New to Vegas – hardware question

[Norman Willis]

I’m no expert, but I understand that if you use the Cineform NeoScene codec ($120.00), it will not only improve the resolution and colorspace of your M2T files by converting them to .avi’s, but the speed can be comparable to a Matrox RT.X2.

I was a big fan of the RT.X2, and was getting prepared to go that way until I learned about Cineform NeoScene. It is lots cheaper, and it is supposed to have much (much) better chroma.

Others probably know more than I do on that score.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org
servant@nazareneisrael.org

[Carlos]

Thanks Norman,

I believe I’m in the same road as you.

I’ve used a Matrox board for a couple of years without major problems, but in these days with i7 processors and so on, I feel that the need for an expensive board is a bit… I don’t know.

Do you work with the Cineform?

Someone can answer this:
-imagine a scenario.
A PC with Win 64-bit. A i7 with 6 or 12GB RAM. A GTX295 board. Premiere Pro + Combustion.

I capture in PP (with Cineform) my HDV material shoot on a Z1 camera.

I have on the timeline 3 to 5 layers of video and a couple of titles on top.

Will this timeline (with Cineform) play in real time?

What can I expect on a Top PC to achieve with Cineform, in terms of realtime/layers of HDV source material?

99% of my work is simple edit (cut, mix, some wipes).
Some letterings with alfa and F.in/ move /F.out.
A LOT of Color correction on Premiere or Combustion (almost every clip)
95% of the compositing efects are done in Combustion.

Also what board do you use / recommend?

I’m used to work with Targa3000 and it’s amazing video quality.
I’l like to have a board with minimum:
SDI+YUV input
YUV+HDMI output (YUV for PAL SD and HDMI for HD to view on a consumer TV, NOT a 1920×1200 PC monitor)
My Sony PVM-20L4 does not have SDI for SD – YUV is good enough.

Sincerely
Carlos

[Norman Willis]

Hi Carlos.

I think you are mistaking me for an expert (lol). However, I can relate to your question.

Just so you have some kind of a comparison, I have a Dell T3400 Workstation in which I added a CoreDuo Quad at 3.0GHz, 8GB RAM, and 4GB ReadyBoost RAM (page file is shut off). Both C: and D: are RAID 0 (performance).

I am just getting started with Cineform, and am still having issues. However, John Rofrano is able to use it in both 32 and 64 bit modes. I had it working in 32 bit mode, but I tried to get 64 bit mode working, and lost the 32 bit in the process…but I imagine if it was working before it will work again, so I am hopeful.

Many people are using Cineform NeoScene with excellent results. I am looking forward to that also. What I can tell you is that I took my AVCHD files (MTS) and processed them with Cineform NeoScene, and they became 7 times larger. I would imagine that would make them 7 times as easy to render.

Right now I am using VPro9x32. My CoreDuo Quad is just barely keeping up with the MTS files. All four cores are running at +/- 90%. However, if the Cineform .avi files only need 1/7th of the processing, I would imagine that when I get Cineform debugged, I will probably be able to run (maybe) up to seven layers. In 64 bit it would probably be faster still. Plus I am told that the colorspace in Cineform is vastly superior to Matrox RT.X2.

Please also contact Jake Seagraves of Cineform, Jake Segraves . He can tell you more of the technical aspects of why Cineform codec is superior to RT.X2.

I hope that helps.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org
servant@nazareneisrael.org