Prospect HD -- various questions

David Newman · November 15th, 2006, 10:15 AM

"Out of curiosity, if the uncompressed workflow requires 1.7GB per second bandwidth, how much is this reduced by using the CineForm codec? What sort of benchmark do you get with the CineForm decoder on this system up against the benchmarks on your "four cores the merrier" blog entry? And what kind of HDD array is required to service this workflow?"

Think 1.7GB/s is based on RGB DPX files at 4096 x2048 x6 bytes per pixel at 36 fps (the max of the Dalsa camera.) 24p would be 1.2GB/s, and we are fine 10-bit LOG Bayer compresses to around 30MB/s -- remember RAW Bayer is a third of the source data than demosaiced RGB. A single stream is decodering around 40fps on 2.4GHz dual proc quad core (8 cores total.) We have been recommending a 3 drive RAID 0.

"For my own applications, 1080p/60 will be the next 'big thing'. Could a single Kentsfield take care of that in High Quality/Progressive?"

I expect it might for the fastest system, but we haven't tested that yet.

"The Xbox announcement is absolutely fascinating. I'm wondering what technology you had to develop there - I'm assuming the bulk of the Wafian's work is in ingesting 1080i/60 over HD-SDI and rescaling to 720p/24 on the fly?"

The work was split pretty evenly between Wafian and CineForm. The HR-1 uses a few of other video processing filters for pulldown extraction and scaling. However the scaling wasn't done on ingest.

Dave Campbell · November 18th, 2006, 08:49 PM

Okay, got over the bug with PPro locking up. So, now I am trying to import my HDV tapes. These were taken with a Sony Z1 and HC1. So, I put a tape in, clip scene detect, and hit tape. So it scene detect captures correctly for about 7 minutes. Then nothing. I have tried over and over again, and even though I see the scenes changing, no changing of the name for the capture.
So, what is scene detect triggering off of? Could the Z1 and HC1 do different things to the tape. (I dont know which camera I used on what parts of the tape.) I have also had things lock up and seems like the only way to get things to work is to reboot. Not sure whats going on here, pretty random.

So, any thoughts on scene detect?

Thanks

Dave

David Newman · November 19th, 2006, 10:44 AM

I haven't heard of anything in this area. Please file a ticket. In the meantime you could try HDLink just in case there is a new bug -- although not much code has change in capture.

Alberto Blades · November 24th, 2006, 04:21 PM

hello

this week I downloaded and installed the prospectHD trial and have a problem with premiere pro2 after processing some videos with virtualdub.

I'm not an expert just beginning, said that, I like to process videos with virtualdub aplying filters before editing with premiere. After some testing the problem basically is, saving a video with virtualdub selecting the cineform codec, if the video is equal or less than 1440x1080 the video is decoded correctly in ppro2, but if its bigger, 1920x1080 all I get in premiere pro2 is a black video or even a nice green lines. The problem only happens in premiere, in all other software the 1920x1080 videos are decoded correctly (including after effects), may be I'm doing something wrong

I've been using other codecs like alparysoft or huffyouv and work fine at 1920x1080.

regards

David Newman · November 24th, 2006, 05:19 PM

As Prospect HD is designed for 1920x1080 images it seems you have made a misstep. Never mix Aspect HD and Prospect HD installs as Aspect HD is only licenced to encode 1440x1080 images (so unintall Aspect HD before install Prosect HD.) To confirm a bug hasn't kept in, I download the trial of Prospect HD Edit, encoded a 1920x1080p23.976 with VirtualDub and it worked fine in Premiere Pro. So make sure your Prospect HD installed correctly and that you have a CineForm folder within the Adobe plug-ins directory : C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0\Plug-ins\en_US\CineForm. The plugin module that adds decoding support for 10-bit and 32-bit float I/O CineForm files is called im-CFHD_File_Import.prm. If either the whole directory or im-CFHD_File_Import.prm is missing, then you need to reinstall Prospect HD.

Alberto Blades · November 24th, 2006, 10:45 PM

thanks I checked the folders and it seems some parts of aspecthd trial were there (I unsinstalled it before) deleted and uninstalled all ,then reinstalled prospecthd and now it works

regards

Peter Ferling · November 30th, 2006, 06:16 PM

Cool. I just read about moving activation between machines, so I can edit while on the road or away. I understand about registering the second machine at your site. How flexible is the move? I assume that activation is similiar to other scemes (like the macromedia and right hemisphere products) that require an active internet connection to temporarily park the license on a server?

David Newman · November 30th, 2006, 06:48 PM

Something like that, and yes it does require an internet connection.

David Taylor · November 30th, 2006, 06:55 PM

Peter, here's how re-assigning an activation works for all CineForm products. Yes, you MUST have an Internet connection, although you can manage the process from a different machine than your editing machine if that machine is not online.

1. Go to the CineForm activation page: www.cineform.com/register.html. This page will tell you exactly what you need to do to deactivate one machine.

2. Once the machine is deactivated (takes about two minutes, including gathering the requested information) you can immediately activate a different machine. Takes another one minute.

Peter Ferling · November 30th, 2006, 07:22 PM

Nice. Thanks guys. I'm placing the order tommorrow.

Peter Ferling · December 20th, 2006, 09:38 PM

I had a partially completed project done with PPro 1.5.1 and cineform encoded files. Some of those files were converted from a Pany HVX with 5.1 audio embedded, (don't know how I missed that setting). Anyway, I only needed the visuals so I disabled the audio for those clips.

Having upgraded to PPro 2.0 for Prospect, I then loaded the Prospect trial v2b (my purchased copy is still on back order). Upon opening or importing the PPro 1.5.1 project with the HVX files, PPro 2.0 would crash (disappearing magic trick).

Re-rendering a test file with the 5.1 stripped out of it proved to be the fix. I'm not sure if it's a PPro issue or cineform. A search turned up nothing on this issue.

David Newman · December 20th, 2006, 09:46 PM

Upgrading projects from 1.5.1 to 2.0 is not advisible for Premiere in general, although CineForm has no issues with this. As importing the project didn't fix the issue (normally that would) try isolating the problem; try importing the project with the media moved (so Premiere can't find it, you link it later) and also try importing the project into desktop mode (if that work import that project into a CineForm preset.) These tests will help determine if its is project or media related.

Peter Ferling · December 21st, 2006, 10:07 AM

David, it was the audio stream in the HVX clips that was the culprit. I wasn't planning on upgrading to PPro 2 until learning about prospect having that recent requirement.

I moved the subject clips to a seperate folder and offlined them. The project loaded without a hitch.

I have to perform some color correction on the HVX stuff anyway, it will be interesting to see how this fares better on a 10bit timeline, though it's 8bit source.

I'm getting off subject, but wow... PPro 2... wow.

Peter Ferling · December 22nd, 2006, 02:37 PM

When using overlay in PPro 1.5.1 on an HDV project and overlay 1:1 preview is set, overlay works as expected. However, when doing so in a PPro 2 project with Prospect, I get an annoying flickering as the second monitor changes focus back and forth to the desktop. When ever I playback the timeline (spacebar), the focus changes to overlay and the video plays out. Hit stop, and it's back to the desktop. Annoying. In PPro 1.5.1 the overlay focus remains until I minimize or move away from the application (as it should).

Playback is also letterboxed on my LMD and not full screen as well. Not sure if it's the limitation of the graphics card, however I have a Quadro FX 3450. I also have the latest driver, v9.1.3.6.

Any suggestions?

Peter Ferling · December 22nd, 2006, 06:31 PM

On my second workstation, a Dell with Quadro FX 1000, forceware v84, the video overlay to second monitor keeps focus, however, when playing back from the timeline, the video flickers and switches to full screen. Once stopped it blanks out and then jumps back down to 3/4 size.

When I open the project as PPro 2 standard HDV, I get full focus 3/4 size video and no flicker, hesitation or jump. I'm ok with 3/4 sized video, it's the switching that is making overlay preview difficult. How is the prospect handling overlay different from PPro?

November 15th, 2006, 10:15 AM	#76
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	"Out of curiosity, if the uncompressed workflow requires 1.7GB per second bandwidth, how much is this reduced by using the CineForm codec? What sort of benchmark do you get with the CineForm decoder on this system up against the benchmarks on your "four cores the merrier" blog entry? And what kind of HDD array is required to service this workflow?" Think 1.7GB/s is based on RGB DPX files at 4096 x2048 x6 bytes per pixel at 36 fps (the max of the Dalsa camera.) 24p would be 1.2GB/s, and we are fine 10-bit LOG Bayer compresses to around 30MB/s -- remember RAW Bayer is a third of the source data than demosaiced RGB. A single stream is decodering around 40fps on 2.4GHz dual proc quad core (8 cores total.) We have been recommending a 3 drive RAID 0. "For my own applications, 1080p/60 will be the next 'big thing'. Could a single Kentsfield take care of that in High Quality/Progressive?" I expect it might for the fastest system, but we haven't tested that yet. "The Xbox announcement is absolutely fascinating. I'm wondering what technology you had to develop there - I'm assuming the bulk of the Wafian's work is in ingesting 1080i/60 over HD-SDI and rescaling to 720p/24 on the fly?" The work was split pretty evenly between Wafian and CineForm. The HR-1 uses a few of other video processing filters for pulldown extraction and scaling. However the scaling wasn't done on ingest. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

November 18th, 2006, 08:49 PM	#77
Dave Campbell Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 568	Prospect HD 2.2 capture scene detect issue? Okay, got over the bug with PPro locking up. So, now I am trying to import my HDV tapes. These were taken with a Sony Z1 and HC1. So, I put a tape in, clip scene detect, and hit tape. So it scene detect captures correctly for about 7 minutes. Then nothing. I have tried over and over again, and even though I see the scenes changing, no changing of the name for the capture. So, what is scene detect triggering off of? Could the Z1 and HC1 do different things to the tape. (I dont know which camera I used on what parts of the tape.) I have also had things lock up and seems like the only way to get things to work is to reboot. Not sure whats going on here, pretty random. So, any thoughts on scene detect? Thanks Dave

November 19th, 2006, 10:44 AM	#78
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	I haven't heard of anything in this area. Please file a ticket. In the meantime you could try HDLink just in case there is a new bug -- although not much code has change in capture. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

November 24th, 2006, 04:21 PM	#79
Alberto Blades Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Palo(RD) Posts: 28	prospectHD fails to decode in premiere pro2 hello this week I downloaded and installed the prospectHD trial and have a problem with premiere pro2 after processing some videos with virtualdub. I'm not an expert just beginning, said that, I like to process videos with virtualdub aplying filters before editing with premiere. After some testing the problem basically is, saving a video with virtualdub selecting the cineform codec, if the video is equal or less than 1440x1080 the video is decoded correctly in ppro2, but if its bigger, 1920x1080 all I get in premiere pro2 is a black video or even a nice green lines. The problem only happens in premiere, in all other software the 1920x1080 videos are decoded correctly (including after effects), may be I'm doing something wrong I've been using other codecs like alparysoft or huffyouv and work fine at 1920x1080. regards

November 24th, 2006, 05:19 PM	#80
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	As Prospect HD is designed for 1920x1080 images it seems you have made a misstep. Never mix Aspect HD and Prospect HD installs as Aspect HD is only licenced to encode 1440x1080 images (so unintall Aspect HD before install Prosect HD.) To confirm a bug hasn't kept in, I download the trial of Prospect HD Edit, encoded a 1920x1080p23.976 with VirtualDub and it worked fine in Premiere Pro. So make sure your Prospect HD installed correctly and that you have a CineForm folder within the Adobe plug-ins directory : C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0\Plug-ins\en_US\CineForm. The plugin module that adds decoding support for 10-bit and 32-bit float I/O CineForm files is called im-CFHD_File_Import.prm. If either the whole directory or im-CFHD_File_Import.prm is missing, then you need to reinstall Prospect HD. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

November 24th, 2006, 10:45 PM	#81
Alberto Blades Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Palo(RD) Posts: 28	thanks I checked the folders and it seems some parts of aspecthd trial were there (I unsinstalled it before) deleted and uninstalled all ,then reinstalled prospecthd and now it works regards

November 30th, 2006, 06:16 PM	#82
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	Prospect activation Cool. I just read about moving activation between machines, so I can edit while on the road or away. I understand about registering the second machine at your site. How flexible is the move? I assume that activation is similiar to other scemes (like the macromedia and right hemisphere products) that require an active internet connection to temporarily park the license on a server?

November 30th, 2006, 06:48 PM	#83
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	Something like that, and yes it does require an internet connection. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

November 30th, 2006, 06:55 PM	#84
David Taylor Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Solana Beach, CA Posts: 853	Peter, here's how re-assigning an activation works for all CineForm products. Yes, you MUST have an Internet connection, although you can manage the process from a different machine than your editing machine if that machine is not online. 1. Go to the CineForm activation page: www.cineform.com/register.html. This page will tell you exactly what you need to do to deactivate one machine. 2. Once the machine is deactivated (takes about two minutes, including gathering the requested information) you can immediately activate a different machine. Takes another one minute.

November 30th, 2006, 07:22 PM	#85
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	Nice. Thanks guys. I'm placing the order tommorrow.

December 20th, 2006, 09:38 PM	#86
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	Prospect and 5.1 audio I had a partially completed project done with PPro 1.5.1 and cineform encoded files. Some of those files were converted from a Pany HVX with 5.1 audio embedded, (don't know how I missed that setting). Anyway, I only needed the visuals so I disabled the audio for those clips. Having upgraded to PPro 2.0 for Prospect, I then loaded the Prospect trial v2b (my purchased copy is still on back order). Upon opening or importing the PPro 1.5.1 project with the HVX files, PPro 2.0 would crash (disappearing magic trick). Re-rendering a test file with the 5.1 stripped out of it proved to be the fix. I'm not sure if it's a PPro issue or cineform. A search turned up nothing on this issue.

December 20th, 2006, 09:46 PM	#87
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	Upgrading projects from 1.5.1 to 2.0 is not advisible for Premiere in general, although CineForm has no issues with this. As importing the project didn't fix the issue (normally that would) try isolating the problem; try importing the project with the media moved (so Premiere can't find it, you link it later) and also try importing the project into desktop mode (if that work import that project into a CineForm preset.) These tests will help determine if its is project or media related. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

December 21st, 2006, 10:07 AM	#88
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	David, it was the audio stream in the HVX clips that was the culprit. I wasn't planning on upgrading to PPro 2 until learning about prospect having that recent requirement. I moved the subject clips to a seperate folder and offlined them. The project loaded without a hitch. I have to perform some color correction on the HVX stuff anyway, it will be interesting to see how this fares better on a 10bit timeline, though it's 8bit source. I'm getting off subject, but wow... PPro 2... wow.

December 22nd, 2006, 02:37 PM	#89
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	Prospect, Minor Overlay switching annoyance When using overlay in PPro 1.5.1 on an HDV project and overlay 1:1 preview is set, overlay works as expected. However, when doing so in a PPro 2 project with Prospect, I get an annoying flickering as the second monitor changes focus back and forth to the desktop. When ever I playback the timeline (spacebar), the focus changes to overlay and the video plays out. Hit stop, and it's back to the desktop. Annoying. In PPro 1.5.1 the overlay focus remains until I minimize or move away from the application (as it should). Playback is also letterboxed on my LMD and not full screen as well. Not sure if it's the limitation of the graphics card, however I have a Quadro FX 3450. I also have the latest driver, v9.1.3.6. Any suggestions?

December 22nd, 2006, 06:31 PM	#90
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	On my second workstation, a Dell with Quadro FX 1000, forceware v84, the video overlay to second monitor keeps focus, however, when playing back from the timeline, the video flickers and switches to full screen. Once stopped it blanks out and then jumps back down to 3/4 size. When I open the project as PPro 2 standard HDV, I get full focus 3/4 size video and no flicker, hesitation or jump. I'm ok with 3/4 sized video, it's the switching that is making overlay preview difficult. How is the prospect handling overlay different from PPro?