using the Export options within your NLE.

David - My NLE - Premiere Pro - doesn't let you export clips that are not in a timeline. With thousands of clips I cannot drag each one to a timeline, Export, clear timeline, drap another clip, Export, etc. Need some way to batch convert to mpeg2. Just like the Cineform's HDLink converts a list of .mt2 file to avi.

Cheers,

Sasha

<<<-- Originally posted by Sasha Froyland : I think that MAC & PC both use Firewire and if the external drive was formatted FAT32 then I think that would work. -->>>

Macs can mount PC formatted drives, but my experience is that performance suffers. I bought a PC formatted Firewire drive and tried editing some SD DV on it awhile ago. It dropped frames and wouldn't work properly. After reformatting the drive for MacOS X it worked fine.

So your plan should be fine for mounting a disk and copying the data to a Mac formatted drive, but I'm not sure that you could edit the video directly on the PC formatted drive.

I do not have a CFHD codec, therefore cannot read the video. I could import it and get audio though ;)

Liquid Edition 6.

<<<-- Originally posted by Sasha Froyland : David - My NLE - Premiere Pro - doesn't let you export clips that are not in a timeline
<snip> -->>>

Is this True? that's bizarre, as Premiere 6.5 can export from clips. Are you sure you've checked this out. I don't mean to impune you information but if true that's just plain mad.

Boyd - Do you know how I can format a drive for a MAC from a PC? (I only have a PC).

George - Thanks for trying. You satisfied the skeptic in me.

Dylan - It is. Premier can export to a many differnt formats but you must drag each clip onto the timeline and then export either all the clips on the timeline as one big long clip or export each clip one at a time which would take me weeks. Unless, there is some kind of macro or API interface that I can program Premiere to perform these steps automatically: take file from Bin to timeline, export timeling in mpeg2 format, clear timeline, remove clip from Bin, (and continue to first step). Which NLE do you use? Can it export directly from the Bin?

Cheers,

Sasha

I'm on FCP 4.5 (Mac) and premiere 6.5 (both Mac and PC) and in both of these you can export from the bin, which is why I'm flabbergasted that PPro doesn't allow you to do that.

Dylan - I am flabbergasted! Maybe I am mistaken but …. if I don't have clips in the timeline then the File, Export option is disabled. Note: Don't have Premiere at my current day job so will have to wait to this evening to check it out again. This would be GREAT news!

Actually you can export from the bin in Premiere Pro 1.5.

Select the clip in the bin. Go the File menu and select Export Movie (ctrl-M). Will render out the selected clip in whatever format you choose.

Phil - Thanks! I will take the .AVI clip I've posted on the website (http://sashafroyland.home.comcast.net/) into Premiere Pro and export back out as mpeg2 and re-post on the website and then maybe a few DVInfo Members can download the new mpeg2 file and try to edit in their NLE and let me know how it goes.

Cheers,
Sasha

Hey!
From Premiere I can export from the Bin but only one file at a time, but yet I can export from the Bin.

Phil - Know any way to export multiple clips at once from the Bin?

I exported one file from Cineform's .avi format to mpeg.

Please download the 22 meg file and try and edit it and let me know how the quality looks.

http://sashafroyland.home.comcast.net/


Cheers,

Sasha

Summary:

Want to thank everyone for their support with this topic.

Lessons Learned:

1) How to exchange data from PC to MAC?
Answer: External Firewire hard-drive, format from the PC NTFS, MAC OS 10 can read but not write but data access will be fast and not-corruptible. Seek
FW800 is better then FW400, Oxford 911 Chipset or better, 7200 RPM with 8 MB cache or better.
Connection: Can daisy-chain hard-drives but having separate firewire ports will be slightly faster.


2) How to make my HDTV footage from Cineform's .avi files available for most editors?
Answer: Convert to MPEG-2. Use Freeware program avi2mpg2_vfw.
Available at: http://members.cox.net/beyeler/bbmpeg.html
Program converts .AVI files produced by Cineform into the following:

Video:
Resolution: 1280x720
Bits per Pixel: 24
Frame Rate: 29.97

Audio:
Channels: Stereo
Sample Rate: 48.0 kHz
Bits per Sample: 16

And the best part of the program is that it allows you to BATCH process multiple files into Multiple output files. All of the other programs I tried only performed conversions from many files to ONE output file. This program gives you the option for both.


The output plays well and appears to me to retain all the quality BUT I would respectfully request/plead that you please download some of the footage I have converted and see if you can edit the footage and if the quality looks good.

File Size Before/After Conversion:
233,033 => 101,909
40,640 => 5,469
42,969 => 17,715

Greater then 50% file size reduction. But at what cost? Editing performance? Quality?


The converted clips are located at:
http://sashafroyland.home.comcast.net/

Both AVI and MPEG-2 files are now available on a new site that can support larger files.

www.sashafroyland.strategicenterprisesolution.com

The files are currently uploading and should be complete in two houre or 6:25PM MST Saturday Night 11/13/2004.

Cheers,

Sasha