Various CineForm announcements

[David Newman]

The full upgrade to Connect HD 1.7 went live today. This version has the new Cineframe 24 and 25 conversion to 24p and greatly improved capture for a very wide range of PCs. This is the first version with Vegas 6 support. A recommended upgrade for all Connect HD users.

Download trial or upgrade from http://www.cineform.com/products/ConnectHD.htm

[Mark Woollard]

Is it identical to the 1.7 Beta released about a week ago?

[David Newman]

No changes where required, so the Connect HD 1.7 is the same as the beta version. However, for Aspect HD users we did updates between the beta and the 3.1 release.

[David Newman]

Several of the new features from Aspect HD 3.2 have become available in Connect HD. Some the features that Connect HD 1.8 has over the stock CineForm components in Vegas 6.0 are:

1) The latest image quality (with the new enhanced V2.0 encoder.)
2) reverse pull-down for 24p extraction on the fly.
3) M2 Lens support for 180 degree image rotation on capture
4) Frame rate and audio pitch controls for 25 to 24 conversion.
5) 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 upconversion filter
6) Quality controls for the codec.
7) Progressive vs Interlaced encoding options (great for CineFrame modes.)
8) Real-time capture conversion with scene detection.
9) Compatibily with After Effects and other external compositors.
10) DirectShow based encoding for more speed and quality.

There is probably much more, but that is a good start.
Read more here: http://www.cineform.com/products/ConnectHD.htm

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

[Mark Woollard]

Is Vegas 6.0c available publicly?

[David Newman]

The 'c' was a typ-o, I don't know what sub-version Sony is at. I meant Vegas 6.0 in general.

[David Newman]

Yes another free upgrade for Connect HD users. The biggest new feature is Canon XL H1 24F/30F support. So along with the new Aspect HD 3.4 CineForm again has an exclusive. An added bonus for this release, is that it allows for easy installs of the CineForm decoders on any number of PCs, as licensing is only on the encoder and HDLink. If you need more PCs sharing the CineForm AVIs, simply download and install Connect HD, when you uninstall (for those PCs not encoding) there is a option to leave all the CineForm decoders installed. This also works for Aspect HD users, use Connect HD to add CineForm decoder to all your systems.

For more information please visit : http://www.cineform.com/products/ConnectHD.htm

[David Newman]

All that has changed between the first posting of Connect HD 2.1 and this minor update, mainly fixing how the un-installer works. If an existing 2.1 installion is working fine then you don't need the update. Now Connect HD will correctly allow CineForm decoders to be installed freely on any PC. If you want encoding abilities you can leave Connect HD installed and purchase the $199 license, but if you only need decoders (for other systems in your workgroup) Connect HD can be uninstalled leaving the latest decoders in place.

[David Newman]

When ever I go away for a few days (even on a weekend) things get busy here. I will investigate and follow up on a few more threads tomorrow when I'm fully back at work.

[David Newman]

So far everything has checked out well. Of course if you do find any issues with Aspect HD 4.0 please file a trouble ticket at http://cineform.com/support/ so that it at be resolved quickly.

[David Newman]

Aspect HD 4.0 has turned out to be a fairly good release despite the complications of supporting all the Premiere Pro releases with one install. We have found a fixed the one issue reported by forum local, Michael Stewart -- Export Movie using the Radial Blur filter caused a problem -- so expect an update to 4.0.1 to go online this weekend sometime.

CineForm is coming to a city near you by joining the Adobe Production Studio Tour. David Taylor (CineForm, CEO) will be at each of the city location demonstating a Wafian HR-1 and Aspect HD and Prospect HD post production solutions. Read more here: http://adobe.regsvc.com/reg/site2/?site=1483b

This might be my last post for a while. I'll be around for the weekend, but then out of town for a while (all good news -- but I'm not telling :) .) Other CineFormers have promised to stop by DVinfo to help as needed, so you shouldn't miss me too much.

[David Taylor]

You have big shoes to fill, but have a good trip!

Per David's comments above, I've posted Build 52 which fixes the minor (but annoying) problem reported by Michael. Also, I've added another section to our Aspect HD product page that identifies when we do minor updates like this. In the past, we haven't always let everybody know when we do a minor update because it doesn't really affect everybody, so the notification itself can be annoying. But this policy also can result in customers becoming out of sync with our latest releases. So I added a section that identifies all builds that we post and gives you the build number you can compare to. We'll do this for all v4.x releases.

[Pete Bauer]

David(s), thanks for making the change to inform us when new builds are posted for download. For every person that reports a problem, there are probably a bunch that grumble in silence with the same problems, or never have a problem because they update their software before The Next Big Project. Informing us customers of the good stuff that you're already doing for us anyway is definitely a "win-win." Hoping to upgrade to Production Bundle in about a week, and will then also grab the latest build of Aspect HD 4.x! And safe travels to David N.

[David Taylor]

For Aspect HD v4 (Build 52) and Connect HD v2.1 (Build 15) customers, some of you may have noticed that some of your clips had visible frame corruption after conversion into CineForm Intermediate. This was caused by a bug we introduced in a previous build. Not all individuals nor all clips exhibit the problem - it was somewhat random.

At any rate it would be good practice for ALL Aspect HD v4 customers and Connect HD v2.1 customers to visit our site and download the new build of Aspect HD (Build 53) or Connect HD (Build 16) which eliminates the problem.

We apologize for the inconvenience....

David.

[David Taylor]

We have a free 15-day trial version of Prospect HD now available. Because not everybody has 10-bit source material available we provide the trial version on a DVD with various source material, including;

o Never-before-compressed 10-bit YUV 4:2:2 Viper footage in Cineon files
o One 10-bit sequence rendered through 10 generations of CineForm Intermediate at our default quality level known as "FilmScan 1". The result for each generation is provided.
o One 10-bit sequence encoded into each of the six different selectable quality levels of CineForm Intermediate.
o 7 additional 10-bit sequences encoded into the default quality level.

We provide the Trial version free of charge except for shipping. You must have Premiere Pro 2 or After Effects to take advantage of Prospect HD v2 with the 10-bit material.

Shipping in the US is minimal, but as others have discovered (and even posted about in this forum!), shipping charges to destinations outside the US, including our neighbor Canada, varies based on different customs charges.

If you're in the US, we recommend you order the Trial version from our website. If you're in a different country and find shipping charges unacceptable, send me a message and we'll try to work out another way to get the Trial and footage to you.

David.