MOV to Aspect HD
 

What's the best way (fast, cheap) to transcode MOVs to Aspect HD AVIs ?

HD mov files are 1920x1080i60 square pixel in blackmagic 2vuY codec.

Cheapest way is to use Premiere Pro itself, as 2Vuy is supported, then export to CFHD. Fastest way requires development.

Umm, maybe there's something lighter than PPro that could be used?...

I'm looking for the fast, no-frills conversion, no filters/processing - just HD mov to Aspect HD....

Something like Virtualdub - small footprint, very fast, and cheap (free?).

I'd use QuickTime 7 Pro, but it does not have Aspect HD in the list of the codecs it outputs to - pity!

CineForm will become a Quicktime codec soon, but otherwise we have no shipping solution for this one.

Does this mean I'll be able to render hi-def mpeg4 using Quicktime Pro in the future? Tell me more please.

Laurence, no it is not related, you should be able to do that now. Instead we instead for CineForm Intermediate files to be interchangably used on Mac and PC.

I have never successfully been able to open and view a Cineform avi in Quicktime, much less convert it. Should I be able to?

That is a weakness of Quicktime engine, and again not related. We are developing a MOV wrapped CineForm file that will work in all QuickTime applications.

It's a bit of a PITA but I've sent samples of CineForm footage to FCP users by converting my CineForm files to uncompressed AVIs via VirtualDub, then using Quicktime Pro to encode to MOV. Procoder 2 may be able to do this all in one step, depending on what codec you want to encode into.

As it is, I can't wait for Quicktime support for CineForm. I'm adding HD-DVD and Blu-Ray authoring to my range of services and it looks as though DVD Studio Pro will be the best inexpensive authoring tool. It already supports AVC encoding and HD-DVD and once Blu-Ray is supported, I'll have to buy it. And a Mac.

The alternative is slightly more expensive - stay on PC and spend £34,000 on Scenarist HD. Oh, and another £34,000 on Scenarist BD. Nice.

I'll certainly be awaiting any CineForm announcements on MOV compatibility with great interest.

Vegas now has mpeg4 rendering but I can't get nearly as good results from it as I do from Quicktime Pro. For the time being I am using the wmv format for HD output for computer viewable output, but I'd love to be able to use Quicktime Pro for mpeg 4 mov output without going through an uncompressed stage.

Quicktime Pro AVC content at HD resolutions is very, very slow... even on a dual core CPU, and full-screen playback runs like a dog for me.

For computer viewable output, I stick to CineFormHD AVI files and for compressed files I used the WMV9 Advanced Profile codec - I'm getting excellent results with very demanding 720p/60 footage at 11mbps to 12mpbs. At 15mbps, it's pretty much pristine.

David, once the MOV support for CFHD is complete, will there be an AVI to MOV batch converter, perhaps from within HDLink? I would prefer to remain in the AVI realm with the ability to run out clips to MOV if and when the occasion demands it.

Let me second that this would be a good way to do it. What I would like to see is an mpeg4 (mov) option added to the export options. Maybe wmv and DVD complient mpeg2 export added there as well.

In terms of MPEG4/AVC, that is a final deliverable format - no good for editing, and to be honest not fantastic as an HD format for playback on computer, being torturously slow in the Quicktime player, on PC at least.

What CineForm are working on is including their own codec within the Quicktime framework - so essentially the same data that's in the AVI file can be opened by any QT app (Final Cut, Quicktime Pro) and worked with natively.

It'll be a massive step forward in making CineForm the de facto standard HD codec for HD production IMO. You'd need to be a lunatic to even consider using anything else once this cross-platform compatibility has been released.

Richard, thanks for the nice words. We hope our pending cross-platform compatibility will be as pervasive as you suggest.

Re AVI <--> MOV, we do plan the conversion tools you suggest, in either direction. This will of course allow you to capture on one platform in one wrapper and convert to the other wrapper for use on the other platform. These conversion steps are simply wrapper-replacement, not requiring decompressing/compressing, hence they will be very fast.

I love the Apple Quicktime HD trailers. They play back wonderfully well on my system and just look fantastic. That's the quality delivery I want to be able to get from my Cineform masters.