CineForm Discontinuing Aspect HD after 5 years....

[David Newman]

Prospect HD also has 1440x1080 profiles.

AspectHD does install components for Encore, it only was the Premiere importer if CineForm AVIs are used. That said, I never heard of Encore having any issue isolated with our plugins. I even did a 90 project 1440x1080 24p project in Prospect directly out to Encore this weekend, worked perfectly.

Give Prospect HD a trial, it is fully featured, just will a 15-day limit.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by David Newman

Prospect HD also has 1440x1080 profiles.

Thanks David for the answer, I find it very positive that suppliers take the time to answer their (possible new) clients in a forum, it's a kind of service that I"m not used to.

Anyway, I will give your suggestion a try as I really want to see if their is any quality difference on a 25f project after transcoding to dvd. I found the aspect codec to be a big advantage during editing as fast scrolling through the time line was as painless as with DV.
But other disadvantages were the 3 times bigger files and twice as long transcoding times on files without any effects or corrections. Only if the output on dvd is visually better I would consider in investing.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

twice as long transcoding times

After reading a bit more on the cineform site I'm not so sure if I applied the right workflow, I exported the file form premiere as cineform avi and imported that file back into encore and that's where it crashed on. Should I transcode from premiere directly to a mpeg for best results?

[Mike McCarthy]

For best results, export an HD quality master from PPro. Import that file into After Effects to downconvert and export to DVD MPEG2. Import that MPEG2 into Encore for DVDs. After Effects does the best job of downconverting of any application in the Adobe Suite, because it allows you to explicitly handle the interlacing and pulldown issues, but it does take longer. This is true for any of the Premiere based workflows including Cineform, Matrox, Blackmagic, etc.
Using Cineform as an intermediate over native HDV should improve your DVD quality, but not by as much as switch to AE for the downconvert to SD resolution.

[Matthew Ebenezer]

How long will the $199 upgrade to Prospect for existing Aspect HD stay in place? Looks like upgrading will be the way to go but I have 3 systems with a license for Aspect HD on each so it might be a little while before I can justify the upgrade.

Thanks,

Matthew.

[David Newman]

$199 is an incentive price. The upgrade will likely normallize to $250, after the Prospect HD v4 release.

[Craig Irving]

Well I just decided to buy the upgrade to Prospect HD (not sure if I'll really take advantage of all it offers, since my cam is only 8-bit 1440x1080) but I'll take Cineform's word that it'll help.

My concern is that I'm already 1/2 way through a project with my footage sized at 1440x1080. So I assume I would have to keep editing that way unless I wanted to re-capture or convert all my footage to 1920x1080. And even then I'm not sure it would be worth it.

Even though Premiere Pro CS4 is not officially supported for real-time acceleration and other enhancements, can I still create a new Prospect project and import my old Aspect HD project and edit my footage? I'm planning on reformatting my computer and putting on Vista 64-bit, but I really don't want to install Premiere Pro CS3 unless I absolutely have to. What are the limitations using Prospect HD on Premiere Pro CS4 before it's officially supported in January?

[David Newman]

You Aspect HD CS3 projects will not work well in CS4, as PHD doesn't run there yet, it is not just acceleration as our importers and exporters (which get you float point support) are not yet CS4 compatible.

As for 1440x1080 up scaled to 1920x1080, this step is not necessary. Leave 1440x1080 source at there source resolution, and place them in 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 project your choice. The only reason to upscale on capture/conversion is if you are using an HDSDI output that requires 1920x1080 for real-time playback.

[Craig Irving]

Thanks David, I really appreciate your reply!

[David Taylor]

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

at purchase, try coupon code "HV20Forum", seems you will get $40 off the $199.

We did run a promotion on the HV20 Forum for a while for new purchases of Aspect HD and Neo HDV. The promo was not intended for this upgrade so I've discontinued the discount code. We think $199 is a great price for the upgrade without a further discount!

[David Moody]

I upgraded last night.

It is probably overkill for what I do with my HV20, but I will upgrade to CS4 for Bluray subtitle support and Prospect should be ideal for editing Canon 5D mk2 footage when I get one.

[Warren Morningstar]

Does Prospect support alpha channels?

[David Newman]

Originally Posted by Warren Morningstar

Does Prospect support alpha channels?

Prospect 4K and NEO 4K support alpha channels. Prospect HD is targeted 4:2:2 10-bit, and it doesn't have a 4:2:2:4 YUVA profile, but we do have RGB/RGBA (4:4:4:4) encoding in Prospect 4K. P4K is now $1499.

[Steve Montoto]

Originally Posted by David Taylor

It's a somewhat nostalgic moment for CineForm as we announce we are discontinuing Aspect HD on December 19 after 5 years of production. Aspect HD was the industry's first HDV editing product, and the *only* HDV editing product for quite some time.

Why are we making the change? Well, the landscape is changing. Aspect HD supports 1440x1080 spatial resolution, and AVCHD cameras, which outsell HDV cameras now by a wide margin are 1920x1080. Unsaid (for now) is that in the next week or so we'll be announcing another product with the feature set and price point targeted at the rapidly-emerging AVCHD market with camera prices <$1000.

So what about our existing Aspect HD customers? Well, coincident with the Aspect HD announcement we are also announcing that the new price for Prospect HD is $749, and $1499 for Prospect 4K. We are offering Aspect HD customers the ability to upgrade to Prospect HD for $199, effective immediately.

IF Aspect HD were to support CS4 there would be an upgrade charge, so the timing on this announcement is intended to minimize the impact. All upgrades from Aspect HD to Prospect HD v3 will come with a free upgrade to Prospect HD v4 (for CS4) when that upgrade is available in January. So for those Aspect HD customers considering an upgrade to Prospect HD anyway, now is an excellent time!

For those who were considering a purchase of Prospect HD, you can actually get Prospect HD for $698 through December 19 by purchasing Aspect HD ($499) in the next week and immediately purchasing the upgrade for $199.

More information is on our website here: NewPricing

I need some help then. I purchased my Aspect HD 2 months ago from you guys because you told me I would be getting a free upgrade to CS4 (Which I just purchased). Now your telling me that I wont be getting my upgrade and I have to spend another $199 to get CS4 to work with cineform. I hope there is something you can do for me because right now Im a little worried.

I know its a great deal for only $199 more for prospect but I feel like I was mislead alittle.

Steve

[David Taylor]

Hi Steve, I (we) understand your concern. We've tried to be careful about assertions for Aspect HD upgrades to CS4 the past few months because the likelihood of discontinuing Aspect HD was known internally.

My preference is to take this offline. You've already sent me an email separately from this thread to which I'll respond.