Cineform Codec in other apps?
 

I have been working with Aspect HD and Premiere Pro for about a week or 2 now, but I have run into some serious problems:

a) Cineform codec cannot be found by Canopus Procoder 2, Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 or Quicktime Pro. The only application that plays back the Aspect HD AVI footage is Windows Media Player.

b) How can I convert the CFHD AVI files to MOVs? I prefer not to use Premiere Pro, because the quality is absolutely horrible and since CFHD AVI files always crash Sorenson Squeeze, I am left in the middle with no solution.

Thanks,
Aanarav

The Cineform HD codec should be showing up for you in Procoder2 - it's working fine here.

Select the "System" target, then select the AVI option: in the drop-down menu for compression you should see several Cineform options.

As we support DirectShow and Video for Windows for accessing the codec so there are more options, Sony Vegas, After Effects, Combustion all wrok fine for generating MOV Files. VirtualDub, VLC, and basically any player will playback CineForm AVIs without issue. I'm not sure that the deal is with Sorenson Squeeze, sounds like they have a bug. The VfW windows API is straight forward so it hard to imagine why any QT convertor tools have issues. Canopus may have competitive reasons for not supporting us (i haven't tried), and the QuickTime Pro is never been very friendly to a range of windows formats.

David,
Thans for the response. Looking at the codec list again, it appears as if Procoder does support it. Sorry for the false alert.

I have been in touch with Sorenson Squeeze tech suppoert for the past few weeks regarding their export bug, but they don't have a solution. Anyway, thanks again!

PS: Increasing the RAM to 2GB DRASTICALLY helped and solved most of my problems that I mentioned in my earlier thread.

Since we are on the subject of codecs, has anyone been able to use the HDV footage and encode it as an FLV file? THe Flash Encoder doesn't seem to recognize the CFHD AVI file.

- Aanarav

I made high quality flash files through Premiere Pro 2.0 with original Cineform files in the time-line.

Just out of curiosity, why convert to Quicktime? It has been over 18 months now that I have been enjoying HDV from my Sony FX1 using Windows Media 9 files and the AVeL Linkplayer2.

I guess I don't know why anyone would use Quicktime except if you have to satisy Mac users, and at this point, Flash seems like a better compromise. At least to me.

And you should see the results I am getting from my new Dual Core E6800 with RAID0 for video and a 10K rpm system drive, with an extra drive for projects and scratch files. The 4GB of RAM I put in this thing makes having Premiere Pro and After Effects play quite nicely together.

By the way, have you tried exporting to uncompressed Quicktime from After Effects and then use Sorenson on that?

Steven,
I recently got a client that only wants QT files and hence the requirement. I would rather not take the CFHD files into AE, because exporting from AE takes a VERY, VERY long time. I guess, its time for me to get your system as well :-)

Marc,
I prefer not to use Premiere Pro for FLV encoding, because it doesn't support 2 pass encoding which is a HUGE drawback. At the moment, I am evaluating a 3rd party encoder from On2, which seems to be getting rave reviews.

- Aanarav

We have a beta release of Prospect HD that supports CineForm QT exports for Windows. These components are NOT yet in Aspect HD or Connect HD. We haven't done comprehensive apps-compatibility testing, but the CineForm QT files work within PremPro and AE just as our AVI files do - same performance. The 10-bit QT files are also compatible with Combustion.

Currently you create CineForm QT files as export options. We don't yet convert to QT in HDLink, but that will happen in the near future.

As many are aware we intend to add support for MacOS/FCP. Our QT for Windows is the first step in this path.

If anybody has a desire to test this send me a PM and I can make a Trial available.

The new version of Sorenson Compression Suite (4.5) supports the Cineform codec -- finally!!! The new Sorenson suite is also very quick and gives some beautiful quicktime files out of cineform 1080 avi files.

You do need to first install ConnectHD then uninstall, to make sure the codec is on the machine running Sorenson.

Patricia,

Thanks for the good news. I had it on my schedule to work out why Sorenson products weren't supporting us, now I don't have to. :)

David

Unfortunately it's an upgrade for which you have to pay. $79 if you have Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite 4.3. However, in time savings (i.e., not having to generate a non-Cineform codec avi first, and the speed of the new renders) it's definitely worth it.

Good to know. I did get an email from Sorenson Tech Support stating that the bug was fixed in the latest release. As far as spending $79, if it can save time, then anything is worth it :-)

- Aanarav

I downloaded the Prospect trial today in order to test out the Quicktime export. Excellent stuff, and it's nice to be able to beta-test one of the key components required for FCP compatibility.

I was interested to see that the files cannot be played by the Quicktime player. Is this something that can be fixed? Could the player work with 8-bit Aspect files? And would it be a problem on the Quicktime player on the Mac?

One of the great things about CineForm files is how you can play back stunning quality HD content in realtime just double-clicking on the files.

Hi,

Im posting here because im not convinced that this issue is anywhere near being closed, in fact I have posted a ticket with Cineform.

Here is my original problem on the Adobe Forums thread and Cineforms ticket

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.3bc39198/4

So I was wondering how people have been achieving a workaround until the fix, everyone doing the After Effects method?

Cheers in advance

Steve