CineForm and Sony Vegas 8

[Hugh Mobley]

all of a sudden it happened on my laptop, old version of cineform, and my desktop, new up to date on cineform, it happened when I moved all of one external drive to an internal drive so I could use the external on my laptop, I am just wondering if it has anything to do with that, only thing I can point to. but if I capture new clips, its ok. only effected are older clips.

[Michael Wisniewski]

I had something similar happen recently, but I had installed a bunch of new software updates etc. so I'm not sure what started the problem. I re-installed the latest version of Vegas Pro, followed by a re-install of the latest version of Cineform NEO HDV and the problem went away.

[Glenn Thomas]

Running Vegas 7 here and have been getting quite a few crashes recently also whilst editing Cineform files. I never used to have any such problems running the exact same version of Vegas.

Anyway, my next project will be 100% old DV footage, so if the crashes still occur, then it obviously won't be caused by Cineform.. Will see how it goes :)

[Hugh Mobley]

I am wondering if the addition of certain codecs could be the problem, I have added some, along with some software which encodes flv and different video. I did reinstall begas on my laptop, even deleted it out of my registry, and program files, didn't help on older m2t and mainly cineform clips, its definitely extremely aggrevating. I think I know how to solve this, have a computer with nothing on it except vegas and cineform, but who does that

[John Estcourt]

Hi..when I capture 25f from my canon xh-a1 into vegas8 , vegas recognises the files as progressive, however if i convert the m2t files to cineform Avi using HDlink they appear as upperfield first in properties.(field order)
I also notice that the play back is real poor in my 25p project unless i change the property of each Avi to progressive field order.
I have tried to change setting in prefs to progressive and also to Auto but with the same result each time i convert the files.can anyone please shed some light on this..thanks john

[John Estcourt]

hmmm guess not...well with the probs i have capturing from firewire using vista and hdlink..crash..crash.. (it did say vista compatable) and with this prob it seems like a bad investment...when vegas runs better without it.

[David Newman]

The interlaced vs progressive is a Sony Vegas issue, nothing to do with CineForm (happens with all other VfW codecs.) If you place 1080p25 or 30 in Vegas it assumes it is interlaced, it needs a setting to over ride this (request that from Sony's support.) Yet 720 or 1080p24 is marked as progressive, CineForm doesn't tells Vegas that, Vegas is simply guessing (wrong.) CineForm file does actually know which is which, yet the VfW interface Vegas uses for third party codec doesn't have a way to communicate that.

As for the Vista capture with HDLink, we are looking into that.

[Hugh Mobley]

Is the quality the same if I capture directly from the camera thru cineform into an avi file compared to capturing a m2t file into vegas and then converting it thru cineform into an avi file.

[John Estcourt]

thanks david but i am still confused..I just managed to capture about 1 min of footage 25p into cineform hdlink by using the resize button (strange)and i kept the m2t files and avi...now when i import the m2t file vegas recognises this as progressive but the avi shows upperfield first (indicating to me that its interlaced)
so i take it the footage is progressive but i just need to go into the properties of each clip and select 'none progressive' or can i just ignore it.

[David Newman]

Slightly higher quality through CineForm HDLink directly as Vegas will introduce unnecessary colorspace conversions. Vegas is RGB, source files are YUV, HDlink converts preserving the YUV colorspace (which is also much faster.)

[David Newman]

It is a question for Sony Vegas's support team, as the failure is for all VfW AVIs (compressed or not.) I have previously thought that it was a cosmetic error on Vegas's part, yet you have suggested that where performance implications. Therefore it is a Vegas bug that they need to fix, or at least have a project setting override (they might already have that.) Let us know what Sony reports, us it will be useful information for others.

[John Estcourt]

david..out of interest i just imported one of the cineform avi files into a demo of EDIUS 4.6 and that also shows field order as upper whereas the m2t shows progressive for the same clip so its not just vegas.

[David Newman]

It is still up to the NLE to allow the user to control that. The problem is these NLEs are use the old VfW codec standard with has no way report a progressive image. It is the NLEs that are guessing wrong, so it is their bug to fix to maintain the best support for VfW codecs. If you create a 1080p25/30 progressive project, a better assumption would be to guess that you content is progressive if you can't know otherwise. Please submit a bug report to Canopus as well.

[Frédéric Salvy]

hello all.
here is a list of questions i've not found in the FAQ.

Sytem I will use (draft)
1 single Intel quad core (q6600 or q9450)
4GB RAM
Dedicated HDDx2 for OS (RAID1)
Dedicated HDDx2 for video (RAID0)
Windows XP 32.
Sony vegas 8
Cineform NEO 4K
Blackmagic decklink pro (4:4:4)
AJA 2Ke (4:4:4)

is someone using a DELL precision machine with decklink successfully ?

I) Codec :
cineform is similar to MJPEG2000 ends with "I-frames with wavelets compression in Variable BitRate, constant quality" -- we have none of the compute load issues. We are between 5-7 times faster for encode and decode than JPEG2000. No hardware is needed.

Data rates depend on you, your quality choice and your content. Data rates in compression ratios work for all source formats. 10:1 for good quality, 7:1 for very good quality with peak data rate hitting 4:1 (rare.)

that means (video stream only):
SDvideo = 4:2:2 10bits YUV 720x486i @29,97fps ->32Mb/s = 4MB/s
HDvideo = 4:2:2 10bits YUV 1080i@59,94fps ->190Mb/s = 24MB/s
HDvideoRGB = 4:4:4 10bits RGB @59,94fps ->284Mb/s = 35.5MB/s

so even a single drive 7200rpm can handle full hd :)

II) Sources :
[SD] My source is meanly from a Sony VTR deck with Digital Betacam SD. Can I capture in SD 4:2:2 10 bits ? What is the minimum CPU to do that (max quality) ? how much RAM is needed ?
(I mean capture with preview + inverse telecine process.)
The final quality will be about the same as from the tape (archiving purpose)?

[HD] My source is meanly from a Sony HDCAM SR deck with Digital Betacam HD. Can I capture in SD 4:4:4 12 bits 1080i60/1080p60 ? What is the minimum CPU to do that (max quality) ? how much RAM is needed ?
Is it best to have a 4 cores @3Ghz or a 8 cores @2Ghz ?
(I mean capture with preview + inverse telecine process.)
The final quality will be about the same as from the tape (archiving purpose)?


III) Preview :
Do I have a preview during capture in realtime (with AJA and Blackmagic cards) ? this preview in on the PC monitor only ? Or can I have the preview outputted to SDI ? this preview reflect the input only, or the on-fly-compressed video ?

IV) Timecode :
Do I get the timecode form the Deck and from SDI LTC-VITC (live sources) into the captured file ?. Is the embeded timecode available into AVI and MOV files ?
In vegas is there a way to see this embedded timecode (timecode reader) ? A way to burn it in the video ?

V) Closed Captions
[SD] EIA-608, closed captioning in line 21. Do the CC is embedded into the captured file ? AVI and MOV ? when I playback from the Vegas timeline, do I directly see the CC (via external decoder) ? With both AJA and blackmagic cards ?

[HD] EIA-708, closed captioning in line 9. Do the CC is embedded into the captured file ? AVI and MOV ? when I playback from the Vegas timeline, do I directly see the CC (via external decoder) ? With both AJA and blackmagic cards ?

VI) Inverse telecine (24p film look)
My sources are mostly film telecined into digital betacam tapes NTSC. Is there a way to automatically remove the telecine process during capture ? I mean a professional film look, with no more fields, whatever the pulldown sequence of the source is (clean or broken). What happen if the source is purely video or video and telecined mixed ?
With 24p, my final footage will be much higher quality and less CPU intensive to process ?
Then can I edit this footage transparently in Vegas ? Can I mix normal video and 24p footage ?



VII) And ultimate capture question :
Can I capture directly in Vegas with :
- close caption
- time code
- preview
- inverse telecine
- HD or SD

Or I must use cineform HDlink ?


best regards to this forum, cineform and vegas !

frédéric

[Bill Ravens]

I've contacted Canopus concerning the incorrect "upper field first" notaion on cineform progressive files. The advice I received was to "change it to progressive".