Some questions about Aspect HD

[David Newman]

If the footage is blurry that what you will get, as extracting the pull-down does not manipulate the source frames, it only reconstructs them for 24p editing. 1/60th is normal (most films are shot with 1/48th.) Try capturing with the pulldown extraction switched off, then compare the results (with playback settings set to deinterlace off.) This will help you understand how pull-down works and what your source data is like.

Also this page might help:
http://www.cineform.com/products/Son.../CineFrame.htm

[Tim Kolb]

Originally Posted by Joel Corral

I shot some footage to see how aspect 3.2 would handle the 3:2 pulldown during capture. Either i am not used to how 24p should look or CF24 doesn't do a good job faking 24p or Aspect 3.2 falls short of a proper 3:2 pulldown.

The footage I shot, during any type of movement (subject) there was serious motion blur. Is that the result from CF24? or is 24p footage supposed to be blurred.

joel

CineFrame 24 mode out of the Sony HDV cameras can look a little strange as the "pulldown" isn't exactly an even multiple...the frame cadence "gallops" a bit. Aspect "handles" the footage without manipulation other than pulling out the "extra" frames.

Some motion blur is desirable to most folks as that is as important to the "film look" as the frame rate is...due to the longer frame exposure that David Newman mentioned.

I personally prefer the results I get using CF25 mode (europe) on a Z1 and converting it to 24 when I capture...much smoother.

...but you'll still have some image blurring on movement.

[Mikael Widerberg]

MainConcept MPEG Pro HD Plug-In for Adobe Premiere or Aspect HD v3.3

Witch is best for PC and JVC GY-HD100?

[Steven Gotz]

Personally, I believe that editing with Aspect HD is a much better choice. Realtime editing with quite a few supplied effects. And it keeps getting better and better - and yet, there have been no charges for upgrades in all this time.

Plus, the support around here is better for Cineform since the CTO hangs out here.

[Gary Bettan]

It's really a question of productivity and workflow. The Cineform solution works great. They have real-time filters and effects that will make working with HDV much faster.


Gary

[Mikael Widerberg]

Is it posible to transcode/encode from HDV direct to mpeg 2 from Premiere timeline with Aspect HD?

[Steven Gotz]

Yes it is. If you mean regular MPEG2-DVD in the Adobe Media Encoder to put on a regular SD DVD. It can do that as well as export back to M2T.

[Mark Light]

I have a GR-HD1 , I use the HD capture utility supplied by JVC to capture the m2t files. Then I take them into vegas 6, and export them as uncompressed AVI's. From there I bring them into Premiere's HDV preset ( the free upgrade from adobe) and edit. I also use adobe after effects. When Im done with my project I just export it from premiere as an uncompressed AVI.

Besides having to go through vegas , are there any major drawbacks to using this method? Do I really need aspect HD= and if so what are the major benefits?

[Mark Light]

I posted this in the other forum, but meant to post it here.

I have a GR-HD1 , I use the HD capture utility supplied by JVC to capture the m2t files. Then I take them into vegas 6, and export them as uncompressed AVI's. From there I bring them into Premiere's HDV preset ( the free upgrade from adobe) and edit. I also use adobe after effects. When Im done with my project I just export it from premiere as an uncompressed AVI.

Besides having to go through vegas , are there any major drawbacks to using this method? Do I really need aspect HD= and if so what are the major benefits?

[David Newman]

Clearly you are going through a lot of steps, all of which can be avoided using Aspect HD. Also working with uncompressed files greatly limits real-time abilities due to disk bottle necks. Aspect HD would allow you to capture directly in Premiere in real-time straight into an AVI that is compatible with all your tools. Within Premiere Pro Aspect HD's real-time engine would allow you to do between 4 and 6 real-time 720p streams (depending on your PC.) These are the major benefit of Aspect HD. You should download the trial from www.cineform.com.

[Rob Lohman]

Anyone can help Mark out?

[Steven White]

The major benefits for me (FX1 ownder) are:

- Painless capture. The footage comes in and is immediately converted to a Cineform intermediate that I can edit and do effects on. If the footage has a pull-down, it is automatically removed. There are tags to select progressive (CF24, CF30, in the case of the JVC SD 50/60p as well) or interlaced (60i) sources. I do not have to use an intermediate program or perform an intermediate render - saving hours of computation time, and probably terrabytes of disk space compared to an uncompressed workflow.

- Native resolution/framerate editing. With all the handy dandy presets, AspectHD handles all the shooting modes of my camera seemlessly. Furthermore, the realtime effects and transitions all operate beautifully - allowing me a virtually render-free workflow.

- I can copy/paste timelines into After Effects for post work.

- Painless rendering. Unlike PPro 1.5.1, Cineform's AspectHD handles exports of edited footage beautifully, managing fields properly, and preserving the maximum quality available for SD down-conversion, HD saves, and export back to HDV tape for playback.

- sRGB colour correction to maximize use of superwhites/blacks

-Steve

[Derek Serra]

I've just returned from travelling, with loads of material shot on hdv with the FX1. I built a new edit-suite for HDV with PP1.51 and AspectHD. Updated to 3.3 yesterday. The system is an AMD 3500+ with 2gb RAM and 400GB Raid0 AV drive. When capturing via PP1.51 using scene detection, a 1 hr tape needs at least 1hr 20min to complete the conversion to CFHD. This doesn't seem right at all. Setting is medium quality. Am I missing something? David - any insights?

PS: No progress with the screen jump when using the Nvidia PNY540 I see. Mine still jumps like hell on stop and start. Grrr.

[David Newman]

We have working with NVIDIA to determine if there is a software fix (at their end or ours.)

For single core CPUs we do find the Intel processors a lot faster (due to hyperthreading and memory speed.) For our AMD 3400 system at the office the conversion speed is about half real-time, which is similar to your timings. Part of the slowdown maybe as Aspect HD 3.3 has bumped up the quality of the 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 upconversion, but the results are so worth it we didn't make it optional. If you motherboard can support a dual core CPU upgrade I expect you get much better conversion speed. Aspect HD conversion engine is look for multi-core parts or hyperthreaded CPU, unfortunately the old Althon has neither.

Note: is you want to turn the 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 filter off here is the registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cineform\AspectHDCapture
Create "Filter420to422" and set it to a DWORD of 0
Not recommended if you want the best quality.

[Derek Serra]

Hi David

Well, my processor is not exactly old. It's the Athlon XP with Hypertransport, which is supposed to offer hyperthreading. Mmmm. I bought a socket 939 MB because it does support dual core processors, and will upgrade at some point, but the conversion still seems VERY slow. Friends with 3.2 Intels get almost RT on older systems.