Updates to all CineForm products

[David Newman]

Now available for download

Prospect HD 2.3
Aspect HD 4.3
Connect HD 3.4

While there are many updates to all our tools, these also contain support for capture via the Black Magic Intensity card (http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/) within HDLink (currently a beta feature.) This includes pulldown extraction from 1080p24 cameras like the Sony V1, allowing effects shooters to bypass MPEG camera compression and go directly to 4:2:2 CineForm files. For those with Intensity cards with would like your feedback (and yes we are adding live preview.) Read more details here http://www.cineform.com/products/Tec.../Intensity.htm

Other major upgrade include features designed for the Sony HVR-V1 and the HVR-DR60 drive unit. Batch converting files from the DR60 and P2 media is now much easier.

More info at www.cineform.com

[Dave F. Nelson]

Hi Dave,

I have a few questions about your new HDLink Intensity ingest function in Aspect, Prospect and Connect HD. Does HDLink allow you to flip the image for the RedrockMicro M2 like it does with HDV capture?

I also see that you will be adding a monitor window in the final release. Will this monitor window provide a flip feature for the M2?

What do you expect the latency or delay between live and monitor output will be? Do you think it will be adequate for follow focus or is the delay too long for follow focus to be responsive in real time?

Thanks in advance, Dave.

[David Newman]

These are good questions.

The flip feature like all processing features are available to you in real-time (if you have a sufficiently fast PC.) The flip is not very compute heavy. You can flip, de-interlace, scale (1280x720, PAL, NTSC etc.), bump to 10-bit (Prospect HD) all in real-time with Conroe class desktop.

We are adding the monitoring and it should reflect all the filters than have been applied. So shooting 24p with pulldown over 60i will show the extracted 24p.

There can be annoying latency if your PC is on the edge of enough CPU power, otherwise it is only a few frames.

[Salah Baker]

So would the be the first public break from AJA?

[David Newman]

Not really, we still only use AJA cards for HDSDI capture, editing and real-time playback. Black Magic simply introduced a product in a new market at a price point that couldn't be ignored.

[Richard Leadbetter]

Probably not immediately of relevance to most people here, but it's worth pointing out that the Blackmagic Intensity will only ingest a particular flavour of HDMI output: YPrPb 4:2:2.

I've come across HDMI devices using YPrPb 4:4:4 and also 24-bit RGB and the Intensity is no good for any of these devices. For example, the PlayStation3 uses 24-bit RGB (HDCP can be disabled on development units) and there's a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth because Intensity won't work with it.

For its intended market though, I daresay it does an excellent job and CineForm integration is the icing on the cake.

David, have you come to any conclusions about the MJPEG-derived codec Intensity ships with? Based on the bandwidth numbers alone that people have been quoting, CineForm should wipe the floor with it. Perhaps a direct comparison with CineForm quality on your website would drive a few more purchases?

[David Newman]

Originally Posted by Richard Leadbetter

David, have you come to any conclusions about the MJPEG-derived codec Intensity ships with? Based on the bandwidth numbers alone that people have been quoting, CineForm should wipe the floor with it. Perhaps a direct comparison with CineForm quality on your website would drive a few more purchases?

For any given bit-rate we will clearly dominate in terms quality, and that's in 8-bit, our 10-bit compression has no equivalent in the MJPEG world. We haven't done any quality comparison as MJPEG is a known tech, yet the quick performance tests we did shows we win that battle too.

[Dan Carew]

Hi David,

Yesterday I upgraded to Aspect 4.3.0. Works fine in Premiere (Except for one tiny thing: a HorizFlip filter you used to have disappeared. No big deal.)

However, when I pull my CFHD .avi file into AE7 Pro, the files look really washed out. This wash-out effect does not happen to photos (.bmp) or DV avis I pull into AE7 at the same session.

I *believe* this wash out of CFHD AVIs has only started since I upgraded yesterday. But honestly I haven't pulled a CFHD AVI into AE in a few months. Last time, a few months ago, I did some serious manipulation (e.g., color correction) of CFHD AVIs in AE, this washed out thing was not happening, however.

I attach two files of bmp exports, showing "before" and "after" ("before" is simply a frame export out of Premiere; however the same CFHD footage looks fine (not washed out) in all apps *other* than AE.

BTW, I do have the necessary Cineform plug-in, with a date stamp of yesterday, in place (V:\Program Files\Adobe After Effects 7.0\Support Files\Plug-ins\CFHDIO.aex).

Any thoughts? Going into color correction on a feature for Cannes so would love to fix this!

Thanks in advance for your help.

regards,
Dan

P.S. Really looking forward to your Red workflow. I have #1304 and will be at NAB. Will you guys? Would love to meet.

P.P.S. For some reason, seems I'm unable to upload my "before" and "after" 5mb bmps here. David (or anyone else interested) please post your email address and I'll send them to you.

[David Newman]

HorizFlip is a Prospect HD filter that must and accidentally left in an early Aspect HD build. Under AE Aspect HD only uses CFHDIO.aex for export -- its import features are only activate for 10-bit files within Prospect. This means for imported files within AE you are using the Video for Window decoder (which is fine) but it also means you should observe this "wash-out" like in tools like VirtualDub. I believe the files are probably fine, just somehow the default decode is set to video system RGB (black at 16), rather than computer graphic RGB (black at 0). You can control this by accessing the render queue and setting the video compressor to CineForm and clicking on configure to get this control panel (you can then turn vsRGB on or off.) These settings are sticky.

[Dearl Golden]

David.....I am also having problems with Aspect. I downloaded the trial version of Aspect HD yesterday evening and captured my first clips from my XH-A1. The clips themselves look great, but the audio track doesn't play in the timeline. It's visible, but no waveform in the L/R channels and no sound when previewing or scrubbing. I imported some SD clips into this project that I had captured earlier from a different cam and the audio is fine.

I captured the A1 clips via PPro2 and HDLink with the same results.....No audio.

I can play the problem avi clips outside Premiere (Windows Media Player) and they look and sound great.

I've done all the troubleshooting I know to do and some that others have advised, but no fix yet.


I have also posted this in the Aspect PPRo 2.0 forum on the Cineform site.

Any ideas?

[David Newman]

Please file a trouble ticket. I don't know what it is. I did just find a clip that did it, yet others work fine. I'll be looking at this Monday.

[Dan Carew]

Hi David,

Thanks, as always, for your prompt and excellent reply. I will try this as soon as I am back at my workstation tonight, in about 9 hours--and post my results here. Hope it works!

Do please let me know where/when I can find more details of Cineform at NAB (esp. re Red workflow) as I'd love to stop by, learn more and meet you all.

best regards,
Dan Carew
Hong Kong

[David Newman]

CineForm does have a booth this year for the first time, and we will be showing a lot on RAW workflows. I don't know the booth number but it will be on our homepage shortly.

[Dan Carew]

Hi David,

Your suggestion above worked like a charm! Thanks very much. (I imagine others will have this problem also, if the default is set incorrectly for everyone with the upgrade?)

Will stop by your booth at NAB and hope to get a chance to meet you.

best regards,
Dan Carew
Hong Kong

[David Newman]

We did discover a glitch with the audio importer with Premiere that is now updated for Aspect HD and soon Prospect HD (within the hour.) You can use you existing trial or upgrade links to download the fixed version. No video files need to be recaptured, however the Premiere audio conform files should be deleted to get audio for the new clips.