We are asking for support under Digital Fusion

[Obin Olson]

David and the CineFOrm team. We would like to request cineform support for Digital Fusion, as a professional we don't use AfterEffects all that much, the quality, depth and workflow of Digital Fusion far outweighs that of AfterEffects and the node based comp work is far better then AE. Problem is, using CineForm footage in Fusion causes crashes all the time. It seems the program does not like the CineForm codec, could this be true? I know you made a special importer for AE because of the 10bit nature with CineForm AVI files... What is the current status of FUsion and Cineform? maybe we are doing somthing wrong?

Thank you for your help and an answer to this question.

-Obin

[David Newman]

If Digital Fusion is crashing that is bug in that software as the codec uses standard VfW and DirectShow APIs (and works 99% of windows apps.) We aren't doing any custom work for D.F. as we get so few requests. Instead we are working on the QuickTime version of the codec for PC and Mac. If DF uses QT or will be OK.

[Obin Olson]

hmm, so the avi codec should work in DF? what about the custom importer for 10bit you made for AE? does not apply?

[Obin Olson]

We are able to work with cineform files in DF, its just buggy...let me ask this. If the program will open the video file and display it, does that then mean the codec works? what about renders?

[David Newman]

Displaying and rendering a composite requires the same work form a decoder. We won't be doing a custom importer, as we don't have time, and it is unlikely it will support a third party AV importer (Combustion doesn't and AE almost didn't.) Combustion does work with our AVI (but only in 8-bit), so there is no excuse for Digital Fusion stability issues.

[Obin Olson]

SO if I am using DF and I can see and edit on the 10bit encoded from HDLink hvx200 footage then it's working fine?


On the export I don't see any options for CineForm quality or bit depth etc...what is it saving as by default?

[David Newman]

I just don't know much on this you said DF was crashing, so "working fine" might can a state of mind. I have never seen Digital Fusion so I don't where the quality controls would be, but they should be there. Do you have a manual? Look up "Video for Windows".

[Obin Olson]

So IYHO if I can OPEN a 10bit AVI CineForm file in DF then it's working as far as you know? I mean is it transcoding to 8bit on the fly or is it working in 10bit?

[David Newman]

It is converting to 8-bit.

[Obin Olson]

hmmm, would we gain any speed then by rendering into cineform 8bit instead of 10bit from hvx files? I would think it takes time to re-render into 8bit on the fly in DF...am I correct?

[Obin Olson]

David, how would you like to have an animation rendered at 1280x720 compressed via CineForm? I would be happy to give you an encode of our latest short animation comedy for your website if you wanted to post it. We could give some un-compressed stills along with the cineform file.

Just a thought, I know your codec really shines with Animation.

[David Newman]

Yes, animation and wavelets are very compatible. When can I see the clip?

Regarding 10-bit vs 8-bit in DF, it is not an issue. The codec internally is always 16-bit, so there really isn't an additional conversion step for either 8 or 10-bit compressed sources. Another benefit of the CineForm Intermeidate design.

[Obin Olson]

Great, so we don't need to change the way we encode with CF for any application?

I will drop you the animation short when it's 100% done, we are still working on some of the render passes.

[David Newman]

No, I was explaining why decoding 10 as 8 is not a performance hit. Encoding is not so automatic, although for Prospect HD users, we could automatically bump 8-bit I/O to 10-bit, so partly solve to issue for 8-bit I/O into AVI apps like DF. So you have to choose to encode as 8-bit or 10-bit, but decoding is automatic.