behavior of non cineform files in cineform project? at DVinfo.net

Marty Hudzik · January 22nd, 2009, 07:00 PM

I have started to play with Prospect in Premiere Cs3 and I dragged a raw HDV file into the project. When I lay it on the timeline and scrub I see it okay but when I preview all I get is a black screen with a red x. There are no effects applied at all. Is there some way around this? I will be working with many file types other than cineform files and I'd like to see previews without rendering.

It took 30 second to build a preview of a 12 second clip with no effects applied on a 3.2GHZ quad-core.

It took 46 second to render with Cineform Basic Color correction. Only 1 core is being used.

when I render in Premiere using a non cineform preset all fours cores are maxed and the same render is faster. Using the same exact Cineform color tool, it took 16 seconds vs. 46.

Why is the performance so slow and what can I do to get preview the work without having to render?

David Newman · January 22nd, 2009, 07:13 PM

Ctrl+Spacebar previews any non-RT playback operation. You can enable thread in the compiler settings control panel, however we disable it by default as Premiere is a little flaky when it runs low on memory, threading uses more memory.

Marty Hudzik · January 22nd, 2009, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Newman

Ctrl+Spacebar previews any non-RT playback operation. You can enable thread in the compiler settings control panel, however we disable it by default as Premiere is a little flaky when it runs low on memory, threading uses more memory.

Where does one find the "compliler settings control panel"? :) Wait. I found that on the export. What I actually meant was when building previews in the timeline it is 3-4 times slowere than Native Premiere. Can that be sped up from here also?

I exported to cineform .avi and it took only 12 seconds! That was great. But again, how can I get multithreaded rendering for previews as it still took a long time. It seems pretty frustrating to have such a performance hit compared to Premiere rendering in Native HDV preset.

Thanks.

David Newman · January 22nd, 2009, 10:41 PM

The thread setting should stricky, and used when creating previews. I haven't tried that is a long time, typically not have the need to render previews.

Marty Hudzik · January 22nd, 2009, 10:54 PM

It did sticky but it only affects the rendering of final video, not of previews. Unfortunately my workflow calls for a ton of non-cineform plug-ins and layers of text and photoshop and quicktime alpha files. I need to render previews to see what the entire composite looks like for timing purposes. When I edit in native HD preset for Premiere this can be a slow process already even with the 4 cores. But the move to Cineform Prospect has literally tripled the render times and my quadcore cpu is just getting wasted.

So, in lieu of a way to have Cineform previews multi-threaded (can't believe it uses only 1 core) what happens if I edit in a native premiere HD preset, get all the advantages of accelerated preview builds, then export final rendering using Cineform Avi exporter, using 10bit rendering. How with this affect the quality? Will 32bit plugins still render with same final output despite using a non Cineform premiere preset?

thanks.

David Newman · January 22nd, 2009, 11:16 PM

That generally works fine. Just slower for the CineForm playback, which is better in the native edit mode.

Marty Hudzik · January 23rd, 2009, 12:40 PM

Is there any other way to force Premiere and Cineform to use multiple cores for rendering previews? I'm not trying to beat a dead horse, but I still have a hard time accepting that any non-realtime Cineform clips/filters are going to take 3 times longer to render. Most camps are pushing for quad-cores to run their software smoothly, yet Cineform is handcuffing Premiere to 1 core in this area. I have been running CS3 and Aspect since July of 2007 and did notice that Cineform projects rendered slower and didn't take advantage of all cores. So I have been editing in Premiere HDV modes and then exporting to Aspect.

Now, when I am more concerned about bit-depth and such with Prospect, and the recent updates boast greatly increased speed on multiple core machines, I find it a big step backward in workflow to only have a sinlge core render previews, pushing me back to my P4 3GHZ Single Core days. Waiting this long for previews to build is a drag! Once you go quad, you never go back!

thanks. I can work around this by editing in HDV modes and rendering to Prospect at output, but I am not certain that it is retaining the quality of Prospect using this method.

Peter Manojlovic · January 23rd, 2009, 07:36 PM

Is it possible to save out the assets as Cineform AVI's?..
Bring them back into the timeline when done?

Marty Hudzik · January 24th, 2009, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Manojlovic

Is it possible to save out the assets as Cineform AVI's?..
Bring them back into the timeline when done?

Well even if that was possible, it seems like a lot of extra work. The issue here is that I am creating a lot of composites of Layered photoshop files, Quicktime files with alpha channels, premiere titles and video. Since timimg of logos and animations flying on and off the screen set to music or sound effects is critical, I need to be able to build quick previews on the fly to adjust timing. ( I do use after effects for a lot of this but I often need to do this inside of Premiere since it is much quicker and clients need fast turnaround and are....well cheap!)

Having done this with HDV files in Premiere's native editing mode, I can whip out previews in no time and see what I have. I purchased a quad-core to accelerate this and man does it ever! It is almost twice as fast as a dual core. So a preview that took 30 seconds to build on a dual core takes roughly 15 seconds now. However the same effects or layers in a Cineform Project takes near a minute as it only uses a single core to render, making it nearly 3 times slower than Premiere by itself.

Now I realize that If all I ever used was straight up Cineform files and Cineform filters and transitions I wouldn;t have to build previews at all....but that is not a completely realistic option either.

What I really don't get is if I load Cineform .avi files into a Premiere HDV preset, it plays them practically realtime. If I apply effects, it still plays them pretty good....it might drop some frames but it's fairly steady. But when I build previews it flies! I have to wait a little but not much to see the results.

As long as the final output takes advantage of the 10bit nature of the prospect codec, I am okay working in a non-realtime Cineform environment for now.

Can someone help me find a way to prove that this method is preserving the 10bit nature of the files?

thanks

January 22nd, 2009, 07:00 PM	#1
Marty Hudzik Trustee Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canton, Ohio Posts: 1,771	behavior of non cineform files in cineform project? I have started to play with Prospect in Premiere Cs3 and I dragged a raw HDV file into the project. When I lay it on the timeline and scrub I see it okay but when I preview all I get is a black screen with a red x. There are no effects applied at all. Is there some way around this? I will be working with many file types other than cineform files and I'd like to see previews without rendering. It took 30 second to build a preview of a 12 second clip with no effects applied on a 3.2GHZ quad-core. It took 46 second to render with Cineform Basic Color correction. Only 1 core is being used. when I render in Premiere using a non cineform preset all fours cores are maxed and the same render is faster. Using the same exact Cineform color tool, it took 16 seconds vs. 46. Why is the performance so slow and what can I do to get preview the work without having to render?

January 22nd, 2009, 07:13 PM	#2
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	Ctrl+Spacebar previews any non-RT playback operation. You can enable thread in the compiler settings control panel, however we disable it by default as Premiere is a little flaky when it runs low on memory, threading uses more memory. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

January 22nd, 2009, 10:41 PM	#4
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	The thread setting should stricky, and used when creating previews. I haven't tried that is a long time, typically not have the need to render previews. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

January 22nd, 2009, 11:16 PM	#6
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	That generally works fine. Just slower for the CineForm playback, which is better in the native edit mode. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

January 22nd, 2009, 10:54 PM	#5
Marty Hudzik Trustee Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canton, Ohio Posts: 1,771	It did sticky but it only affects the rendering of final video, not of previews. Unfortunately my workflow calls for a ton of non-cineform plug-ins and layers of text and photoshop and quicktime alpha files. I need to render previews to see what the entire composite looks like for timing purposes. When I edit in native HD preset for Premiere this can be a slow process already even with the 4 cores. But the move to Cineform Prospect has literally tripled the render times and my quadcore cpu is just getting wasted. So, in lieu of a way to have Cineform previews multi-threaded (can't believe it uses only 1 core) what happens if I edit in a native premiere HD preset, get all the advantages of accelerated preview builds, then export final rendering using Cineform Avi exporter, using 10bit rendering. How with this affect the quality? Will 32bit plugins still render with same final output despite using a non Cineform premiere preset? thanks.

January 23rd, 2009, 12:40 PM	#7
Marty Hudzik Trustee Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canton, Ohio Posts: 1,771	Is there any other way to force Premiere and Cineform to use multiple cores for rendering previews? I'm not trying to beat a dead horse, but I still have a hard time accepting that any non-realtime Cineform clips/filters are going to take 3 times longer to render. Most camps are pushing for quad-cores to run their software smoothly, yet Cineform is handcuffing Premiere to 1 core in this area. I have been running CS3 and Aspect since July of 2007 and did notice that Cineform projects rendered slower and didn't take advantage of all cores. So I have been editing in Premiere HDV modes and then exporting to Aspect. Now, when I am more concerned about bit-depth and such with Prospect, and the recent updates boast greatly increased speed on multiple core machines, I find it a big step backward in workflow to only have a sinlge core render previews, pushing me back to my P4 3GHZ Single Core days. Waiting this long for previews to build is a drag! Once you go quad, you never go back! thanks. I can work around this by editing in HDV modes and rendering to Prospect at output, but I am not certain that it is retaining the quality of Prospect using this method.

January 23rd, 2009, 07:36 PM	#8
Peter Manojlovic Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Hamilton Ontario Posts: 769	Is it possible to save out the assets as Cineform AVI's?.. Bring them back into the timeline when done?