Latest from CineForm.

[Ken Hodson]

What is the situation on the video preview and croma reduction plugins? Are they going to be in official builds soon?
Any other interesting plugins to look forward to?

[Phil Wright]

The chroma-noise plug-in will be in the next Aspect HD release which shouldn't be too far away. For now it can be downloaded from our site at: http://www.cineform.com/downloads/fl...oiseFilter.zip

I expect HDView to also be part of the next Aspect HD release.

[Ken Hodson]

Thanks Phil. Keep up the good work.
We just got our AspectHD pack(adobe trio) along with the cam and all the equipment last week so I am very excited and massively overwhelmed.

[Ken Hodson]

Phil, I just checked out the manual for AspectHD. I have to say I am less then impressed with the copy protection you have implemented (but Bill Gates would be proud). Hardware specific installation code. Ouch!
We were planing to use our laptop as a field monitor(via the ApectHD plugin) and then edit back at home on the studio PC. I didn't imagine this would have been a problem. Should I have just bought the ConnectHD? I pushed hard for this solution (and cam) and now my employers are less then impressed and won't be shelling out another $1000 so we can preview video on the laptop. Nor are they all to happy that we can't transfer the footage over to our After effects machine and continue using the codec.
In a nut shell your product is great, your copy policy is not. You really should mention something about this limitation on your web page.
Have you thought about multi machine licences? And how specific is the hardware instalation code? We have a lot of machines and we upgrade constantly (people take a machine home then we redo another to take its place/ switch out drive/swap video cards ect.. Am I going to have to get a new code every time or is it specific to just the motherboard or what?
Anyways hope to work with you more in the future (if I still have a job!) and thaks for your time.

[David Newman]

There are good reasons to license software this way -- many companies are switching to this, although most larger companies can afford the internet servers to make it more transparent. Even Adobe's Premiere Pro has switched to node locked licensing.

However, you have made the incorrect assumption that we are inflexible. Simply call us up and explain your need for the extra license as this generally this is not an issue. Generally PC upgrades to not cause any issues for the licensing software (added cards, replacing drives, and to some extent even CPU upgrades.) If you buy a new PC you can move the license that machine.

In addition the decoder components within Aspect HD are not locked and they can added to any PC in your workflow. That means AE or any other tool can be used to manipulate your HD content on any PC. The codec licensing is only applied to the encoder. For AE renders on a PC without a CineForm license you can use uncompressed or HUFFYUV (or anything you like), then import those files back into Aspect HD for further manipulation as needed.

Basically you will find we are trying to match the common work-flows while protecting this young business. We aren't bad guys. :)

[Phil Wright]

Ken - I think David covered most everything but wanted to mention that if you want to do laptop monitoring with HDView just let me know and I can send it to you.

[Ken Hodson]

Thanks guys. I appreciate your responce.

[Paul St. Denis]

The latest version of the open source VLC 0.7.2, Windows version can act as a field monitor via firewire for JVC HDV cameras uisng the Direct Show drivers
http://www.VIDEOLAN.ORG

[Ken Hodson]

Paul - Had a look at it and broused the forums. What are the steps needed to get real-time preview with that software?

[Steve Crisdale]

<<<-- Originally posted by Ken Hodson : Paul - Had a look at it and broused the forums. What are the steps needed to get real-time preview with that software? -->>>

Yes..... I'm about to get a Toshiba 17" widescreen P-IV 3.4Ghz HT laptop, and would be most interested to hear what the steps would be using VLC to connect the laptop up in preview mode....

If I have to record a short clip > capture > playback to check focus etc., then VLC would be pointless.....

[Phil Wright]

VLC (0.7.2) works quite well for RT monitor of the stream from the camera.

Simply run it and select Open Capture Device from the file menu. A dialog will open and you should be able to just click on OK to start preview. No need to capture and playback.

It can be a little flakely if you shut off the camera while VLC is running.

[Till Krueger]

just tried it, and WOW...how cool is that?

displayed the live image from the camera full-screen on my 1920x1200 DELL notebook, and what can i say, other than freakin' awesome...for the studio, an amazing solution to check focus, lighting and overall image-appearance.

for the field, i am researching mini-subnotebooks to use as portable field monitor...JVC makes one in thier P series, that has 4 hours of battery-life *when playing a DVD movie* (so pure previewing via firewire should be quite a bit more)...here are some pretty pictures of it at:

http://www.computers.us.fujitsu.com/www/products_notebooks.shtml?products/notebooks/photo_gal/gal_p7000

it's light (3 pounds), has a 1280x768 TFT screen (ideal, me thinks), and would serve as a good backup-storage in the field as well, ready to do the conversion to Cineform HD.

if anyone knows of a small tablet type computer with a WXGA TFT, please post links here.

oh man, looking at the preview as we speak...this is cool!
a tiny lag of about a quarter second between real-time and display, but hey...whatcha gonna complain about free? :)

[Ken Hodson]

You will likely have a hard time with something that small having the power to display the image. If it does it will be slide-show style.

[Phil Wright]

Depends on the graphics support on the laptop. I'm pretty sure that VLC is using DirectX hardware acceleration to decode/playback MPEG. If the laptop has a built-in hardware decoder for MPEG aka DVD playback it can probably do it with minimal CPU used.

[Ken Hodson]

Its using a 1.1GHz Intel M. Good GFX chip or not, thats a stretch for 720p.