CS5 CF to Standard DVD

[Roger Averdahl]

Originally Posted by David Newman

The biggest issues is the export doesn't thread very well.

Will this biggest issue ever change? :)

There has been many CSNext's/CFNext's now without this issue being resolved, hence the question. I see very close to the same same export times on a HP Z800 with 2 x six core X5670's that i had on a HP xw8600 with 2 x four core E5450's. So more cores does almost nothing today, with CF exports that is. Fast RAID or no RAID makes a very minor difference.

It seems to be an issue with decoding CF as well since exports *from* CF takes approx three times longer than the so-hard-to-decode-AVCHD-codec takes. One hour native AVCHD exports to MPEG2-DVD @ 20 minutes with the Z800 while the same CFHD footage exports to MPEG2-DVD @ one hour. Thats why i use native AVCHD in all my edits today, because it saves tons of time. (Yes, i am a nerd that test this...)

On Topic:
I use the CF codec to archive footage and render out one HD master and one SD master from the same Timeline and dont use HDLink to downscale the HD master because HDLink uses the wrong PAR and thus stretches the SD output. I have compared the quality between HDLink downscaling and think the CF Exporter in Premiere Pro does a better job when downscaling the footage when it comes to quality, PAR issues exluded.

Sorry for the semi off topic post.

Hoping for faster exports from Pr and the ability to choose between current PAR's and correct PAR's in HDLink in the future! :)

[David Newman]

Speed is Premiere API issue, we have the fight with Adobe every so often, as we don't have it anywhere else in any other tool. We have temporarily disabled some optimizations, as we found 5.0.3 less stable forcing us to back off on more threading. We are working with Adobe, so I hope to one day work out the magic combination. This has been very frustrating seen the mess of CS4, forced us to find more business on other NLE platforms.

I think you might be wrong on the PAR issue, otherwise we can fix a bug. We don't put the PAR in the headers AVI headers using HDLink, but the media is scaled correctly, and can be used as-is with interpret footage. Where have you found this not for be true? Why not put PAR In the header? No idea, it seemed many AVI many tools don't use it as AVIs are so old they pre-date the concept of PAR. Fortunately HD is mostly square pixel, and more often progressive these days.

[Roger Averdahl]

Originally Posted by David Newman

Speed is Premiere API issue, we have the fight with Adobe every so often, as we don't have it anywhere else in any other tool. We have temporarily disabled some optimizations, as we found 5.0.3 less stable forcing us to back off on more threading. We are working with Adobe, so I hope to one day work out the magic combination. This has been very frustrating seen the mess of CS4, forced us to find more business on other NLE platforms.

O.k, i hope this will change soon. :)

Originally Posted by David Newman

Where have you found this not for be true?

I was wrong about the PAR in the file header, but i was talking about that Adobe changed their PAR's in CS4 so HD downscales correctly to SD, IE that the overall geometry of the image is not distorted. Images downscaled with HDLink downscales the same way pre CS4 did, ie it stretches the SD image slightly.

To see it:
1. Create a HD Timeline in CS5 and export it to SD.
2. Export the HD Timeline to HD and downscale it in HDLink.
3. Import both SD files and place them abowe each other on a SD Wide Timeline
4. Toggle Video 2 off and on and compare the overall geometry between the video

Result:
The video downconverted with HDLink is stretched horizontaly while the overall geometry is untouched in the footage CS5 exported.

Additional info:
Yes, there are black bars in the SD footage CS5 exported, but it can be cropped away prior to export so the video indeed fills the whole frame.

If i had that option to downscale correctly in HDLink i would use it everytime! :)

[David Newman]

I've just done your test. This is regarding whether the 16x9 display display is represented by 702x576 or 720x576. While seems the recent consensus has moved to 702 (Adobe changed at CS4), yet seems tools still do there own thing.

1920x1080 is exactly 16x9 square pixel.
You want to map all these pixel to SD at 720x576. CS5 only fills to 702, Vegas fill to 720 but used the "new" pixel aspect, HDLink fills to 720 but uses the old pixel aspect. The Vegas approach loses data on the top and bottom, the Adobe approach doesn't fill 9 pixels on the left and right edges, the HDlink approach doesn't lose any pixels anyway, but aspect could be different by 2%.

We can easily change, but to which method? I think I prefer the Vegas approach.

[Roger Averdahl]

Originally Posted by David Newman

We can easily change, but to which method? I think I prefer the Vegas approach.

I think i prefer the Vegas method as well, but would love to have the ability to choose between "HDlink approach" or "Adobe approach" or "Vegas approach". :)

HDlink approach = The way HDLink does HD > SD today.
Adobe approach = The way Adobe does HD > SD today.
Vegas approach = The way Vegas does HD > SD today.

However, if there can be "only" one choice i prefer the Vegas approach, IE the same result one get if one Crop the output, top and bottom, in the Export Settings dialog in Pr CS4/CS5.

[David Newman]

The Vegas approach is easiest.

http://cineform.com/downloads/CFVideoChangePARFIX.zip

Unzip and replace in C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\CineForm

Now HDLink HD 16x9 to SD 16x9 (PAL or NTSC) will use the newer pixel aspect ratio.


Hint: if you want to make SD DVD fast from a HD CineForm AVI or MOV master. In HDLink select Fast Scale, for NTSC which is less than half HALF resolution is either direction, the fast mode tells the CineForm to decoder only output 960x540 and scale from there. Quality is still excellent. I converted a 90 minute HD project to SD in under 30 minutes -- the SD AVI ro MPEG2 DVD is super fast now.

[Roger Averdahl]

Originally Posted by David Newman

The Vegas approach is easiest.

http://cineform.com/downloads/CFVideoChangePARFIX.zip

Unzip and replace in C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\CineForm

Now HDLink HD 16x9 to SD 16x9 (PAL or NTSC) will use the newer pixel aspect ratio.

Hurray! :)

Thank you very much, Sir!

I just tested it with a long clip and i love the workflow with render a HD master from Pr and use that HD master and let HDLink downconvert it. If the SD version looks good, the HD master looks good as well. This will save me tons of time.

And, if i import the downconverted file into Pr the Generating Peak file process is *lightning* fast compared to the files exported via the CF AVI Exporter from Pr. That fix is appreciated as well and i hope it will find its way into the Pr CF AVI Exporter in the future! :)

Originally Posted by David Newman

Hint: if you want to make SD DVD fast from a HD CineForm AVI or MOV master. In HDLink select Fast Scale, for NTSC which is less than half HALF resolution is either direction, the fast mode tells the CineForm to decoder only output 960x540 and scale from there. Quality is still excellent. I converted a 90 minute HD project to SD in under 30 minutes -- the SD AVI ro MPEG2 DVD is super fast now.

Great, i will try that! Thats great to know when one just want to make a DVD for rewiev. :)

[David Newman]

Here is the fix for the AVI export having fast to import audio.

http://cineform.com/downloads/CFRenderProc.zip

Unzip and replace in
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Common\Plug-ins\CS5\MediaCore\CineForm
and
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS5\Plug-ins\Common\CineForm

Let me know whether that is better for you.

[Roger Averdahl]

Originally Posted by David Newman

Let me know whether that is better for you.

Wow, thats fantastic! :)

I rendered out one clip with the old CFRenderProc.exe and one clip with the new CFRenderProc.exe and imported each clip into Pr CS5 and the difference is huge:
- Old CFRenderProc.exe = Generating Peak File took 91 seconds
- New CFRenderProc.exe = Generating Peak File took 8 seconds (Yes, eight...)

Each clip was ten minutes long. This fix makes the rendered clips file size a tad smaller than before and though i did not time the render times i got the feeling that it rendered out from Pr faster than before. I just changed .exe to .OLD, so i will switch back and test later on a longer Timeline.

Great job CineForm! It is indeed appreciated! :)

Edit:
Yes, the rendering times are indeed improved with this fix. I renderd out the ten minute Timeline to test, and with the old CFRenderProc.exe it takes 8 minutes and 12 seconds and with the new CFRenderProc.exe the same Timeline takes 6 minutes and 41 seconds. The new CFRenderProc.exe renders out my Pr CS5 Timeline approx 18,5% faster than before. :)

I rendered out native AVCHD 1080i clips from a AVCHD 1080i Timeline > CFHD 1080i.