Neo Scene 1.1.2 release for Windows

[David Newman]

Neo Scene 1.1 is now officially released and available from CineForm Home Page.

Key changes, quoting from the release:
* Canon 5D Mark II video files are now supported with proper black levels
* AAC audio decoding added for those AVCHD source using AAC audio
* Fixed installation for those systems on which Adobe CS4 is already installed.

While technically we always supported the full range of the Canon 5D, however many consumer editing tools don't handle super-whites or blacks (the full dynamic range), making the data appear clipped when it wasn't. For those using Sony Vegas or Premiere Pro CS2/3 the data could be retrieved with standard filters, but for all other editing tools we have made this much simpler. We now normallize the 5D to have a standard YUV range upon conversion to CineForm AVI, this allows that all video tools can access all the image data with any additional filters. We have done this a lossless manner by using the 10-bit nature of the CineForm codec.

Neo Scene 1.1 is CS4 compatible, we did have issues wih 1.0 when a wrong component was installed, the fix has now be added in this build.

Reported compatibility concerns with Nero 7 have yet to be confirmed, although Nero 9 works fine with Neo Scene in our system tests.

[David Taylor]

Our home page doesn't provide the best link to the download. Being as David Newman's post covers all the salient details, go here directly to get the download: CineForm Downloads.

Alternatively go to our product page for more overall details: Neo Scene

[Charles W. Hull]

Originally Posted by David Newman

..... Neo Scene 1.1 is now officially released and available.

The color range now looks good in CS4, with the proper range and no crushed blacks or whites. I can't see any banding at all and all color editing works normally. Comparing what I see with native MOV clips, the AVI clips are very slighty darker, but with the same gamma - not an issue at all.

The file sizes are about 5% smaller than with version 1.1.1. The AVI files vary from about 0.7 G/min to about 1.0 G/min, or 2.5 to 3 times the MOV files. This is the same on two different computers (using the Medium setting).

The color range is now also correct for Elements 7, which is useful for me as I use Elements in the field on my laptop. Elements occasionally fails when loading the 1.1.2 clips; this happened on both of the two computers. This had never happened with 1.1 files (and I never tried 1.1.1 files with Elements) or any other files I've used with Elements. Once the clips are loaded Elements runs reliably (and smoothly).

This is a very good release; looking for the next one.

[Ryan Thom]

I was anxious to try this new release as I've unfortunately had no luck getting NeoScene to work on my system. I just tried to convert a 5Dmk2 clip and it seemed like it converted successfully. I know the file size can increase by 3x or so, but in this case the 160mb original became about 1 gig in size.

When I tried to add this file to AE CS4, the program froze and then crashed.

Any thoughts of what I can try? Would CoreAVC interfere with this at all?

thanks, Ryan

[David Newman]

Ryan, do you have Nero 7 on your PC, several are claiming it is clashing? CoreAVC should not be a clash, as I have try on all my development systems. I have yet to see one of these hugh files. Ryan would you recording a 1 second clip in camera and converting that, and send both files via yousendit.com and please email it to me (dnewman@"you the company name".com) Thanks.

[Julian Frost]

David,

An update on my situation:

I installed 1.1.2 on my "Messy" system and had it convert the original MOVs to AVIs which were still 5-8 times the original size. This system has Nero 5 on it. If the problem actually is a confliflict with Nero, it's not just with version 7.

I installed it on my "Clean" system, which I've confirmed does NOT have Nero installed, and it worked perfectly, converting all the MOV files quickly. The resulting AVI files were also SMALLER than those created with the previous version of Neo Scene (as also reported by Charles, above).

When I loaded the AVIs in Premier Pro CS3, I had significantly more detail in the shadows without having to apply any filters.

If we can solve the conflict, this would be a winner for me.

Julian

[Ryan Thom]

Originally Posted by David Newman

Ryan, do you have Nero 7 on your PC, several are claiming it is clashing?

David, that was it! I indeed had Nero 7. After uninstalling it, NeoScene produced a much more sensibly-sized file (270mb vs. the original 160mb I think). And it drag 'n dropped in AE just fine. I gotta run out the door, but I'll have to look at some other things in more detail later. Like I think AE was identifying it as 29.97 instead of 30fps.

Also: when I try to play the converted .AVI in VLC Player I get a "CFHD not installed" error or something like that (forget the wording, but definitely mentions CFHD). I'm sure that's just me not installing/registering something I need to. Is it possible to get these playing under VLC?

Thanks for the help! Crazy Nero interferes like that. Shouldn't it just be burning my files to disc when I ask, not messing around with codecs and whatnot? Bad Nero!

[Julian Frost]

Ryan,

That's great that removing Nero solved your problem... but what areyou going to use now to burn DVDs? That's the situation I'm in. I use a much earlier version of Nero, which has a bit less bloatware with it. I use it, because it reliably burns CDs and DVDs.

I believe I read in another thread that Cineform changes the 5D mk II's 30 fps MOV files to 29.97 fps AVIs, so based on that, I think what you're seeing in AE would be correct.

I created a custom project template in Premier Pro CS3 which is 1920x1080, 29.97fps, square pixels, 44100 hz audio and uses the Cineform compressor. Things seem to work well, so I'm hoping my settings are correct!

Julian

[David Newman]

I have Nero 9 on one PC and Nero 5 on another, neither has problems. So Nero is not totally evil (I also like it for DVD burning,) but there has to be something to it, as that is the only tool that uninstalling it fixes the issue.

Ryan, VLC doesn't work with any third party codec, only open source codecs work. A better player in the poorly named Media Player Classic.

[Charles W. Hull]

Originally Posted by Julian Frost

That's great that removing Nero solved your problem... but what areyou going to use now to burn DVDs? That's the situation I'm in. I use a much earlier version of Nero, which has a bit less bloatware with it. I use it, because it reliably burns CDs and DVDs.
Julian

I have a little different solution I like. Cyberlink has media software similar to Nero, but I just use their PowerDirector (editor). I export HD from Premiere Pro and then take it to the time line of PowerDirector. There you can burn a DVD, but better you can burn HD on a normal DVD that plays HD on Blu Ray players (no Blu Ray burner or media needed).

And I think Adobe Encore that comes with PPro CS4 is pretty good, but you need a Blu Ray burner for HD.

[David Newman]

Added an blog entry to explain what we did in Neo Scene 1.1.2 to improve the dynamic range and editability : CineForm Insider: New Canon 5D Mk-II support with Neo Scene 1.1.2

[Ryan Thom]

Originally Posted by Julian Frost

Ryan,

That's great that removing Nero solved your problem... but what areyou going to use now to burn DVDs?

Thanks for the info re: 29.97. Good to know it's working correctly! As far as Nero, not sure now. I think I'm going to try and re-install it and make sure I remove everything that's not 100% mandatory, and then afterward try shutting down/removing services it starts, etc. These products absolutely have become so bloated with crazy stuff.

If that doesn't work, might try doing more research and killing off Nero codecs, which I believe reside at c:\program files\common files\ahead (.ax files).

I'm just not sure if the codecs are necessary for Nero to run. I'm just not knowledgable enough on how that works. For just burning files to a data CD/DVD (which is 99% of the time for me), I can't imagine it needs any. Maybe for burning MP3s and an audio disc or something.

If I come up with any solutions, I'll let you know.

[Julian Frost]

Originally Posted by Ryan Thom

If I come up with any solutions, I'll let you know.

I'd appreciate it. I actually use Nero Showtime to watch DVDs on my "Messy" system, so removing some of the auto-installed CODECs might be a problem there. I'm guessing I would probably only need the MPEG2 CODEC.

Julian

[Guillaume Roques]

I have 2 issues with the last version (1.1.2) of Neo Scene on my laptop:
1) The conversion to CF AVI format works fine but when playing back the converted videos with Windows Media Player, the sound track is not synchronized with the video
2)I got an error message with CS4 Premiere Pro when trying to import a clip: "ImporterProcessServer.exe has topped working....."
3)After the message above I get another error message saying: "File Video dimensions (width/height) too large"

Any idea on what I'm doing wrong?

My config:
Windows Vista 64 bits
3 GB RAM
External eSata drive (2TB - the videos are stored there)

Thanks for your help...

Regards,

Guillaume

[David Newman]

1) That suggests you PC is bottlenecked somewhere, CPU, RAM, disk speed, etc. Go to Start->Programs->CineForm->NeoScene->tools->Desktop Playback -- Fast. This will much life easier on your CPU and graphics card. You should see the audio in sync if you drive is doing fine.

2) Adobe still has bugs. At this point CS4 is also using standard VfW decoders, once the CineForm native importer is released we can avoid some of Adobe's weak spots.

3) All Adobe that one, although I've never seen that.

For testing, use the internal drive(s) first.

P.S. Just re-read, "laptop", yes that could be an issue until the CS4 importer is complete, Adobe is not very efficient using VfW, that will improve.