CF Decoders for outside or third parties
 

I have a Prospect project up for export to a third party, and I need to provide an avi wrapped CFHD, (Cineform mt2 is not working -not sure why, and Adobes m2t export wrecks havoc on white titles with black backgrounds). So, it's best that I provide an avi on a hard drive.

I remember a thread a few months back indicating that a decoder only install package would be available. Any updates on this?

One of my sources is an advertising firm and they chose their own editors for various projects. So what if that outside source is using Avids? I've read that Avid doesn't accept CFHD wrapped files?

Timing is everything, and having just one format to render to is desirable, no matter what the platform/NLE. I'd hate to spend 7 hours rendering to CFHD avi (the obvious choice), then get a call weeks later that it won't work and try something else. (I know it would make sense to know whom is needing the file before hand, but that's not always the case).

You have you third party install the Connect HD trial, download it yourself and email it to them. It will install the DirectShow and VfW decoders that do not expire. Likely you will only need the VFW decoder. For that you can grab the CFHD.dll and CFHD.inf files from your .../windows/system32/ directory, zip them up and email them. All the third party needs to do is right click on the INF file and select install form the pop-up menu. If we ever find a free hour we will create an installer for this.

As for the Adobe bug "Adobes m2t export wrecks havoc on white titles...", you can fix that by nesting your sequence over a black clip of the sequence length, then export the composite sequence. Adobe Media Encoder don't hand alpha channels correctly, this fixes it.

Provide the dll, right click, install. Simple enough.

Thanks for the M2t tip. I was opening a ticket on this, was informed about having to use PPro 1.5.1... nesting over black video is much faster.

Is there an advantage going the CF route for M2t vs. Adobe's?

None. The tools use the same Main Concept MPEG components. Our exporter just fixed a couple of Adobe bugs, otherwise it is the same thing.

Thank you.

One last question, are m2t's the only export solution to those whom have avid systems?

I doubt it, M2Ts are low-ish quality 4:2:0 files, Avid should be better than that. You could probably using DNxHD exports (there is a free but slow plugin somewhere) via quicktime for Avid users.

OK. I'll check it out. Thanks again.

Good thing I found this thread. I just set up a Core 2 Duo machine that I can plug any one of my my external firewire hard drives once I am done editing a video just to encode from the full size CF HD files that I export from Aspect HD & Premiere Pro 1.5.1. That way I can keep my Pentium D machine free for capturing and video editing with Aspect HD while the faster Core2Duo machine is encoding.

As soon as I installed the CFHD.inf and rebooted, added all media layers to Cleaner XL and rebooted again, Cleaner XL was able to import the large intermediate CFHD file properly with video and audio visible.