CineForm Aspect HD vs Prospect HD

[Marty Hudzik]

Other than full 1920x1080 and 10 bit capabilities, what does an upgrade to Prospect bring to me if I am not using a Xena card. Are there any other benefits beyond this?

Thanks.

[David Newman]

Depend on what you think "10 bit capabilities" means. Prospect HD not only expects to 10-bit compressed CineForm files, it does all it processing in high dynamic range 32-bit float within Premiere and After Effects -- this leads to more naturallistic images, partically for those undergoing extensive color grading without highlight clipping and image contouring. Deeper than 8-bit processing is the ideal for profession video/film work -- this is the main separation form Aspect HD to Prospect HD.

[Marty Hudzik]

Thanks. So what kind of performance hit should I expect going from aspect HD to Prospect on a 2.6GHZ Core2 Quad precessor? And while I am asking, are Aspect or Prospect optimized for multiple cores? I just built this Quad Core machine and it seems as though building previews in PPRO using Aspect only utilizes 25% CPU +/- . I feel ripped off as reviews on the Quad Core say most applications don't take advantage but with encoding of video in Premiere Pro there was a huge differece.....like 50% faster...almost. Instead of 5 minute encodes, it was like 2:40. This adds up over longer timelines.

I am not seeing anything like this. It's like inviting 4 body builders over to move your grand piano and 3 of them don't even help.

Anyway......any insight would be great.

Thanks.

[David Newman]

Both have playback optimized for n-cores. Export is partly threaded but there is an bottleneck through Premiere that we have been trying to workaround for some time. While we do intend to speed up the export, once Adobe has stop changing their API. Fortunalety most of the editing time is not spend rendering.

[Marty Hudzik]

So bottlenecks aside, can expect to see a decrease in performance with Prospect? Or will it feel the same?

I ask because I used to use Premiere Pro 1.5 RGB curves to get the look I wanted. It was a decent tool for my needs. This was in in DV. Then PPRO 2.0
changed this tool, for the better supposedly, by making it do it's computations in 32bit or 10bit or whatever. It was a deeper bit depth for better color accuracy. But, it made the render times go up by 10 times too! So simple segments that would take 2-3 minutes to render now take 40-50 minutes. It is unusably slow. I wish they would have left an older version of this effect in the toolkit for when I don't need that accuracy...which is 90% of the time. When performing this on a 1440x1080 HD frame it is much longer yet.

So I have serious reservation of working in 10-bit if it is going to make that big of a hit on my performance and render times.

Thanks.

You guys can solve this problem for me if you add some Realtime RGB curves to Aspect or Prospect! Please???

Peace.

[David Newman]

Yes we want to add real-time levels and curves, unfortunately Adobe & Microsoft keep on change things, so I lot of development time feels wasted on just support the parent app. 32-bit options are controllable, and they will slow rendering when active -- CineForm filters don't slow as much. Remember you are going from 8-bit to 32-bit, the memory footprint increases alone is a big factor. This is all about quality, not speed. You need to judge for yourself with the trial.

[Douglas Turner]

How does installing Prospect on the same system as Aspect work? Can I just install it, create a new Prospect settings project in PPRO and import my original Aspect settings project?

Then colour correcting and grading would be in 32-bit? (I'll have to check whether Magic Bullet Colorista and Looks is 32-bit though, to benefit, I'd imagine)

I bought Aspect v4.x (but currently trialling v5) - but I have a test screening for our film in 8 days - could I potentially colour-correct and grade in Prospect and create a better looking result (considering I'll be exhibiting from a DVICO Tvix HD media player in 720P divx - not perfect, but better than standard def DVD).

Cheers, Doug.

[David Newman]

Uninstall Aspect HD before installing Prospect HD, all your Aspect projects will work, and yes you can now grade in 32-bit.

[Marty Hudzik]

OK. A project that I am currently working on had me doing some timelapse filming of clouds in a blue sky. I am currently using Aspect and guess what? Banding out the wazoo. The original footage is not too bad but it was shot on an XL-H1 which produces more of a flat look. Upon adding contrast and boosting the saturation (aspect plug-in) the banding pops out. So......I am guessing prospect would not have this problem? Are the premiere plugins coded different to avoid the banding or will any plugin benefit from the deeper color depth of Prospect?

Also for short sequences could I export to uncompressed avi or quicktime and avoid this? Or are the artifacts coming from the processing and not the encoding?

I am having a hard time justifying Prospect at this time as most of my work does not include footage that shows so much banding. So would exporting uncompressed help or not?

Thanks.

[David Newman]

Uncompressed 8-bit is still an issue with 8-bit processing. Aspect HD v5 uses more precision internally so that new CineForm encodes perserve the data of uncompressed within introducting banding. You may want to re-encode the clip if it was created pre-v5. So uncompressed or CineForm compressed at the source will be about the same. Prospect HD filters and the Premiere Color filter are all 32-bit enabled under PHD, now you will not be introducing banding while you color correct. 8bit thru 8-bit CC results in less then 8-bit (i.e. banding) whether you use uncompressed or not. 8bit thru 32-bit CC, preserves all your original levels, Prospect HD supports encoding these as 10-bit.

Please download the PHD trial.

[Brent Graham]

Hi guys.

First - I have to say again, that Cineform is an awesome piece of software for Premiere, it really takes HDV editing to the next level.

Secondly - I've had Aspect for a while now and am going to upgrade to the latest version for the $100. But I'm thinking I might take this opportunity to upgrade to Prospect HD.


How is Prospect HD better than Aspect HD in video editing HDV??? I've seen the 10-bit to 8-bit comparison, but how else is it better?


Thanks. I do mostly editing/cutting and color correction. But any other special effects is rare.

[David Newman]

Yes, 10-bit compression and 16/32-bit processing are the main advantages, inaddition to 1920x1080 support. If you add an AJA Xena card, Prospect HD really shows it stuff. So greater quality, resolution and hardware support.

[Brent Graham]

Thanks...

A few more questions before I go spending all that cash though (you've already sold me on the Prospect...but now for selling me on the Xena HS)


Here is my current workflow:

Record using Canon XH-A1 onto HDV tape.
Ingest via firewire into premiere using aspect hd settings.
Work with editing in premiere, I know after effects well, but my previews are really really really slow and unusable on my computer.
Output from premiere using Cineform avi outputting to SD size 24f/p.
Into Encore to build DVD and burn.

I know, I know, I need to use tmpgenc to encode for quality!! I'm getting there.


My current computer set up:
Asus motherboard
Intel core 2 duo @ ~2.4ghz
nVidia 7800 overclocked video card w/ either 256 or 512 mb ram
3gb of ram (actually 4 but windows xp doesn't recognize)
1.5 terabytes of hdds, none in raid
dual lcd 19" monitors
no broadcast monitor to speak of (a sin I know, but I don't have that kind of cash)



So...

How would a xena card help me out? Would I have to plug a monitor into it to see the increases or would it assist my current video card running my dual lcds? How would my after effects previews be affected, I even use nucleo, but it's just so much slower than the realtime hd I'm used to in Premiere!!!
Also, at work, we use Avid stations with aes audio, not sure what that is, but if we use it at work, it's broadcast quality.

Would my output work have a higher visual quality with prospect and the card? Even outputting to DVD?

Thanks again. Sorry for my lack of knowledge, it's just that sometimes, this equipment seems more than I may need. But I'm definitely needing to get as close to broadcast quality as possible.

[David Newman]

Xena HS, LH or LHe card are not processing accelerators -- they will not make rendering faster. They are HDSDI and component HD input/output cards. The reason to use these for output over a graphic cards, is more color accuracy for color correction, support for output/mastering to professional decks and monitors.

[Tyson Persall]

I currently have black magic intensity.
My camera is Sony V1U and HC3.
I do a lot of compositing on greenscreen and i want to take advantage of HDMI output bypasing HDV.

However, uncompressed footage would require i spend about 900 bucks on a LSI RAID card and 4 disks in RAID 0 array... -then i decided i could just buy Aspect HD and use that format for chroma key with the 2 disk RAID i currently have.

Im considering Aspect HD, but am wondering if Prospect HD will make a difference with my setup? I care about quality a lot but if these cameras are 1440x1080 resolution to begin with then how will Prospect make a difference?

Specs:
MB: Tyan K8WE
CPU: 2x Dual core AMD OPTERON 270s.
RAM: 4gb Corsair ECC
GPU: Nvidie Quadro FX560.
Blackmagic Intensity card.
Audigy2 ZS
System Drive 250g WD
Video Drive: RAID 0 array of 2 500g Western digital SE16 drives.