what should I do

[Obin Olson]

David, or someone at CineForm. I am about to shoot a project that we need a throw away camera on, I was looking at the Sanyo HD1, it's an mpg4 based SD card camera that shoots 1280x720 at 30fps, the question is this, Can I shoot 30fps on the HVX to mix with the footage and have a CIneFOrm project in premiere that is 1280x720@30fps that works with BOTH 30fps from HVX200 AND the Sanyo?

2nd question:
Can HDLink convert the Sanyo to CineFOrm 30fps 1280x720 for editing in Prospect HD?? WITHOUT slowing it down to 24fps?

THen at the end of it all could I make a project that conforms to any broadcast spec @ 1280x720 30fps progressive??

Can HDLink convert HVX200 30fps HD footage WITHOUT slowing it down t 24fps?

arrgg...if only the Sanyo shot 24fps!!!

[Obin Olson]

we are trying to make a decision today..thanks for a fast reply

[David Newman]

Yes, mixing multiple 720p30 sources works fine.

Sanyo HD1 is not directly supported by HDLink. However, download the free Mp4Cam2AVI tool (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp4cam2avi/), then load that result into HDLink to generate a CineForm AVI. This works fine.

[Obin Olson]

no cineform as an output compressor with that free MP4Cam program, this iwll not work, we will be dealing with hours of footage, the render times will be far to high and the disk space needed far to great. do you know of any program that will take the Mp4 files from the camera and convert directly into CIneform?

I can't think if any other way to do this, it's reality stuff...so tons and tons of worthless footage for 5 sec of real stuff..I guess I could look at all the clips and only use/convert the good ones.....don't really want to do it that way if we don't have to.....ideas David?

[Obin Olson]

3rd question, I know I should know the answer..but...can you record 30fps 1280 with the hvx and have it playback at 30fps?? if we did that would we make a Prospect HD 59.9 project or what??

[David Newman]

Render times are file sizes will not be an issue. MP4CAM2AVI converted at 10 times RT, to a tiny file (same size as the source.) All it seems to be doing is re-wrapping the file. It can batch convert also. Hdlink can then batch convert the results -- those file will be bigger, but you knew that.

If your record at 30p, your timeline should also be at 30p (you should not use 59.94.)

[Obin Olson]

David or anyone at cineform. what is the best way to deal with getting 1280x1080 1.5pixel aspect footage converted to 1920x1080 keeping the best quality??

[David Newman]

Or anyone on the forum. Does VirtualDub work with TIFFs, if not batch convert them to TGAs and your VirtualDub to scale and output as CineForm AVIs.

[Obin Olson]

I am doing it in after effects, starting with a 1.5pixel aspect comp at 1280x1080 and then on export telling it to "stretch" under export settings to 1920x1080...hope this is an ok way to professionally get it done.....please advise if not...it's a film scan project...no low end nonsense allowed here..thanks!

[Obin Olson]

BTW support for tiff file conversion under HDLink would really help around here for our projects...can this be done? with support for scale etc from weird pixel aspects like dvcprohd 1.5?

Oh and support for quicktimes would be nice. WHen we are dealing with others projects made on MAC we need options to "get footage" from the mac and use it with cineform. the mac output qiucktimes don't work at all...

[Obin Olson]

Thanks guys, I have been trying to get a client render done for this 1080 conversion. Client is in from out of town....after a 2 hour after effects render today with cinefrom. it gets all the render done and then tells me, and this is on our PHD INGEST SYSTEM:

This application is not licensed for cinefrom HD encoding. please visit www.cineform.com to purchase your upgrade.

After effects started just fine and I clicked "YES" to load cineform. I have never had this problem.

[David Newman]

Work out if this issue is licensing. Render out 24 frames, to see if that is erroring. If it is licensing there is something we can do, like re-license you; we can scratch our heads later to work out why your license expired (we've never seen that.) More likely something trashed memory (e.g. AE) and stomped on code that bough up the licensing message. Render out segments to determine which element might be bad. If all the segments successfully export, reconstruct those for a fast final render (Premiere might be fastest.) If the problem persists get hold of Jake. I'm heading to Sundance later today so my time is about gone.

[David Newman]

P.S. After more investigation, that error message is not from the Encoder that you should be using. If you use the render Queue and select "CineForm AVI" you will be using the DirectShow encoder, not the VFW codec that contain that message. Have you installed Vegas 6 or 7 later, as that installs a VFW that is not licensed to AE.

[Graham Hickling]

...no low end nonsense allowed here.

Hmmmm ... I hope that wasn't a jab at the VirtualDub recommendation.

[Obin Olson]

ok maybe that was it...seems to work now...weird!