Just back from NAB. Curious there's no comment on Cineform's new product - Prospect HD. I suppose since David is a moderator here he may feel announcing it himself would be tooting his own horn?

had quite a few conversations with the Cineform people. Prospect is, for now, only sold with a BOXX turnkey computer - ie 23k. In time, Prospect will probably be sold as stand alone solution. Here's a few things it can do:

1. Capture HD-SDI 10 bit uncompressed (up to 1920 x 1080i/p)and convert ON THE FLY to Carlsbad codec. This actually means a BOXX-type computer isn't necessary. All that's necessary is a motherboard with dual opturon (or fast dual xeons), PCI-X, AJA HD-SDI card and a 7200 speed hard drive. This... is very cool.

2. Edit 10 bit material. (again, up to 1920 x 1080i/p). Currently they recommend a dual opturon computer. Sounds like dual Xeon with 800 speed memory would work as well. (my dual xeon has 533 speed memory).

3. Export to HD-SDI

4. Edits 3 streams at 1080p! or 4 at 720p!!

Don't know when it will be available as stand alone product but that's the direction i'm going when it becomes available.

Why? Because "affordable" HD (not HDV) is going to be available sooner than you think. (and anyway, those new JVC and SONY HDV cams won't be available until next year)

If you're curious about a reasonably priced (22k) High def camera (i don't mean HDV), check out the SONY POV camera which is supposed to start shipping in June or July. That's 22k INCLUDING the lens. Puts out 10 bit 4:2:2 signal. NO monitor. From what i saw of it on a HD monitor, it performs very very well.

Also saw a prototype of Jeff Kreine's Kinetta which could also be pretty sweet, albeit 2 to 3 times the price of the SONY POV and fairly questionable shipping date.

What does HD-SDI have to do with HDV ?
Isn't HDV already crushed to 8 bits anyway, so the 10 bits would not get you any more color correction latitude? Or is there a color space translation issue I'm not thinking of?
-Les

You're right. 10 bit uncompressed 4:2:2 (HD-SDI) has nothing to do with HDV.

But if you're thinking of spending 20k on the next JVC HDV cam plus 5-20k on a lens, i'm just suggesting there are other solutions which make more sense.

True, HD-SDI and HDV are different issues and really should to be discussed seqparately. However, due to the lack of a more suitable location, much of the discussions here already goes beyond editing transform streams. Just as Aspect HD is considered an HDV product, even when it doesn't edit transport streams. Prospect HD is an HDV product also, as it includes all the Features of Aspect HD but adds 10bit processing, HD-SDI capture and output etc.

The subject of 8bit vs 10bit is not an issue of latitude. e.g. HDCAM is recorded in 8bit yet its latitude is far greater than the JVC camera. Linear 10bit workflows add precision over 8 bit workflows -- levels between the levels. 8bit processing can result in visible color banding (or contouring) that can occur during color correction or other filters. Higher-end systems use 10bit processing (or deeper) to prevent this digital artifact. 10bit intermediates help prevent this even when using 8bit sources.

Hi David,

How much is prospect HD?

Thanks

Hello,

I moved your inquiry to a new thread.

Prospect HD was previously sold through BOXX Technologies only, that has very recently changed so that other integrators may sell Prospect HD systems. ProMAX is the lastest licensed Prospect HD integrator. There is while be others so expect to see a good range of prices based on system features. Expect complete system pricing between $12k and $20k.

CineForm is also planning a lite direct sales version of Prospect HD to enable work group systems to edit in 10bit with HDSDI I/O. This will also appeal to film makers who can use 10bit color correction, from sources other than HDSDI, such as HDV and film scans. Price has not been announced.

Thanks David

Hi David,

Would two dual-core AMDs with their lower clock speeds (2.2ghz being the fastest) perform as well as two AMD Opteron 252s with Cineform Prospect for any HD need?

-Geoff

Yes. The dual core options are cool. Prospect HD will have the ability to thread cross the number of CPU present, although it currently defaults to 2 CPUs, we have tried threading to 4 on dual core with excellent results. We did this for the AMD keynote at NAB. We will have a dual core aware version of Prospect HD soon.

Hey David, in the insane rendertimes thread I mentioned spreading the workload across multiple processors, and you said it wouldn't help much in terms of render speed due to cache size and the nature of HD. But here you say that the cineform folks are working on multiprocessor version. Now I'm confused. This will help in what way? (Don't get me wrong. I'm already hooked on the prospect HD. -In fact I been speaking with Dana at Promax).

Yeh. Two different issues. For our own compression technology we do mult- processing work to real-time encoding and multiple stream decoding. For renders to HDV you are dealing with third party MPEG encodes and Premiere's rendering engine -- the threading is out of our control. The caching limits still kick in, as main memory speed does not increase with dual-core -- bascially it is complex.

Makes enough sense to me. More processors, more RT in edits. (Benefits of staying with the cineform engine vs. PPro native). I'm sold.

Pete

First, a few simple questions....

Can Aspect HD capture regular standard definition DV over firewire and convert it to the Cineform Intermediate codec for editing? Can Prospect?

Does Prospect work just as well with the Matrox APVe as Aspect (dual monitors plus high def out)?

What kind of bandwidth does Prospect require for the different HD formats?

Is it safe to assume that Prospect can ingest anything that comes over an SDI interface such as Betacam SX or DVCPRO50?

Are there any future plans from Cineform to support component inputs for use with betacam SP, or is that considered an out of date format?

Is the quality of the Cineform Intermediate codec really just as good as editing real uncompressed 10 bit HD?

Thanks,

Eddie

> Can Aspect HD capture regular standard definition DV over firewire and convert it to the Cineform Intermediate codec for editing? Can Prospect?

No. DV stays as DV in both systems -- you can convert to CFHD as needed but we don't do that automatically -- you can combine DV and CFHD on the same timeline.

> Does Prospect work just as well with the Matrox APVe as Aspect (dual monitors plus high def out)?

Yes.

> What kind of bandwidth does Prospect require for the different HD formats?

Approximate averages. Codec is constant quality so the bit-rate will vary as needed.

1920x1080 10bit 24p = 14MB/s
1920x1080 10bit 30p/60i = 17MB/s
1280x720 10bit 60p = 15MB/s


> Is it safe to assume that Prospect can ingest anything that comes over an SDI interface such as Betacam SX or DVCPRO50?

Not yet. Prospect HD is an HD not SD product. We will be added SD shortly now that we have dual mode HDSDI hardware.

> Are there any future plans from Cineform to support component inputs for use with betacam SP, or is that considered an out of date format?

We are adding SD support, so if analog I/O comes available via the Xena cards we will support it (currently SDI only.)

> Is the quality of the Cineform Intermediate codec really just as good as editing real uncompressed 10 bit HD?

In 99.9% of practical workflows, yes! Remember we introduce far fewer artifacts than the camera's own compression technology (i.e. HDCAM and Varicam) so uncompressed really gains you very little. Whereas our compressed workflow safe you disk space, simplifies RAIDs, allows for network/SAN HD post, and real-time multistream HD editing.

Thanks for the quick reply. It's good to know standard definition support is on its way. Hopefully its not too far away, since we know that the XENA HS card already supports standard definition SDI.


>> Can Aspect HD capture regular standard definition DV over firewire and convert it to the Cineform Intermediate codec for editing? Can Prospect?

>>>No. DV stays as DV in both systems -- you can convert to CFHD as needed but we don't do that automatically -- you can combine DV and CFHD on the same timeline.

I find this interesting, since I'm sure standard dv could definitely benefit from the CFHD codec.

I guess I'm just an all in one box kind of guy. I long for a system that can handle anything a client walked in the door with, without switching to different editing bays.

Eddie

By the way, whats up with the AMD only support for Prospect 1080 capture? I'm not an Intel fan boy but I have 0 experience with AMD. I've only put together Intel systems.

Hopefully when the dual core Intel CPU's become available they will be supported. Although the dual core AMD is still going to be supposedly faster.

I would love to see some benchmarks. Hint Hint. :)

Eddie

Well today Intel systems are not quite fast enough for high quality CineForm real-time compression from HDSDI and AMD Opterons are. We are working with Intel to optimize more for their architecture -- after all we want to support the widest range of workstations. The main issue is HD is big -- much bigger than the CPU L1 & L2 caches -- HD compression needs to read and write the entire frame several times, which means raw memory speed -- AMD currently does this a little better. The reason is the dual Xeon architecture shares one memory bus, whereas the dual Opteron shares two memory buses (one for each CPU.) When both CPUs are working hard there is less collision over memory accesses with the Opterons.

For HDSDI some approximate comparisions (data is old now -- tests done in Feb '05 -- not using current systems.)

Encoder 10bit 1920x1080
Single Thread (one CPU) : Xeon (3.4Ghz) 19fps - Opteron (2.2Ghz) 19fps
Dual Threads (two CPUs) : Xeon (3.4Ghz) 21fps - Opteron (2.2Ghz) 28fps *

* This is why we recommend Opteron 252s (2.6Ghz) for Prospect HD to comfortable exceed 30fps. For 24p projects the Opteron 248 (2.2Ghz) works great.

So the data shows that the Opterons (running CineForm compression) scales better over multiple CPUs than Xeon. We have yet to try four encoding threads to use hyperthreading on the Xeon's -- we believe that will add 2-3 fps (from prior experience.) Note: We like memory bandwidth more than most applications so that is not a general indication of one CPU dominance.

We are keeping up with the lastest systems from both CPU vendors, and we will continue to optimize our software to get more speed, quality and resolution.

Hi David,

Have you been able to certify Cineform Prospect HD-SDI capture (at all resolutions and frame rates) with two dual-core AMD 275s?

Also, have you had any success with HD-SDI capture with a single dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition processor?

And, will Cineform Prospect soon support Redrock Micro's M2 like Aspect and Connect do?

Thanks,

Geoff Murillo

Yes Prospect HD has been tested with dual core dual proc Opteron 275 systems -- works well. We modified the encoding as that is will used all four cores.

We haven't tried Pentium D with HD_SDI cpature yet (motherboards with PCI-X and Penitum D support are extremely rare at the moment.) We are working to try this out. For playback performance the Opteron setup still wins.

Next release of Prospect HD (in a couple of weeks) will include the Redrock Micro M2 support. This is already working in house. Very nice to flip the import and upconvert to 1920x1080 10-bit from a HDV source all in real-time.

Great news! Thanks.

-Geoff

Okay, I am trying to start my editing of my christmas video using a combo of tools and clips. But, when I render, I get this error
"Sorry, a serious error has occured that requires Adobe PPro to shut down. We will attempt to save your current project."

So, this is what I have. I started off PPro and made a custom setting, (which I assume I needed) since Prospect HD did not have what I thought was the correct thing to use.
So I made one with
editing mode: Cineform HD RT
Timecode" 29.97

Video
Frame Size 1440 by 1080 16:9
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.333) (I have not idea if this is correct, but was told not to use square pixels)
Fields upper field first.

Video rendering
compressor - CF HD codec

So, I have then proceeded to capture video. For the HDV from my Sony, the avi file in project setting says it is 1920 x 1080 (Is this right? )
For the DV capture, where I changed the capture to DV, the image size says 720x480. Now, I took some of the HDV avi files from above, put them into Serious Magic Ultra, and made a new avi. Now, these avi's have a image size of 1440x1080.

So, I am at a total lose as to have I screwed stuff up and what is causing PPro to crash on all render attempts.

(Boy was plan old DV 4x3 so much easier!!)

The only reason I went from Aspect HD to Prospect HD is I read that the 10 bit mode on prospect HD was better. I never had this issue using Aspect HD.


Dave

You may need to work through this with support. Sounds like you created a preset will a combination of 1440 and 1920 modes, which is causing your issues. Prospect HD is set up for 1920x1080 not 1440x1080, so there are several places where 1440 must be set. It seems you have the capture module scaling 1440 to 1920, you will want that turned off in 1440 modes. So either run everything in 1440 or 1920, 1440 clip will work in 1920 project, yet 1920 clips in 1440 project may be trouble.

So, anyone other than me using this combo? Based on few customer requests, Ultra only puts our 8 bit code, not 10 bit like Prospect. So, if others have the need, would be nice to have folks ask SM for 10 bit output option in Ultra to work with Prospect in 10 bit mode.

Dave

I'd be curious to know if anyone's been using it with the 8bit Aspect HD?
How are your results, and what are you doing with it?

I had used Apect HD 8 bit first with Ultra. Worked great.

Dave

Thanks Dave. What did you do with it? What did you shoot with? I'd love to see a still if you had time.

Daniel

I used a sony Z1 in HDV.

I used it for my and my parents christmas video. We used it for the grandkids interviews, and opening of segments. My dad had the grandkids talk in the interview and then say where they would want to be transported to. I then changed the background on that frame. If was pretty cool!!

Will try to get a still but its just normal stuff like a weather person.

Dave

So, here is what I have done, know, and issues to resolve.

First, I have started with DV, HDV, PPro 1.51, and Prospect HD. I want to do my project with Prospect HD setting of 1920by1080, square pixels, 10 bit format. I choose the option to have any HDV video that is captured
converted from 1440x1080 to 1920x1080 10 bit. (An hour is about 80 gig. I have 4 hours of video. Ouch)

So, the HDV process works fine, so I will leave it alone.

The issue is the DV work process flow within the HD Prospect Project. So, since it looks like scaling, etc issues, this is what I have tried, but have run into issues.

So, for the DV, I started a standard DV project with 720x480, .9 PAR. (standard Ppro DV default) I bring in the clips and they look fine in a 4x3 preview screen.

Now, I need to convert these to 1920x1080 before I can use in my HD project!!

So, I use the export movie function in PPro. I make the file type Cineform HD export.
Under Video
I use the cineform HD codec
Now, I assume I need to use for frame size 1920x1080 since this is the HD project with Prospect I am using. Is this correct?
Now, what PAR do I use? If I choose 1.0, it says its 16x9. But, is this what I want, since I want my 4x3 material in the 16x9 frame?
Now, what is the keyframe supposed to be set to? Upper or lower? I know HD is upper, and DV is lower. But, what is it set to when converting DV into an HD project?
(By the way, I tried both and could not see any difference with my eye.)

So, I did the above and the clip went into my HD project as 1920x1080, PAR of 1.0 But, the video was stretched to 16x9, and the top and bottoms were chopped off.
(Now, these clips seems to preview correctly in the original 720x480 project as 16x9 with a 4x3 picture in the preview screen. The project time line preview has it chopped)

So, I then tried to do the export with 1440x1080 with PAR of 1.0 . It said 4x3 which I thought, maybe this would put my 4x3 into the 16x9 space. But, when I did the process again,
the video was still messed up. But what was weird, is the video said it was 1440x1080 and a PAR of 1.33. But, I exported it as a PAR of 1.0.


Once I can get this resolved, I know the next step I have tried is I then export from my HD project, into a 720x480 frame size, using CFHD export with a Par of 1.2 for 16x9.
But, do I use upper field or lower field? (Again, I can not seem to find what the rules are of when to use what) When I did this, the DV video was NOT fuzzy, just framed wrong.

So, am making progress. I continue to ask for help since there seems to be so few using Prospect HD this way, that I have yet to find solutions. Also, for what ever reasons, after I try some of these conversions,
then PPro starts shutting down when I try another export saying serious error. I have yet to figure out what causes, and then what causes it to start working generally after a cold reboot.

I know you are busy, so I will also post this on DVinfo since I am really getting to the point I need to figure this out. I hope next year to have NO DV footage to integrate which will solve this issue, for me.

Again, thanks for the help. I am so so close.

Dave

I have a doc that I have cut in Prospect HD. Before the holidays, I had burned some dvds for demo purposes and the quality was great.

After the holidays, I fired up the system, tweaked the cut in the Premiere timeline and began burning another demo disc BUT, now there are jagged lines and moire patterns that make the thing nearly unwatchable. Can the system default by itself to an old setting?

I tried to solve the problem--when trancoding--by setting a pre-encode for de-interlace. That help a little. Is this an Adobe issue? What transcode settings do you recommed for burning dvds from Cineform projects?

Jim,

Have you seen this FAQ entry : http://www.cineform.com/products/FAQ.htm#Aspect1 as that might be what you are looking for.

I recently read an article that the Waifan HR-1 was going to add support quicktime files, am I right in assuming this functionality is automatically built into Prospect HD for people building there own recorders or is this going to be exclusive to the HR-1?

It'll be specific to Cineform and any vendors who use their software. However, this is still rumor and speculation.

It will mostly likely only work on Intel based Macs. I believe Apple will roll out Intel PowerMacs sometimes this summer.

I would love to be able to finally use these codecs in FCP.

We have not squelched rumor and inuendo posted by others postulating interest by CineForm in QuickTime, but we haven't confirmed anything either.... Was that helpful?

Hi David,

I spent the weekend doing some camera tests with my JVC HD100 and my new Redrock Micro M2 adapter.

When I tried to import the footage with the "Convert to Large Cineform file size", "Upscale HDV to 1920X1080" and "rotate 180 degrees for the Redrock Micro adapter", my footage comes out split horizontally with a little more than half of the image in correct orientation an the other half of the image is still upside down. Is this a bug?

Before getting the M2 adapter, I've was able to import and upscale with no problems. Is the 180 degree rotation of the image my problem? I'm editing on a 3.0ghz dual-core pc.

I want to take my 720P image up to 1080P so that I can have the ability to go out to tape in the future.

Sincerely,

-Geoff Murillo

What version of Prospect HD are you running? HDLink reports the version and build number in is splash screen. This works fine on my internal build of PHD.

Hi David,

I've got Prospect 2.0 (edit-only), build 54.

-Geoff

We have to get you an updated. We are up to build 65+ now on Prospect HD Ingest & Edit. Email support@cineform.com to get a download link.

Hi David,

I downloaded the new build and I still get the same problem.

I'm going to submit a ticket with support.

-Geoff

Real-time capture or M2T conversion? I tested m2t conversion, and that is working fine -- can you verifiy?

Hi David,
I've tried both real-time conversion and m2t conversion. Same result. I've submitted a ticket with a jpeg of a frame.

It's weird, if I only have two of the three fields selected (M2 lens adapter mode, Up convert 8-bit to 10-bit, or Up scale HDV to 1920X1080), the conversion adheres to the two advanced capture filters selected.

But when I add a third filter (any of the fields above) I get the strange horizontal split-screen effect.

-Geoff

Well as soon as we can reproduce it, it sounds very fixable.

Hi David,

I finished shooting my short film and I'm getting ready to convert all of my m2t clips (720p @ 24fps) into Cineform AVI's.

I have a couple of questions for you. I ultimately want to be able to lay my final cut out to HD tape. If I wanted to go the 1080p route, am I better off upconverting my m2t's to 1920X1080 24p AVI's before I edit, or making the conversion after I edit? I know that my titles will look softer if I convert after the edit, but if I saved the title creation until after I've upconverted my final cut, would it matter?

Or should I just output a 720p master to tape? I don't want to upconvert just to upconvert if it's going to soften my image dramatically - I'd rather stay in the native resolution if that's the case.

Do you have any thoughts on the upcoversion issue? Is the upcoversion option in HDLink better, or the same as the one in Premiere Pro 2.0? Do you think my footage will look too soft if I do upconvert? Obviously I want to maintain the highest quality.

And, if I decided to lay out a 720p project to tape, which deck would you recommend, so that I maintain the high quality of my 10-Bit Cineform files?

Thanks,

Geoff Murillo

Lot will depend on the work you are planning after you have mastered out. Is in going to film? There are likely better resizing for a film blow-up than either HDLink or Premiere Pro can provide, that said the availble resizers are still nice in both cases (HDLink may have the edge.) The image will not loose detail through this resize, yet it may look softer to have an 720 image in 1080p frame (this is normal), so you will likely add sharpening filters during the post to compensate. The 1080p encode will have even more compressed headroom, yet the files will be bigger -- that is the only trade-off. So if you system is faster enough do the resize on capture. Plus there are more quality export deck options for 1080p then 720p, either D5 or HDCAM-SR (best) are good choices for 1080p24 exports.

It's settled. I'm going to go with the 1920X1080 conversion in HDLink.

Thank You David,

-Geoff

Hopefully this can be done.

Capture PC with AJA LHe, ProspectHD and AE for effects stuff.
Do initial post/color correction work, sfx, blah, blah
Render out to eSata drives using Cineform IC.

then...
Connect drives to another PC with Vegas 6 ConnectHD, blah blah....

Capture PC will be connecting to HD100 and capturing at 8bit 4:2:2 to keep things workable in Vegas (at least for the time being).

Is the above scenario plausible?
Is there a better setup using Cineforum software to do this?

Need different machines because one will be doing finishing and surround stuff, while the other is capturing or doing sfx processing.

I'm not ready to consider Premier Pro at this time.

Yes that will work. Only issue is if you have any 1920x1080 content, as that can only be decoded within Vegas not encoded (unless you install Prospect HD on you Vegas PC.)

No, it will be 720p, at least thats the plan for now.

Thanks for the response

Hi

I am thinking of using Prospect HD for simple direct to disk recording in a small pc with Xena. Just a couple of questions:

(1) What would the minimum pc spec look like for this application. No editing involved just straight recording. (Capturing component) Will any of the ITX boards be suitable?

(2) Recording 1280x720 50p 4:2:2 would a single hard disk of any variety be suitable or would I need a raid? (Prospect HD)

(3) Are there any other programs available for recording to disk using Prospect HD or is it just Premier Pro 2? I don't really want to buy a full NLE to do this if possible.

(4) How would I then use the video captured with Prospect HD on a Mac?

Many thanks!

Trevor

You'd need a high-end PC with PPro:
http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHDConfig.htm

I'm not a Mac user, so not sure what PC formats that FCP can import and edit natively.

Trevor,

1) the minimum system spec for real-time compression (not simple) is a Pentium D 840EE, 955 is better, and now that Conroe is released that is the recommended small form-factor part. There is a good change a high-end Merom (new Core 2 Duo mobile CPU) will also be up to the task, we need more testing on this.

2) For capture you will not need a RAID, 720p50 at 10-bit will average under 20MB/s.

3) We have only integrated a capture unity into Premiere Pro. However other others have built there own capture tools like Wafian. Maybe you are needing a Wafian unit?

4) Mac support is very close. We will soon allow you to capture directly into a CineForm MOV file for direct support on Mac or PC.