Update - CineForm Adobe CS4/CS5 Support

Adam Gold · January 24th, 2010, 09:01 PM

David, is it safe to assume there will be no RTE/Acceleration for multicam in CS5/PHD5, just as there wasn't in CS3/PHD3&4?

David Newman · January 24th, 2010, 09:10 PM

Adam, It will likely be faster in CS5, however there was no API to accelerate it is any version of Premiere.

Brant Gajda · January 25th, 2010, 12:33 PM

David, with the introduction of the Mercury engine in CS5, is the whole RTE a non issue?

David Newman · January 25th, 2010, 01:57 PM

Sort of. We are doing a playback module for CS5, yet we will be compatible with Adobe own playback engine.

Tim Bucklin · January 29th, 2010, 05:05 PM

For those interested, our initial development and tests have shown significantly better performance in CS5 than in CS4, and the bugs that prevented a good CineForm workflow in CS4 have also been fixed, allowing us to move forward with high expectations.

No super-machines here, either. Simple Vista 64 or Win 7-64 machines running pre-production (2.13GHz) i7 machines and just 4GB of RAM.

Marty Baggen · January 29th, 2010, 05:58 PM

Tim.... are you seeing faster render speeds as well?

What video card are you using?

Tim Bucklin · January 29th, 2010, 06:26 PM

Hi Marty,
Our exporter hasn't been ported over yet, so we need that to really test render times as we're otherwise stuck using the VfW render modes, though those are now 64-bit.

My machine is running an nVidia GeForce GTX 260, and the other is an ATI FirePro V7750. Nothing crazy.

Marty Baggen · January 29th, 2010, 06:48 PM

Thanks for the feedback Tim.... this sounds very encouraging.

On the video card side of things, I sounds like you aren't fully implementing the CUDA processing of the GPU? Are you working with CS5 sans the Mercury Playback features?

Didn't mean to abuse the courtesy of your update with CS5 and open a can of worms, but almost feels like "Step 12" of CS4 Anonymous.

I would suspect that many would frequently update themselves if there were a sticky dedicated thread of CS5 preliminaries ala Cineform if that sort of thing is legit with Adobe.

I doubt there are many of us that care a whole heck of a lot what Adobe thinks, but that's another topic.

Tim Bucklin · January 29th, 2010, 07:02 PM

Marty,
The preliminary tests are using Adobe's default Desktop playback modes and our CineForm importer. This is essentially the same setup as we've been limited to with CS4, so it's a good apples-to-apples comparison.

Now, the desktop playback mode does impose limitations regarding First Light integration and 3D support, which is what we'll be addressing in our own playback modes now that the limiting bugs in CS4 have been fixed for CS5. We are optimistic given progress so far, which is night-and-day improved versus where we were with CS4's first iteration, and still far better than the latest 4.2 version.

Stephen Armour · January 29th, 2010, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Baggen

Thanks for the feedback Tim.... this sounds very encouraging.

On the video card side of things, I sounds like you aren't fully implementing the CUDA processing of the GPU? Are you working with CS5 sans the Mercury Playback features?

Didn't mean to abuse the courtesy of your update with CS5 and open a can of worms, but almost feels like "Step 12" of CS4 Anonymous.

I would suspect that many would frequently update themselves if there were a sticky dedicated thread of CS5 preliminaries ala Cineform if that sort of thing is legit with Adobe.

I doubt there are many of us that care a whole heck of a lot what Adobe thinks, but that's another topic.

I ditto Marty's thought on the sticky dedicated thread. That would be a very good sign by Cineform of good intent and maybe help towards mending some hurt feeling. If Adobe has a prob with that, then we have a prob with Adobe. It's mostly their mess that screwed up so many here!

David Newman · January 29th, 2010, 07:14 PM

CS5 progress reports will need to be confined to the CS5 beta forums, not public, as we can't discuss Adobe features that as not announced or released. While we did have a very positive week with regards to CS5 development, and enthusiasm leaked out, we can't offer detailed updates until CS5 is launched.

Marty Baggen · January 29th, 2010, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim Bucklin

We are optimistic given progress so far, which is night-and-day improved versus where we were with CS4's first iteration, and still far better than the latest 4.2 version.

It cannot be overstated how encouraging this news is.... and to have it shared at such an early stage is not only a psychological lift, but a practical one. The hardware requirements of CS5 seem to be steeper than the typical demands of a new software. We need to plan and budget for these upgrades.

On the flip side of that, it would seem that Cineform on a "conventional" workstation may stack up pretty well when compared to a full-fledged Mercury compatible system.

Stephen Armour · January 29th, 2010, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Newman

CS5 progress reports will need to be confined to the CS5 beta forums, not public, as we can't discuss Adobe features that as not announced or released. While we did have a very positive week with regards to CS5 development, and enthusiasm leaked out, we can't offer detailed updates until CS5 is launched.

Sigh! Welcome to the real world of 500 lb gorillas...

Tim Kolb · February 5th, 2010, 11:33 AM

Interesting thread. Some thoughts (OK, a lot of thoughts) occur to me.

I've been a unapologetic CineForm advocate nearly since they showed up. I stood beside David Taylor at a demo station in the Adobe booth at NAB in a year I can't even designate from memory. (2002 I think...) I remember picking my jaw up off the floor almost constantly.

I like Adobe because I am a creative person that provides several types of work product and Adobe has the tools and interface that I like to use and that are simply best-in-class for cost/performance in several categories.

However, I am not a blind fanatic for any manufacturer...

Adobe had issues supporting its third party participants for the CS4 cycle. CineForm isn't a lone ranger in this respect.

I've been involved with more than a handful of manufacturers in our industry and have seen a lot of the events and trials that bring various software and hardware products to market. None of this is easy. Users are constantly asking for more capability (and varying users have widely varying requests), but tend to break out the pitchforks and torches when stability suffers on systems running with software that (in my opinion) is often leading mainstream hardware capability by 12-18 months in a market where most users upgrade software 2X as much as hardware. (note several posters in this thread talking about how great their new 64 bit systems are running -CS3-).

When Adobe switched to sequence settings instead of project settings...that was a fundamental structural shift. To say that 3rd party manufacturers had to nearly start over is likely an understatement. Adobe's shift came from the intention to make the software as flexible as possible, but also because the FCP community CONSTANTLY flagged this ability as a major reason why they felt that PPro didn't meet their needs. This was a feature shift that I, quite honestly, wasn't requesting when it happened, but I find myself using it all the time these days. In two versions, no one will question that this was the way to go for user flexibility.

Adobe is running on a path of trying to eliminate the transcode from the typical editing workflow. It's an effective counterpoint to competitive products restricted to rewrapping, or completely transcoding incoming material in real-time or worse... Adobe has set its sites toward delivering on the promise of data-centric, direct-to-edit video post workflow. (Edius is right in there in this regard...but of course with a lighter toolset) Knowing that, obviously Adobe is likely not focusing their own primary resources on intensive and transparent integration of an intermediate codec like competitors who are dependent on one video wrapper or a family of proprietary codecs.

On the other hand, CineForm's constant focus on intermediate and high quality acquisition workflows means that they are usually dealing with technologies that are moving targets in themselves. They were really the first to adeptly deal with compressed motion RAW in a way that opened the extensive advantages of that workflow to independent producers and other mere earthlings without multi-million dollar budgets. CineForm's 4:4:4 codec outperforms the most respected video tape format currently manufactured. CineForm's innovative 3d workflow is absolutely mind-boggling. Since I've met these guys, they've been chasing the individually and uniquely evolving specs of -all- the NLE manufacturers they support with their high quality intermediate workflow, as well as rapidly evolving technologies like stereoscopy and RAW...and this as a relatively small company..

Neither intermediate or native workflows are the global answer for everyone. As an industry, we need both philosophies to exist...

On top of it all of this, the development cycle has continued to contract...everyone has less time to pull it all together and keep a shipping schedule, however with all software prices simply plummeting vs 10 years ago (I still remember AE on 5-6 floppy disks for well north of 2,000.00 USD), frequent software releases are now critical to a company's financial survival...and the customer's appetite for new features and lower prices seems nearly infinite.

I realize that when you make a living with these tools, empathy for the manufacturer's limitations doesn't buy groceries...

However, while complaints about features and malfunctions are necessary parts of the conversation, judgments about a company's motivations or decision-making are usually emotional responses and made without really understanding all the behind-the-scenes factors. While mistakes and miscalculations obviously happened, I'd caution anyone who is unhappy with the CS4 3rd party situation from assessing either manufacturer as misguided, lazy, or disingenuous. Each manufacturer (Adobe and CineForm) has a set of goals and it's almost impossible for both of those sets of goals to be identical, or many days, even similar.

Are either of these companies flawless? Probably not...but then, if my customers expected perfection from me, I'd be out of business. I happen to know that both organizations have individuals who are obsessed with trying to do right by their customers, AND yet they both very likely have long term company and product plans that are products of each internal philosophy and individual goals.

The open dialogue that the CineForm guys have is a valuable thing. I'd recommend treating it as such. Adobe, being a larger company, logistically can't have a conversation with users that is this personal and yet fully informed as the information is dispersed throughout the company. That's just reality.

Talk about what needs to be changed and why, and in my experience the CineForm guys have been responsive within their ability to do so. (Obviously they can't rewrite the host application.) Judging their motivations or commitment, as has been done in a few posts in this thread, is simply off-base and not productive in my opinion.

My apologies for the long post.

Marty Baggen · February 5th, 2010, 12:52 PM

It's judgments that fuel the feedback that companies, both large and small, gauge the needs of their potential and existing customer base. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about the flaming variety.

The issues that have inspired a lot of the frustration with the CS4 integration may or may not be market realities, or realities of any other sort... but what we do know is that the loose ends that end users were left with were the result of unfulfilled assurances, either stated or implied.

Some of those assurances were between Adobe and Cineform. Some of them between those companies and their customers.

When those assurances weren't kept, or otherwise changed, it was time for judgments to be made and voiced.

Cineform has stepped up in every practical and feasible way possible for them, especially as a small company. High priority fixes (project management), and a free upgrade path.

Adobe....? Well, if their excuse is because they are big.... I need that one explained to me. On second thought.... never mind, I really don't care.

The market dictates all this stuff, and it speaks through its judgments, both with our voices and wallets.

January 24th, 2010, 09:01 PM	#61
Adam Gold Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Woodinville, WA USA Posts: 3,467	David, is it safe to assume there will be no RTE/Acceleration for multicam in CS5/PHD5, just as there wasn't in CS3/PHD3&4? __________________ "It can only be attributable to human error... This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error."

January 24th, 2010, 09:10 PM	#62
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	Adam, It will likely be faster in CS5, however there was no API to accelerate it is any version of Premiere. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

January 25th, 2010, 01:57 PM	#64
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	Sort of. We are doing a playback module for CS5, yet we will be compatible with Adobe own playback engine. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

January 29th, 2010, 05:05 PM	#65
Tim Bucklin Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Solana Beach, CA Posts: 112	For those interested, our initial development and tests have shown significantly better performance in CS5 than in CS4, and the bugs that prevented a good CineForm workflow in CS4 have also been fixed, allowing us to move forward with high expectations. No super-machines here, either. Simple Vista 64 or Win 7-64 machines running pre-production (2.13GHz) i7 machines and just 4GB of RAM. __________________ Tim Bucklin CineForm Software Engineer

January 29th, 2010, 06:26 PM	#67
Tim Bucklin Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Solana Beach, CA Posts: 112	Hi Marty, Our exporter hasn't been ported over yet, so we need that to really test render times as we're otherwise stuck using the VfW render modes, though those are now 64-bit. My machine is running an nVidia GeForce GTX 260, and the other is an ATI FirePro V7750. Nothing crazy. __________________ Tim Bucklin CineForm Software Engineer

January 25th, 2010, 12:33 PM	#63
Brant Gajda Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 113	David, with the introduction of the Mercury engine in CS5, is the whole RTE a non issue?

January 29th, 2010, 05:58 PM	#66
Marty Baggen Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: monroe, or Posts: 572	Tim.... are you seeing faster render speeds as well? What video card are you using?

January 29th, 2010, 06:48 PM	#68
Marty Baggen Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: monroe, or Posts: 572	Thanks for the feedback Tim.... this sounds very encouraging. On the video card side of things, I sounds like you aren't fully implementing the CUDA processing of the GPU? Are you working with CS5 sans the Mercury Playback features? Didn't mean to abuse the courtesy of your update with CS5 and open a can of worms, but almost feels like "Step 12" of CS4 Anonymous. I would suspect that many would frequently update themselves if there were a sticky dedicated thread of CS5 preliminaries ala Cineform if that sort of thing is legit with Adobe. I doubt there are many of us that care a whole heck of a lot what Adobe thinks, but that's another topic.

January 29th, 2010, 07:02 PM	#69
Tim Bucklin Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Solana Beach, CA Posts: 112	Marty, The preliminary tests are using Adobe's default Desktop playback modes and our CineForm importer. This is essentially the same setup as we've been limited to with CS4, so it's a good apples-to-apples comparison. Now, the desktop playback mode does impose limitations regarding First Light integration and 3D support, which is what we'll be addressing in our own playback modes now that the limiting bugs in CS4 have been fixed for CS5. We are optimistic given progress so far, which is night-and-day improved versus where we were with CS4's first iteration, and still far better than the latest 4.2 version. __________________ Tim Bucklin CineForm Software Engineer

January 29th, 2010, 07:14 PM	#71
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	CS5 progress reports will need to be confined to the CS5 beta forums, not public, as we can't discuss Adobe features that as not announced or released. While we did have a very positive week with regards to CS5 development, and enthusiasm leaked out, we can't offer detailed updates until CS5 is launched. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

February 5th, 2010, 11:33 AM	#74
Tim Kolb Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Neenah, WI Posts: 547	Interesting thread. Some thoughts (OK, a lot of thoughts) occur to me. I've been a unapologetic CineForm advocate nearly since they showed up. I stood beside David Taylor at a demo station in the Adobe booth at NAB in a year I can't even designate from memory. (2002 I think...) I remember picking my jaw up off the floor almost constantly. I like Adobe because I am a creative person that provides several types of work product and Adobe has the tools and interface that I like to use and that are simply best-in-class for cost/performance in several categories. However, I am not a blind fanatic for any manufacturer... Adobe had issues supporting its third party participants for the CS4 cycle. CineForm isn't a lone ranger in this respect. I've been involved with more than a handful of manufacturers in our industry and have seen a lot of the events and trials that bring various software and hardware products to market. None of this is easy. Users are constantly asking for more capability (and varying users have widely varying requests), but tend to break out the pitchforks and torches when stability suffers on systems running with software that (in my opinion) is often leading mainstream hardware capability by 12-18 months in a market where most users upgrade software 2X as much as hardware. (note several posters in this thread talking about how great their new 64 bit systems are running -CS3-). When Adobe switched to sequence settings instead of project settings...that was a fundamental structural shift. To say that 3rd party manufacturers had to nearly start over is likely an understatement. Adobe's shift came from the intention to make the software as flexible as possible, but also because the FCP community CONSTANTLY flagged this ability as a major reason why they felt that PPro didn't meet their needs. This was a feature shift that I, quite honestly, wasn't requesting when it happened, but I find myself using it all the time these days. In two versions, no one will question that this was the way to go for user flexibility. Adobe is running on a path of trying to eliminate the transcode from the typical editing workflow. It's an effective counterpoint to competitive products restricted to rewrapping, or completely transcoding incoming material in real-time or worse... Adobe has set its sites toward delivering on the promise of data-centric, direct-to-edit video post workflow. (Edius is right in there in this regard...but of course with a lighter toolset) Knowing that, obviously Adobe is likely not focusing their own primary resources on intensive and transparent integration of an intermediate codec like competitors who are dependent on one video wrapper or a family of proprietary codecs. On the other hand, CineForm's constant focus on intermediate and high quality acquisition workflows means that they are usually dealing with technologies that are moving targets in themselves. They were really the first to adeptly deal with compressed motion RAW in a way that opened the extensive advantages of that workflow to independent producers and other mere earthlings without multi-million dollar budgets. CineForm's 4:4:4 codec outperforms the most respected video tape format currently manufactured. CineForm's innovative 3d workflow is absolutely mind-boggling. Since I've met these guys, they've been chasing the individually and uniquely evolving specs of -all- the NLE manufacturers they support with their high quality intermediate workflow, as well as rapidly evolving technologies like stereoscopy and RAW...and this as a relatively small company.. Neither intermediate or native workflows are the global answer for everyone. As an industry, we need both philosophies to exist... On top of it all of this, the development cycle has continued to contract...everyone has less time to pull it all together and keep a shipping schedule, however with all software prices simply plummeting vs 10 years ago (I still remember AE on 5-6 floppy disks for well north of 2,000.00 USD), frequent software releases are now critical to a company's financial survival...and the customer's appetite for new features and lower prices seems nearly infinite. I realize that when you make a living with these tools, empathy for the manufacturer's limitations doesn't buy groceries... However, while complaints about features and malfunctions are necessary parts of the conversation, judgments about a company's motivations or decision-making are usually emotional responses and made without really understanding all the behind-the-scenes factors. While mistakes and miscalculations obviously happened, I'd caution anyone who is unhappy with the CS4 3rd party situation from assessing either manufacturer as misguided, lazy, or disingenuous. Each manufacturer (Adobe and CineForm) has a set of goals and it's almost impossible for both of those sets of goals to be identical, or many days, even similar. Are either of these companies flawless? Probably not...but then, if my customers expected perfection from me, I'd be out of business. I happen to know that both organizations have individuals who are obsessed with trying to do right by their customers, AND yet they both very likely have long term company and product plans that are products of each internal philosophy and individual goals. The open dialogue that the CineForm guys have is a valuable thing. I'd recommend treating it as such. Adobe, being a larger company, logistically can't have a conversation with users that is this personal and yet fully informed as the information is dispersed throughout the company. That's just reality. Talk about what needs to be changed and why, and in my experience the CineForm guys have been responsive within their ability to do so. (Obviously they can't rewrite the host application.) Judging their motivations or commitment, as has been done in a few posts in this thread, is simply off-base and not productive in my opinion. My apologies for the long post. __________________ TimK Kolb Productions

February 5th, 2010, 12:52 PM	#75
Marty Baggen Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: monroe, or Posts: 572	Judgments Can Be A Healthy Thing It's judgments that fuel the feedback that companies, both large and small, gauge the needs of their potential and existing customer base. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about the flaming variety. The issues that have inspired a lot of the frustration with the CS4 integration may or may not be market realities, or realities of any other sort... but what we do know is that the loose ends that end users were left with were the result of unfulfilled assurances, either stated or implied. Some of those assurances were between Adobe and Cineform. Some of them between those companies and their customers. When those assurances weren't kept, or otherwise changed, it was time for judgments to be made and voiced. Cineform has stepped up in every practical and feasible way possible for them, especially as a small company. High priority fixes (project management), and a free upgrade path. Adobe....? Well, if their excuse is because they are big.... I need that one explained to me. On second thought.... never mind, I really don't care. The market dictates all this stuff, and it speaks through its judgments, both with our voices and wallets.