CineForm support for Sony XDCAM EX
 

We just did a beta release for Prospect HD and NEO HD, for those wishing to get the best use of their EX cam under Premiere Pro and After Effects. More information here : http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=110264

David,

What ever happened with your coming out with a Cineform codec for use on Macs?

Thanks,

Daniel Weber

That's so 6 months ago. :) Where have you been?

Help!
 

David,

I upgraded my NeoHDV to NeoHD right now, and I tried to convert an .MP4 file from my Ex1 to .AVI, but I failed. The HDLink capture log says "Error:AudioDecoder.CocreateInstance(CLSID-CFMP4AudioSourcePush)(0x80040154-Class not registered) in (ConvertGraph.cpp at 1609)".

And converting the MXF file leaves no error massage but the converted .AVI file is just a green screen.

Please help me!

That is why we beta test. Thank you for your report. We are missing a component in the new build, which is easily fixed. Uninstall NEO HD, and download from the same link again, I just refreshed it with the missing component. Re-install and please try again.

P.S. It is now working on my home PC.

Out traveling around the world shooting!!!!

I just asked a question regarding an announcement that you made earlier.

All I asked for was for clarification, not a smart ass answer.

I'm not a PC guy, so I guess I don't need to worry about your products anyway.

I appologize. Sorry my intended light hearted response come across too harsh. It isn't releated to this post which is regarding our PC products.

Our codec has been available on the Mac for sometime, and comes will all our highend tools to allow cross-platform workflows.

Same story with the Prospect HD download. I get exactly the same error.

EDIT: Re-downloaded and everything works fine.

RE-EDIT: Wow!


This is probably the first product I've downloaded that worked instantly! I cannot believe how simple this is. I'm sold.

David,

Thank you for your 'real-time' response.

Now converting .MP4 problem is solved. Maybe you don't support MXF at this moment.. The same problem.

My new problem is that Premiere pro 2.0 do not display the converted .AVI files correctly in the preview window, while window media player correctly plays them.

Edit: I tried to import the AVI files into Vegas Pro 8.0a, but this makes the Vegas shut down... No way to edit the AVI for me now...
Please help me.

Maybe,, Should I open a new ticket at your Cineform support center?

"Maybe,, Should I open a new ticket at your Cineform support center?"



mmm,
yeah.

Unfortunately it doesn't work. No EX files in Cineform codec here...

- I downloaded 3.22 Neo,
- installed it over a trial version that still has 6 more days trial period (I do have a previous version of ConnectHD which I can upgrade)
- HDlink syas it is version 3.2.2
- selected a few MXF files
- converted
- HDlink capture log says it is Capture Application version 2.2.5 ?? and Prospect/NEO HD 3.2.2 build 147
- try to play them but the image is completely green
- imported them into Vegas but still the image is green and the audio tracks are longer than the video


Regards,
Erwin

David,

Not a problem. Sorry if I didn't find your response funny!!! I shouldn't respond to posts after I have spent all day traveling!!

I will check out your Mac offering.

Daniel Weber

MXF = green report. I have just tested some XDCAM-HD files and some converted EX files to MXF and everything is working fine. Could someone please upload a short MXF file that has this problem.

David, I am curious....

are there advantages to using Cineform with MxF files versus the MP4 files??

No advantage using MXF over MP4 files. In both cases we remove the wrappers to extract the MPEG2 core and audio stream and convert that data to CineForm AVI. There is an advantage to using the EX's native MP4 files as they can contain the prized 1920x1080 images, whereas the current Sony MXF implementation only supports 1440x1080. This is why we went to trouble of supporting the MP4 files directly.

This is very good news David! I'll be upgrading my Neo HDV to NEO HD to use with Sony Vegas.

David, tell me you are not kidding. Your codec works with Final Cut as well and it seems to make sense to use it during the complete workflow but why on earth then via AVI and not QT on a Mac? Or did I miss something?

If you are intending to move the files to the Mac or you are running HDLink under Parallel or other Windows emulator, then you should specify MOV in the Prefs panel. CineForm wrapped as either AVI or MOV will work on both platforms, yet there are benefits to the AVI wrapper while on the PC and the MOV wrapper while on the Mac. If you need to convert an AVI to an MOV or visa versa, we that a re-wrapping option that is as fast as you disk speed (no recompression.)

David, could you please clarify this - I have some downloaded EX1 footage which after converted to MXF with the Sony Browser is still reported as 1920 x 1080 when put on the Vegas timeline.

David, thanks for that quick explanation. As I am on a Mac I will stick to MOV. But it's good to know how simple it is to change borders.

It could be Sony fixed the problem. With our version of the EX browser tool, it would not convert any 1920x1080 media to MXF, only the 1440x1080 would correctly convert. Anyway, direct use of MP4s saves a step.

David,

I have a small test-clip available for you:
http://www.dendv.nl/elements/test/

The MXF file is straight out of the EX camera, it is recorded at the highest quality (1080-50i, 1920x1080 35mbps).

After converting with the 3.2.2 Neo beta version I end up with an avi that is completely green with an out-of-sync audio track.

I really hope I am doing something wrong over here, cause I would like to use the cinecodec!

Regards,
Erwin

Thank you that footage will help us solve the problem. This is what happens when Sony only gives us footage, not a camera, we where not aware that the camera could record to 1920x1080 MXFs, all the samples they provided where MP4s. Shoot with MP4s for now.

Ok, but I have 800+ clips already in MXF format now :-(

At least MXF files are playable on the PC with the MXF-viewer (mp4's don't work), and MXF is also playable in Vegas (dragging a mp4 directly into Vegas doesn't work, MXF does as it is supported).

BTW: the camera records mp4's, and with the supplied SONY clip browsing tool you are supposed to "empty" the SxS cards and copy them to your hard drive. It then unwrappes the mp4's to MXF for you automatically.

Regards,
Erwin

The latest version (1.1) of the Browser handles 1920 x 1080. Vegas handles that very well.

Does NEO HD also process HDV (replacing NEO HDV)?

Serena, according to Cineform's comparison page :
http://www.cineform.com/products/NeoHD.htm

NEO HD offers all the features of NEO HDV with these additional features:
10-bit I/O (NEO HDV 8 bit)
1920x1080 (NEO HDV max is 1440x1080)
CineForm RAW Encoding (Windows Only) (not included with NEO HDV)

Thank you for your quick bug reports, all these issues have now been fixed. Prospect HD and NEO HD builds are up with fixes for 1920 MXFs files and weird thumbnail and exports for progressively encoded frames.

Prospect HD: http://www.cineform.com/downloads/Pr...148-071217.zip
NEO HD: http://www.cineform.com/downloads/NE...148-071217.zip

I would love feedback from those that had issues with the previous beta. I expect you will no longer have those issue, but it is nice to know for sure.

Thanks David!!
 

David,
Your new build cleaned up all the problems I reported(MXF converting, importing into both Premiere pro 2.0 & Vegas pro 8.0a). I'm really happy with new NEo HD. Thank you so much!!

Edit: Everting looks OK, but I edited about 2 miniuts footage in Premire pro 2.0 and exported as AVI with Cineform codec, but, the renderded video freezes after about 1 and a half miniute. I tried exporting several times, but the footage freezes at the exactly same moment.

Hmm, there have been no code changes for export. We don't test NEO with Premiere as Aspect/Prospect is designed for that product. Can you tell be anything about the point in the timeline where it fails so we can try and repeat it here?

Hi David,

Sorry if I missed the obvious elsewhere (I did poke around your Neo site) -- will Neo HD convert the 1920x1080 35Mb HQ files, either straigth out as .mp4s, or .mxfs as converted by the Sony browser -- into a flavor that PC Avids can ingest? You might know that Avid currently limits the EX-acceptable files to the lower, SP-quality files at 35Mbs. Thanks, and congrats on your products!

Keith

Just confirmed a long export is working fine here. So please send a trouble tciket with details on your project. Submit at www.cineform.com/support. Thanks.

Avids unfortunately have limited third codec support (by design I'm sure.) If you produce 1920x1080 CineForm MOVs, they will import into your AVID system, yet the Avid will then transcode those to DNxHD. So it will work, and the quality is fine, just slower than it would be if Avid supported playback of third party codecs.

Thanks for the response, David. It sounds that, if one uses Neo to convert to your flavor of 1920x1080.movs, it should work. I'll download a trial tonight or tomorrow and try, as Avid is not saying when they will support the higher rez coming out the EX-1s, and no doubt there are others who would enjoy your solution in the interim.

Keith

Thanks Keith, that is good to know.

What HDLink quality setting should I be using when converting the .mp4's? High? Medium?

What are your production needs. For 35Mb/s sources, High is fine, although some like Filmscan 1. Medium is not commonly used.

David, it was about 1 minuit and 20 second. I delete a clip at 1:20, and exported again, but still the image freezed at 1:20, where another clip is.

The project editing mode is 'adobe HD-SDI 1080P 24'.

Try Prospect HD, using CineForm preset, as it works fine here.

I just chaged video seting in exporting from "Microsoft AVI" to "Cineform HD Export", and it worked fine. The exported file size is reduced to about half. Thanks.