The target was 11.06.

What's the latest, and will we eventually be able to trim our projects with PHD 4?

"Full RT engine with HD-SDI support (Nov 6) UPDATE: we have pushed this date back to sometime in the middle of December "

Cineform Tech Blog News : Products : prospecthd (http://techblog.cineform.com/?cat=82)

Thanks for pointing out the update on the release David:

o Full RT engine with HD-SDI support (Nov 6) UPDATE: we have pushed this date back to sometime in the middle of December due to the fact that our engineering focus shifted to developing Prospect 3D for a time. Now that Prospect 3D is done, we our returning our efforts to the Play Module and RT engine.

Silly me stuck in a 2D world. I have been very active in defending and sticking up for Cineform for about a year as we await the features promised.

This latest update is a significant disappointment and causes some rethinking.

I'm sure it will be worth the wait! Fingers Crossed!

We totally disappointed with CS4 progress also, working on a different approach to CS5 so this doesn't happen again.

To me it is quite obvious that this is related to that adobe has postponed its update of 4.2, it would have been finished now and Cineform support for CS4.

Since 4.2 is not done, Cineform can't finsih there worh either.

This is my two cents

I hate to pile on here, as I've been one on the loudest evangelists for Cineform, but I share the disappointment and frustration of others, and while I appreciate that the roadblocks Adobe is throwing up have been a huge impediment to progress, Cineform is not blameless either.

By putting so many resources into bizarre idiosyncratic workflows (3D? 5D? 7D? WTF?) at the expense of basic functionality -- including not caring very much about the functions that Premiere itself supports that Cineform disables (and you know what I'm talking about) -- Cineform has brought this problem on itself and basically said they don't care too much about those of us who just want to do what Aspect/Prospect was invented to do -- simplify the HDV editing process and keep the quality high while doing so, in a more stable and reliable way than using PPro alone.

First Light doesn't do anything I need to do that Premiere can't. I don't shoot video on my still DSLR for the same reason I don't shoot stills on my HDV camcorders. I like to use the tools designed for the job.

Sorry for the rant but my level of frustration has never been higher. I've had CS4 sitting on the shelf for a year now, waiting for it to work with PHD4. And so far it appears PHD4 has no benefits over 3 anyway, so it's sitting on my Hard Drive waiting to be installed. I find myself not even using Cineform presets much of the time now as Premiere works more reliably than Cineform -- a huge shock.

The statement: "our engineering focus shifted to developing Prospect 3D for a time. Now that Prospect 3D is done, we our returning our efforts to the Play Module and RT engine" is unconscionable and shows a seriously skewed lack of focus on your core audience. Complete CS4 functionality should have been made bulletproof before even starting on work for DSLR support, First Light, 3D and all the other fancy toys.

Everything I bought Aspect for, years ago, PHD no longer does, while Cineform chases the new girlfriend, leaving us in the dust. I love that the Cineform guys are so active here, and their support is second to none in solving trouble tickets, but really, you're leaving your core audience behind. I truly believe the Davids need to re-think their Corporate Philosophy.

Rant over.

I agree with Adam 100%.

Also the excuse about 4.2 not being ready yet from Adobe does not fly. People were using that same excuse when Adobe was about to release 4.1.1 and the RT engine was not ready yet.

This major delay by Cineform is making me rethink whether I really need Cineform or not. And I LOVE cineform.

Maybe for CS5, it won't be needed because I can't wait another year to use CS5 if I am still sticking with Cineform. I do appreciate the excellent customer support though. hmmmmm! Just can't believe it has taken over a year to get support for CS4.

Done ranting for now too. I feel better! :)

Simon

Adam & Simon,
If we didn't chase new markets we wouldn't be here today. We made our business on making camera formats that don't work well, work much better through improved workflows, so the Canon 5D and 7D are a huge part of our business (they are a pain to use natively.) They are to regular post, what HDV was to post 3-5 years ago -- we are doing exactly what we are good at. We are much more than Adobe plug-ins vendor, which is fortunate as our diversification happen just as the CS4 mess started -- if we focused on CS4 we would not be here today, as many of the stability fixes didn't happen until 4.1 (some final now in 4.2.) CS4 is working, I use it with P4K + First Light for all my own productions (there is nothing in CS4 that matches what I can as easily and as fast in First Light.) Yes Prospect+CS4 could be more RT, yes it could have HDSDI/HDMI support both are being worked on. We are out of our financial rut, and even have a new engineer hired and starting in a week (going from 4 to 5 full time engineers is going to be a big boost in our output.) Our markets now include, transcoding tools, film scanning tools, mezzanine archives, 3D post and finishing Mac and PC, and soon Linux, with a high diversity of customers. Prospect and Neo tools are a still a sizable part of that market and they have not been forgotten.

With all due respect, if Neo and PHD haven't been forgotten, they've certainly been neglected while you "chase new markets." Most of the people voicing frustration here aren't asking for new features, but increased reliability and stability for those features they've come to rely upon. In a way, Adobe and Cineform suffer from the same problem: in the mad rush to add new features, stability, reliability and performance get left behind.

This is totally your right, to run your business as you see fit. But maybe we are just small potatoes, so don't be surprised when we stop using/buying from Cineform.

So David do you think Cineform RT engine is ready when Premiere 4.2 is ready for prime time?

This is just as good of time as any to drop in my periodic request.

The answer to all of this is a standalone Cineform NLE.

I think I speak for many in my profession... an upgrade to CS5 is NOT a done deal in my book.

Adam, Neo has not be neglected for Mac or PC, it has had many new features and improved support, this is only about Prospect support CS4. You know that has been very difficult, the API changed enough that everything had to be rewritten from scratch, so not that we haven't put just as much effort as we did for CS3 and CS2, we put far more in, it was simply not enough. We are not doing the crazy level of integration of the past with Prospect, as the new API will not support it, nor do today PCs justify the tweaks we had to did in the past to make Premiere work better. We know one day Premiere+modern PCs will be at a point where it doesn't need any third party acceleration and we are planning of this. We still have the best codec for post out there, and we continue enhance it support the current and emerging markets. Prospect's CS4+CS5 new playback engine, will be faster with more quality controls than CS4 native, with tighter integration with First Light and other metadata enhanced workflows. You may have heard that CS5 is going to 64-bit only, fortunately we have been shipping 64-bit codec components for several months, so that is one change with will not hurt us (yah!), so where in much better shape for CS5.

I certainly hope all that is true. Nonetheless, I think maybe this time I'll wait to hear what others have to say before rushing in to upgrade.

Sweet David:-)

Just still like to know this part "do you think Cineform RT engine is ready when Premiere 4.2 is ready for prime time"?

Regards
Mikael

This is just as good of time as any to drop in my periodic request.

The answer to all of this is a standalone Cineform NLE.

I think I speak for many in my profession... an upgrade to CS5 is NOT a done deal in my book.

The mess that is Premiere is because feature creep is unavoidable, as no two editors seem need the same feature set. In my past engineering life, I have written key parts of two NLEs: 16-19 years ago Producer Elite on the Amiga, and 9-12 years ago the ScreenPlay turn key edit box. While I still don't understand why Premiere needs so much RAM (its Achilles' heel -- both of my older NLEs did everything in 16MB without issue), the compliance with so many input and output standards would make producing a new NLE so difficult today (particularly for a small company.) Over time you will see more editing features appear in First Light, but it will never be a full editor.

Sweet David:-)

Just still like to know this part "do you think Cineform RT engine is ready when Premiere 4.2 is ready for prime time"?

Regards
Mikael

You can edit with CS4 now, RT the engine will make it faster. We aren't changing anything else, imports and exports are exactly the same. Basically, just like in CS3, the Premiere API is too slow for some playback features so we are bypassing it. In the past when used DirectShow Editing Services, which was broken with Windows 7 (yet another SNAFU) so the new RT uses the CineForm SDK directly, which is a cleaner approach used by First Light and even used within the current CS4 importer. This is far more under our control, less impacted by Adobe's or Microsofts API choices -- good things.

You can edit with CS4 now, RT the engine will make it faster. We aren't changing anything else.

Ironically, it's not the RTE that is the snag for me... it's the fact that CFHD files are ignored by the CS4 Project Manager.

David... I can appreciate the mountain to climb to produce an NLE, but the thought of a lean/mean Cineform interface conjures up visions of a rock solid timeline cutter with First Light doing the processing.

If CS5 is easier, rest assured CS6 will not, and so on......

Lots of Monday quarterbacking, and it's great you are even here to address it all, but like Adam and others... it was a bit of a jolt to see the oft-projected finalizing of CS4 integration put off in favor "other" engineering.

New markets are essential, but don't forget who has paid the bills thusfar.

It seems to me that the entire Vista, CS4, CF4 landscape has been a bit of a minefield for all concerned- MS, Adobe, Cineform, and certainly us end users.
Frankly, I believe that these have all turned out to be semi-beta products that simply represent the run up to Win7+CS5+CF5. Not much to do but wait for them to all come on line.
In the meantime, I have actually been able to everything that I needed to with Vista64/CS4/CF4/FL faster, more stable, and more easily than I was able to with XP32/CS3/CF3.
Surely this will pass...

I don't mean to pile on, but I will.

Whatever happened to the promise of timeline monitoring on an HD TV via Black Magic and PHD4? It isn't even mentioned anymore.

It kind of makes me not believe anything I hear from the Cineform boys anymore.

First it would work using Aspect. No deal. Now Prospect and still no deal.

Marty Rahn

CS4 progress delayed that. Fortunately as the new CS4 playback is more like the First Light playback engine, you may have noticed that FL supports Blackmagic cards. So Blackmagic is planned for the new playback engine, but not for CS3. Playback engine has to be first, before I/O cards support.

Hi David,

Im in big trouble, I didn't knew the problem with the RT engine in CS4, so I upgrade my software and bring an editor from Argentina to edit a movie. He is having a lot of troubles working, the playback isn't fluid, sometimes clips freezes.
If I get back to CS3 the project he has done would not open, but if not he cannot edit in RT.
What are the best settings to work in CS4?
Hardware upgrade would really help?

Im using XP64 SP3, CS4.1, Prospect 4K build 224, Cineform 2048 x 1152 Raw files (SI-2K) with linked .wav stereo audio files, 2 Opteron Dual-Core 2.4 Ghz, 8 GB Ram, Nvidia Quadro FX 3500, 8 HDD Fiber Array.

No color matrix, no WB, no LUT, Bilinear, fast playback, normal scroll (not smooth).

The editor would only be working with me for 3 more weeks, and I need him to finish the job.

Thanks for the help.

This is just as good of time as any to drop in my periodic request.

The answer to all of this is a standalone Cineform NLE.

I think I speak for many in my profession... an upgrade to CS5 is NOT a done deal in my book.
Marty, how about a compromise request? I would like the ability to trim clips in First Light. Just this little feature creep and I would be happy.

Charles... you are a very smart man.

I came from the days of DPS Perception. It had a bare bones clip trimmer that was fantastic....and ironically, it integrated with Premiere.

Using First Light as a springboard for more editing type functions is a great approach if feasible from an engineering standpoint.

A year ago, I purchased CS4, based upon Cineform's PROMISE of having Prospect 4k up to speed shortly to work on it. A YEAR ago. I don't care who is pointing fingers at whom, I'm just not going to trust anything here anymore. Trust is based upon trustworthiness - nuff said!

I continue to use CS3 and Prospect 4k as a solid, reliable editor, and then bring the resulting AVIs over to AMECS4 and Encore CS4, again, with solid, reliable results. But I won't be purchasing any more Adobe "upgrade" editions or counting on anything in the future beyond what I have at the moment, until forced to by the complete incompatability of the arrangements I have now with other, related new applications which appear on the market.

I saw the 3D demo at the Cineform both at NAB. Impressive, easy, fun really. But that's not at all the work I do. I need Premiere and Cineform to edit my HDV reliably. Let the "other features" come as they may, but lets get the core foundation solid. Its like building a house on a sandy foundation.

I have stuck with Cinform because of their continous and open communication, and by using cineform, my footage looks really good. But its time to buckle down and get CS4 fixed and running smoothly.

I've been editing since 1996 in the Media 100 days, and have seen some software/hardware blunders, but I have never seen such a train wreck as this Adobe-Cineform software catch up thing as has transpired over the last year.

GK

First off, I want to thank Cineform for their innovation and even for their new Prospect 3D possibility. In our fast changing market, your creativity and flexibility with change is appreciated and noted.

I could mirror though, the frustrations of many here, but know their voices have already been heard by you. Their/our loyalty is a pretty precious thing, especially in light of the rapidly changing technology we use. Having a 3D option will definitely be valuable as the world finally embraces 3D for television/internet/film...but listen to the voices of those here that will eventually use it. If you can keep them satisfied, they will be the core of your future (if compressed HD is even needed for the heart of 3D production).

No matter how much you sell "high end" solutions for, your "mid/lower range" is hundreds of times larger I'm sure. They will be the ones to keep you going if technology takes us down the road to "every man's 3D".

In the meantime, focus your engineers on us and we'll keep on coming back.

I read through this entire thread and see both sides of the situation.
i am sure Cineform does not need Prospect 4 customers to get where they are going.

Reading this thread we have a small group of customers raising heck and apparently the mass group of customers still using CS3 and getting along fine.

I assume that like previous versions we will continue to get upgraded features and for good-will sake at least a year of 4.x upgrades after the RTE is up on-line. this should carry us through CS5 and by then we will have processors and acquisition codecs that laugh at the need for an intermediate.
then cineform will have all the time they need to focus on their engineering of new products for the large market segment.

CS3 isn't fine under Windows 7, at least for a number of us.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/cineform-software-showcase/465686-upside-down-red-playback.html

I wish they would get around to fixing that, too!

Reading this thread we have a small group of customers raising heck and apparently the mass group of customers still using CS3 and getting along fine.

I assume that like previous versions we will continue to get upgraded features and for good-will sake at least a year of 4.x upgrades after the RTE is up on-line. this should carry us through CS5 and by then we will have processors and acquisition codecs that laugh at the need for an intermediate.
then cineform will have all the time they need to focus on their engineering of new products for the large market segment.

Using your approach is precisely what "we" (the rabble-rousing minority) took a year ago with CS4. Where it got us is why "we" are upset that our needs (once the foundational premise of our investment) were shelved.

That you can determine or not (I'm curious about your method) how large or small our "group" is, is irrelevant.

I am unable to correlate your strategy for the coming year, with your "seeing both sides" of the past year.

Nothing personal, I can always appreciate a tolerant and even optimistic outlook on things, but not when history tells me it is potentially unrealistic and the solution is when my investment becomes obsolete.

To be fair to Cineform they rely on the Adobe product for their own product.
If Adobe keep changing and cant get things right... they dont really stand a chance on their deadline do they???

I upgraded too when the latest version came out... I do know when it is finally released I will be a very happy bunny!!

I agree with you Gary. I have been one of the most ardent supporters of Cineform, to the extent of wishing they would just engineer their own NLE for precisely the reasons you cite.

The rub came when one of Cineform's self-imposed deadlines for resolving the CS4 mess was sacrificed in favor of some 3D development.

You can't blame that on Adobe... and it's not easy finding SOMETHING they aren't responsible for.

Cineform did state on the Cineform website blog that the dates could change for these targeted releases.

HDLINK does allow you to capture from a HDV device via Firewire, but it is crash record only. So no timecode is retained if capturing from a HDV Tape which has timecode.

As the Real-time engine is not ready, I can't capture into Premeire pro yet, which will write the timecode into the Cineform captured clips/files.

It would be good if the HDLINK software did allow you to capture the timecode into the clip and allow time-code based batch-capture via HDV firewire, as well as SDI etc.

Apart from the capture issue from HDV tapes, and the slow export of Cineform AVI's under cs4 x3 slower, it's not to bad it gets the job done just takes a lot longer.

Just a bit of an inconvience having to capture onto CS3 on another machine with Cineform.

It it was stand alone capture like I mentioned I think that would be very good, who else thinks this? I am not sure if this feature could be added based onto HDLINK easily or not but I think it would be very useful.

I agree with you Gary. I have been one of the most ardent supporters of Cineform, to the extent of wishing they would just engineer their own NLE for precisely the reasons you cite.

The rub came when one of Cineform's self-imposed deadlines for resolving the CS4 mess was sacrificed in favor of some 3D development.

You can't blame that on Adobe... and it's not easy finding SOMETHING they aren't responsible for.

Unfortunately that status update was not entirely accurate, we had one engineer temporarily finish a 3D feature that was also many months delayed (he was the only one who could do it.) The work was under 2 weeks, resulting in a finished product line (PC Neo/Prospect 3D was release way after the Mac version, yet the code base is nearly the same,) clearing the path for that engineer to focus only Adobe CS4 work which was more than a two week effort to finish (i.e. it was a good thing to get it done, increase revenue, plus no more distractions from CS4.) So we haven't been diverting Adobe work into 3D work in general, we want them all to work together, after all Prospect 3D needs CS4 just as much, if not more so. Basically we have a lots of delayed projects, some is due to Adobe API difficulties, some is simply the economic conditions, mostly as we are understaffed. We are working a lot on cool stuff that will benefit everyone, CS3, CS4 and CS5 users included. Just working our way out of a tough year.

David,

You guys have certainly had a tedious juggling act to perform, and I can honestly say that I have never experienced a Cineform technical failure. When you think about it, the most common technical support issue you guys deal with is probably activation issues. That's impressive.

When that scenario is juxtaposed with Adobe (pick your version), it was no surprise that the landscape unexpectedly shifted underneath your team.... I have empathy for that situation. In fact, that is the circumstance that keeps me asking "why does Cineform put up with this?"... and start ranting about you guys developing your own NLE, but you have suitably dealt with me on that issue for now (but I still think it's a good idea though).

In a lot of ways, you at Cineform are victims of your own high standard of customer interaction and support... it is astonishing. So when things got changed up on the announced RTE for CS4, it was a stunner.

Add to that is the lingering mystery of what is really going to be resolved in the CS4 fix..... will I be able to trim my projects for example.

You have had to deal with a hostile environment in the development of your products. For many of us whom have come to rely on the workflows that Cineform has allowed, it's as though our tools are being tampered with. We have to place a certain amount of trust on the mystical upgrade paths..... Cineform upgrades, Adobe upgrades, Windows upgrades, hardware upgrades.... and it all has to lean together like a house of cards, and earn us a living. In many instances, upgrades are not a choice. Compatibility rears its ugly head, and when it disrupts, we are left waiting for that next upgrade that will fix everything. There's no place to hide or pause, because eventually, you have to get moving again.

I doubt anyone understands that better than you guys nowadays.

Hey, not sure anyone has run this idea by you, but have you thought about developing your own NLE?

Thanks David. Your presence (and the others on your team) here over the years is sincerely appreciated.

It has been suggested many times before that Cineform write its own NLE. Last time this came up, I responded jokingly, that Prospect is actually the NLE and Premiere Pro is really the plug-in.

But seriously, why should Cineform waste its precious resources on duplicating the immense amount of work that has gone into pieces of software like FCP, Vegas and PP? And then you have to contend with all the 3rd party plug-ins, hardware drivers and codecs that would be developed or modified to work with a totally new NLE. Even if Cineform were to tackle building its own NLE, I doubt that they would do it from scratch. The logical approach would be to buy some "lesser known" NLE that is out on the landscape and then modify it. Heh heh, if only VirtualDub was for sale. The only good thing that I can see in the "Cineform NLE" idea is that once all NLEs go full 64 bit, there is some small advantage of rewriting a piece of software from scratch, rather than cobbling something from the 32 bit version.

As to the RT CS4 engine, I can wait. I'd rather it more or less work right when released, than have something released that gives the appearance of working and then bungs up everything that I need to do (like version 4.0 of PP CS4 did).

Is it possible for me to get a refund for my upgrade to PH4? I feel I was misled in thinking that it would fully work with my CS4 over 10 months ago, like my Aspect did with CS3.

I dont use CS4 any more and I don't feel like waiting any longer for compatibility.

Thank you,

Stephen

I am getting ready to get some sleep.
Finished a project that is due and used First light on several cuts.
As a long time Red Giant user and therefore an after effects render and wait user, first light captured the look i needed on my final piece that I cobbled together.

Good luck to those who cannot wait but after this weekend I will be with Cineform as they are what everyone out here says about them: Innovative, the best at customer service, the best small company in the business.

Cineform please give these guys their money back and lets have a forum for users and not this group of posters who spend more time on boards than they do in their suites

Dan, It's good that your workflow does what you need. The thing is... y'know .... not all of us use that same workflow.

Oh and by the way, have you tried trimming your "long" project in Project Manager yet? Didn't think so ...

I for one will stand up for David and Cineform!!! It's not that the guys at Cineform don't know what they are doing it's ADOBE that is using ALL OF US a beta testers and charging us for it on every up (down) grade!! Put the blame where it belongs on Adobe and Adobe alone... CS4 is a total POS and we all know it. Now with CS5 on the horizon we sit here like Pavlov's dogs waiting for the bell to ring. I will not be buying another Adobe product EVER!! I'm soooooo tired of being a test subject that I can not stand it anymore. The only reason that I can get anything done is because of Cineform's intermediate codec and even still it's very slow going. David and the guys do a good job on making a total POS at least function. Adobe and PC, so long I have had it with you!!!! Everyone here seems to blame a plug-in for CS4 not working when CS4 itself DOES NOT WORK WORTH A FLIP!!! When Adobe can offer a product that can hold a candle to even the most basic editor maybe I will be back, but until then.... David keep up the good work and keep the updates coming, maybe Adobe will finally see the light when Final Cut and Vegas put them out of business. Good thing After Effects works or they would be done. But you can do so much in Final Cut that the basic functions of AE are not even needed. (RANT off)

What Jerry and Graham said.

I don't know too much about delays caused by problems with Adobe etc., but I do think that to extend an 8 week delivery schedule by about 5 weeks shows a distinct lack of foresight! Maybe I'll try that the next time we are pushed on a completion date.

What is really painful though is to be told that it's due to development of 3D software.

Things which were, at the time they were offered, key reasons for customers to invest their hard-earned cash - like full BlackMagic support - seem to get pushed into the background at CineForm.

Just my two penneth.

and soon Linux

Wow! This is excellent news. I can't wait to test this.

Now with CS5 on the horizon we sit here like Pavlov's dogs waiting for the bell to ring. When Adobe can offer a product that can hold a candle to even the most basic editor maybe I will be back, but until then....

Ringing the bell for ya Jerry.... you'll enjoy this:
CS5 Revealed! Publicious (http://publicious.net/2008/10/05/cs5-revealed/)

Now that is FUNNY!!!

This isn't specifically a question about RTE, but it's been almost a month since the last beta. Any updated roadmaps for upcoming releases? The roadmap posted before was very helpful, even if it turned out to be innacurate.

This thread has put me off releasing more versions until we have next release of the RTE, and we been setting on some updates for while now. We normally release features as soon as we have them -- I would like to get back to that. Waiting for the base RTE doesn't make it finish any faster -- still a tough implementation. Plus RTE is primarily a convenience feature, more speed right? I personally think other workflows features and bugs fixes are more important : project management/trimming, faster high quality renders, etc, but we are focusing on the RTE as that is where the current noise is.

David please go to page three and read my post. Then, please keep the releases coming.
Thanks for a great product.

Thanks Jerry, I know not everyones on the same page. We will continue to do updates and work on this pipeline integration to CS4.

Thanks for the update David. Unless I missed something along the way, that is the first indication that the trimming issue was being addressed. It's reassuring to hear that bit of news.