CineForm support for Sony XDCAM EX

[David Newman]

It just MPEG, so about the same speed as HDV. If you PC is multi-core, and or multi-proc then faster than 1:1.

[John Hewat]

Originally Posted by Travis Reese

...I also notice that I get a little static throughout the audio on the resultant .avi files. I don't hear that static when I play the raw .mp4 files. Any clues?

Same story here. Also having weird audio drop-outs during playback of the timeline in CS3.

ALSO:

Today I captured about 1/2 an hour of footage on approximately 70 different clips in 1080p25HQ.

I dragged them to my PC, then told HDLink to "Open Folder" and convert them all to Cineform AVI at "High" quality, and shrink them to 720x576 for eventual DVD output.

It failed instantly and froze my computer and I had to restart.

I went back and tried it again with just two files rather than all 70, but it still froze my computer and I had to restart again. In fact any time that I tried to convert more than one file at a time, it froze and I had to restart.

Also, it would happen at random, even when converting single clips. It would sometimes freeze but the computer would be recoverable, other times, I would need to press reset.

I didn't experience one problem when doing a simple mp4 to avi conversion, so I think the trouble was the downconversion.

The only other trouble I had was the weird static audio I got in the converted files.

The downscaled video from HD to SD looked beautiful though!

[Travis Reese]

David, I'm not sure how to upload a file. You mean upload it here? Is there a size limit?

[David Newman]

To upload a file, use a free service like yousendit.com to send to my mail address, which is DNewman at cineform.com. The file will still need to be under 100MB for the free service.

Please, we need files that do this, as now of our show the problem.

[David Newman]

Originally Posted by John Hewat

I dragged them to my PC, then told HDLink to "Open Folder" and convert them all to Cineform AVI at "High" quality, and shrink them to 720x576 for eventual DVD output

....

The downscaled video from HD to SD looked beautiful though!

We will look into the scaling issue (I haven't heard this report.) Yes, our scaler is very nice quality.

[David Newman]

Still need any sample that has the audio issue. I have love to get it fixed before the weekend, yet none of our media is doing it.

[Erwin van Dijck]

Just reporting good news, downloaded the 3.2.2.b and MXF to AVI works fine. Without issues the AVI is created and it plays fine. Did only a test on 3 short clips.

Though: on first notice it looks like the Cineform AVI clips play more difficult and with a bit more stutter in Sony Vegas then when using the MXF file. Could it be true that the avi's use more resources of the PC, so there is no speed advantage using the Cineform codec?

(details: playing a 1080/50i 35mbps sample clip with a horizontal pan, preview window quality half size, playback framerate of avi goes down to 13 - mxf goes down to 18 frames, and with a dual Xenon processor 3,3GHz PC, 2 Gb Ram)

Regards,
Erwin

[Steven Thomas]

I could be wrong, but I believe it's the "no free lunch" thing.

Cineform offers a larger intraframe (each frame has its own information; No GOP) intermediate file of the original that will allow
intense post work and multiple renders without destroying the image quality.

I'm a real fan of Cineform. I'm really looking forward to a portable SDI>Cineform solution.
Hopefully less than $3K.

[David Newman]

John & others,

For those have the audio and/or resizing issues with MP4 source clips, we may have the solution (other then switching to MXF which is working fine.) While we haven't been sent any news clips (please if you can) we did find a bug that impacted image resizing and maybe audio quality.

Here is the fix:
http://www.miscdata.com/cineform/CFM...SourcePush.zip

With CineForm tools closed, unzip and replace the same file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\CineForm

Start up HDLink and please re-try the MP4 conversions. Thank you.

[Erwin van Dijck]

Ok, after some more testing still problems here with HDLink: roughly about 1 out of every 10 mxf files that I try to convert to AVI are strangely not working and are complete green.

An example file is posted here:
http://www.dendv.nl/elements/test/

Also added a picture so you can see how funny it looks like in Windows Explorer with thumbnails on :-( green clips all over the place.

I couldn't convert this file and many others even after a second or third attempt.

Now all files are the same 1080/50i ... and of course one should think they should behave the same...


Regards,
Erwin

[David Newman]

Thank you for posting a sample file, I hope to have time to check it out tomorrow and I will report back.

[David Newman]

Erwin,

Yes there was a bug in the MXF file reader. Now fixed.

Download http://www.miscdata.com/cineform/CFMXFReader.zip

unzip and replace the CFMXFReader.ax file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\CineForm

Then convert this green clips again.

Thanks.

P.S. The MXF and MP4 patches will be standard parts of the next build.

[John Hess]

David,

Wanted to thank you guys at Cineform again for a firggin' awesome product. The EX1 and Prospect really are an awesome combination!

[David Newman]

Thanks John, we really do try our best.

[Bernard Racelis]

David,

I'm using NeoHDV 3.2.2 to convert an MXF.

The program stops if I select the 'Change framerate from 60fps to 30fps' option.

I have a sample 720p60 MXF file if you need it:
http://www.palsomedia.com/ex1_test/ex1_720p60.mxf

Thanks