First Light working beautifully and a workflow question...

[David H. Wilson]

So many of the titles of my posts begin with Problem with xxxxx... that I thought I should report that First Light as just released with P4Kv402 is working just brilliantly for me - I completely love it.

Workflow question though, is it possible to view a file with grading done in First Light on a second computer that only has Neo Player on it if the appropriate LUTs are installed on that computer and if so are there any tricks to doing that?

We have a computer in our small theater and it would be very helpful to be able to take footage graded in First Light to the theater to view.

Many thanks for this and the splendid new product.

[David Newman]

Thanks for the support, it is going to get so much better and more powerful.

Your question:
The database exports are doing to get easier with an upcoming First Light release. However porting for Neo Player compatibility is a litte more tricky as it doesn't have mulitple database support (nor will it every,) but it can be done.

If you use the default "db" database it is easy.
Simply copy the entire "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\CineForm\LUTs" folder and subfolders, and drop that into your player only PC.

If you are using a customer database (recommended because it is so cool to switch between databases on the fly) copy of the root of "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\CineForm\LUTs" (which has your look files -- if you use them) then copy only the files "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\CineForm\LUTs\[your_custom_database]" and restore these on your player PC to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\CineForm\LUTs\db"

Note 1: Remove " (x86)" if you are running a 32-bit OS.
Note 2: All this is subject to change.

[David H. Wilson]

David,

I'll do just that and let you know how it goes.

Many thanks

[Jay Bloomfield]

Originally Posted by David Newman

Note 2: All this is subject to change.

I've been thinking about this issue also. Maybe you could package a look xfer utility. When people exchange video files, they would also include a compressed file, created with the xfer utility, that contains the look database. On the NEO Player computer, the xfer utility than expands compressed file that contains the database files to the proper folder. Or you could just add this feature to First Light directly on the "host" computer and just have a simple expansion exe on the "client".

[Kaspar Kallas]

The last request sounds very good, I just have to say that out loud ;)

-Kaspar

[Michael Panfeld]

wow, I was just thinking of a similar question this AM. Let's say that I am editing on one machine and another editor is color correcting on another computer using First Light. How can the looks that the colorists creates on one computer be added to/updated to the first computer? Will that require two licenses? If I have only 1 license, can I install First light on both computers and alternatively activate/deactivate it? If so, what file(s) need to be transferred that capture the look? I have to ask because being able to work simultaneously can be a real time saver, especially under deadline.

Thanks

[David Newman]

There is an import/export coming to First Light very soon. We do expect you to have a CineForm (HD level or better) on all machines that you want to modified color data. The grey area is playback only PCs that don't need an encoding license, yet do want to play the current color profiles. We will work on a tools for this at some time, although the post above shows how to do it manually.

[David H. Wilson]

David - I'm sure I'm just making some crazy mistake but (following your manual instruction above) I'm having trouble getting my looks to show-up on files while being played on the player only PC.

On my PC running P4K and only using the default db, I copy C:\Program Files\Common Files\CineForm\LUTs (folder and subfolders (db)).

On the player only PC I then delete the existing C:\Program Files\Common Files\CineForm\LUTs and replace it with the one that I copied from the P4K PC.

I then copy to the player PC a folder of express AVIs that I have processed with First Light to have the Tobacco.look (easy to spot). On the P4K PC these files appear (what can I say) Tobacco in any player in which I play them. On the player only PC these files still appear to be the original raw files.

Am I missing a step? Is the active metadate instantly attached to the file and remain with it even as it migrates from the PC on which it was processed.

Many thanks,
David

[David Newman]

You making the incorrect assumption that we play .look files, we don't, we play those cryptic looking ???????.cflook files which are generated from the .look source.

[David H. Wilson]

David, I admit to being slow - but not that slow. I suspect I wasn't very clear in my description.

I am successfully playing the express .AVI's on the player-only PC but they do not reflect the color grading done on the P4K machine through First Light even though I have attempted to transfer my .look files from the P4K bearing PC to the player-only PC as you described in your response to my first post.

Many thanks for all of this help.

[David Newman]

But it sounds like you didn't do:

"Simply copy the entire "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\CineForm\LUTs" folder and subfolders, and drop that into your player only PC."

Because the .look files are not used for playback, only the .cflook files are.

[David H. Wilson]

David, You were right last night in that I was (incorrectly) assuming that the .look file (not the .cflook) is the active ingredient for playing the CFAVI with the desired grading. I somehow couldn't read the words right in front of me.

I am now, however, still beating my head against this...
What I have done is to copy the LUTs folder from the P4K PC and paste it into the player-only PC at the same file path (C:\Program Files \Common Files\CineForm\LUTs) replacing the existing LUTs folder with the new one I copied from the P4K PC.

The LUTs folder contains 15 .look files and 20 .cflook files and the db folder which contains 79 .colr files and the one2one.look file.

Does this sound right?

After following these steps I take an external drive with the express folder containing my CFAVIs to the player-only PC. But on playing the files in both Windows Media Player or Stereoscopic Player the files still appear to be in their raw form.

Do the CFAVIs contain any grading information or is it entirely contained in the .cflook files?

Many thanks again.

[David Newman]

No idea. Try installing NEO HD, because we know it works, and the decoder will not expire (so it is just like Neo Player.) There might be a registry entry that is disabling you looks, but no time to investigate that one.

[David H. Wilson]

I'll install Neo HD - thanks again.