Cineform and Vegas (all versions)

David Taylor · February 19th, 2006, 02:39 PM

BJ,

Did you have an old version of Aspect HD installed on your system? Regardless, there seems to be a problem somewhere. Files created with Aspect and Connect are completely compatible, so Vegas should properly see the converted files.

If you can't work through this one you should probably file a trouble ticket.

David.

BJ Elliott · February 19th, 2006, 04:31 PM

Thanks David. You were right. I still had the older version of Connect HD installed. Once I uninstalled both, then reinstalled the version 2.1, Vegas began to recognize the video stream.

I experimented a little with some short clips (~1.5 minutes). I noticed that WMP9 showed a beautiful image, but the audio was way ahead of the video. There was no sync problem in the preview window of Vegas, but there were dropouts on both the video and audio that were not there in WMP9. I rendered one .wmv file and one .mpg file just to see what happened. Both files looked terrible, with motion artifacts and dropped frames.

I may have to try a different capture card. I have an old Pinnacle Systems DV 1394-400 OHCI v1.1 card. Would that help, or is it too outdated?

Brian Vilevac · March 14th, 2006, 08:17 AM

Just a quick question regarding Cineform HD with Vegas 6. I recently converted over to Vegas 6 from Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8. I have edited several DV projects in Vegas with great success. I have to say, I like Vegas much better than Ulead!

I am now trying to edit some HD material from my FX1 camera. I'm trying to understand the "proper" way to capture, edit, and then export the video. What I have tried so far is: Captured using built-in capture with Vegas - works ok. Then tried built-in capture but down converted from the camera on capture - worked much better. I did notice a difference in quality however. Next I tried the Connect HD product after reading a lot of info on this site. I captured the video from HDlink with convert to avi upon capturing. Process was great - but video is very jumpy in the timeline. I'm assuming I need to set the project preferences which I did not do - just read about it this morning!

So question is: with HD Connect and Vegas, do I convert to avi during capture, edit the avi in the timeline, save final avi, and then author to dvd? - OR - do what I am used to doing in Ulead is: edit avi, save final avi, render to mpeg, and then author to dvd?

My end result is to create the "best" possible footage from HD to DVD..

Thanks for your insight!

Jon Omiatek · March 15th, 2006, 08:06 AM

The reason you can edit the downcoverted avi is because it's DV at that point.

I find it impossible to edit HDV m2t's because your computer has to edit a compress stream versus Cineforms connect HD avi. I am currently working on a 6 camera angle edit and it's still realtime editing. If you try it with m2t files, you would have to wait everytime you moved the slider bar in vegas.

I suggest that you download the trial version of Connect HD. It's worth every penny of the $200.

Be prepared for very long render times. Meaning.....

Capture to m2t then covert to cineform avi (takes about 2 hours per tape to capture and convert)

Once you edit and render to m2t it's about 5min for every 1min of timeline for me.

After you render it to m2t you can then print to tape if you would like. I am printing my finished stuff to tape so I can burn it later once my blueray drive arrives.

Jon

Brian Vilevac · March 15th, 2006, 08:18 AM

Thanks Jon for the reply!! I have downloaded the trial version of ConnectHD and so far I love it! However, I am battling Vegas now with the "grayed-out" custom button when trying to change the settings for mpeg2!

ConnectHD worked great with the capturing process. I made minor changes in the timeline of a short 5 minute clip (for testing purposes) and tried the following: Capture with ConnectHD - took approx. 1 and 1/2 hours for 50 minutes of video to capture and convert. Print to tape - worked great. It was about 3 minutes to every 1 on my machine (Pent D 950 with 4GB RAM). I added the avi files (5 minutes of) to the timeline, made minor changes, and now I am trying to render as an MPEG2. However, I can not customize the settings. The custom button is greyed out! I searched the forums and found one pertaining to registry settings but when I looked, the settings in question are not in the registry! Any thoughts on this one?

Thanks again for your input!!

Brian Vilevac · March 15th, 2006, 10:32 AM

I contacted Sony regarding the "custom" button and here is the response. I guess I wasted $129 for the Movie Studio Platinum!

"Response (Mike S.) - 03/15/2006 10:02 AM
Hello Brian,

Thank you for writing. The MainConcept MPEG 1 & 2 Standard 1.0 plug-in included with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 6.0 does not allow for any customizing of the MPEG templates. Our professional version in this product line, Vegas 6.0, includes the MainConcept MPEG 1 & 2 Professional 1.0 plug-in which allows for customizing the MPEG render templates. If you wish to upgrade Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 6.0 to Vegas 6.0, I can offer you the following special promotion to save off the upgrade price: Upgrade to the latest version of Vegas (applies to all products upgradeable to Vegas) Save 25% on your upgrade to Vegas! Get the most video editing power available, and save."

Don Donatello · March 15th, 2006, 03:21 PM

the original post was about cineform HD & Vegas 6 ..
when did movie studio ( which is not vegas 6) come in ??

Brian Vilevac · March 16th, 2006, 11:01 AM

Sorry for the confusion Don. As I had mentioned, I am new to the Sony Vegas products. When I called a certain reseller to inquire about Vegas, he stated that Movie Studio was Vegas 6, but with a few less options. So, he said for the price difference between the two, I wouldn't see a difference. Well, now I see the difference in products since I upgraded to the Vegas 6. Hence my confusion........

Brian Vilevac · March 17th, 2006, 01:47 PM

Thought I would share my experiences with Vegas 6 and Connect HD. I ran a simple test to determine the "value" of Connect HD before purchasing the software. Now that I have the actual Vegas 6 software, here are my results: Computer - Pentium D 950 Processor, 4GB 1066 RAM, 5 x 500GB SATA II drives. I used the same MPEG2 render settings on both files.

The first test: Captured m2t files using Vegas Capture utility. Added 2 1 minute clips into the timeline (took approx 30 seconds). Made a few minor edits (Editing was real time - no lag). Rendered to MPEG2 - took 9 minutes, 56 seconds to produce file. Final output looks great!

Second: Captures AVI using ConnectHD. Added same 2 1 minute clips into timeline (took approx 20 seconds). Made the same minor edits (Edit time was the same - real time). Rendered to MPEG2 - took 17 minutes, 26 seconds to produce file! Final output looks almost identical!

The m2t to MPEG2 looked "a little" better - was very hard to see - actually had to look for a difference. My question is - shouldn't the avi to mpeg2 render faster than the m2t to mpeg2? Maybe I missed a setting somewhere?? I have yet to try editing the m2t files captured from Connect HD.

BUT, THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE - the capture settings of the Connect HD are priceless!!! The simple feature of scene detection in Connect HD is well worth the money! I don't know how people could try (or want) to edit a 50+ minute clip of any sort when capturing from the Vegas Capture program. Unless you sit and control scene breaks manually. For me, the split scene makes editing far more efficient...

Just my 2 cents!

Fred Foronda · March 30th, 2006, 03:49 PM

Thanks for the info guys. What I like about Connect HD is that it corverts m2t into a more workable file faster than converting it on Vegas. 11 min clip took about 17 minutes to convert. I like the split scene but I find it more easy to manage just one big clip espeically when I need to replace the avi files back to the original m2t for printing back to tape.

Now as far as the finish product connect hd file looks good when it goes to SD DVD. But does it take longer to render if I replace the connect hd file to the original m2t then render it to go to SD DVD??

Chris Barcellos · March 30th, 2006, 04:48 PM

Re: Brian's Comment:

"BUT, THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE - the capture settings of the Connect HD are priceless!!! The simple feature of scene detection in Connect HD is well worth the money! I don't know how people could try (or want) to edit a 50+ minute clip of any sort when capturing from the Vegas Capture program. Unless you sit and control scene breaks manually. For me, the split scene makes editing far more efficient..."

You can use a free program to capture in .m2t that includes scene detect. I believe it is called HDSplit or something like that. I am at my office now, and have it on my home office system. I did notice a couple of drop outs on the the captures I did when I compared them to same captures I did inside Premiere Pro 2.0.

Still, the biggest difference out there reported by experts here is the better editing, color correction, and color rendition capability coming from Cineform editing process.

Mike McKay · April 2nd, 2006, 01:21 AM

Looking at Connect HD, I have the minimum spec P4 2.8 (non HT), 1gig ram, 9800Pro a 160gig and 320gig drive, not Sata. FX1.
For basic editing, ie: single video layer, basic text, cuts/dissolves only.....will the machine be ok or would I be in for a rough ride?

David Taylor · April 2nd, 2006, 09:16 AM

Mike, you'll be fine for basic editing as you describe it. To verify, you can certainly download the Trial version from our website and experiment with it.

David.

John Beale · May 3rd, 2006, 06:19 PM

I am using Vegas 6.0d and it keeps crashing on me. Here is an error message that appeared from the last crash a few minutes ago, when I started to render a project which included 1080i HDV (.m2t) material

Sony Vegas 6.0
Version 6.0d (Build 210)
Exception 0xC0000005 (access violation) WRITE:0x3C IP:0x4154A28E
In Module 'cfhd.dll' at Address 0x41500000 + 0x4A28E
Thread: ProgMan ID=0x91C Stack=0xAACF000-0xAAD0000
[...]
--------------------------

I do not recall Vegas crashing on me when I was editing strictly DV material. This is very frustrating since my project will be shown by the client this Friday I must get it finished soon. Is it correct that 'cfhd.dll' is the CineForm HD module? Is there an updated version I could use that would help?

David Newman · May 3rd, 2006, 09:02 PM

We sell the updated version through Connect HD, yet the free version should not be crashing. This is a good question for Sony tech support.

March 14th, 2006, 08:17 AM	#33
Brian Vilevac Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Cleveland, Ohio Posts: 50	Cineform HD and Vegas 6 Just a quick question regarding Cineform HD with Vegas 6. I recently converted over to Vegas 6 from Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8. I have edited several DV projects in Vegas with great success. I have to say, I like Vegas much better than Ulead! I am now trying to edit some HD material from my FX1 camera. I'm trying to understand the "proper" way to capture, edit, and then export the video. What I have tried so far is: Captured using built-in capture with Vegas - works ok. Then tried built-in capture but down converted from the camera on capture - worked much better. I did notice a difference in quality however. Next I tried the Connect HD product after reading a lot of info on this site. I captured the video from HDlink with convert to avi upon capturing. Process was great - but video is very jumpy in the timeline. I'm assuming I need to set the project preferences which I did not do - just read about it this morning! So question is: with HD Connect and Vegas, do I convert to avi during capture, edit the avi in the timeline, save final avi, and then author to dvd? - OR - do what I am used to doing in Ulead is: edit avi, save final avi, render to mpeg, and then author to dvd? My end result is to create the "best" possible footage from HD to DVD.. Thanks for your insight!

March 15th, 2006, 10:32 AM	#36
Brian Vilevac Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Cleveland, Ohio Posts: 50	Sony's Response I contacted Sony regarding the "custom" button and here is the response. I guess I wasted $129 for the Movie Studio Platinum! "Response (Mike S.) - 03/15/2006 10:02 AM Hello Brian, Thank you for writing. The MainConcept MPEG 1 & 2 Standard 1.0 plug-in included with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 6.0 does not allow for any customizing of the MPEG templates. Our professional version in this product line, Vegas 6.0, includes the MainConcept MPEG 1 & 2 Professional 1.0 plug-in which allows for customizing the MPEG render templates. If you wish to upgrade Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 6.0 to Vegas 6.0, I can offer you the following special promotion to save off the upgrade price: Upgrade to the latest version of Vegas (applies to all products upgradeable to Vegas) Save 25% on your upgrade to Vegas! Get the most video editing power available, and save."

March 17th, 2006, 01:47 PM	#39
Brian Vilevac Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Cleveland, Ohio Posts: 50	Test results from Vegas 6 Thought I would share my experiences with Vegas 6 and Connect HD. I ran a simple test to determine the "value" of Connect HD before purchasing the software. Now that I have the actual Vegas 6 software, here are my results: Computer - Pentium D 950 Processor, 4GB 1066 RAM, 5 x 500GB SATA II drives. I used the same MPEG2 render settings on both files. The first test: Captured m2t files using Vegas Capture utility. Added 2 1 minute clips into the timeline (took approx 30 seconds). Made a few minor edits (Editing was real time - no lag). Rendered to MPEG2 - took 9 minutes, 56 seconds to produce file. Final output looks great! Second: Captures AVI using ConnectHD. Added same 2 1 minute clips into timeline (took approx 20 seconds). Made the same minor edits (Edit time was the same - real time). Rendered to MPEG2 - took 17 minutes, 26 seconds to produce file! Final output looks almost identical! The m2t to MPEG2 looked "a little" better - was very hard to see - actually had to look for a difference. My question is - shouldn't the avi to mpeg2 render faster than the m2t to mpeg2? Maybe I missed a setting somewhere?? I have yet to try editing the m2t files captured from Connect HD. BUT, THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE - the capture settings of the Connect HD are priceless!!! The simple feature of scene detection in Connect HD is well worth the money! I don't know how people could try (or want) to edit a 50+ minute clip of any sort when capturing from the Vegas Capture program. Unless you sit and control scene breaks manually. For me, the split scene makes editing far more efficient... Just my 2 cents!

March 30th, 2006, 04:48 PM	#41
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	Re: Brian's Comment: "BUT, THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE - the capture settings of the Connect HD are priceless!!! The simple feature of scene detection in Connect HD is well worth the money! I don't know how people could try (or want) to edit a 50+ minute clip of any sort when capturing from the Vegas Capture program. Unless you sit and control scene breaks manually. For me, the split scene makes editing far more efficient..." You can use a free program to capture in .m2t that includes scene detect. I believe it is called HDSplit or something like that. I am at my office now, and have it on my home office system. I did notice a couple of drop outs on the the captures I did when I compared them to same captures I did inside Premiere Pro 2.0. Still, the biggest difference out there reported by experts here is the better editing, color correction, and color rendition capability coming from Cineform editing process. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

April 2nd, 2006, 01:21 AM	#42
Mike McKay Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Vancouver Posts: 125	Connect HD Vegas 6 P4 2.8? Looking at Connect HD, I have the minimum spec P4 2.8 (non HT), 1gig ram, 9800Pro a 160gig and 320gig drive, not Sata. FX1. For basic editing, ie: single video layer, basic text, cuts/dissolves only.....will the machine be ok or would I be in for a rough ride?

February 19th, 2006, 02:39 PM	#31
David Taylor Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Solana Beach, CA Posts: 853	BJ, Did you have an old version of Aspect HD installed on your system? Regardless, there seems to be a problem somewhere. Files created with Aspect and Connect are completely compatible, so Vegas should properly see the converted files. If you can't work through this one you should probably file a trouble ticket. David.

February 19th, 2006, 04:31 PM	#32
BJ Elliott Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Plano, TX Posts: 31	Thanks David. You were right. I still had the older version of Connect HD installed. Once I uninstalled both, then reinstalled the version 2.1, Vegas began to recognize the video stream. I experimented a little with some short clips (~1.5 minutes). I noticed that WMP9 showed a beautiful image, but the audio was way ahead of the video. There was no sync problem in the preview window of Vegas, but there were dropouts on both the video and audio that were not there in WMP9. I rendered one .wmv file and one .mpg file just to see what happened. Both files looked terrible, with motion artifacts and dropped frames. I may have to try a different capture card. I have an old Pinnacle Systems DV 1394-400 OHCI v1.1 card. Would that help, or is it too outdated?

March 15th, 2006, 08:06 AM	#34
Jon Omiatek Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Columbus, Ohio Posts: 755	The reason you can edit the downcoverted avi is because it's DV at that point. I find it impossible to edit HDV m2t's because your computer has to edit a compress stream versus Cineforms connect HD avi. I am currently working on a 6 camera angle edit and it's still realtime editing. If you try it with m2t files, you would have to wait everytime you moved the slider bar in vegas. I suggest that you download the trial version of Connect HD. It's worth every penny of the $200. Be prepared for very long render times. Meaning..... Capture to m2t then covert to cineform avi (takes about 2 hours per tape to capture and convert) Once you edit and render to m2t it's about 5min for every 1min of timeline for me. After you render it to m2t you can then print to tape if you would like. I am printing my finished stuff to tape so I can burn it later once my blueray drive arrives. Jon

March 15th, 2006, 08:18 AM	#35
Brian Vilevac Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Cleveland, Ohio Posts: 50	Thanks Jon for the reply!! I have downloaded the trial version of ConnectHD and so far I love it! However, I am battling Vegas now with the "grayed-out" custom button when trying to change the settings for mpeg2! ConnectHD worked great with the capturing process. I made minor changes in the timeline of a short 5 minute clip (for testing purposes) and tried the following: Capture with ConnectHD - took approx. 1 and 1/2 hours for 50 minutes of video to capture and convert. Print to tape - worked great. It was about 3 minutes to every 1 on my machine (Pent D 950 with 4GB RAM). I added the avi files (5 minutes of) to the timeline, made minor changes, and now I am trying to render as an MPEG2. However, I can not customize the settings. The custom button is greyed out! I searched the forums and found one pertaining to registry settings but when I looked, the settings in question are not in the registry! Any thoughts on this one? Thanks again for your input!!

March 15th, 2006, 03:21 PM	#37
Don Donatello Hawaiian Shirt Mogul Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: northern cailfornia Posts: 1,261	the original post was about cineform HD & Vegas 6 .. when did movie studio ( which is not vegas 6) come in ??

March 16th, 2006, 11:01 AM	#38
Brian Vilevac Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Cleveland, Ohio Posts: 50	Sorry for the confusion Don. As I had mentioned, I am new to the Sony Vegas products. When I called a certain reseller to inquire about Vegas, he stated that Movie Studio was Vegas 6, but with a few less options. So, he said for the price difference between the two, I wouldn't see a difference. Well, now I see the difference in products since I upgraded to the Vegas 6. Hence my confusion........

March 30th, 2006, 03:49 PM	#40
Fred Foronda Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Hawaii Posts: 337	Thanks for the info guys. What I like about Connect HD is that it corverts m2t into a more workable file faster than converting it on Vegas. 11 min clip took about 17 minutes to convert. I like the split scene but I find it more easy to manage just one big clip espeically when I need to replace the avi files back to the original m2t for printing back to tape. Now as far as the finish product connect hd file looks good when it goes to SD DVD. But does it take longer to render if I replace the connect hd file to the original m2t then render it to go to SD DVD??

April 2nd, 2006, 09:16 AM	#43
David Taylor Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Solana Beach, CA Posts: 853	Mike, you'll be fine for basic editing as you describe it. To verify, you can certainly download the Trial version from our website and experiment with it. David.

May 3rd, 2006, 06:19 PM	#44
John Beale Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: San Francisco Posts: 74	Vegas 6d crashes, cfhd.dll problem? I am using Vegas 6.0d and it keeps crashing on me. Here is an error message that appeared from the last crash a few minutes ago, when I started to render a project which included 1080i HDV (.m2t) material Sony Vegas 6.0 Version 6.0d (Build 210) Exception 0xC0000005 (access violation) WRITE:0x3C IP:0x4154A28E In Module 'cfhd.dll' at Address 0x41500000 + 0x4A28E Thread: ProgMan ID=0x91C Stack=0xAACF000-0xAAD0000 [...] -------------------------- I do not recall Vegas crashing on me when I was editing strictly DV material. This is very frustrating since my project will be shown by the client this Friday I must get it finished soon. Is it correct that 'cfhd.dll' is the CineForm HD module? Is there an updated version I could use that would help?

May 3rd, 2006, 09:02 PM	#45
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	We sell the updated version through Connect HD, yet the free version should not be crashing. This is a good question for Sony tech support. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman