CineForm and AVCHD
 

Hi folks - just wondering what might be anticipated as a potential offering, if any, from Cineform in terms of the newly announced AVCHD format from Sony and Panasonic...

I know it's early days yet but looking at the specs, or what has been provided so far, am I correct in speculating again that editing native AVCHD will be a "pig" like editing native HDV - and if so, does that mean a Cineform "solution" will offer effective AVCHD editing...?

Dave Newman and co. - can you at least share your thoughts on the new format and indicate if you have been in any preliminary discussions with vendors ie. Sony and Panasonic regarding AVCHD???

Just curious!

This new format will be great for CineForm business. :) The more the format is optizimized for distribution, the less it is optimized for post production. This will be even harder to editing than MPEG2/HDV, but no harder to convert into CineForm Intermediate.

whoa - thanks - that is cool!
 

Hehe - that was a fast reply! Much appreicated and good to know - wow, you sound like you know a lot about this new format - nudge nudge wink wink!

thanks!

Best,
mark

Hi David -

Any more news regarding this (AVCHD) format and what, if any, tools Cineform is going to make for this?

I realize that the camcorders aren't even on the market yet, but if Cineform would make a tool (Aspect AVCHD?!) for Premiere Pro, that would be lovely!!

AC

Andrew, no need. If the camera comes with playback support for its media, the new tools in Aspect HD (currently in beta) will convert them today. So CineForm's Connect HD, Aspect HD and Prospect HD are about to get more future proofed. I'm sure we will offer various upgrades for new cameras as they arrive, but it is nice to have the tools ready ahead of time.

Thanks for the (quick) reply and info. David!!

AC

AVCHD support by Aspect ??
 

Has some one tried to convert AVCHD to Cineform AVI format , so that multi gen edit would not fallapart ?

When will Cineform support this format ??
__________________

We have yet to get a AVCHD camera so we haven't testing directly. However Aspect HD has been upgraded to convert nearly any media that can be played with MediaPlayer. If the camera drivers installs the needed decoder, then yes you can use Aspect HD with AVCHD cameras.

David, would I be correct to assume that HD Link is the component that received this update, and therefore users of HD Connect would receive the same benefit?

Also, if I'm not mistaken the AVCHD allows for 5.1 surround to be encoded. What would happen when that gets converted to CFDI?

Jay,

Connect HD has the same upgrade. As for the 5.1, we have recent added some support for AVIs with 5.1 PCM audio under Prospect HD, so if this becomes common we should be able to manage 5.1 source data in all our products.

With thanks to the Doom9 forum, here are some AVCHD files. They are essentially Blu-ray compliant transport streams with AVC video muxed with AC3 audio:

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0920/ezsm.m2ts

15Mbps
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0920/ezxp.m2ts

9Mbps
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0920/ezhq.m2ts

7Mbps
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0920/ezsp.m2ts

5Mbps
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0920/ezlp.m2ts

I can play them back in Nero Showtime or force-play them in MediaPlayer, but HDLink doesn't like them much. I suspect that this is because DirectShow doesn't appear to have a clear handle on them. Certainly, despite being AVC in nature, my CoreAVC decoder isn't being routed to decode them, so playback is very jerky even on a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Merom.

Richard, try with demo of Elecard XMuxer Pro v 2.1 (http://elecard.com/download/index.php)

I had to remove the 192 bytes striding to get CoreAVC to work. We intend to add that direct within HDLink so conversion is straight forward, and have the resulting files easy to play and edit.

Avchd
 

David,

May I ask what the status is on supporting AVCHD?

I still happily use my Z1, but my wife doesn't like it... "too many knobs buttons and switches and it's too heavy!" So she wants a new small palm-sized camcorder to video the kids, et al.

So I'm thinking of the SR1 but would like to actually be able to USE the video and edit it.

thanks,

stacy

We can do it, just very busy with other projects at the moment. We hope to have this implemented in the next few months.