I was wondering what would be the situation for people like me having the PHD licence for almost a year and waiting for the for the monitoring feature of the intensity card. I'm a CS3 user and I don't see me uptating Premier cs3. Any way to make work the cineform Cs4 version with Cs3 in order to get the bonus of monitoring with intensity card?

It is a good question.

We are likely to continue Prospect HD CS3 support wherever possible, we don't want to force everyone to CS4. While maintaining Aspect HD using either 1.5, 2.0 & CS3 was too ticky, Prospect HD dropped 1.5.1 ages ago, so we will see whether we can manage CS2,CS3 and CS4 support or just CS3 + 4 for most new features. I expect PHD v4 will be at least CS3 and CS4 compatible, Adobe doesn't like that so much, but our customers prefer it.

If the CS4 version works on Cs3 with no problem Im sure that people will pay the $199 update even if we are going to still working with Cs3. I know that that you guys were trying to bring the monitoring tool so hard before the update.

That is the idea. There are going to be many cool features, not just CS4 support, CS3 users will want the PHD v4 upgrade.

If I upgrade from Aspect to PHD do I need to uninstall Aspect prior to installing PHD? If not, will I then end up with both Aspect and PHD on my system? Thanks.

David, one more question. I just went to your site to order the upgrade from Aspect to PHD but cannot find anywhere that the $199 upgrade price is offered. I even went as far as to put PHD into my shopping cart and signing into my account to see if it would simply recognize that I'm a current Aspect customer and change the price, but it didn't. How do I order the upgrade?

Uninstall Aspect HD first, before install PHD

To upgrade:

Click on BUY on cineform.com.
Click on Prospect HD logo
Click on "Buy" under "Prospect HD v3 upgrade from Aspect HD Price: $199.00"

Then proceed follow instructions on check out.

Its good practice to always uninstall your current CineForm software before installing a new version. This is especially true in this case. Most definitely remove Aspect before installing Prospect or you will end up with a messy installation. They should never both be installed at the same time.

But keep in mind that with Prospect, you have everything that Aspect does so there is no need to keep Aspect on the system.

Thanks for the replies.

But this raises another interesting question. While m2t export has been removed from later versions of Aspect, it stays when old editions are uninstalled and therefore still shows up in the updates. Will it be there if we uninstall Aspect and install Prospect in its place?

M2T export was removed? Isn't that the thing that for a long time didn't work, and then they finally resolved it and it worked well?

That's strange that they would remove that feature. Personally, I would want to archive an M2T after a completed projected.

Yes, I do as well, but according to other threads this was removed from later releases for contract and legal reasons, but the function remained even if you installed a newer version after uninstalling an older version. Apparently the uninstaller doesn't remove the MPEG-2 encoder and as such it remains to work with newer updates.

But I assume installing Prospect after removing Aspect would be a whole different story, but it would be nice if we can get the official answer from the Cineform folks. Jake, David, David? Comments?

MPEG2 encoding was removed for reasons of licensing. We have no plans to add it back in. However, our uninstaller does NOT remove the MPEG2 encoding components. So for all who had the components previously they still remain, even with Prospect HD.

David, thank you for the tip! I was beginning to regret updating to Prospect - in spite of the great advantages over Aspect HD -because the m2t export plays an important role for exhibiting experimental HDVs in Berlin. Not every cinema has a blu-ray player, but certain ones have tremendous projectors and HDV/DVCAM players. Thanks a million. A sigh of relief!

I've now gotten the Prospect HD upgrade installed after uninstalling Aspect HD, but when I go to start a new project in CS3 all the Aspect HD presets still show as available. While I know I can just ignore these and not chose one and simply scroll down to the Prospect HD presets why do they still appear as options? I would have assumed they would have been gone once I uninstalled Aspect HD.

Jim, Yes they should have gone. You can delete the extra presets from
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS3\Settings\en_US\CineForm

In my experience, TMPGenc software provides great quality encoding into all flavors of MPEG, as well as DivX, and fast.

I just make Cineform Prospect HD avi master in Filmscan1 quality. Then I process that master into TMPGenc for the desired output.

Maybe this will work for your application too, Carlos. TMPGenc has been around forever, company is stable, and their products consistently are regarded as the best in class. Low prices, plus you can download trials.

I do not work for them :) but I paid for 3 different TMPGenc products over the years, and life is good.

This is interesting news and has left me perplexed. I have been using Aspect HD ver. 4x and more recently ver. 5 x with various versions of Premiere Pro for so long that I can't even recall why exactly I am using it or if I even need it anymore due to all the changes in the app itself as well as changes to Premiere Pro's core functionality. Matter of fact, for the relatively simple editing that I do, I think using Aspect HD might actually be slowing me down!

I know that Premiere Pro CS3 can capture hdv footage from my Sony FX-1 natively and edit hdv footage on the timeline. But does anyone remember offhand if Premiere Pro CS3 alone (without Aspect HD) can output straight from the timeline to mini-DV or DVCam tapes to make masters? And can it output from the timeline to a intermediate file like a mpeg-2 or .m2t file that one can then import into a full featured encoding app like Cleaner XL or Sorenson Squeeze? If the answers to these questions are yes nowadays, frankly I am not even sure why I am still using Aspect HD, and taking the time to convert to Cineform AVI on capture and rendering from the timeline back to mpeg-2 when I want to make a master.

realtime color correction does it for me; fantastic feature!
merry christmas :-)

For us, the greatest value of all, is for chroma and AE composting work. The wavelet compression is light years ahead of MPEG2 for our multigenerational work.

If you can capture output directly BEFORE MPEG2 gets it's nasty stairstepping block feet all over it, it makes even lower end cam output like our V1's, look tremendous. It is probably for people like us and high res cine type output that CF has it's greatest value.

If your work is not really destined for HD, or uses little post correction or work, you're probably wasting time and effort. But brother, if you ARE headed for HD or do post work, there is no other game in town for the cost/benefit! Your cam can be very nice indeed, but if your output sucks because of MPEG2 compression artifacts, you just lost the game.

I would like to make the upgrade. What is the drop dead date for me to make the upgrade for $199?

Thanks

When Prospect HD v4 is released, the Aspect HD deal price goes away. You have about 5 weeks.

Minor clarification to David's post. You'll still be able to upgrade from Aspect HD to Prospect HD well into the future. But when our support for CS4 is available (around late Jan), the upgrade price will move from $199 to $249. So the $50 savings goes away, not your ability to upgrade later.

David
I remember that you mention early that the PHD Cs4 also will include some other new features like the intensity card monitoring. Is the HD link m2t file convertion support of Orginal timecode expected to work on this CS4 version.

Jose,

Blackmagic timeline monitoring will occur after the initial upgrade to CS4. The CS4 upgrade should happen around the end of January, and it'll be later in 1Q before we have Blackmagic monitoring completed. But of course all PHD v4 customers will get the Blackmagic update (and subsequent updates) at no additional charge.

Thanks David

OK. I am ready to do the upgrade to Prospect from Aspect.....like....now! I went to the website and see references made to updrading from Aspect for $199 but no link to actually perform this transaction. Is there a place to do this myself or do I have to call and do this over the phone?

Thanks in advance. I need this for a trip this weekend so hopefully a quick turn-around is in order.

Marty, our hosted ecommerce provider has some restrictions on our ecommerce nav. If you click on View when you've selected PHD for purchase the upgrade options become visible. Or, click on the following link: Prospect HD v3 (Windows Download)

thank you David. That worked. I received an email asking me to submit my existing Aspect HD serial number. I replied to that email but I am wondering how long until I recieve my Prospect serial number.

Also, I have several dozen existing Premiere Pro projects in Aspect HD. Should these open okay after I upgrade? I assume they will but was hoping for a little re-assurance. Mind you, I am technically done with them but you never know when a client is going to request a change.

Thanks a million.

Aspect HD projects will load fine in Prospect HD.

Thanks David. With regards to my other question.....I submitted my aspect serial number via email, is this automated or does a customer service rep have to get my email, verify it, then dispatch a new serial number? I am going to be travelling after tomorrow for some time and I am concerned that the trial is going to expire soon, so I am counting on a quick turnaround, as I have always had with Aspect upgrades.

Thanks.

Marty please check your email.

Please check your email too! Thanks! Can't wait to color correct in 10bit!

So when we upgrade to Propect, can we still use Aspect on a different PC? And when Prospect for CS4 comes out, will it work with CS3 if we don't upgrade Premiere right away?

When you upgrade to PHD your AHD s/n is disabled. But if you don't uninstall AHD on your existing machine then you're fine. But you'll need to install PHD on a different machine.

Yes, PHD v4 will work with both CS3 and CS4.

Wow, thanks for the unbelievably fast response!

Adam, some things are just better to do and not talk about, get my drift? :)

Yessir. Sorry. I'm such an idiot.

I'm still running CS2 and Aspect HD...
 

and not sure when I'll have the $$ to upgrade to CS4.

What would upgrading from Aspect HD to Prospect do for me in the meantime? Would it do anything for me using CS2?

Prospect HD works in CS2, adds 32-bit color processing, 1920x1080, HDSDI capture and monitoring and soon Acitve Metadata in PHD v4.