Cineform (on PC) is a type of AVI file that is slightly compressed. Native HDV on a hard drive is a poor type of file to edit in for a variety of reasons. So generally people suggest you convert it to a better file type. There are a variety of better file types. Cineform is one of them. It's high quality, easy for the machine to work with (fast) and takes up less space than many other types of files.

Make sense?

The Cineform files are definitely easier for your PC to work with, but they are much bigger than the native HDV files coming from your camcorder -- about 3 to 4 times the size. Generally about 50-60GB per hour.

Even with all that, I'd never cut without it.

Good point Adam. When I said smaller, I meant versus uncompressed AVI or lossless AVI.

You would use Cineform's HDLink to capture your video from the camcorder, and convert the captured video to AVI files encoded using Cineform's codec (conversion automated by HDLink). You would then edit those files. That will speed up editing performance nicely (more than spending a couple hundred dollars extra on the CPU would help), and Cineform's codec is visually lossless, so the video will not degrade visually even if you re-compress several times in post.

Robert, Adam, Perrone: OK I understand the function of Cineform now, to capture video and encode it to avi using Cineform's visually lossless codec, which is more efficient (less stressful) on the CPU. However, if I have a budget to stick to, to save $200, I can use my NLE (whatever that may be, something like Ulead Video Studio Plus 11.5) can still do the capturing, can still do the encoding to avi, albeit with a not so elegant proprietary codec as compared to Cineform, right?

Yep, you got it. Cineform is a luxury. Well for most of us it is!

You don't need Cineform. You would probably find it very cost effective (when looking at total hardware/software cost/performance of your editing system) and Cineform will give you better overall image quality if you do multiple renders for a single project. Cineform offers a 14 day trial. I'd suggest you try using it, after you've edited a handful of videos, so you've got some idea of what you are doing first (rather than waste the Cineform trial period while you are getting up to speed using your NLE).

When you are finished editing your videos, rather than compress them to HDV and save that back to tape, I suggest you compress the final versions with WMV or H.264 and burn a standard DVD with those video files. You'll get better quality, save head wear on your camera and a blank DVD is a lot cheaper than a MiniDV tape.

If I do this, what is the best scenario video quality, assuming the total file size is still under the 4.7 GB capacity of a blank DVD? Is it about 480p?

Thanks,

Norris,

If you are burning a DVD to play in a DVD player, then this will not work. DVD spec is Mpeg2 not WMV or Mpeg4. The new Blu-Ray spec utilizes these newer codecs.

If you are looking to store your videos on DVD media like it's a data disk, then I'd say you could get a rate of about 2GB per hour with very high quality 720p.

Here's the thing though. If you are going to make a playable DVD or Blu-Ray, you are going to have to compress your video into the standard format to do that. You want to do that with as clean an original as possible. That means you REALLY don't want to compress to Mpeg4 or WMV, and then use those files later to make your DVD or Blu-Ray. You want to go back to your AVI to do that.

But that AVI file will be pretty large. There are options to compress it down some, but it's still going to be large. There is where Cineform shines. It shrinks down those large AVI files to something reasonable, without losing the quality. It's terrific for writing out master files.

I've also been looking for an HD editing PC. I've been watching for a deal on www.delloutlet.com. I've had real good luck with them in the past. Mainly watch for "Scratch and Dent" computers - they have the lowest price for the features, but are harder to get (they're snapped up pretty quick.) I've bought several "scratch and dent" workstations from them over the years and have never found either a scratch or a dent!

Idealy, I'd like an XPS 420 with Intel quad-core, 3-4GB ram and at least a 500GB drive. Other nice features would be a Blue-Ray burner and 512MB+ of video RAM.