CineForm and Sony Vegas 8

[Michael Wisniewski]

Originally Posted by Robert Kennedy

... Vegas basically said "wait for the new version"... I thought 8 was the new version...

The next version is supposed to be a free upgrade for all owners of Sony Vegas 8. The next version is said to be 64-bit. Hopefully it alleviates some if not all of the playback issues.

[Jon McGuffin]

Are we talking about version 8.0c? Is that the "new" version?

[Michael Wisniewski]

As of this post, Sony Vegas Pro 8.0b is the version that is currently available. The next version might be 8.0c, might be 9.0, might be something completely different.

[Robert Kennedy]

I contacted sony support and after a couple of weeks they said wait for the new version.
Oh well. I may have to bite the bullet and go Final Cut Studio.

[Abdulla Nadym]

Originally Posted by David Newman

10-bit 4:2:2 only exists at the file level, Vegas doesn't support YUV or 4:2:2 chroma sampling, so it is up to the codec and I/O module to translate to the Vegas internal pixel format. Previously Vegas only had 8-bit per channel RGB, and that limited the usefulness of 10-bit imports and exports (CineForm uses 10-bit YUV with the compressor anyway as there is a slight advantage.) With a 32-bit float internal format the I/O module could take all the 10 precision an map that to 32-bit float.

The biggest advantage to Vegas, is it can now work with RAW cameras, SI-2K, Red, etc. as 8-bit is just too limiting for these camera dynamic range.

thanks, does this mean that Vegas cant currently handle yuv 10bit 422 cineform video? given that i have Vegas pro8 (32bit color engine) & Neo HD latest version, where do i stand in achieving a 10bit YUV 422 video workflow? can i CC & edit in YUV10bit 422?

[Robert Kennedy]

Hello Abdullah,

It should work but doesn't:
My quad-core E6600, 4GB of RAM computer is unable to playback YUV 10-bit Cineform AVIs @ 1080P using Vegas 8.0b in realtime, much less able to do so in 32-bit mode or with color-correction filters inline. I can playback lower quality "draft" (half-rez) to get the framerate up, but have been unable to get 1080P to play back at full-res consistently.

Final Cut/Mac Pro-res works:
When I told this to a Red tech on a shoot I was working on a couple of weeks ago he laughed. Stock Mac towers can all do such online editing with the apple pro-res codec which I have verified myself since my last post. I'm now running OSX and FCS 2 and got it installed and operating to spec within two days during off-hours. I tried for a year to get the Cineform/Vegas workflow working for me. I made great effort to get help from Cineform and Vegas which was fruitless. "Get a faster computer" was the only option, which seemed foolish to me as my current computer was only being utilized at 50% and playing back slowly.

Premiere didn't work for me:
Cineform worked okay outside of any editorial program, and Vegas worked on uncompressed 422 1080P, but I could not get any editorial program to playback the files in full raster and real-time. Adobe Premiere can supposedly do this with ProspectHD (check Cineform for exactly which version is best), but last time I tried that I was unable to get a satisfactory secondary monitor solution. Cineform didn't support my blackmagic-design card and the only overlay it offered was using the video detect feature on graphics cards. My Quadro FX1500 (not a cheap-o graphics card) produced unsatisfactory results. It's also worth noting that the colorspace of the Cineform footage in Premiere changed when it was stopped (RGB) versus playing back (YUV). This was a major inconvenience for me and it not a problem for Vegas even when using a secondary monitor display. Perhaps AJA has a solution, but I got sick of spending money and another year trying to solidify my workflow.

Avid never got a fair turn with me due to its expensive proprietary hardware. Sure they lowered the price of Media Composer into a reasonable range, but it's still expensive proprietary hardware which I do my best to avoid. I tried editing on an Avid for a little while and my simple response was that it didn't work in the way I'd learned to edit. Too bad really because until very recently they were the sole go-to for high-res non-linear editing and are now competing with Apple, the newly mounted king of silicon valley.

Thus ends my saga. I fought to remain a PC user for over a decade and have finally succumbed to Apple. I love the new iPhone (my first Apple purchase ever) and my new OSX tower. Being tied to particular hardware sucks too and is expensive, even if it does work. I've been building my own computers from parts for years and don't buy this pre-config crap. I embrace it with the iPhone because it's chips soldered to a specialized motherboard for a specialized purpose. Presently, a Mac is nothing more than a shiny silver Intel-based PC with standard components and a Unix-based operating system (OSX) on it.

None of this is meant to deride Cineform or Sony, just to share my experience which has been shared numerous times with both companies over a year's time. I spent a lot of time and money to learn the hard way that Windows is not ready for primetime: 1080P, wavelet-compressed, full-raster, online, YUV 4:2:2 editing and real-time preview without render eludes standard, affordable and more-than capable hardware.

Apple's mean-spirited commercials suck.

-RK

[David Newman]

Technically "but I could not get any editorial program to playback the files in full raster and real-time" has been achievable for 4 years. I understand that you are coming at the problem from a different direction, and a lot of barriers were put in your way. The issue is Vegas isn't well threaded for third party codecs, but we have higher hopes for Vegas 9. Most of the other issues mentioned are gone also. If you only started with an AJA card four years ago (which we have always recommended for high-end work), you would never needed to go through the hassles you experenced. For PC fans, if are starting a-fresh, and you need to do "1080P, wavelet-compressed, full-raster, online, YUV 4:2:2 editing and real-time", today a $1500-ish PC with a Xena card (HS $820 or LHe $1430) running Prospect HD ($1000) under Premiere Pro easily does the trick.

[Jon McGuffin]

This is all very good information to know...

From my experience, I too have had a frustrating time trying to get consistent full rate playback in Vegas as well. Using Cineform or editing raw .m2t files resulted in similiar experiences which, when dealing with a timeline that has color correction, transitions, etc resulted in choppy playback even when previewing at half the full frame size which is actually perfectly fine for me.

I tried for quite some time to determine if a 3.0Ghz Core 2 Duo processor would be faster at doing this task than a 2.4Ghz Quad processor but never was able to ascertain the answer.

In the end, it appeared to me that disk access times were mainly to blame and that a faster I/O subsystem using a RAID 0 configuration would yield the best performance. I can't say for certainty which is best.

Thanks so much Robert for sharing this information....

Jon

[Robert Kennedy]

It was and still is my feeling that the AJA card complicates things. My standard config 2.4ghz quad-core Mac has no trouble playing back wavelet compressed 1080P YUV 4:2:2 footage in real-time from the editorial timeline on a secondary 1080P display with 1:1 pixel mapping. Also, the Xena cards you suggested do not have a DVI output and I prefer to use a $500 24" LCD for picture editorial monitoring. Another necessary purchase would be some box like Blackmagic Design's HD Link. Yet another hardware item I'm trying to avoid. Also, another problem point for inaccuracies to develop, compromises to be made and numbers to be rounded. Sure, it's digital but in my experience digital conversions are often less-than-perfect. The idea is 3 years from now the hardware I own won't be as obsolete. I can repurpose it to another task since it is standard equipment. The only electronic device that I have that I never use is a video converter (NTSC to DVI) which doesn't work in my HD world. I only buy pigeon-holed hardware when there is no other choice. I never have to start fresh.

So assuming I don't have an AJA card and some kind of SDI->DVI converter, has Cineform updated Prospect HD so that one can play Cineform HD AVIs back in real-time on the timeline while displaying the picture on a secondary monitor off of the second DVI port available on most video cards? Is is no longer necessary to do the "video-detect" feature which results in a clearly inferior picture far from 1:1 pixel mapping? Does the still image displayed no longer show an RGB color-space while the video shows as YUV color-space?

While we're at it, is Premiere wildly better than when I abandoned it last year after 5 years as a loyal customer due to it's lack of ability to use timecode to sync multiple-cameras and sync sound? I could buy a Mac and FCP and be editing and previewing my timeline, without render, in full raster on a secondary display and real-time without any specialized hardware for arguably less $$. It will sync broadcast wave files and multiple cameras based on timecode too. Another benefit of my reluctant migration to FCP is that I can exchange projects with editors without having to convince them to install additional codecs or buy a PC and run Adobe Premiere or Vegas. The majority of me peers are running FCP and for once I'm going with the flow.

I would LOVE IT if you guys or someone else would make high-quality HD editing software available that can do what I describe on PCs that are clearly powerful enough to handle the task. If such software exists RIGHT NOW, I am unable to find it and am open to suggestion.

Also, you're welcome, John. I think it is important that consumers communicate honestly with each other regarding products and businesses.

-RK

[David Newman]

There are none of those issues, you discuss things long ago solved. We have a RGB surface for recalcitrant NVidia cards and an accuracte YUV surface for the better behaved ATI cards, we have direct AJA support (still the best) and are adding Xena 2K (only weeks away) and Blackmagic support. So we output full res, in real-time to DVI, HDMI, Display Port, YPrPb component, HDSDI and soon DualLink, you choose. Or choose FCP, were you will experience the pain of QuickTime / FCP gamma shifts, the grass is not always greener -- unless your NLE / video card screws it up :).

[Robert Kennedy]

Using ProspectHD and Premiere Pro can I view 1080p footage, full-raster from the timeline on a 24" 1920x1080 LCD with 1:1 pixel mapping without any specialized hardware, just the secondary DVI output on my nVidia video card?

ATI has been more recalcitrant than nVidia in my experience. nVidia produces the results I want while I have spent hours on the phone with ATI in Canada and not reached resolution on previous issues with their cards. They lost me as a customer. Will I still experience the RGB/YUV color shift when editing using ProspectHD and my nVidia Quadro card?

The AJA cards you suggested (Xena card HS $820 or LHe $1430) do not have DVI output. Can you suggest one that would work with a 24" LCD? Also, I tried several Blackmagic products including the original Decklink Extreme and Multibridge Pro and could not drive my 24" LCD satisfactorily. When I learned I would need the $2,500 Multibridge Extreme to support 1920x1200@60hz, I thought I might be taking this pre-professional hobby to the, well... extreme. What product are you suggesting that supports a standard 24" LCD monitor with DVI input and 1:1 pixel mapping?

How perfected is the Intensity Pro card support in ProspectHD/Premiere Pro?

Thank you,
Robert

[David Newman]

I have answered these questions, the issues are gone.

[Robert Kennedy]

I loaded Adobe Production Studio CS2 on my quad-core 2.4ghz Vista machine and downloaded the ProspectHD trial to give it one more go as you insist the issues I experienced have been resolved. I can still not get to the goal using PC/Cineform even with this configuration.

1. I have "overlay" checked in the ProspectHD setup in Prem Pro, but my secondary monitor is not displaying the full raster image.. it still displays the windows desktop. I read the ProspectHD manual and checked Cineform support online and the only mention to overlay says I should tell my vid card to detect video and display it on the secondary monitor. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I can't do this in Vista as that feature is no longer available. When I did it on WinXP (months ago) it looked like crap. Searching Cineform online support for "overlay" leads to two articles about getting a secondary display going and they both have below 2 stars for ratings. Am I missing something?
2. I find no support for my Blackmagic card. Upon rereading a previous post, I see the Blackmagic support must still be forthcoming.
3. I have a ~5 second lag from when I hit "play" until the stream starts playing. This seems consistent even when I try different playback setting configurations.
4. The RGB/YUV shift still exists on my recalcitrant nVidia quadro card.
5. I still don't know what PC supported AJA card supports a DVI output to a 24" 1920x1200 LCD.

I'm not trying to raise hell here, I'm merely trying to do what you say is possible. I'm not happy that Apple is the only provider of an editing package that I have been able to get to do what I want using standard hardware. I applaud you for offering a free trial. Without this, I would have had to spend $999 without testing for myself whether my goal was achievable. We have gone back and forth before on a technical issue and you convinced me in the end so I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Our discussion has diverted from the topic of this thread which is Vegas 8 and Cineform, so I won't push further.

-Robert

[David Newman]

You are trying to raise a little hell. These are setup issues, you have no interest in getting a setup resolved as you have moved on. All easily addressed, the only item worrying is the delay, that is way out of wack, something not right on your PC, I hope you have better luck on your Mac.

[Robert Kennedy]

I loaded 8.0c and found no improvement in framerate playing back Cineform encoded 1080p/24 files on the timeline. Are your experiences any different. Still only 16fps which doesn't cut the mustard. For me, FCP did it out of the box.

Thoughts?
-Robert