CineForm Discontinuing Aspect HD after 5 years....

[Jim Day]

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?

[David Newman]

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.

[Jake Segraves]

Originally Posted by Jim Day

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.

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.

[Jim Day]

Thanks for the replies.

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by Jake Segraves

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

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?

[Craig Irving]

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.

[Adam Gold]

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?

[David Taylor]

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.

[Carlos Bustamante]

Originally Posted by David Taylor

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!

[Jim Day]

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.

[David Newman]

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

[Alex Raskin]

Originally Posted by Carlos Bustamante

because the m2t export plays an important role for exhibiting experimental HDVs in Berlin.

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.

[Jim Gunn]

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.

[Gildo Houtekamer]

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

[Stephen Armour]

Originally Posted by Jim Gunn

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!

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.