CineForm questions and problems with HDV

[Ron Evans]

Reading the features for the Aspect 2.5 a possibility occured to me of using one FX1 and a DV camera with the intention of producing a DVD in 4x3. USe the pan and scan capabilities to get potentially two camera views from the one FX1 file to go with the DV file? An effective three camera shoot with two cameras? I am waiting for my FX1 and was going to use as a DV camera for two camera shoots with the FX1 as the main DV camera. Now I am not sure whether there would be an opportunity to use my DV camera as the main and the FX1 as the full stage camera and by copying the track create a third camera view by pan/scan/zoom!!! I will certainly try this when I get my FX1 ( hopefully next week, suppossed to be due now on the 5 Dec)

Ron Evans

[Jeff Mack]

David, I hope you can help me here. I have a few problems and I wish I could call someone. I'm just hanging here.

First, I'm shooting with a Z-1. I use Vegas 6.0 and Cineform HD Connect 1.6. For some reason, when I capture and convert in one operation, sometimes the capture hangs and it never finishes (or even starts sometimes) the progress indicator. I figured that if I do a two step capture then convert, it works. My problem is this:

When I insert the new Cineform AVI into the Vegas 6 timeline, I get several problems.

First, for some reason the audio and video tracks are different lengths.

Second, when I preview the project in the Vegas preview screen, the audio and video track don't appear to be sync'd. If I move the audio track to sync with the video track, I get problems with the audio - I guess I would call it artifacting. It pops and makes ungodly crackles. It seems that the video has a lag to it. It plays what appears to be real time for about three seconds and then it kind of hesitates for a second and then it jumps back to real time. The audio AND video were obviously not sync'd.

Could this be due to compression?

I also did a seperate recording on a 24 track hard drive. I had the same problem with sync'ing that. I could sync it to the audio track of the AVI but then it didn't match the video. If I syc'd the 24 tracks to the video, It didn't match the audio on the avi.

Any suggestions?

Jeff

[David Newman]

Please file a trouble ticket as I have far fewer suggestions than the tech support team. To help me (and support) understand the problem we would need information about your PC (speed, memory etc), as the fact you are having difficulties with real-time capture/conversion could be the clue. Get RT capture/conversion working and everything else should be fine. That said the two pass capture then convert can have sync issues if you capture over scene boundaries -- this is being addressed in the next free upgrade (automatic scene splitting from M2T file data will be supported.)

[Dave Campbell]

Okay, got some questions. I have taken my HDV and brought in via the
Cineform CFHD format, and yep, it took about 40 gig per hour.
So am trying to figure out output formats, space and players.

So, lets start with DVD output. I have two choice, letterbox or anamorphic.
So, what are the things to consider? Is a anamorphic DVD better to use than a letterboxed? Would one see difference in quality on a PC screen?
TV Screen? Any difference in output file sizes?

Okay, now on to HDV. So, I assume the best way to edit is in CFHD format, rather than m2t? Now, once this is done, it is output time question. I am looking at buying the I/O Data machine. Does it play both WM9 and m2t formats? At max encoding for an hour of data, what are the file size differences? Can the I/O Data network in the wm9 or m2t file so it would not be restricted in size with current optical media?

Dave

[David Newman]

Some of these questions go beyond CineForm tools but I'll answer what I can.

Anamorphic DVDs are best as 16x9 is encoded at 720x480, whereas letterbox the active 16x9 picture is encoded only using 720x360 pixels. So the anamorphic DVDs have 33% more pixel information. This results in visible resolution differences when displayed on 16x9 TVs (and on computer screens.)

Technically, if you where worrying DVD space, letterbox encoding will require fewer bits.

I have used the I/O Data HD DVD player and it seems to work well on WM9 and M2T data, but I haven't done extensive testing.

[Harry Saal]

I capture 16:9 HDV footage from my Sony HDR-FX1 to an m2t file using HDLink. If I now burn that same m2t back to tape, the output looks fine. [Using HDLink 3.2 build 36]

But if I convert to AVI and import into PPro 1.5.1 (or capture directly inside of PPro), when I then export to tape (or save to m2t and burn), there are severe interlace problems and flicker on rapidly moving objects (like heads and hands). The PPro project is 1080i, e.g. no rescaling. I am testing with no transitions, titles, etc.---merely capturing and then reburning the same video.

This appears to be an Adobe issue, but how can I work around it? The results are totally unacceptable.

[Peter Rixner]

Hello :)

I have trouble with several HDV-Tapes that have Timecodes larger that 1 hour.
When trying to locate lets say 2:02:00:00 the Z1 goes forward all the tape and of course doesn't find the spot. I use Premiere 1.51 with that cineform codec.
When I ignore the hours by typing TC in by hand it locates correctly.

So I guess, there's a bug in Premiere or Cineform codec.

The bad thing is: How should I Batch-Capture the following tapes, that are encoded by increasing hour as the tape numbers increase.
For example tape 5 starts at hour 5, as it has been through all my editing years.

If the cruel truth is: Yes thats a bug. No way to change that ... hmmm ... how can I LOSSLESS copy a HDV Tape ?

If I capture the whole tape, keep the MPG stream (like with DVHS) and the offer that file to the cineform-export function ? Would that make me a lossless copy of the tape with a zero hour timecode ?

Thanks for every help or idea!

Peter :)

[David Newman]

Non-zero start timecoded tape are not supported for batch capture -- although using Aspect HD the capture tools in Premiere will correctly mark the timecode to reflect the original tape timecode. These a timecode search function missing in the Sony's deck control functions that makes batch capture difficult for tapes striped at high timecodes. It is on our to-fix list.

[Peter Rixner]

Thank you for the quick answer.

So I have to change my workingstyle.

Somehow I hoped, that it could be a limitation of the "free" cineform codec, that comes with Premiere 1.51 and Aspect would fix it :)

Peter :)

[David Newman]

Aspect HD fixes many, many things over the free sample Adobe offers, but that unfortunately is not one of them (yet.)

[Laurence Kingston]

I tried converting from HDV 60i to 24p using DVFilm when I first got my HVR-A1 and it didn't work because you need to have ConnectHD or AspectHD installed in order for DVfilm to be able to write 24p HDV using the Cineform codec. Anyway, after not being that impressed with the Cineframe 24 / HDlink 24p with pulldown removal 24p capture, I thought I'd give DVFilm another try.

All I can say is OMG! It just looks wonderful! Beautiful full resolution HDV 24p! Anyone who is after full resolution 24p from a Sony camera should give this a try. It's the look I've been trying for for several years now!

[Laurence Kingston]

OK, I'm stepping through individual frames now and I see what's going on and what the trade-off is between Cineframe 24 / Cineform 24P pulldown removal capture and doing the same 24p conversion with DVFilm. With the Cineframe24/Cineframe24p pulldown removal method, every fifth field is dropped. This gives you better looking stills but less smooth motion. With the DVFilm 24p conversion, every fifth field is blended in. This gives smoother motion, but as you step through frames you can see the field-blended composite image every second frame. Neither approach is all that great after all.

[Paul Wags]

I downloaded Cineforms latest trail and also Main Concepts.

I opened up a Main Concept project, set it to 1.333 and imported a Cineform AVI file. Not only did it play on the timeline in real time but I could even view what I was doing out to my DV camera and then to the TV?

Now Im wondering why when editing in HDV, Cineform cannot do this as well?

Paul

[David Newman]

Try doing 3-4 streams of HDV and doing the same thing. Generally RT encoding to DV takes far more CPU than simply playing out to a graphics card that has a S_Video (for your TV) or component HD output. Aspect HD will allow multiple RT streams out through these now inexpensive graphics cards. This is the workflow CineForm believes to be best.

[Paul Wags]

Fair enough...
I just put 3 clips in three pip windows, it plays out still but has to render. Just made me wonder thats all. The CPU is only on 50% when it plays throught the 3 clips though.

Paul