CineForm and Sony XDCAM HD

[Alister Chapman]

HD connect, Premiere etc don't recognise the files that MOG or Snell outputs in particular the AES audio. The only way I have found so far to get from XDCAM HD to CFHD is via Avid Liquid, but it's one clip at a time, which is not really going to work in the long run. Lets hope that MXF support becomes more common place in applications such as Premiere.

What I would say to Dave at Cineform is tha at the moment there appears to be only one application that actually supports 35mb HD XDCAM files and that's Avid Liquid. Avid Xpress Pro even in the latest release only supports 25mb, perhaps once again Cineform could steal a lead on every on else with a simple conversion utility like Connect HD. It's easy to use FAM mode to get the files onto the PC so you don't need to be able to access the camera or anything fancy, just batch convert MXFs to CFHD.

Anyone got a batch process that will first strip out the M2V and AES files from the MXF's (preferably repacking the audio as WAV's) so that I can use something like Pro Coder or Virtual Dub to batch convert the files to CFHD?

[Alister Chapman]

OK I tried Connect HD on a Sony HD XDCAM MXF and it almost works! It will convert the clip to a CFHD AVI provided you have a MPEG decoder installed on the PC. However it dosn't convert the audio and produces a blocky image on areas of high motion. Shame because it's very close to doing what I would like it to do.

[Matthew Pugerude]

Hello David I have been working with the XDCam 350 and I have really enjoyed it so far. Where are you guys on getting HD link to work with the XDcam like it does with the P2 cards? Are you guys still working on getting this camera to work with HD link?

[David Newman]

When there are more cameras on the market we might add XDCAM HD support, but unforunately the licensing costs for the tools needed are more than we will make back for the few XDCAM HD users running CineForm.

[Matthew Pugerude]

Well that is to bad I was looking forward to using the FAM workflow with the 350. I guess I will have to get a card to work with it. What exactly does the Prospect and AJA card give me that a Black Magic Multibridge Extreme doesn't give me.

[David Newman]

Originally Posted by Matthew Pugerude

What exactly does the Prospect and AJA card give me that a Black Magic Multibridge Extreme doesn't give me.

Real-time multistream HD editing on a fast desktop PC without a huge eborate RAID. In the end Prospect HD is a lower cost, faster workflow, with file size that enable more complex productions with simpliest path to mastering and archive (the whole Dust to Glory feature master (that was uses for filmout) is under 200GB.) That was two years ago, and our tools and compression are much better today.

[Tip McPartland]

David,

You may recall our phone conversation about transcoding Grass Valley Infinity JPEG 2000, and many thanks for the time you spent with me on that, but I've found out information about the Infinity CCDs that has caused me to shy away from that camera. So I've ordered an XDCAM HD (350 version) instead. I would like to continue enjoying the advantages of the Cineform intermediate codec in my workflow with this camera. I know there would be no issue at 25 Mb/sec HDV, but then much of the camera's advantage is lost.

What would happen if I fed the 35 MB/sec firewire output to Aspect HD 4.2? If it won't process it now, will there be an update that will enable ingest at this bit rate if it won't do it now?

There is a MainConcept plug-in that enables native editing in Premiere, and Vegas 7 is supposed to handle XDCAM HD very well, again I believe native. I don't think that either solution offers all the advantages of your software intermediate codec such as 4:2:2 interpolation, intraframe compression and so forth.

I'm very pleased with the performance I've gotten editing Premiere 2.0/Cineform 4.x in HDV, but I've sold my HD100, ordered the 350 and thereby have crossed the Rubicon. Since the die is cast, can you help me to be certain that it doesn't come up snake-eyes?

Tip McPartland

[David Newman]

If you can play the Sony XDCAM media through MediaPlayer there is a good chance the new Aspect HD will convert those files in HDLink. However we have not developed integrated XDCam support as the licensing costs (for some supporting tools) are higher than the expected return. This can easily change with any minor release, as the infrastructure is in-place.

[Tip McPartland]

David,

Thanks for your response, especially during the weekend. You're a class act, one more reason to try and keep using Cineform.

I'll try the Media Player route. A thought, if the bottom line isn't too red for supporting XDCAM HD, it might be a good idea anyway to retain the Aspect customers, because as I'm sure you know, every Aspect customer is a future Prospect buyer waiting for a check.

Tip

[Tip McPartland]

David (Newman), puhleeeeeeeeze expand Aspect HD to include XDCAM HD ingest. See the thread about Premiere and the MainConcept plug-in where several of us are bemoaning the way the MainConcept plug-in works.

David, as you know, I paid $399 for the MainConcept plug-in, and also bought Vegas. Neither solution, from my experience, compares to what I had with Aspect HD when I still was inputting HDV.

Bottom line is that consider that anyone with an XDCAM HD camera or deck has spent quite a bit of money, and will happily throw good money after good for a Cineform solution.

Also perhaps you already know that you guys ignore supporting file-based video at your own peril, this is the wave of the future and your competition's poor implementations have given you a BIG window allowing successful entre into this market.

Tip

[David Newman]

We isn't much enough demand for XDCAM HD support in an Aspect HD level product yet (too few cameras to warrant the engineering effort.) We hope to add support to Prospect HD at some point.

[Tip McPartland]

With XDCAM being an 8-bit format, the 10-bit Prospect solution may price you out of the market, at this point it does me. You may not be aware of the huge sales volume of these cameras now, they are catching on like the XDCAM (SD) never did.

Just solve the issue by charging a few hundred bucks for an Apect module, enough to cover your costs. Well, a Prospect solution would be better than nothing I guess.

Tip

[David Newman]

100 HDV cameras sell for every XDCAM-HD, as we can gauge from the very few inquiries we get on XDCAM-HD. 8-bit source is not the issue, after all even HDCAM is 8-bit, it is the price of the camera, at $16-$20k per camera we believe the end user is seeking the highest quality solution, and that is posting in 10-bit (read why 10-bit for 8-bit sources works here : http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHD.htm#10bit.) A Prospect Edit license is $1499 (only $1000 with an Aspect HD upgrade license) so think that makes the most sense. Find ten XDCAM-HD users to upgrade or purchase Prospect HD Edit, and that might be enough to warrant adding the feature sooner.

[Tip McPartland]

David,

You're right, at that upgrade price (from Aspect) Prospect does make sense. I'll run some posts and see if I can get a Greek chorus up and running!

Tip

[David Newman]

Thanks Tip. I would be pleased to hear the XDCAM HD market is ready.