Just a quick question,

But like the subject title suggests, will a standard Premiere Pro 1.5 setup (with the HDV upgrade from Adobe) be able to playback and edit a CFHD file (single stream, not real-time effects like Aspect is capable of) without Aspect or Connect being installed?

I know you can't encode, but I'm just wondering if you can still read the files too.

Also if you captured a file at 1920x1080/10-bit in Prospect HD, can the file then be read (in 8-bit HDV resolution) in Premiere Pro with the Adobe HDV upgrade, or are the two files now incompatable?

Thanks,

Jason

This is not recommended and in many cases it will not work. The codec has evolved a lot since the Adobe-CineForm license. The only limit compatibility remains for progressive encoding (like the 30p modes from the HD10/HD100 JVC cameras.) Interlaced footage from Adobe Premiere 1.5.1 works in Aspect HD, but not the other way around. If think there will be issues for any 10-bit content in 1.5.1 without Aspect HD or Prospect HD. Note: Aspect HD will import 10-bit 1920x1080 content.

Hi,

I have a Z-1 camera, but quite often I need progressive videos (for green screen etc). IMHO Magic Bullet de-interlacer does it's job pretty cool. So my primary question is: should I apply Magic Bullet prior to converting to AspectHD (TS > AE MB > Cineform AVI), or after converting (TS > Cineform AVI > AE MB > Cineform AVI)? The second method needs additional render generation, but as far as I know, native mpeg uses 4.2.0 color space workflow, and Cineform uses 4.2.2 colorspace, maybe it's an advantage in this case ... How do you think guys, which method is the best?

thanx in advance,
Anton

ts->cineform->MB

True both. Generation loss is not the concern, find out what looks the best. My guess is with Serge, I think the Aspect HD 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 upconversion can only help.

thanks guys for a quick answer. I think you are right - I should start with cineform conversion first!

One more question.. Magic Bullet has a great feature called "deartifacting", it tries to kill compression artifacts somehow. There are three options, 4:2:0 (HDV), 4:2:2 (DVCProHD) and 3:1:1 (HDCAM). Assuming I have converted to cineform format already, which deartifacting option should I select for best results - 4:2:2 or maybe 4:2:0?


thanx in advance,
Anton

Their 4:2:0 de-artifacting might be like Aspect HD's. Again experiment.

So Cineform recommends Dual Opterons for Prospect HD.

As a complete beginner, I have a few questions (for David maybe):

I am about to build a new editing system supporting either Aspect HD or Prospect HD and want to make sure I understand everything.

Question 1: If I purchase one Tyan Thunder motherboard and one Opteron 265 am I taking advantage of the motherboard's dual processor capacity or do I need to purchase a second 265 processor to take advantage of that? (I am confused because I always thought that dual core and dual processor was the same thing)

Question 2: Is this configuation appropriate/below par/over-kill (I was considering a 180 instead of a 265 - how would that be?

Question 3: The Tyan Thunder features 2 PCI-Express slots; am I able to use one for a GeForce 7800GTX for gaming and the other for the Component Out video card like the Matrox Parhelia APVe?

Question 4: Is Aspect HD 100% capable of handling 2+ hours of footage in the timeline or are feature length productions more akin to Prospect's uses?


Thank you very much for your help, I can't wait to purchase all this stuff - I just can't bear to do it until I feel like I know everything I need to first.
-- John.

Q1. Dual core (two CPUs in one 'chip' package) and Dual processor (two CPUs in two separate packages) are not the same thing, particularly with the Opterons. Dual processor AMD solutions are still faster as they can two memory buses instead of just one (so memory speed theoretically doubles.) That said, all the CPU you mention are faster enough for Aspect HD, but you will need a dual processor setup for Prospect HD Ingest.

Q2. The Opteron 180 will be perfect for Aspect HD, but it has no upgrade path to dual processor (so no need for a dual proc motherboard.)

Q3. I don't know if that will work.

Q4. Yes. Aspect HD and Prospect HD are based of the same core, Prospect HD adds 10-bit compression, 16-bit processing, resolutions up to 1920x1080 and HDSDI input and output.

Q1. Dual core (two CPUs in one 'chip' package) and Dual processor (two CPUs in two separate packages) are not the same thing, particularly with the Opterons. Dual processor AMD solutions are still faster as they can two memory buses instead of just one (so memory speed theoretically doubles.) That said, all the CPU you mention are faster enough for Aspect HD, but you will need a dual processor setup for Prospect HD Ingest.

Q2. The Opteron 180 will be perfect for Aspect HD, but it has no upgrade path to dual processor (so no need for a dual proc motherboard.)

Q3. I don't know if that will work.

Q4. Yes. Aspect HD and Prospect HD are based of the same core, Prospect HD adds 10-bit compression, 16-bit processing, resolutions up to 1920x1080 and HDSDI input and output.


Thanks David - that's excellent (and prompt) information.

So if I decide to go with Aspect HD and a single processor, is a dual core Opteron recommended or will a regular dual core Athlon do the job just as well?

Now please forgive me for the following question - I am going to sound stupid I think, for Prospect HD, if I shoot with the Z1 and get an image of 1440x1080i, is that converted to 1920x1080? Or do I need a camera that shoots in 1920x1080? Both the Z1 and the new Canon only shoot in 1440x1080 don't they?

Thank you so much for your help, you've made my mind much clearer.
-- John.

I'm not sure how a fast dual core Althon compares with a single dual core Opteron, I expect the performance to be very similar.

Prospect HD will optionally upscale 1440x1080 to 1920x1080 during the capture process. The reason to do this is for HDSDI exports which are only 1920x1080 (not 1440.) If you do not intend using HDSDI this upscale is less important, although it can help with effects work as square pixels are preferred (plus the upscaled result is 10-bit encoded.)

Note: The Canon may shoot 1440x1080 HDV, but if you use it HDSDI output you get 1920x1080.

I'm not sure how a fast dual core Althon compares with a single dual core Opteron, I expect the performance to be very similar.

Thanks for that - it's difficult to tell because the numbers are not consistent across the formats.

Cinform.com lists the following RE Aspect HD:

"Best Performance: Dual-core Pentium D (820 or 840) or or Dual-core Athlon X2 (3800+ or greater)"

If I do go with Athlon I'll be getting a Dual Core 4400+ so I'm assuming that it will do the job just fine - but if Aspect HD is engineered specifically for the Opterons then I'll think a little harder about it before I decide on Athlon.

But if Opterons are only really required for Prospect then I might give them a miss and go with the MUCH cheaper option. I am not a professional, just an amateur (who would like to be a professional) but what I mean is that I probably won't be making any income out of all this so I'm probably better off going with Aspect and the Athlons.

Aspect HD will serve you well, and so will an Athlon Dual Core 4400+.

Thanks for your help David - Time to purchase I think.

I'm going to have a lot of fun this summer with all my new toys!

Hi everyone!

I am looking into some equipment for a feature film I will be working on. We decided early on to shoot HDV with the JVC-GY-HD100 in 720/24p mode. Also we want to capture all of our footage with the FS-4 pro DTE device. ( heres the link.... http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=404563&is=REG&addedTroughType=search ) That being said we wanted to upgrade our system to somthing that could handle the HDV files. I am an Adobe user so when I found this computer at B&H, I thought it might do the trick. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=368176&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

I Also want to get Aspect HD to edit the HDV files with. My only concerns are, 1. Will this computer be fast/good enough for HDV editing? Especially a feature length movie.

And 2. I have heard that when you capture HDV using the FS-4 pro it turns the files into a type called "M2T" files. Will Aspect HD be able to edit these files? straight out of the FS-4? Or will I need somthing to convert them with?

Thanks in advance,

Chris

Aspect HD comes with the HDLink tool that will convert M2T files to CineForm AVIs for real-time editing and high quality post.

That B&H system as is somewhat underspec'd for 2005 or 2006 (good for 2004.) You want a Pentium D (not 4) 830 or 840 (or better) or an Athon X2 4400+ or better with a video disk setup up in RAID 0 (2x250GB drives striped.)

Thanks David,then thats what I'll get!

:O)

Chris

Hi Gang,

I'm planning to buy a new pc to edit HDV footage from my FX1E on Premiere Pro 1.5 and I was wondering if it is really worth it to buy an AMD 64 dual...or should I buy a cheaper pc (say an AMD 64 single) and use Cineforms' Aspect HD?

Cheers,

Rafa

Rafa: you'll need all the processing power you can afford to get the most out of HDV, regardless of what editing software you use. The Cineform plugin works reasonably well on single-core processors, but faster chips will speed both the time it takes to transcode into the Cineform codec and to render your finished project back to HD delivery formats. Best "bang for the buck" right now is either the AMD or Intel dual-core processors at around $325-350.

http://www.cineform.com/products/AspectHDPPro.htm#AHD_Sys_Requirements

I really like Aspect HD, it's worked great for me.

PC System Requirements
Recommended
CPU Minimum: 2.8+ GHz HT Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 OR
Best Performance: Dual-core Pentium D (820 or 840) or or Dual-core Athlon X2 (3800+ or greater)
Memory 1GB Dual-channel PC3200 DDR or 1066MHz RDRAM
System Drive Dedicated 7200 rpm drive - used for program storage
Video Storage Minimum: One dedicated 7200 rpm drive OR
Best Performance: Two or more drives organized as RAID 0
OS Windows XP plus Service Pack 2 w/DirectX 9
Software Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 plus v1.5.1 HDV update
Physical I/O Firewire (IEEE 1394) controller for connection to camcorder
Graphics Card AGP graphics card with onboard memory. No shared memory setups as is common with motherboard-based graphics chipsets
(Optional) Suggested Component Output Graphics Cards Nvidia FX540 or Matrox Parhelia APVe

1/ do you have any idea of the quality of this announced 1280*720p capable camcorder recording on an SD card at 9Mbps in "some" MPEG4 ??

2/ DO you ( at cineform) have any plan to capture and transcode into Cineform AVI the footage of that camcorder ??

It would be nice to be able to edit these shots along with others coming from other HDVs cams...

Thanks , david, for your rsponse.

Not yet, although it could be done very easily if there is a matching decoder that comes with the new Sanyo camera.

Sanyo, please send us one.

Keep in mind that the HD1 is a consumer-oriented camcorder in a small form factor with an inexpensive lens and single-chip sensor, recording 720p at 30 fps using a marginal bit rate. That might look better in some ways than other consumer camcorder footage, but will probably be "stuttery" from being 30 fps progressive and otherwise not be all that great. I can't see using this for much other than personal purposes, expecially when you can pick up a better HDV camera for under $2000.

Not to say that someone couldn't make a semi-pro MPEG4 video camera for a reasonable price, but I don't think this is it.

it could be done very easily if there is a matching decoder that comes with the new Sanyo camera.

Thank you. let Sanyo hear you.

Keep in mind that the HD1 is a consumer-oriented camcorder in a small form factor with an inexpensive lens and single-chip sensor, recording 720p at 30 fps using a marginal bit rate....
...especially when you can pick up a better HDV camera for under $2000.


Agree. I own them (Z1 & HC1). But the form factor is also a very attractive ....factor ! So I will consider it a serious candidate for skiing, cycling, etc..And until I have seen them, it remains some hope that the encoding MIGHT be OK. After all, in some other MPEG4 ( like WMV, remenber that small software house from Redmond...run by Mr Guillaume Des Portes ) encoding 720p at 5Mbps turns out to be excellent...

After all, in some other MPEG4...encoding 720p at 5Mbps turns out to be excellent.

Again, we're talking about MPEG4 video encoded in real time in a consumer-quality camera, not video encoded down to MPEG4 from higher-quality source using an unlimited amount of time and processing power. Can't assume there's any correlation between the two.

I recently read the two whitepapers on Cineform's website on the Aspect and Prospect codecs.

Although it is an 8-bit codec and not 10-bit does the Aspect HD codec suffer from banding issues?

Hello everyone,

(I'm pretty new to 24p filming and extremely new to HDV, so please bare with me if all this seems stupid.)

I just got my new JVC GY HD100 the other day (this camera is awesome! :) and I downloaded the trial version of Aspect HD to see how I like it. That being said I shot some footage in 720/24p and captured and converted it to CFHD AVI files using HD link (that came with the trial version of Aspect HD) and made a quick little edit so I could make a DVD and see what it looked like on Tv. At first when I exported it (as a Cineform HD Export) and watched it on WMV9 it looked like it was in slo-mo but the audio was still at the right speed. I then changed the framerate to 29.97 and that seemed to do the trick. Next I made a new 16:9 project in Adobe encore version 1.0 and tried to import the edit, no go. I had a message pop up and tell me that the image size had to be 720x480. I then went to the Cineform website and went to "Support" and found a great article on how to make a DVD using Aspect HD.

http://supportcenteronline.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=614

(I wish I would have found it sooner haha.) It told me to change the frame size to 720x480 when I export the movie from Premiere, have the frame rate set to 29.97 and the pixel aspect ratio set to D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9(1.2). After all this I was able to import my "Quick" edit into Encore and make a dvd. One last thing I encountered was that my DVD plays fine on a wide screen TV, but that on a standard 4:3 TV it is all squashed, even if I set my DVD player to 4:3 letter box. (Which has always fixed that problem in the past.)

My questions are...

Is this the way most people using Aspect HD make their DVD's?

Am I still getting a "24p" DVD? (I know that the DVD player will play it as 29.97 anyway, I'm just curious. :)

Is the quality going to suffer from doing it this way?

And also why is it only able to playback on widescreen TV's and not 4:3 ones?

Or maybe I'm doing things the hard way and am too dumb to figure out the correct solution.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
-Chris

Having a kind of odd problem that I was hoping someone might enlighten me on. I have a new project shot on an HC1 at 1080i, exported with the suggested settings that both David posted and are echoed on the Cineform FAQ site and imported into Sony DVD Archietect.

I do need to say that this is a selfish project, it's not for customer, it's of me and my family in Flagstaff playing in the snow but none the less it's the first dvd that I'm trying to edit in HDV and move into DVD for our enjoyment.

The issue is that although the project is 720x480 Wide, when imported into DVD Archietect, it's sticking to 4:3 and not accepting the 16:9. Which is odd because this is the first time ever that I've had a problem with DVD Arch doing something like this.

I've taking and changed the project settings to 16:9 (which is my typical startup) and even forced the clip to 16:9 and without reguard, it's still in 4:3 on preview or burn.

EDIT: I need to add one additional comment to this, I just tried to run a "Pro-Coder" conversion on this file and found that in Pro-coder I had to force 16:9 as well, for some reason it's seeing the Cineform AVI as 4:3 as well, even though it's 16:9. When I re-compress via Pro-coder and output a new MPG2 file, it's 16:9 and flawless, might be a little extra loss after having passed through a 2nd codec but it's WS.

Almost forgot, got to mention one more thing, when outputting with Lower Fields First, any slight movement results in major squigglies in the video, lots of horizontal noise, resulting in the need to export to Progressive, otherwise it's unviewable.

Any ideas?

MIGUEL

Does Aspect HD currently have the ability to transcode from 100Mbit/s 422P@HL ?

Yes. It can transcode from any MPG, M2T or TS sequence into a CineForm AVI. However Aspect HD is limited to a max. resolution of 1440x1080, a 100Mbit/s 422P@HL can be 1920x1080 -- requiring Prospect HD Edit.

BUMP-

I wanted to update this in hopes that it might help me get a response cause something is not right.

In short, when I export HDV from Premier Pro 2.0 with the Aspect HD 4.0 engine, and I import the AVI into either DVD Archietect, I'm seeing a 4:3 project and not a 16:9 project despite the project settings being setup as 16:9.

To confirm my export settings:

Export Movie> Select Cineform HD Export> (Video TAB) 720x480, Frame 29.97 and PAR to D1/DV NTSC Wide 1.2> (Keyframe and Rendering), I select progressive (for this project) and when I'm done I'm getting a 4:3 project...

When I play this in Media Player it's widescreen and perfect, when I import it to DVD Arch, it thinks it's 4:3!

Has anyone seen this?

I don't know about DVD Architect, but I do know that getting your DVD player to switch to 16:9 is as easy as pie.

Is the footage appearing in DVD Architect tall and thin? If so, if all else fails you could simply author as normal (ie 4:3) and reset the aspect ratio flags on each VOB file using the freeware tool IFOedit. This will override DVD Architect's default 4:3 settings on your final 'ready to burn' files and tell your DVD player to run the footage in an anamorphic format.

If, however, DVD Architect is physically cropping the sides of your footage, another solution will be required.

I don't know about DVD Architect, but I do know that getting your DVD player to switch to 16:9 is as easy as pie.

Is the footage appearing in DVD Architect tall and thin? If so, if all else fails you could simply author as normal (ie 4:3) and reset the aspect ratio flags on each VOB file using the freeware tool IFOedit. This will override DVD Architect's default 4:3 settings on your final 'ready to burn' files and tell your DVD player to run the footage in an anamorphic format.

If, however, DVD Architect is physically cropping the sides of your footage, another solution will be required.

The export from the PPro Timeline with the CFHD Aspect 4.0 is coming out 4:3, when I play it back in Arch it's pillarboxed and stretched thin, DVD arch will allow you to force the aspect of the source file to 16:9 but to no avail.

What's buggin me is that if I use the Premier Pro HDV preset to start the project and export it using the 720x480 x 1.2 it's dead on perfect. So there is something different about the Aspect that is not the same as the version of Cineform that Adobe is using. I can however take the raw CFHD Avi in 1440 x 1080 and import it into DVD Arch and it will run a re-compression and it will be just fine, that's what really odd, the issue only manifests itself when I reduce the exported file to 720 x 480.

Miguel

After installing Aspect HD everything works so far except m2t export which gets to the end and crashes premiere with an error Runtime error microsoft c++ r6002 floating point not loaded

Any Ideas all other exports work including cineform HD avi's. Thanks

Using Premiere 1.51 alone on a system with little else.

There is a patch available for systems that do that particular crash, please contact support at CineForm.

If my understanding is correct, the m2v HDV files are not that performance friendly, so this software wraps it in a lossless codec that's easier to edit with? Is Aspect HD simply for Premiere while Connect is for Vegs?

Both Aspect HD and Connect HD use our CineForm Intermediate codec. Files captured are compatible and interchangeable between the platforms. HDLink, our MPEG I/O and conversion utility is also part of both packages.

But the architectures of Premiere and Vegas are different, so we have different components with each. For Vegas, we have done some special interface work between our CI codec and the application to provide an accelerated editing environment using the various preview capabilities within Vegas. (Wavelet transforms, which is the technology used in our codec, have some unique characteristics that can accelerate the editing environment).

In Premiere we also have our own RT SW engine that literally displaces the RT engine provided by Premiere (and which also includes our CI codec). This allows us to get to a very high level of performance, about 3X-4X greater than the RT engine in Premiere achieves. When using our RT engine, Premiere is operating as a comprehensive GUI issuing commands to the CineForm RT engine.

So, both include the CI codec and HDLink, but Premiere has the CineForm RT engine in addition.

To complete the story, Prospect HD extends Aspect HD by extending the codec and RT engine to 10 bits of I/O precision plus extended horizontal resolution. There are some other feature and architecture differences between the two also, but at a simple level the primary difference is the extension to 10 bits.

How cool is it that the CEO of the company answers your questions?

Ah geez, let's keep it in perspective - I'm also the part-time janitor. Now, how cool is it that the part-time janitor knows enough to answer your question? :-)

All joking aside, David Newman (CTO) and David Taylor (CEO) are both hanging out on these forums to help us. There always seems to be a new feature or a bug fix right around the corner. Unlike big companies, Cineform has been able to fix problems almost as fast as we can find them. Sure they don't have the huge beta tester program, but they repond fast enough.

The real issue with Aspect HD is that it is faster to use, offers a higher quality output due to better use of color information when applying effects, and makes it possible to use HDV in After Effects. Even Adobe admits that HDV and After Effects don't mix very well using native M2T.

Last week there was an invite only beta release for adding HXV200 support (which seems to be working well -- more feedback is welcome), now this is beta release for everyone else. I expect no majors changes between now and its official release (other than the manual is being updated.)

So if you want the latest and a last chance to help squash a bug (link removed.)

This version also others 15 days additional trial time for those who have tried Aspect HD before.

Features and Fixes:
• HDLink has been updated to support MXF files from the HVX200.
• HDLink now supports scaling of MXF or M2T files to various standard HD resolutions.
• HDLink now supports deinterlacing of 1080i sources in a progressive output.
• Pulldown removal and deinterlace filters can be combined to generate 24p from 60i sources.
• HDLink can now convert to a separate output directory.
• Export to Frame now better color handling under PPro 2.0.
• Timecode capture within Premiere Pro now working again (bug in 4.0.3.)

Aspect HD 4.1 has been released now at www.cineform.com.

installed (several time) but just a question about the dual premiere 1.5/2.0
lauching prem. 2 shows cineform splash screen with 4.1
launching prem.1.5 shows cineform splash screen with 4.0
how do i know if premiere 1.5 is using the good version or how can i upgrade both premiere ?
(dont tell me to reformat Hard disk....)

Hi everybody,

I have a workflow issue and I'm curious if others have had similar issues and discovered elegant solutions.

I have an HDV project edited using PPro1.5 and AspectHD. I want my final product available in both an HD format (say, WMV files) and SD DVD.

When I create text and titles in the HD PPro project and create the HD WMV file, they look fine. However, then when I export to a 720x480 CineformAVI for the DVD, the text is aliased/subsampled and ends up looking excessively blocky sometimes. If I export the edited video without titles to a 720x480 CineformAVI and then recreate the titles natively in the 720x480 project, they look much better even though they are the same size resulting in the 720x480 AVI.

Is there an elegant way to create the text/titles once and then scale them appropriately for both projects so that they look clean in both, without having to go through and manually change each and every title file?

Thanks in advance for any tips,
Bill

Go into the plug-ins folder with PPro2.0 and find the CineForm directory, copy that into the same place in 1.5.1. Now you have 4.1 in both.

Bill,

Could you please send me is a frame grab of each example? Maybe there is something we can do.

David.

For what it's worth, I think that this problem is another case of using the wrong field first. I was using native 24p footage in a 29.97 project. When I tried to export using the Lower Field First, it ended up flipped, whereas when I exported using Upper Field First everything looked OK. This seemed most visible in the text, so I thought it was a text only issue, but upon closer inspection I see the problem also in the video footage.

Sorry for the thread...

Bill

Is the deinterlace algorithm in HD-Link intelligent, or does it just discard every other field?

It is more intelligent than that, yielding a higher vertical resolution.

David, You guys ROCK! I just installed 4.1. The deinterlacing and conversion from 1080i to 720p in HD-Link works great. Incredibly fast too.

Thanks for always making a great product better.