Jerry Waters
Forum Replies Created
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How did you create your Cineform files? If you do not have a specific Cineform program like the old HD Connect or Aspect or Prospect, download a trial version and run them through the “Convert” tab on HD Link, the Cineform capture/conversion program that comes with their programs. It has a way of converting m2t to Cineform and should work very well.
If you do not buy the program you still get to keep the codec when you uninstall. You just can’t encode it again later. (That codec is better than the one licensed to Soney for use in Vegas.)
JerryW
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After sleeping on this it dawns that I don’t know anyone who presents HD in avi. It is always some compressed format. The only thing that can do it, to my knowledge, would be the Cineform thing in PP. Maybe an avi done in Divx compressed codec.
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I should add this: To do the project you want, set Premiere with Cineform to 23.976 (that will give you 24p). Edit everything in that. Then render out a WMV file at something like a 7.6M bitrate and play it on the JVC. Either burn it to DVD as a data file with Nero or something similar or play it directly from a hard drive connected to the JVC (it has software for this) using USB or if using a notebook with a crossover cable. You will not be disappointed. I have tested this on a 30′ theater screen.
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CineForm actually rewrites the preview engine in Premiere to run its codecs real time – several tracks of them. You can download a demo at http://www.cineform.com and try it. It captures in PP or captures/converts in a portion of the program called “HD Link.” It has 2 programs for PP – Aspect and Prospect. Prospect is a higher resolution codec and is very editable. It is also “virtually lossless” and you can reencode without noticeable loss several times. In the beginning of HDV it was, to me, by far the best way to handle footage. You can read about all this at Cineform but you should give it a try. Probably start with Aspect.
I think the JVC is an excellent way to demo a project. Short videos (up to a little over an hour) can be encoded at a higher bitrate (up to 8M) in WMV and play very well off a cheap DVD on the machine’s drive. Bigger files play off a hard drive – the notebooks or a connected drive. The machine also has a USB input as well as the network connection.
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I can offer you some of my experiences with HD that might help. I first edited HD with Sony Vegas using Cineform. The biggest problem was not being able to preview HD in real time. The only way to preview was in lower resolution or to do a ram render to check sync. Moving to Premiere with Aspect (and later Prospect) I could preview in real time, several tracks of 1920 X 1080 footage with no special hardware.
As to showing HD, a friend recommended a JVC AveLink deck ($360 at B & H). This box has a network link, plays WMV, Divx, mpg and DVDs from either the disk drive or from the hard drive of my notebook computer connected with a crossover cable. The max bitrate of WMV the box handles is 8M but I tested 7.4 files on the big screen of a Landmark theater last week (component connection to the projector) and the picture was excellent. The people at the theater had not seen the box before but were definitely surprised by the output. My movie is premiering there Nov. 14. I’m not sure it is the format we will use but I am comfortable with using it.
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Sorry to get back late, haven’t been on the board lately. It will be a plugin for Vegas, like Magic Bullet Editors was, and you can keyframe. You just “reedit” as you move along the timeline. For example, if you are using a spot exposure and the subject moves, adjust in the new place and keyframe.
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Sorry, but you are wrong. It does reencode. I needed to add a leader to a file to play on a special box (JVC AveLink). The two files came out SMALLER than the two added AND the second WMV file was modified. It was reencoded.
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You’d have to check with CineForm but I doubt you could use encode at home on the same license, however, if you install the trial version of Aspect at home and then uninstall it, you can retain the codec (even though you don’t buy the program). You could edit at home, take it to the office and render.
Jerry -
I have used only the Aspect/Prospect preview engine but before that used Cineform in Sony Vegas, back when HDV began. Cineform was far superior to using proxies. It edited like using DV footage. Where Vegas was deficient was in previewing high resolution in HD and in real time. It just didn’t and often you couldn’t tell if you were in sync. Premiere does with the Cikneform engine. It is like daylight and dark better in Premiere with Cineform.
Quality is generally higher in all cases with Cineform because it puts a higher color wrapper around the m2t files, creating a 4:2:2 instead of a 4:2:0 and effects are better. So I would say you do get better quality. I do not know how using just the Adobe preview engine would be. I would never do that because I’ve used previews that can’t run the preview real time and it sucks and I doubt Premiere can do it (otherwise Cineform wouldn’t have written the preview engine, transitions and effects it wrote).
Basically, Cineform is, in my opinion, a very inventive company. They created RAW footage in video for the Silicon Imagining camera over two years ago. Red is trying to do this now but the Red camera is very slow in developing. Several movies have been shot with the SI camera already. It came out at NAB in 2006 with a complete workflow for 2k with Premiere and the ability to process RAW and the ability to swing 11 f stops.
I am prejudiced but I’ve been through 3 levels of program with Cineform and they have never let me down, and they are virtually lossless. There are not many codecs that stand up to several reencodes with virtually no loss of quality. I just completed a 96 minute full feature that took most of two years shot with my 3 different HDV cameras. All of it was done in Cineform, Vegas, Premiere and After Effects.
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Aspect is a good way to go. Cineform replaces the preview engine in PP and runs their codecs in real time – very valuable in editing HDV. And it will do it with 3 or 4 video tracks up. The codec is very editable and produces good results. (I run Prospect.)